Despite a new policy that I highly disagree with*, I found myself in the Walmart Electronics section earlier this evening. No cheap replacement printer was on hand, DVDs are getting phased out, fast, at $5 per, but I did see something interesting:
A silver Sony Reader 505, under glass, right next to the counter. Price was $299, no visible discounts, and the staff was way too busy to answer my questions.
There’s been no PR about any in-store launches. This was my “local” Walmart, Germantown, MD, and that store may rate as a slightly more affluent location, so this could be a test and see. Hopefully, they’re also putting Sony into other stores like the 24-hour one in Fredneck where the staff seem a bit more… focused.
In honor of this, I’m proud to announce that all of the Sony Reader files on Munsey’s have been re-uploaded. Contents work. There’s a cover. Meta-thingies to come after we get our new data source in the next couple weeks (that’s a server-side process).
There were also 4,000 Adobe Mobiles Re-dos (Disktwo) left; uploads for those are nearly complete.
*I was greatly saddened to discover that Walmart no longer has the self-checkout machines. I don’t want to cost anyone a job, but when on the road, say in Tenn, Georgia or Texas, being able to buy regional potato chips in conjunction with any of the guaranteed-to-be-there Sam Adams, Newcastle, Guiness, Fat Tire, was great. But it got even better when you hit the register, took out $100 from Paypal Debit, and were rewarded with a fistful of $10s and $5s that you could then use for change at book festivals. Never got a $20 from a Sam Walton machines.
Walmart self-checkout has been a key part of my professional life for four years now, and I’m quite shocked to see it go. But I guess some people are getting jobs now. I suppose if I smile, one of them will give me the change I need.
