There are plenty of shopping streets/neighborhoods here that going to a mall is not a necessity. Not all malls are all covered here either, particularly Century City Mall, which has a parking structure, but you walk outside to go from store to store. Third Street Promenade is all outdoors, as is Rodeo Drive. Melrose Avenue is one of my favorite shopping streets, but I also like Sunset in the Silver Lake district. Hollywood and Highland also has a large central area that is open to the sky. There's really no need to cover these areas, since we don't have cold weather, and it's usually not too hot. Lowspark, you are not a weather wimp if you can handle living in Houston in the summer! I lived there when I was going to Rice, but I never managed to stay there in the summer. Rice closed for the summer when I was there - they didn't want to subject the students (and professors and staff) to the heat and humidity. DB had been telling me that Circuit City had been late with all their payments to Sony, and so we were not surprised when we found out that they were going into chapter 11. We bought a new TV recently and ended up getting it at Best Buy because they have a brand (Insignia) that got good reviews and was well under the employee discount price that DB could get from Sony for a similar LCD widescreen TV. I gave our old widescreen TV to the neighbors, for helping us move it out of the house. It was a rear projection TV and was huge!! I'm much happier with the flat screen TV, and our old TV, even though it was HD, was not compatible with Blu-ray. DB had bought a Blu-ray player a couple of weeks ago at a company sale (at Sony) along with an AV amplifier, but we could not get a picture on our old TV with it. Finally, I broke down and bought a new 47" Insignia flat screen LCD TV, and we're much happier with that. We only have a few Blu-ray discs, but we're starting to collect them. The old DVDs are supposed to look better on Blu-ray player, but it's difficult to tell. Lars

My Company Store down alternative comforter (6yrs old) has been great. One of the best purchases I ever made. I started using them after I picked up some CS flannel sheets from a neighbor who was moving to Arizona. They were several years old then and were better than even my Lands End flannels. They are still going strong and I have purchased more. One thing I like is the ability to order items individually rather than in sets. I like to get a king top sheet for my pillow top queen so that we have plenty of material and don't have to fight for covers on a cold night! And extra pillow cases. I've concluded that they offer good value because of the durability (and great value if you buy on sale).

It's always upsetting to hear about anyone's problems with online or in-store purchases, but I must say that I've ordered many things from The Company Store over the years, and I've always been satisfied with their products and customer service. In fact, I've been impressed enough to have recommended the website to friends and family, and they too report pleasant shopping experiences. I've been pushed to my wits end with retailers like Macy's and others more times than I care to remember, but The Company Store has been a favorite for a long time. If you don't already do so, I'd suggest that if and when you run into problems with any customer service department, insist upon talking to a supervisor. They typically have more authority and experience and can be quite helpful in eliminating red tape and confusion. I hope your shopping experiences are more pleasant in future.

The cover was delivered today. First off - the gold color is much lighter than shown in the catalog - much lighter. Actually, the shade goes better with the other colors in my bedroom though, so it's ok. I thought it was suppose to be 98" long, making it 6" longer than my comforter. Well, to me it looks as tho it is more like 12" longer. Weird, but I'll let that pass too. I put it in the washer and dryer, boy there were alot of wrinkles when it came out of the dryer. Sometimes those will smooth out eventually after it's on the bed, will have to see if it's true in this case. However, I had to fold it and put it away until colder weather; maybe I'll need to iron it? ugh. natal, we started a conversation about this comforter cover on someone's thread; so I thought I'd better continue it here. The question was how soft the material would be - it's soft but crisp for the time being.