Home and Deranged

Julia, clear your schedule: Never mind Eat Pray Love, how about Eat Eat Eat?

I've got an itch to trade this view, if temporarily, for another, moremountainous one.
My best-selling memoir-turned-movie would be more aptly titled "Eat Eat Eat"
If only I had a more accessible scenic Buddhist temple

Some recent Facebook stalking has left me feeling rather restless. I'm being inundated by photos of friends backpacking through Europe, bumming around Colorado ski towns and leading bike tours in Paris.

It’s not that my life isn’t glamorous, it just begs for a better backdrop. Thoughts would just be deeper somehow if they were put to paper in a leather-bound journal on my lap and I could pause to stare out at the Amalfi Coast. Glancing up over the top of my MacBook into the glow of other Apple icons at the local coffee shop isn't particularly scenic.

I’ve been having stirrings lately to take off on a long personal quest of self-discovery. I could do peyote, carve a dwelling into a giant Redwood tree or maybe learn to surf in some sleepy West Coast town. Maybe I could finally turn my childhood dreams of being a seasonal salt water fisherman into reality, or do like my dad and crew myself out for the summer on a yacht in the Mediterranean. Learning to sail — that’s on the list.

In my most elaborate vision I’d keep a journal of this extended PTO full of insights and quotables you couldn’t get unless you’d had the same kind of world-view-altering life experience. I’d adapt it into a best-selling memoir that would later be made into a feature film starring Julia Roberts.

Only the diary of my transformative journey would more likely be titled Eat Eat Eat. (If I covered the kind if ground I aspire to, I can only imagine the array of foreign delicacies I’d sample.)

Once I returned and reclaimed my stuff (it would’ve been left in my mom’s garage) I could conceive a new genre chronicling what exactly happens once you settle back into the day-to-day. This reparative sequel to Eat Eat Eat would, of course, be titled Tan Tan Tan, as I doubt Javier Bardem would factor into my readjustment.

Then again, we're in a recession. I've already got some material, and I'd be willing to kick the antics up a notch for the sake of entertainment. I've even got some stories up my sleeve that have yet to be told because of my self-imposed statute of limitations on obvious references. (You've got to wait a while before "that wasn't about you" becomes feasible).

I don't have a lot of sway in Hollywood (yet) and I could foresee some difficulties securing the financing to film on location everywhere from Rio to Tibet. And even if it's not the most picturesque of places, Houston's got a lot going on. So, I suppose we could keep it local — that's all the rage these days anyway, I hear.

And it's cheap. So to the studio execs who I know read me religiously — consider this my official pitch.

unspecified

SUDDEN SHUTTERS

GameStop to close 11 Houston-area stores amid nationwide cuts

GameStop/ Facebook

Long lines for video game releases are a rarity these days.

For GameStop, it’s a blood bath right out of Mortal Kombat. The Grapevine-based video game chain is expected to shed 470 locations nationwide, including 11 in the greater Houston area.

The closures were revealed in the company's newest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that said it would close "a significant number of additional stores in fiscal 2025" ending on January 31. In its last fiscal year, GameStop shuttered 590 locations.

In addition to braving the overall “retail apocalypse,” the retailer faces the same conditions that largely decimated CD and video stores. Video games are now available for digital download in seconds and no longer require a trip to a physical store.

“As a part of our profitability initiative, we are reducing our global store base, which includes closing stores that are not meeting performance standards or stores at the end of their lease terms with the intent of transferring sales to other nearby locations,” the company wrote in its annual report. “ If we are unsuccessful in marketing to customers of the stores that we plan to close or in transferring sales to nearby stores, our results of operations could be negatively impacted.”

The current digital squeeze isn’t the first time GameStop has been thrown for a loop by contemporary internet culture. In 2021, the retailer famously became a meme stock, buoyed by users of Reddit's r/wallstreetbets. The skyrocketing increase in its stock price, followed by short selling, caused major financial consequences for hedge funds and other investors.

Since then, the stock price has been more stable but has decreased approximately 21 percent over the last year. After CEO Ryan Cohen bought 500,000 shares in the company on January 21, the price has slightly rebounded.

GameStop has not issued a formal list of the closures, and a request for more information was not returned at press time. But Ohio’s WKYC Studios put together a list of all the U.S. stores that are on the chopping block, verified through GameStop’s online store locator. The Texas closings are as follows:

Allen – The Village at Allen, 170 E. Stacy Rd
Arlington – Little School Road Shops, 1245 N. Little School Rd
Austin – Ben White Payload Center, 500 E. Ben White Blvd
Balch Springs – Lake June Plaza, 12209 Lake June Rd
Boerne – Menger Crossing, 1375 S. Main St
Cedar Park – Lakeline Plaza, 11066 Pecan Park Blvd
Conroe – Conroe Center, 1231 N. Loop 336 W
Corpus Christi – Padre Island Drive, 1805 S. Padre Island Dr
Corsicana – Corsicana Marketplace, 3811 W. Highway 31
Dallas – Glen Oaks Crossing, 4787 Vista Wood Blvd
El Paso – Alameda Town Center, 9411 Alameda Ave
El Paso – Fountains at Farah, 8889 Gateway West Blvd
Fort Worth – Clifford Retail, 301 Clifford Center Dr
Garland – Ridgewood Village, 2930 S. First St
Houston – Beechnut Street Houston, 10100 Beechnut St
Houston – Bellaire Gessner Center, 8880 Bellaire Blvd
Houston – Market at Uvalde, 13706 East Fwy
Houston – Market Square, 13341 Westheimer Rd
Houston – Oxford Plaza, 10407 North Fwy
Houston – Royal Oaks, 11807 Westheimer Rd
Houston – Wayside Shopping Center, 900 S. Wayside Dr
Huntsville – Ravenwood Village, 245 Interstate 45 N
Irving – MacArthur Park, 7601 N. MacArthur Blvd
Lake Jackson – Lake Jackson Shopping Center, 121 Highway 332 W
La Marque – LaMarque Crossing, 6408 Interstate 45
Laredo – Laredo Crossing Shopping Center, 4415 S. Zapata Hwy
Leon Valley – 5601 Bandera Rd
Lubbock – 7th St Lubbock, 1803 Seventh St
Magnolia – Westwood Village, 33020 FM 2978 Rd
Mansfield – Mansfield Crossing, 1301 E. Debbie Ln
Marble Falls – Highland Lakes, 2400 US Highway 281
McKinney – Lake Forest Crossing, 4100 S. Lake Forest Dr
Mesquite – Town East Mall, 2050 Town East Mall
Mission – Shary Plaza, 808 S. Shary Rd
Palmhurst – Palmhurst Shopping Center, 4416 N. Conway Ave
Paris – Paris Corners, 3842 Lamar Ave
Saginaw – Cross Pointe Shopping Center, 1453 N. Saginaw Blvd
San Antonio – Alamo Quarry Market, E. 255 Basse Rd
San Antonio – Blanco Road, 7117 Blanco Rd
San Antonio – Huebner Oaks Center, 11745 W. I-10
San Antonio – Northwoods Phase III, 1742 N. Loop 1604 E
San Antonio – Walzem Plaza, 5366 Walzem Rd
Stephenville – Stephenville Shopping Center, 2811 W. Washington St
Sulphur Springs – Sulphur Springs Corners, 1707 S. Broadway St
Terrell – Terrell Corner, 1888 W. Moore Ave
Tyler – State Highway 64 Tyler, 3842 State Highway 64 W
Watauga – Watauga Town Crossing, 8004 Denton Hwy

video games retail closings