ISC

Polish Cheesecake
continued...

Jordan Tucker
Guest Contributor

he cake recipes all seemed

to agree that the optimal
temperature to cook this cake at
was 180 degrees, for two hours.
I know better than everyone
else, so I cooked it at 250 degrees
for three hours. As the cake
did whatever unholy ritual it
was doing in the oven (I’m not
a scientist), I badgered one of
my roommates, and made a
chocolate sauce. The chocolate
sauce was composed of butter,
chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and
fruit. The nice thing about
baking is that you literally do
not ever think about health
if you want to do it well. In
fact, you want to make it as
unhealthy as possible. The really
good bakers add booze for this
purpose. In France, I hear they
serve a darling little tart with
a heroin and cigarette glaze...
French women don’t get fat,
after all. We could all learn
from the French, in their joie de
vivre and also their excellent
habit of running away from
confrontations they don’t want
to have.

I eventually grew bored of
trying to steal soup from my
roommate, because no soup
is worth extended human
interaction. I hid myself in
my basement lair (I live in the
basement) and only when I
heard the smoke alarm go off
and my roommate making
panicking noises like, “JORDAN
YOUR CHEESECAKE” did I
saunter upstairs to save the
day. I petted my roommate’s

sweet head and made soothing
noises, similar to a cooing dove,
before I swept the cheesecake
from the oven. A bit of the

oil from the cake had fallen
through the springform pan
and onto the bottom of the
stove, but the cake was perfect.
I covered it in chocolate sauce
and delivered it to my glorious,
glorious, genius friend after her
inevitable triumphant defense
of her thesis the next day. She
was perfection embodied as she
handled every question from
her committee with aplomb.

My other friend handmade
perogies for her. Of course,
glorious handsome men fell out
of the walls to fling themselves
at us, and our genius friend
was offered a job with full
tenure immediately. I have to
stop typing this now, because
Kanye West and Jay Z are here
to take us to meet Beyonce on
her yacht (Jay Z and Beyonce
have his-and-hers yachts,

like your peasant parents

have his and hers towels).

Remember this-- the cake
was perfect. I am perfection.
1am a winged beast, soaring
high and glorious above

the villages, who cower in
terror at my fury but secretly
thrill at the honour of sucha
righteous death. I am eternal.
I am the cheesecake master.

Online Dichotomy

Sparky Dundee
Guest Contributor

recent trip to Best Buy revealed an unwelcome

bit of news: stores have noticed the rise of
companies such as Amazon whose entire business
model is online sales with little overhead, and they
want to a piece of that action. A few moments of
shocked conversation with a cashier and trying to
explain how the online model works demonstrated
that Best Buy has no idea of what the online
shopping model is based on.

In the past, customers would visit brick and mortar
stores because they did not want to wait for an
indeterminate amount of time to get a product they
had already paid for, without any guarantee the
product would meet specifications. Companies used
to have a guarantee that no sale was final unless
the customer was satisfied, however now we have
entered into the realm of paying for a product based
on someone’s poorly written description of exactly
what that is. When the purchased item arrives,

one hopes that what they ordered is in the box

and not something similar, or entirely dissimilar.

In the likely event that what arrives is not the same
as what was ordered there is the added hassle of
attempting to get in touch with customer service
and having to arrange a refund while also shipping
back the item, often having to also pay for shipping
costs yet again. This was the business model
adopted by companies like Ebay in their heyday,
and it has been significantly improved by the likes
of Amazon, however, only Amazon is Amazon

and other companies do not understand that.

Research several years ago showed that Wal-
Mart locations were losing customers to online
purchasing due to the fact that there was never
anyone in the shopping line ahead of them,
barring a service disruption, and oftentimes things
were sold for much less than in store. Wal-Mart
mistakenly believed that they could use their
store locations as storage warehouses while still
keeping those locations open to serve walk in
customers. This belief was based on a general
misunderstanding of how Wal-Mart as a company
does its business, and the varieties of customers
that are regularly served at Wal-Mart locations.

Future Shop as a company used to be excellent
because they relied on the fact that they understood
the reasons customers would come into a physical
store. Customers would visit because they would
keep a fairly large amount of stock on hand, with
the ability to order more as supplies dwindled. Best
Buy now has a system that keeps no stock on hand
for fairly common computer components. Instead
they say they will look it up on their website and
order it in for you, while you can pay an added fee
for the convenience of them pushing the order
button. Most customers would find it offensive

to have a physical store, but no physical stock for

a technology company that built its reputation

on selling computers and computer equipment.

Best Buy now refuses to advertise what they have
on hand versus what they will order in for fear
of customers no longer shopping at the store
level, and instead ordering themselves through
the suppliers for a cheaper price. While online
shopping makes sense for some items that are
not considered critical like clothing or some
non-perishable food items, there is a need in any
neighbourhood to be able to pay for products and
take them home immediately. If a person wanted
to buy ajug of milk or some ground beef to cook
a meal, ordering online and waiting a week or
two is not really appropriate when the system
requirements to store and sell locally is present
in every city town and even village in Canada.

Business transactions in Canada are still for

the most part at the local store level, although
there is a rising proportion of retail dollars being
spent in online stores, and not only for the fact
that online stores do not require pants while
shopping. An assumption is made in online
shopping that employees working for online
retailers are treated better than employees

in most retail stores, with the hope that the
wages paid are better than in physical stores.