Random

• One thing I've noticed that is different since we left the States two years ago is how dark (sometimes even dingy) many grocery stores have become -- mood lighting -- ambiance to enhance the shopping experience. Sigh.

• One exception is the new Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market chain popping up in Arizona, California, and Nevada -- filling the niche between 7-11 and the mega-one-stop grocery giants. These stores are Google clean -- airy, simple, light, low-key green -- and designed for easy shopping. You won't get lost in the store -- but they are big enough to have 85% of what you need at a fairly reasonable price.

I remember when all grocery stores were pretty much the size of Fresh and Easy markets. Perhaps the big chains abandoned that niche too quickly.

Fresh and Easy is a Tesco (UK) brand.

• Did anyone else notice the reference to Guam in the Get Smart movie?

• I went browsing through a Family Christian Store today and discovered that they only had one copy of a TNIV Bible. There were no TNIV reference Bibles -- no TNIV study Bibles -- large store -- thousands of Bibles but only one little TNIV Bible.

The thing is that Zondervan, the US publisher of the TNIV, spun off Family Christian Stores in the 1990s. The two companies still share the same headquarters building. Family Christian Stores is the largest retailer of Christian stuff in the US -- and it has close ties to Zondervan. But one of their newest overstocked stores has only one micro-print TNIV.

I continue to fear that Zondervan is orphaning what is perhaps one of the best American English general use Bible translations produced in the last 30 years.