After Christmas Shopping

The Day After Christmas, Shoppers Take a Holiday


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By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: December 27, 2005
Better luck later this week.
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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Bridget Dierks, of Babylon, N.Y., looked for a checkout line at Macy’s in Herald Square in Manhattan as many retailers across the nation said that stores were less crowded than expected, considering that it was a federal holiday.

After-Holiday Returns Continue to Decline (December 27, 2005)

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Keino Bennet leaving the Atlantic Center Mall in Brooklyn yesterday.
Many retailers hoping for a big finish to the holiday season instead had lighter-than-expected crowds over the long Christmas weekend, according to anecdotal reports, leaving stores to rely heavily on the next few days to pump up December sales.
Explanations for the lackluster finish varied: an unusually warm winter hurt cold-weather clothing sales, greater gift card use delayed purchases and higher energy costs discouraged splurges.
C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, dispatched researchers to stores in five cities yesterday - Boston, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Orlando, Fla. - where they found relatively few shoppers, considering that it was a federal holiday.
"All of us thought that these stores would be packed early and often but it never materialized," he said.
Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at the market research firm NPD Group, said that after a strong start the day after Thanksgiving, when many stores aggressively offered discounts, retailers "never regained the momentum."
Though final results for the holidays will not be available for several weeks, analysts and retail executives are projecting a respectable but not stunning season. November and December sales are estimated to grow 6 percent over a year earlier, compared with 6.7 percent in 2004.
In what many viewed as an encouraging sign, the nation's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, stood by its sales forecast for December, projecting a gain of 2 percent to 4 percent.
The chain, which stumbled last holiday, has performed strongly this year, in part, analysts said, because higher energy prices have shoppers looking for bargains.
Yesterday, Amazon.com reported a record holiday season, with 108 million orders, capping a strong holiday for Web retailers.
Millions of unspent gift cards could prove to be another boon to retailers, and stores rushed out new merchandise yesterday to entice those shoppers, because most retailers do not count the money on the cards as sales until it is spent.
"Redemption days are going to be very important this year," said Michael P. Niemira, head economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, who described the season so far as "O.K."
But crowds remained relatively thin at many stores yesterday - an employee at a Lowe's in Atlanta called it "a normal day" - and analysts agreed that, to a greater degree than any year in recent memory, the fate of the season would rest on the post-holiday spending of shoppers like Robert Ragusano, who was shopping yesterday in Walnut Creek, Calif., 25 miles east of San Francisco. Mr. Ragusano bought a sports jacket, spending all of a $300 Nordstrom gift card from his wife, Penny.
In anticipation of discounts, the couple arrived at the store before 8 a.m., also buying a $150 shirt (for Penny) and $400 suit and jacket (for their son).
"We don't shop for some things before Christmas," Mr. Ragusano, 38, said. "We get up the next morning and go spend."
Procrastination was to be expected this season. Compared with 2004, there were extra days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Hanukkah fell two weeks later than last year.
At 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the parking lot outside a Wal-Mart in Hamden, Conn., was full. Inside, a traffic jam of another sort formed in the toy department, where parents grabbed at mini-Cadillac Escalades and Dora the Explorer inflatable puppet theaters.
"I guess everyone forgot it was Christmas until today," said Sylvia Barnes, 31, who held a shopping list with 17 names on it. The last entry: herself.
Wayne and Linda Woodruff, residents of Washington who traveled to New York for the holidays, waited until Christmas Eve to buy their grandchildren a stuffed Elmo doll and two Fisher-Price toy trucks at the Toys "R" Us in Times Square. "This is really last minute," Mrs. Woodruff, 54, confessed.
Theresa Burkhart, 31, cut it even closer, buying her boyfriend a $300 DVD burner at a Best Buy in Midtown Manhattan at noon on Saturday.
The size of the gift, she said, made up for the tardiness. "It's better to get one big gift than lots of little ones," she said.
In something of a reversal, discount retailers appeared headed for one of their strongest holidays in years, while upscale retailers, which have seemed invulnerable for the last two seasons, appeared to falter, if only slightly.
Nordstrom and Saks missed forecasts for November, with analysts speculating that the wealthy had found little to excite them and therefore opted for expensive trips over expensive fashions.
The New York transit strike lasted three days last week, with full service resuming on Friday. That only deepened worries for Saks, which relies on its Fifth Avenue store for 10 percent of its annual sales. By Saturday afternoon, the Manhattan store appeared to be in post-Christmas clearance mode, with $850 Jimmy Choo handbags marked down 40 percent.
Mason Sexton, a 58-year-old investment banker, did his part for the luxury retailer, filling four of the store's black-and-white shopping bags with a silk bathrobe, a designer belt, a polo shirt and cashmere sweater on Dec. 24.
He did this all, he boasted, in under three hours, allowing him to "get home in time for the Giants-Redskins game."
Gail Lavielle, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the chain had seen a surge of business on Friday and Saturday, as men circled the perfume and jewelry counters. A consumer survey, performed by Wal-Mart, found that a third of shoppers had "left spouses until the end," Ms. Lavielle said.
Despite the disappointing crowds yesterday, retailers and their trade groups noted that the season was not quite over.
"I am not buying into ho-hum theory yet," Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said. "This week is going to be very telling."
Michael Falcone, in Walnut Creek, Calif; Brenda Goodman, in Atlanta; and KyleWhitmire, in Birmingham, Ala., contributed reporting for this article.
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Now Just in Portuguese! Férias

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Estaremos em férias do dia 23/12/2005 até 03/01/2006!!

