goin to CA soon, to be a CC tychoon

From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org>
Date: Sun Jun 8 15:30:01 2003

On Sun, 8 Jun 2003, Fred N. van Kempen wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Jun 2003, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

> > Go to the one in Sunnyvale to see the Apple-1.
>
> Hmm.. although Fry's in Sunnyvale is spacey (well, the new one, the
> one on Arques), its not as much "fun" as the one in Palo Alto is.
>
> A large puter(-ish) store, in western style.. yee-haw! :)

Some background for people who don't live on the U.S. west coast or
in Arizona, apart from Fry's being a cheap electronics reseller of
notorious repute, many (all?) or their stores have "themes."

My favorite (and I use that term loosely) Fry's has to be the one in
Burbank, California on Hollywood Way near the airport. It's store theme
is that of 1950-60s sci-fi movies. Visible from the parking lot,
there's a flying saucer crashed into the side of the building. Inside
there are a variety of aliens, giant ants, a monster octopus, and some
GIs in an old army jeep that's been sliced in half by an alien's ray gun
blast. The other ones I've visited are the ancient Roman themed one
down around Fountain Valley in Orange County and the Tiki/island themed
one near LAX. I visited the San Diego one years ago now, but I wasn't
paying attention to anything apart from the electronic gear.

I've only had one defective purchase experience there. I bought three
external drive enclosures from them. Two of the three enclosures had
defective (and very cheaply made) power supplies, so I ended up taking
them all back and getting a refund. I've avoided the place for at least
three or four years now; basically since the late 1990s when the DIY PC
upgrades side of things became mainstream.

Aside from the sometimes interesting decor, I find being stuck in a
Fry's to be a nauseating experience. You've got sales clerks
incessantly chasing you around, asking if they can help you. At least I
think they're asking to help me; half the time it's hard to know what is
being said. Then you've got various senior clerks at POS terminals over
near the hard drive, motherboard, and memory aisles. They tend to
struggle with basic data entry. Good luck trying to have them check to
see if a particular motherboard or drive is in stock. And god help you
if you're a clueless customer who accepts "technical advice" from one of
them. If you make it a rule to avoid the store sales staff at all
costs, you'll have better luck with your purchase.

Then, at least in more recent years, there are the masses of rude and
technologically inept customers, pushing their way about the store.
Sometimes a cluster of them will pause for a moment, and the "guru" in
the bunch will loudly yammer away in misinformed techno-babble to the
other members in the shopping party. Their heads bob in acknowledgement
and awe of their computer genius friend.

Come to think of it, the experience of shopping at Fry's (or CompUSA,
Best Buy, Radio Shack, or Circuit City), as a modern /cultural/
experience is probably one of the single greatest reasons that I've
turned to classic computing as a hobby. The mainstream PC and Windows
mindset is one of general incompetence; those who subscribe to it
effectively accept that their hardware and software fails all the time
because "that's how computers are."

Bleh.

-brian.
Received on Sun Jun 08 2003 - 15:30:01 BST