After 94 years, Radio Shack goes on the fritz forever.

Last year the Super Bowl! This year the scrap heap.

I grew up with Radio Shack. Like 7-11, they were everywhere. And like 7-11, they offered quick stop shopping, in their case for consumer electronics and myriad electrical supplies. I may have bought a Sony Walkman there. I don’t remember. What I mostly purchased at Radio Shack were blank cassettes, CD’s and floppy discs. And well, we all know what happened to those. For all intents and purposes they are extinct or, at best, just hanging on.

My Tweet: Let’s face it anything with the words “radio” and “shack” in its title had it coming…

For the last 10 or 15 years (maybe longer) Radio Shack clung to existence. As Best Buy and Circuit City floundered and died somehow the Shack persisted in subsisting. That in and of itself was a miracle.

I kind of rooted for them. Nostalgically, Radio Shack comprised a tiny bit of bandwidth in my aging, shrinking brain, representing Saturday morning excursions for a pack of batteries or ear buds. But then those things were available at Walgreens and, frankly, anywhere else that had a cash register. To say nothing of Amazon.

Even when Radio Shack was big it had painted itself into a corner. Quick electronics on the cheap always struck me as a shaky platform. When by comparison, Best Buy is considered “high end” you know you’re in trouble.

“We get twice the crowd on Saturday!”

For a good chunk of its 94 years it didn’t matter. People defaulted to Radio Shack for camera batteries and the like long after they had to. Such was its appeal. But eventually my grandfather died. Mom got a Costco card. Radio Shack dimmed like an old TV tube never to be replaced.

Radio Shack did not go down without a fight. Various ad campaigns entered the ring but, alas, were completely clobbered. Even if some of it was vaguely clever and/or self-aware, marketing could not save them. The Super Bowl could not save them! Calling one’s self “The Shack” and trying to be a neighborhood pal isn’t sustainable in consumer electronics. Now when you’re opponents are Amazon and Wal-Mart.

The stark reality is no one under retirement age will miss Radio Shack. But they are at least worth saying good by to.

The details of RS’s demise on, of all things, Gawker.

AT&T spends big bucks advertising U-Verse. But is it much ado about nothing?

One reason to drag TV outside. Name another?

I keep seeing advertising for AT&T’s U-Verse; if I understand it correctly, the primary benefit seems to be the ability to watch TV anywhere you want. Ok, I guess that’s a benefit. Was anyway, like in 2007. With tablets and smartphones, people can now view content on a submarine.

I know… What AT&T is really advertising is the ability for people to watch their big-ass flat screen TV, wirelessly, which means Joe Blow can move his giant LCD from the living room into the backyard (or wherever) and still be able to watch it.

Fair enough. But wireless? You still need electricity. In other words: a wire. Moreover –and this is my bigger issue- in order to watch TV outside one has to schlep the TV outside. Which, despite what this swell how-to video claims, has got to be a royal pain in the ass.

He makes it look so easy…

Not only does a person have to unplug and lug the damn thing to another location (probably requiring help) said persons also have to prepare a safe and secure resting place. This likely means procuring a table (another chore) and setting it up near a power source, far from a no-brainer out of doors. “Honey, do we have an extension chord?” Yup. Another wire.

Is anyone that hard up to watch TV outside?

Frankly, isn’t lack of television one of the main reasons for being outside? Did not our parents constantly beseech us to “stop watching the idiot box and get our butts out of the house?”

One commercial in U-Verse’s campaign depicts two men watching a ballgame in a backyard. Fun in theory. But not when you consider all the above-mentioned hassles. Furthermore, now these two knuckleheads are further away from the bathroom, refreshments and a consistent climate. God forbid, bad weather rolls in. Rain and electronics are a bad mix. And even on a perfect day isn’t it then almost impossible discerning the picture? Either way, scrambling to drag a large TV back into the living room is an accident waiting to happen.

Unless I’m seriously missing something, I have to conclude U-Verse’s primary “benefit” is a novelty at best. A nightmare at worst. One of those things that seem cool in an ad but in fact is a big f–king drag.

For the record, I keep questioning my judgment on account of all the money AT&T is spending advertising U-Verse. (Surely, there must be more to it?) I’ve seen numerous 30-second executions airing during some of the most expensive programming, like the NFL. I find it hard to believe an advertiser would spend this many millions to sell a glorified novelty item.

Samsung debuts trailer at CES for “seamless integration of smart devices.” Haven’t we seen this movie before?

By definition film trailers are supposed to titillate and provoke a potential audience into becoming a legitimate one. Trailers are commercials and historically some of the best ever. Yet, red flags go off when we are confronted by a trailer for an ad-like object posing as a film. Such was the case when I happened upon this one, for “We all Share” a short film made by Samsung and Leo Burnett.

The trailer teases Samsung’s new “AllShare” technology debuting at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. According to the Chicago Egoist AllShare will allow you to “wirelessly and seamlessly stream video, photo, and music files across all Samsung smart devices.”

Where have we heard that before? Isn’t seamless integration of electronic devices table stakes in the modern world? Microsoft. Apple. Google. We expect ‘all share’ from everything these days, even our Government. Be that as it may, Samsung is trumpeting theirs, with a “global conversation” that we are all invited to join, via Instagram and Twitter.

But first we have the trailer. It is pretty. It is global. And in my opinion it is dull. We see filmed portraits of citizens of the world. These humans look right at us, stoic as icons. If only they were. A person with a wrinkled face or yellow skin is not an icon. Then the trailer remembers it’s a film not a slide show and we get moving pictures of more citizens, in this case a number of young people kissing in a number of places. A title card informs us “We All Share” and then it kind of ends, with a group of old Chinese people playing a board game, Scrabble I think. A final super informs us of the “World Premiere” at CES inviting us to follow the film at a microsite..

Good thing there’s nothing better to do in Las Vegas.

Perhaps I’m too harsh or, worse, hypocritical. Lord knows I’ve had my hand in making many such pieces, usually of the not-for-air variety: manifesto or mood videos, sometimes called “rips.” Still, I made ‘em and thought they were manna. What’s irritating is when a mantra becomes the final product. My frustration compounds when such a film poses as a trailer.