Radio Shack is planning to open stores inside Blockbuster locations. Their “highly trained sales associates will manage the stores within Blockbuster”. I’ve been really spoiled by Silicon Valley. Granted, I still think of going to “the shack” when I need sundry things, like a stereo connector or an endless loop tape cassette. But usually some engineer friend will have a box full of whatever I need (or a box with whatever I need hidden in the mess of wires and old modem cards), and they will certainly know more about the electronics than the poor guy at the store. Come to think of it, this area must be a terrible place to work as a Radio Shack associate. In a backwards ‘burb, you can be king of the electronics world, but here, a lot of your customers are not going to say anything to you except “no, you can not have my address for your database.” Anyway, it will be interesting to see if they put kiosks in the local Blockbusters. They’ll be selling consumer electronics, though, not soldering equipment and wire cutters.