Feliz 2006!!!

Maradona arrested after comeback

Thursday, December 22, 2005

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Diego Maradona made a remarkable return to the football field when he played for 68 minutes in a charity match in Rio de Janeiro.
But he was later arrested by police at Rio de Janeiro airport, for causing a disturbance after missing his flight to Buenos Aires.
He played for 'The Friends of Zico' against a team of young Brazilian professionals.
About a year and a half after looking death in the eye while battling heart and weight problems along with cocaine addiction, Maradona, 45, displayed glimpses of his old prowess.
After the incidents at the airport police told Radio CBN that they intended to conduct an alcohol test on Argentina's 1986 World Cup hero.
Showing contempt to authorities is punishable in Brazil by as long as two years in prison, but Maradona was not immediately charged, federal police spokesman Carlos de Melo said.
He was released after being interrogated and would return to Argentina later in the day, Melo said, adding that it was still possible Maradona would be charged after the incident was fully investigated.
Maradona allegedly argued with airport workers and then with authorities in one of the airport's VIP room, upset that the flight wasn't held for him.
The former Argentina star allegedly tried to force his way on board, prompting airport workers to call authorities. A door at the VIP room was broken in the incident, and Maradona allegedly said he was going to pay for the damage, Melo said.
The fans at the match were asked to bring food to donate to children's charities in the city.
Maradona, who appeared for free, showed amazing form, supplying precision passes and making short sprints.
"I am experiencing an amazing phase in my life," he said. "It is great to be able to play football again and bring 53 kilos less to the scale.
" I have the love of my two daughters to thank for my rebirth."
After making the statement, Maradona had to sit down, exhausted and gasping for air, at the side of the pitch. Then, as a reporter for the newspaper Estado reported, he asked friends for a cigar.
The former golden boy of football let his health deteriorate in 2003 and 2004 into a staggering, obese shadow of his former self and had make numerous visits to hospital in Argentina.
He eventually underwent stomach-reduction surgery to lose weight.
Zico, who now coaches Japan's national team, was full of praise for Maradona's performance.
Zico said he had played with Pele and now had been on the field at Maradona's side.
An inspiration
"I can go peacefully and happily to my grave," added Zico. "Maradona is an inspiration - he was so close to death and then achieved a turnaround," added Zico, who organized the match to benefit poor Brazilian children.
The "Friends of Zico" team tied 4-4 against the young Brazilians at the small Zico Soccer Center, the home of Zico's own club, in western Rio. After leading 4-1 at the break, the old-timers withered in the evening heat.
Although old and new stars of the game appeared, including Bebeto, Jorginho, Marcio Santos and Leonardo, members of the world championship Brazilian team of 1994, most of the 3,000 spectators' cheers in the sold-out stadium were for Maradona.
Praise also came from the Brazilian national coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, who repeatedly applauded Maradona on the sidelines.
"A team with Maradona and Zico doesn't need a coach," he said.
The uproar over Maradona's appearance was so large that he had to shut himself in his dressing room for 15 minutes before the game to escape a stampede of journalists and fans.
Zico eventually had to help, clearing a way so Maradona could make it to the field.

Word of the Day December 21,2005

Word of the Day for Wednesday December 21, 2005
confrere \KON-frair\, noun:A fellow member of a fraternity or profession; a colleague; a comrade; an intimate associate.
At Father Kilmartin's death the book was left unfinished (a sign of the times: not in manuscript, but on his laptop); and the arduous but also extremely delicate task of putting it into publishable condition was carried out by his Jesuit confrere, Robert J. Daly. --Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Eucharist as Puzzle," Commonweal, May 7, 1999
The reason for this was that our government, out of the weaknesses Kissinger himself describes, was treating that adversary as a confrere whose hideous character flaws could not be discussed. --Gabriel Schoenfeld, "Was Kissinger Right?" Commentary, May 1999
Baudelaire knew that this brave defense of the much derided middle class, offered without a touch of sarcasm, put him at odds with his confreres; to them, after all,"that inoffensive being" the bourgeois,"who would like nothing better than to love good painting," had long been anathema. --Peter Gay, Pleasure Wars

Check this film (DVD) during your holiday

It´s worth seeing it!!!


Summary for Hostage (2005)
Jeff Talley, a former LAPD hostage negotiator, has moved himself away from his failed career outside of Los Angeles, and away from his wife and daughter. When a convenience store robbery goes wrong in his turf, the three perpetrators move in on an unsuspecting family. But the family's father has a secret which might compromise his kin, and one of the criminals is about to jump over the edge. Jeff Talley has to get everybody to survive the night......if he can.

