Retail Crush

 Can you believe the weekend has arrived?  Forecasters are calling for snow here, followed by possible freezing rain, though in may end up just being rain.  Forecasters have us getting about one half inch of snow.  The freezing rain will total out at possibly .03 of an inch, which, if we were sitting on a donut, would be considered a very light glaze, probably so light you'd be embarrassed to call us a glazed donut.

I left my barley cook dry while I was making my breakfast.  Blame Howie.  I was busy throwing his new pink octopus and wasn't paying attention.  I ate one bowl and then fed the rest of it to the birds.   My house now smells like over toasted barley, or well maybe that's not right, possibly light burned might be a better description.

My sporting laptop shut down in twenty-two minutes into a ride yesterday.  I was not happy.  This has happened before, and every single time it seems to have been triggered by an update.  Yesterday 2 (one from Garmin and one from Microsoft) downloaded simultaneously.  When it shuts down like that, everything is lost.  Boo.  Hiss. 

And now for something light.  I'm playing through Skyrim again, and there are 20+ characters you can team up with, let's call them followers.  Each follower will add a bonus to your skills.  Many of them will only add that bonus up to level 30.  After lever 30 the benefits no longer have any value and so they just tag along making silly comments.  Except for one.  Roggi Knot-Beard.  His benefits are good up until level 60.  So, I'd like you to meet my new follower.

I am scheduled to work today.  I don't know how busy it's going to be, since we are supposed to get a dusting of snow, though I can tell you we have been slow.  Because our customer footsteps are down, I was not surprised to see this graphic in Bloomberg.  This past January, retail sales dropped.

Is it Trump's fault?  Off the cuff, I'd say that a damn good possibility.  Unless you have a lot of bouncing buckos in the bank, I would not purchase any big ticket items for the foreseeable future.  This is terrible news for all of those retail giants who toasted Orangie's win, believing they were going to get both a big tax cut and golden sales.  Ouch.

And, in case any of you missed it, Orangie's team fired over 300 people who maintain our nuclear arsenal... and then quickly hired them back once they realized what their zombie brains had done.  I'd put money on the fact that this stupid team is anything but Woke.