JAMES LILEKS REPORTS FROM BEST BUY:

The clerk asked if he could help, and I said I was looking for a cheap virus-magnet laptop loaded with crapware. He asked me to repeat myself. He said the offerings on the showroom floor were scant, but I might try the website. He also said something interesting:

I don’t use a computer myself.

And this from a young fellow. Why so? Because he used his phone for everything except games, and for that he had an Xbox. The idea of a computer was . . . (shrug) whatever. I wandered around the store, looking at things I neither wanted or needed. This was the Best Buy flagship, the best store in the chain: it’s close to the corporate mothership, and they experiment here, put on their best face. I walked out thinking:

They really are doomed.

I don’t know why I thought that; I’ve always enjoyed the store. It always felt like a going concern. But they sell cameras. Laptops. Where once they had rows of media, now there’s little, because physical media is going away. Where once they had games they don’t have games, because – well, see above.

I’m going to miss shopping and looking and touching, I really am.

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