There are plenty of shopping streets/neighborhoods here that going to a mall is not a necessity. Not all malls are all covered here either, particularly Century City Mall, which has a parking structure, but you walk outside to go from store to store. Third Street Promenade is all outdoors, as is Rodeo Drive. Melrose Avenue is one of my favorite shopping streets, but I also like Sunset in the Silver Lake district. Hollywood and Highland also has a large central area that is open to the sky. There's really no need to cover these areas, since we don't have cold weather, and it's usually not too hot. Lowspark, you are not a weather wimp if you can handle living in Houston in the summer! I lived there when I was going to Rice, but I never managed to stay there in the summer. Rice closed for the summer when I was there - they didn't want to subject the students (and professors and staff) to the heat and humidity. DB had been telling me that Circuit City had been late with all their payments to Sony, and so we were not surprised when we found out that they were going into chapter 11. We bought a new TV recently and ended up getting it at Best Buy because they have a brand (Insignia) that got good reviews and was well under the employee discount price that DB could get from Sony for a similar LCD widescreen TV. I gave our old widescreen TV to the neighbors, for helping us move it out of the house. It was a rear projection TV and was huge!! I'm much happier with the flat screen TV, and our old TV, even though it was HD, was not compatible with Blu-ray. DB had bought a Blu-ray player a couple of weeks ago at a company sale (at Sony) along with an AV amplifier, but we could not get a picture on our old TV with it. Finally, I broke down and bought a new 47" Insignia flat screen LCD TV, and we're much happier with that. We only have a few Blu-ray discs, but we're starting to collect them. The old DVDs are supposed to look better on Blu-ray player, but it's difficult to tell. Lars

Actually, ALL of Hancocks stores are closing. Over the years it has become increasingly difficult to find anything worth buying there. But, still is was there if you needed something that you could settle for. Quiltsandquacks, it is not that simple that people did not support the store. There are many complicated factors that contributed to this. I was always there to support the store when the store had what I wanted to buy. Over the last decade, in particular, Hancocks let ME down with the poor selection and the drastic move towards fleece inspired awfulness. I kept visiting the store and leaving empty handed until I quit going in as often and I quit buying much of anything. If they still had the quality of selection that they used to have, you can bet that I would be in there shopping! I can't buy what they do not offer. And, I do not wish to buy what they offered. They have the fleece on at 80% right now. There is still an awful few tons of it left. It seems that I am not the only one who loathes that cheap stuff. It is my opinion that the overstocking of cheap fleece is one of the contributing factors in their demise. But, there are many factors that have lead to this closing. There are the dynamics of corporate structure and changing demographics, to name but a couple. It is almost an old fashioned idea to assume that just because there are customers that there is success in business. Corporations are convoluted entities and do not always follow that path. Simple business models do not always apply anymore. Add to those factors the fact that there is no production of the old fashioned fabrics that many of us grew up sewing with. The vendors cannot get those fabrics because they are not being produced anymore. We have much less land left for producing nice plant and animal based fibers in this world and we have an suffocating amount of old plastic jugs and petroleum based chemical that get made into "fabrics". THAT is what that fleece is made of, recycled plastic milk jugs. Ugh!!! The Walmart in my community has recently begun to carry a few fabrics, again. For a simple cotton they have some product by Waverly, I think. It seems fairly decent for what it is. Ultimately, Hancocks let ME down and quit selling the things that I needed to continue to sew. So, now they are gone. I see that there are some newer types of sewing businesses that are opening up, but they seem to have a different direction. They seem to be located in more affluent parts of the burbs and cater to people who have money to come in, take classes on making things like hand bags and piecing, They have become a vendor for people with a lot of disposable income, but not a vendor where just real everyday sewing people will go in to buy a couple of yards of wool crepe or some nice cotton twill or swiss dot. They are more likely to offer you the chance, for a price, to come in and buy an independent pattern for a child garment and the "kit' to make it with. Then, you can spend $30 to make a kids tshirt that you could have gone over to Kohls and bought for five bucks. It is more like hobby sewing than like old fashioned sewing that was born of passion, creativity and necessity and supplied by numerous fabric stores in almost every small town.

The Wal-mart employees I talked to said that Wal-Mart was trying to do away with departments that required personal service, like cutting fabric and notions. They still plan to have the pre-packaged notions and such. Most stores seem to do away with them when they undergo a remodel. It looked like to me that JoAnn's was strong but I heard something about the upholstery fabric portion. It is odd to me that they have survived when so many of the others that I considered much, much better have had to close. I don't really like JoAnns, but it may be all we have left in the retail market.

In my town, Walmart has layed off many of its associates and cut the hours of most floor and door greeter employees to 20/week or less. One elderly lady, a checker, was telling those of us in her lane, that she was working 40 hours and now is only scheduled for 12 hours this week. I realize this is a tourist town, but this action is unwarranted - Walmart has THE MONEY to take care of its people - it just chooses not to. This scenerio isn't unique to Walmart - MOST retailers are doing the same thing, or worse yet - going out of business. I just don't know that these retirees/disabled workers are supposed to do to survive. It's such a shame that these older workers/disabled workers/uneducated workers and single parents are being displaced in this manner - they are the ones that made this country, by doing the grunt labor, and they can't just run out and get another job. They aren't working for low wages because they WANT to - they are forced to because of this economy - a real sad statement of the economical status of our country. One of my sons has several college degrees and can't find a job - even a low-paying job (he is currently working on his Ph.D)! His wife has a masters degree in forensic science and is working at a retail tourist shop because the government has a freeze on new jobs in her field of study!!! They live in Washington D.C. The economy is in peril FOR SURE!