Bob McCarty Writes

In a post Friday morning, I promised to report observations related to my last-minute Christmas shopping adventures at the mall. Here it is after midnight, and I’m just now putting down some of the highlights. Be advised these thoughts are random:

1 — While looking around inside Dick’s Sporting Goods, I took a snapshot of a large tapestry-style image of a skier that was hanging on the wall above the store’s winter coats section. As a long-time writer/editor, I noticed immediately that something was wrong with the photo. Take a look at the inset of the photo (left) and see if you can tell what’s wrong with their image as captured in mine. [Hint: The gaffe can be found inside the inset.]

2 – On one wall along the food court, pages of a local weekly newspaper appeared in the form of a larger-than-life advertisement aimed at mall shoppers. Highlighted in the ad (right) was a Thomas Sowell column, GLOBAL WARMING? OR JUST HOT AIR? — presumably as it appeared in the print version of the publication.

3 — Because I live in a largely-conservative community, I suspect most mall shoppers would place global warming under the “hot air” category and place more interest in items such as the custom motorcycle (left) or red Mercedez-Benz (right).

BONUS – Finally, I thought I would share something I saw earlier this week: A Taco Bell in my area is still promoting free tickets to Major League Baseball’s World Series to one lucky customer. Hard to believe? The photo (above left) shows the placard displayed above the drive-thru’s menu board as recently as Wednesday.