Pages

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Caption This 51


Please caption this image
London, ON, January 2007 [Click to embiggen]

Here in the Great White North, gullible consumers increasingly buy their electronics at big box stores staffed by undertrained folks who know as much about computers as I know about llama breeding. Future Shop is quite likely the worst of the bunch.

This outlet closed barely seven years after it opened because it was so successful at ripping off the populace that they built a new, much larger one just down the road. The storefront that remained struck me as a stark reminder of the forgettable landscape we seem to have created for ourselves.

Your turn: How would you caption this image? Suggest as many captions as you wish: I encourage this sort of behavior. I'll announce the winner next week - which, incidentally, marks a year since this whole Caption This madness began. Yay!

About last week's image of a simple door lock: Too many great suggestions to count, but in the end I had to pick one. That would be SPWriter's gem: "No more sleepwalking outside in the nude, Louise."
Many honorable mentions to bestow this week:
  • BreadBox: "The barn door after the horse has bolted (it)."
  • Rashbre: "Bolt your door, but not your mind."
  • Kenju: "Lock of Ages."
  • Omykiss: "Latched on."
  • Joan: "I need a little peace."
  • Robin: "Temptation."
  • Sister AE: "Safe." and "A false sense of security."
  • SPWriter: "Slide. Home safe."
  • JC: "One way."
A special thanks to Robin and Steve (SPWriter) for their regular and frequent submissions. Their active participation represents, in my view, the best spirit of Caption This. It's what I had in mind when I started this thing at the beginning of 2007, and I'm so glad to see the caption bug catching on. Thanks to you both - and for everyone who jumps in - for keeping this thing fun.

41 comments:

  1. Happy new year to you and your loved ones!

    Cheers to a wonderful 2008!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hey carmi, its been a long time...hope all's well with you and your family......i intend to catch up with the old posts after i 'm done commenting on this post.....my caption ......."Spend (today) and God will send (in future)!"

    here's wishing you and yours a beautiful new year ahead :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carmi,

    Why, thanks for your kind words!

    What I appreciate most about your "Caption This" is the ability to offer several thoughts...it makes it more fun for your readers IF they can't decide...and they're the type whose mind unravels into a thousand threads...

    apparently like Steve's ;).

    (and mind to a less-brilliant degree...'nother wink).

    I'll get back with ya when my mind's on full coffee and wide awake for this week's.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Carmi - thanks for the nod and the nice words. I needed a silver lining in what has been one of the darkest weeks of my 48 years. And on that note, I'll leave you with a caption suggestion for the new pic (rife with multiple meanings):

    Future imperfect.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There's no future in the past.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Future Will One Day be Past

    Just pulled that out of my head.

    Hope you like it, my fiend.

    cq

    ReplyDelete
  7. happy New Year Carmi!

    without reading your words, my first thoughts were:

    "the Future is closed... it wasnt worth buying"

    "the future has moved... no forwarding address"

    of course after i read your explaination, neither of those captions are fitting.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey Carmi - we deal with this kind of crap over at my blog all the time. Greyfields are littering Windsor, with 2 Walmarts, 1 Canadian Tire, 1 Future Shop and a Home Depot to top things off all closing up their doors and moving out to the middle of some farm field in the boondocks.

    "They Shopped 'Till They Dropped"

    Hope you like you cars, folks, 'cause you're going to be spending a ton of time in them. And that McCrap that we're all buying at these McStores? We could cover our eyes and walk into each other's houses and not be able to tell where the heck we are. We're getting more monotonous by the minute.

    Just found your blog and will be checking it out a little more in depth. I like what I see so far...

    Chris
    www.scaledown.ca

    ReplyDelete
  9. Future Shop - out of business, no future to be seen....

    ReplyDelete
  10. "An example of why Written Inc. has been nominated in the 'Best Photo/Art Blog' category of the Canadian Blog Awards."

    see: http://cdnba.wordpress.com/nominate/best-photoart-blog/

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'll have to give that one some more thought, Carmi. Happy New Year to you and Morah Mommy, and thanks for the mention.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'll have to think about this one, and thanks again for the honorable mention, but I want to make sure that Robin gets credit for "a false sense of security" because it wasn't me.

    sister AE
    at
    Having Writ

    ReplyDelete
  13. Or NOT! :)

    Hi Carmi! Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Internet killed the Future Shop star!

    Hey Carmi! I'm back and I'm blogging! I've been peeking in on you and your shinanigans despite my absence. I hope you and yours have the happiest and most prosperous New Year! Come visit if you get a sec!

    ReplyDelete
  15. We can always make a better future. Happy 2008.
    Regards, rashbre

    ReplyDelete
  16. Happy New Year Carmi! Love that pic--maybe a caption: "nothing that's new remain's that way"

    Oh, I've been meaning to ask you about Llama breeding...

