the cancer shop down the street from my house

I noticed a new store opened near my house, but hadn't gone in to check it out. In my neighborhood, there is constant movement of retail shops so a new establishment is nothing exciting. Also, it appeared to be some sort of tobacco store so my interest level was piqued even less.

Turns out this establishment (called Marshall McGearty), is indeed a tobacco shop. No, pardon me, it's a tobacco lounge. A tobacco lounge owned by none other than our friends at R.J. Reynolds. Hooray! Big business tobacco company is now my neighbor!

But what about the newly imposed smoking ban in Chicago? Well, at least 65 percent of this establishment's sales of are tobacco or tobacco accessories, making it exempt from the ban. Someone was paying attention to potential loopholes....

It's touted as an upscale, one of a kind, "experiential marketing" retail store where customers can smoke fancy cigarettes and drink coffee. As much as I absolutely hate R.J. Reynolds and everything they stand for (really, who can like a company that markets to children and contributes to 438000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone?), I'm impressed with this endeavor from a marketing perspective. A manufacturer extending itself into a retail environment...not just a place where people walk in, make a transaction and walk out, but instead actually interact, connect, and invite the product into their lives....genius.

And terribly frightening.

ways to feel better about yourself

Do me a favor and read the below excerpt from an article that was published today.

Study: Most College Students Lack Skills
By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer
WASHINGTON - Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.... That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school....

I really don't have too much to say about this, and no longer feel so alone in the fact that I cried last year when someone tried to show me how to calculate percents.

Oh yes, I cried. In a very busy coffee shop. With a pencil in my hand, a textbook in front of me, and a very patient friend looking at me sadly, I cried loudly and decried that I would never attempt to do any sort of math again. Ever.

Glad to see that I'm not alone in my confusion.

And this, my friends, is how I make my self feel better about my shortcomings: by making sure I'm aware of everyone else's.