PC Test Bench

Blockbuster, the struggling video rental chain, has hired the law firm Kirkland & Ellis to help it restructure its debt, the company said on Tuesday.

Blockbuster is trying to refinance lines of credit, but says it will cut more spending if needed to keep operating through 2009.

The company is seeking to refinance lines of credit that are coming due August, a Blockbuster spokeswoman, Karen Raskopf, said. Kirkland, one of the top law firms specializing in bankruptcy and restructuring, will assist the retailer in that effort.

“We have hired Kirkland & Ellis for assistance with our ongoing capital financing and capital raising initiative,” Ms. Raskopf said. “We do not intend to file for bankruptcy.”

Ms. Raskopf added that Blockbuster had also held talks with investment banks specializing in restructuring and was close to hiring Rothschild, a person familiar with the negotiations said.

If it fails to refinance that credit line — a possibility, given the current dismal environment for lending — the company will draw upon its cash flow, delay store remodelings and cut spending to continue operating through 2009.

The company had $615 million in debt on its balance sheet as of Sept. 30, according to CapitalIQ.

Once synonymous with home movie viewing, Blockbuster has faltered as it seeks to compete against newer online rivals. In January, Blockbuster announced that it had formed a partnership with CinemaNow to deliver movies on demand over the Internet, an effort to keep up with a similar service from its rival Netflix.

It appeared to make some progress last year, when it narrowed losses to $20.6 million in the third quarter, beating analysts’ expectations. But many analysts remain concerned about its competitive prospects amid a slowing economy.

Blockbuster has sought to broaden beyond video rentals and sales. One of its more unusual efforts came last year, when it proposed a takeover of Circuit City Stores, the electronics retailer. The bid was made with the support of a big Blockbuster shareholder, Carl C. Icahn, but many analysts questioned the benefits of such a combination.

That plan was dropped after only three months. Circuit City subsequently filed for bankruptcy and later began liquidation.

In December, Blockbuster agreed to sell tickets for Live Nation, the concert promoter, through 500 of its stores.

Based in Dallas, Blockbuster has 8,000 employees worldwide, according to its Web site.

Shares in Blockbuster plunged 77 percent, to 22 cents on Tuesday. They have fallen 92 percent in the last 12 months.

via Blockbuster Hires Help to Restructure Its Debt – NYTimes.com.

Hasn’t Wal-Mart done enough degrading of the American retail system and now they want to attack a free service as well? Come on enough is enough…

By The Associated Press:

Wal-Mart Stores,
the world’s largest retailer, has launched an online classified advertising
site, a move that opens a broader range of shopping to Wal-Mart’s Internet
customers.

The site is run through Oodle.com, a 3-year-old San Mateo, Calif.,
company, and links to Oodle’s online offerings.

“This free, community-based resource allows customers to buy and sell items
locally, find local jobs and learn about events in their area,” Walmart.com
spokesman Ravi Jariwala said June 3 in an e-mail message.

Jariwala said the site expands goods and services that Wal-Mart customers can
buy through the company.

“It also further connects our community of 130 million customers who shop the
Wal-Mart brand each week,” Jariwala said.

Craigslist has long been considered the leader in the sector, which has seen
the number of “for sale” listings surge in the down economy as more people try
to sell items to help make ends meet.

Oodle Chief Executive Craig Donato said he has seen significant traffic
growth in the last three to four months.

“There’s lots of reasons, but I suspect one is that classified advertising is
a category that will do well” when times are tough, Donato said.

Donato said Wal-Mart is a good fit for Oodle’s online classifieds because
Wal-Mart has such a strong local presence in communities where it has stores. He
noted that local classified purchases start online but end with an in-person
meeting where cash is exchanged for an item.

“The classifieds market is undergoing a huge upheaval,” Donato said. Rather
than paying to run ads in a newspaper, more people are choosing to run their ads
free online.

He said classified advertising sounds like a “sleepy” portion of the ad
sector, but it generates $30 billion every year.

The shift has created a separation between individuals taking out want ads
and business classifieds for auto sales, real estate, etc.

Donato said Oodle’s business plan is to serve both of those markets by offering
free ads, which appeal to individuals, but also offering premium placement to
those willing to pay for it, which appeals to businesses, he said.

The shift is a large one, he said. Retailers have customarily bought ads in
newspapers.

“In doing classifieds, the most fundamental thing is creating some sense of
liquidity for consumers,” Donato said. That comes through having lots of
listings and reaching lots of potential buyers. People not finding certain items
can set it up so they get e-mails when those items are listed.

Donato says Oodle posts over 500,000 new listings daily, generated through
more than 80,000 sites.

Oodle runs classifieds for numerous companies, including newspapers and TV
stations and military.com, a consolidated site for the armed services.

Terms of the arrangement with Wal-Mart were not released.

Oodle was founded by a group of former executives of eBay and Excite, where Donato was in charge of searches and communities.

I went to Starbucks the other morning and I notice that the once green logo was gone and replaced with their old logo from years ago. It appears they are going back to how it all started and getting back to basics. On March 19, 2008 a press release was sent out and Howard Schultz,chairman, president and ceo, shared his vision.

“Eleven weeks ago, I made a personal commitment to every one of our customers and partners (employees) to reaffirm our place as the world’s coffee authority,” said Schultz. “By embracing our heritage, returning to our core – all things coffee – and our relentless commitment to innovation, we will reignite the emotional connection we have with our customers and transform the Starbucks Experience. I am confident that the ground-breaking initiatives we’ve announced today demonstrate our laser focus on living up to that commitment. We know that this is just the beginning, but we also know that there has never been a more exhilarating or promising time in our history.”

(All I know is that I have to have my Starbucks and if I don’t get it…stay away from me.)

BostonDynamics has created a robot that they call BigDog. From their home page…”BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads.” When you first watch the video it kind of creeps you out to see just how real this thing is and how close they may be getting to making a true robotic animal or person.

Well a lot of things got busy in my life and add in a server change over and loosing my blog DB and…blah blah blah

You get the idea.

I am going to try and get back into gear and get the blog going again.

Americanfreak