Would you put "DIE" in your tire name? Sears is...

serious..... but now I'm wondering if you were....

 

Green valve caps slow me down for about 20 minutes: the distance from Costco to a Chevron station.

 

The number of catalogs has decreased as well. Wonder what my parents are keeping out in the outhouse these days .

 

... nowadays, in the abyss of the 21st century apocalypse, you don't touch Sears, not with a ten foot pole!

But, once upon a time, back in the heyday of the Sears & Roebuck, the Die-hard was the best darned car battery money could buy. And, the Sears Diehard was the toughest tyre money could buy:

1971 Sears Steel Belted Radial Tires and DieHard Batteries Commercials - YouTube

A very-very tough tyre. And, if I recall correctly, I believe that was the last time a street tyre won in international off-road competition, against purpose made racing tyres.

I remember dear old dad put a set of Diehards on the family Buick. They outlasted the car - Samuel, the '04 Ruthiemobile.

 

Diehard is old slang for "hard to kill".

Don't know about other shops that do nitrogen fill, but Costco puts green ones on. I think it more about making it easier to spot non-Costco tire customers trying to get nitrogen than other shops putting in air.

 

Why do Some Tires Have Green Caps? (with pictures)

Should You Fill Your Car's Tires With Nitrogen?

Get Nitrogen™ Institute : Nitrogen in Tires : Information about Nitrogen Tire Inflation News, Benefits, Generator Dealers, Location Finder & More

Nitrogen in tires... Is there any real benefit? at txtire.com

Green valve cap indicate nitrogen filled tires, it's so you don't put normal compressed air in rather than nitrogen

 

Well...semantically I'm fine with the Diehard branding....

If it was something like the new "Flat Rounders" or "Puncture Runners"..."Stranded" I might have a problem.

But DieHard?
I'm OK with it.

 

Our Sears used to be a bustling hub of organized merchandise and knowledgeable sales staff. Now it's half-empty, disorganized shelves and staff making themselves scarce.

 

walmart is a bustling hub of disorganization and unintelligible sales staff.

 

Well, here's the biggest German tyre brand:

It does just mean "the", though.

 

I'll see your Nova and raise you.



I think this is called the Mitsubishi Montero in the Americas, and it's called the Shogun in Britain.

But in Japan and Australia, it's called the Mitsubishi Pajero. It was originally going to be called that in all markets, until they discovered that Pajero is Spanish for "w----r".

 

When Wards closed, that kind of left Sears as the remaining giant.
But welcome to 2016...

When tangible goods commerce exists in the ether of the internet.

I have friends that literally roll their eyes when I admit to going to a store to actually physically purchase an item.
For them?
Why am I not using Amazon?

I still shop at Sears, but it is kind of sad, how empty and "unfocused" their stores seem to have become.

 

The thing that gets me about Sears is that they had the capability to compete with Amazon, they still do. But my one buying experience with something from sears.com was terrible. I bought it then went to the B&M to pick it up and it turned into a PITA. I get better service from my UPS driver, even when they're dropping off huge crap like tires. And the entire shopping online experience with them is terrible. They seem more interested in tracking my likes and interests than just letting me buy something.

On that same token, is there a cash register in the US that will just let me buy something without playing a game of 20 questions first? I went to Ace Hardware the other day to pick up some paint samples. Paint gets mixed, I head up front to pay. "Do you have a rewards card with us?" No "do you want one?" no "Paying with our credit card today?" no, can we move this along I have things to do "Do you want our credit card?" no, if I wanted one I would already have one "you can save 10%" 10% off my $9 purchase? no thanks "what's your phone number?" What do you need that for, I told you I'm not in your rewards program "we use it track purchases" So no matter what I'm in your system, reward card or no? "I don't know sir, but I have to put something in" fine 3039999999 "cash, credit or debit?" credit "does your card have a chip in?" yes "okay insert it" it's been inserted for awhile now, waiting on you here. That's when the machine takes over with the questions.... "debit or credit" Wth I just answered this! credit! "pin?" enter it "cash back?" no "receipt?" are you shitting me? yes "print or email?" ...

Seriously, there's a product with a price tag. in my pocket I have the amount of money that price tag says, can I just buy it?

 

Just saw in the news today that Sears is working to sell off the DieHard brand as well as the Kenmore brand names and another quarter of disaster-sized losses.

Maybe Kumho will end up with DieHard and Samsung with Kenmore?

 

we still buy their washers and dryers, about once every twenty years or so.

 

Is that the problem? is their stuff too reliable and long lived to have a successful business these days?

 

i think marketing is their problem. when they were hot and heavy, that generation grew up believing that sears had the best products. in many cases, they were innovative. but they were passed by in our generation by big box stores carrying a variety of manufacturers. and the asian invasion forced them to do the same. some products are better, some are just marketed better.

sears has an old game plan and is bogged down by old locations and real estate.

 

Mistubishi@31. Apparently we are supposed to know Hispanic slang here.

_anke_ is the inversion. I'll say no more.

Well, a little more. Brazil is Portuguese not Spanish. So when my New Mexican pal got sweet on a Brazilian girl, he traveled to meet her parents. Dinner table small talk, they asked if he had an automobile. With a big smile he enthused over his shiny red Pinto. The families' faces all went really strange. In Brazil, pinto is slang for male external genitalia.

Actually Brazil is a great source for such things. In another year, A Most Famous Ecologist stood up for his Keynote Speech at US Annual Meeting. The subject was whether ecologists actually earn their salaries.

First word out of his mouth was "Payday". Another Brazilian friend at the back of the audience started laughing loudly, which seemed out of place to everyone else. Finally after the speech, this fellow went up to apologize, and explained that this word is Brazilian slang for "I am farting".

Hope to have done a bit to make your Brazilian travels more...zesty.

 

Precisely. I think it's a word I can get away with in FHoPol, but not here.

I feel your friends' pain. I've made many such mistakes in China, from asking a lady if I could borrow her lady-genitalia rather than her pen, to asking a waitress for venereal disease instead of cauliflower. Telling my German exchange partner's mother that I didn't want any more food because I was pregnant (rather than full) was another winner.

 

In China the pen is mightier than the sword.