    ReplyDelete
  17. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have a wonderful 2008!
    ~xo
    Lee Ann

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Once and Future Store

    Did I blink?

    Is this the reverse of "everything old is new again?"

    They should have seen that coming, no?

    ReplyDelete
  19. "The Future's bright...



    The staff arent"


    We have the same in PC World in the UK sales staff trained to be as moronic as possibly its a skill I tell ya

    Happy New Year to you and your family sir

    I hope 2008 is your most succesful and brightest to date

    L

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hey Carmi! Happy New Year to you and your family, bro.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Blessings to you and your family in 2008, Carmi! Your blog was a wonderful find in 2007...

    Caption: "Forgotten Future"

    or..."Future No More"

    P.S. (I like anne's!)

    ReplyDelete
  22. "Future Shop. We Specialize in Antiques."

    Happy '08 to you and your family, Carmi!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Coming to your street soon ....

    ReplyDelete
  24. Future Tense

    Little shop of horrors

    So THIS is where they sell flux capacitors!

    Obsolescence in waiting

    Smoke and Mirrors

    HAL's favorite place to shop

    (thanks Sister AE ;) )

    ReplyDelete
  25. The Future's Gone Fishing....


    The Future's Not so Bright After All.....

    Who Turned off the Lights of Future?

    And as the sun set over the Mcstore horizon, the last dimwit tripped over the switch and darkened the future.

    Happy New Year Carmi to you and your beautiful family.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Ghost of the Future.

    I've been lurking for a while :), and finally have thought of a suitable caption! I love reading your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Just dropping by to wish you and your family a very Happy New Year!

    As for a comment...hmmm... how about "The shape of things to come?"

    ReplyDelete
  28. There's another caption floating around my brain, one I can't quite seem to nail down. The first thought I had when I saw your picture was of Disney World's "Tomorrowland". The futuristic ideas Walt had 40 years ago, as fleshed out in Tomorrowland, have the same feel as this photo--kind of kitschy, at one time innovative, but in the end, obsolete...in so many ways not measuring up to reality.

    If I figure out how to brevitize THAT, I'll be back with another caption...:).

    (btw, I finished my "100 Things" and again, hat tipped you with thanks for providing the motivation to write such a list.)

    ReplyDelete
  29. It's New Year: good time for my first contribution to Caption This!

    "Where the Future is always for sale"

    "Future Shop: No Presents"

    "Future Shop: For those who don't have one"

    "You can't buy anything here yet"

    "Coming Soon"

    ReplyDelete
  30. my heads blank... maybe that says it all about those kind of stores - to me they lack soul... but thats no excuse I just haven't got a caption in my brain right now...
    Happy New Year to you and your family, Katie, x

    ReplyDelete
  31. Trading Spaces

    The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys

    Today's treasures, tomorrow's trash

    Dude...because PCs are, so, WAAAAYYY better than Macs...

    The Emperor's New Clothes

    Blinded by the might

    Toys R Us

    We're expecting a shipment...tomorrow...

    ReplyDelete
  32. The shadow of future past.

    I'm sorry I've missed this, but I'll be looking forward to participating now! :)

    ReplyDelete
  33. [Slow down Robin...I can't keep up! Here are a few more...]

    "Here tomorrow, gone today"

    "Everything Must Go!"

    "Sign of the times"

    "A mere shadow of its former self"

    "The un-forseeable future"

    "The future is unwritten"

    "Future schlock"

    "The future ain't what it used to be"

    "A bleak future"

    ReplyDelete
  34. Oooh... this type of thing irks me!!! I hate it when a chain store opens a new, bigger one down the road and leaves an empty shell behind to waste away!!! (i.e. Wal-Mart in Iowa City, IA... I'm pissed at that one in particular!!!)

    Pretty soon there will be such a thing as SUB-urban renewal. How sad!

    (Sorry... no caption idea... but good photo to start the conversation!)

    ReplyDelete
  35. "The Future is now closed. Please leave in single file. No pushing, no shoving."

    Happy New Year, Carmi!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Happy New Year, my friend.

    I've just discovered the w00t-y goodness that is Google Reader. where is your rss feed thingy so that I can add you?

    and why am I not in your blogroll? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  37. Future Shopping is closed until further notice. You couldn't afford it anyway!

    Happy Year!
    Good luck picking one, so many good ones in here!
    Oracle make me laugh first-

    ReplyDelete
  38. It was suppose to be a Posh Future!

    ReplyDelete

Please note that Written Inc. has been set up so that all comments must first be moderated before they go live on the blog. I apologize for the inconvenience, but this is to ensure bots and trolls don't muck up the works. If you have any difficulty leaving a comment here as a result, please feel free to email it to carmilevy AT gmail DOT com. Thank you for your understanding.