Don´t forget JUST IN ENGLISH !!

Google paying $1bn for AOL stake

Google Inc. and America Online Inc. have expanded their search and advertising alliance to include video and instant messaging, shutting out Microsoft Corp., which had fought hard for a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit.
Google will also invest $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL.
America Online said Tuesday that Google had agreed to the investment, as part of an enhanced agreement where Google will move beyond text-based advertising to allow AOL to sell graphical ads to Google's fast-growing ad network.
The stake effectively values AOL at $20 billion, a key benchmark should Time Warner elect to spinoff or sell a part of its Internet unit in response to dissident shareholder Carl Icahn's proxy campaign to break up the company.
Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.
Terms of the deal call for AOL to make more of its Web sites searchable via Google search, including a plan to feature AOL's premium video services within Google Video, a way of searching for Web-based video programming.
The two companies also said they had agreed, under certain unspecified conditions, to allow users of Google's recently introduced instant messaging system Google Talk to communicate with users of AOL's market-leading AIM instant messaging service.
Ahead of the announcement, analysts called the new agreement a major defensive win for Web search leader Google, depriving Microsoft of a major customer that would have jump-started its push to compete with Google in the online ad services market.
In a letter to Time Warner's board of directors released Monday, billionaire investor Icahn labeled the potential AOL-Google deal as "disastrous" because it may rule out potential future deals AOL might do with Google rivals such as eBay Inc. or Microsoft.
Shares of Google edged lower in after-hours trade on the Nasdaq Tuesday after closing at $429.74. Time Warner shares edged higher after the bell after closing over 1 percent higher at $17.74 on the New York Stock Exchange.
In an announcement released by the two companies Tuesday, Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons said: "We're very pleased to build significantly on our special relationship with Google in a way that will meaningfully strengthen AOL's position in the fast-growing online advertising business and help drive more advertisers to its Web properties.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt described AOL as "one of Google's longest-standing partners."
"We are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship," he said.
Parsons said the agreement would help realize the potential of AOL's large online audience.
"As digital technologies continue to drive industries together, the great value and opportunity inherent in Time Warner's structure and array of premier businesses becomes increasingly clear. A critical piece of this strategic alliance will be our content, which we will be making more accessible to Google users," Parsons said.
Google, founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is the global leader in search technologies.
AOL operates the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States.

Japan

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- The Tokyo Stock Exchange has announced the resignation of its president after a series of troubles raised concern about the dependability of transaction systems at Asia's largest bourse.
TSE President Takuo Tsurushima, 67, will resign, along with two other directors, on Tuesday and Chairman Taizo Nishimuro will double as president from Wednesday, the TSE said, following a regular board meeting held earlier in the day.
Earlier month, the TSE, the world's second-biggest bourse, admitted that trouble with its stock trading system, developed by Fujitsu Ltd., had contributed to a huge blunder by Mizuho Financial Group Inc. unit Mizuho Securities.
Mizuho Securities mistakenly offered 610,000 shares in recruitment firm J-Com Co. Ltd. at 1 yen each, instead of the intended one share at 610,000 yen, costing the brokerage about 40.5 billion yen ($349 million).
The order represented more than 40 times the number of J-Com's outstanding shares.
Japan's Financial Services Agency last week ordered the TSE to improve operations by taking steps to prevent a repeat of the Mizuho-related glitch and to clarify responsibility for the problem.
Last month, a system failure halted trading at the exchange for almost a full day, fanning concerns that it may be straining under the heavy increase in volume that has accompanied the Japanese share market's recent surge to five-year highs.
Tsurushima took the helm of the exchange in April last year, becoming the first non-bureaucrat in nearly four decades to clinch what is usually a position held by retired Finance Ministry officials.
Nishimuro, 69, became TSE chairman on June 27, giving up the chairmanship of electronics maker Toshiba Corp.
His appointment was aimed at reinforcing Tsurushima, who lacks overseas experience, at a time when the bourse wants to raise its global presence by going public and seeking more listings from companies based elsewhere in Asia including China.

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Word of the Day December 20,2005

Word of the Day for Tuesday December 20, 2005

digerati \dij-uh-RAH-tee\, plural noun:Persons knowledgeable about computers and technology.
As high tech spreads outward from Silicon Valley to American society at large and people spend more and more time in cyberspace, the journalist Paulina Borsook steps back to look at the digerati and their view of the world. --Michiko Kakutani, "Silicon Valley Views the Economy as a Rain Forest," New York Times, July 25, 2000
[T]his week, over 3,000 digerati will converge at a swank theater where chef Julia Child and pundit Arianna Huffington, among others, will judge 135 Web sites. --David Whitman, "The calm before the storms," U.S.News & World Report, May 15, 2000
Digerati was formed by analogy with literati, "persons knowledgeable about literature."