One of the best presents to New Yorkers this season: today's $700 million takeover of Duane Reade.

Founded in 1960 on the corner of Duane and Reade Streets, Duane Reade has become the city's most prominent drugstore chain. Unfortunately for consumers, prominent has also meant unwieldy -- with empire-hungry managers intent on planting outposts at every Manhattan intersection, stock reliability suffered while sloppiness reigned.

Nearly every time I visited a Duane Reade in the last year, makeshift displays of re-purposed shipping cartons made for claustrophobic aisles, while magically, whatever I needed happened not to be available. The jingle, "Everywhere you go, Duane Reade," said it all--that mentality was precisely the problem.

Hopefully, Duane Reade's exit from the public equity markets will mean a change from the transparent strategy of inflating valuation through increased visibility. Margins have dwindled from 26% to 22% as consumers have migrated to chains run by more intelligent managers (the economy is not an explanation--people do not need less toothpaste). Half as many stores with a full stock of products (and maybe even clean, walkable aisles?) would be a good place to start.

For now, I continue to use an online retailer for all contact lens solution--why assume any risk of hassle? Maybe that will change in 2004.

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The next post will be on Tuesday, January 6, 2004. Happy holidays.

I try to buy store brand products at supermarkets whenever possible. For some items, such as paper towels, it makes perfect sense. Sometimes the store brand is even better than national brands. For example, Price Chopper salsa (available at Price Chopper supermarkets in the Berkshires) is better than any national brand I've tasted.

However, I am disappointed by the America's Choice brand frozen waffles I bought at the Food Emporium. They are too bland and heat unevenly: the top is undercooked while the bottom turns brown from overcooking. This never happens with Eggo waffles. I'll have to go back to those next time.

I enjoyed the inaugural bi-weekly column by Daniel Okrent, the new public editor of The New York Times. In discussing how a reporter with a recently published book covered a pharmaceutical issue, Okrent made the correct argument that the appearance of conflict is what a paper must avoid.

This is why the Times Company's ownership interest in the Boston Red Sox is indefensible. Even worse, the Times hasn't disclosed this ownership at the most important times -- for example, in a NYT editorial regarding a possible Major League Baseball strike. When the Times first acquired this interest, its PR person said that there was a conflict only if Times reporters were controlled by management in the way they covered the Red Sox. Under Okrent's more stringent test, this argument is totally wrong.

The appearance of conflict is also bad business. Does anyone really trust MSG Network for real analysis of management problems of the Knicks and Rangers? The insight and credibility of Al Trautwig, Marv Albert and Sam Rosen are wasted because, whatever rules the network has regarding commentary, they appear to be puppets of Cablevision. SportsDesk used to have one of sports television's best hosts, Bob Page, until he criticized Rangers management (correctly) one time too many.

At least it's common for TV commentators and sports teams to be under the same management umbrella. When the Times bought part of the Red Sox, the stated business purpose was to create synergy between New England print, radio and television media and the sports team--in other words, precisely to set up the appearance of conflicts that now are almost never disclosed.

I just got a new multi-band cell phone, the Siemens S46, to make up for delinquent GSM network coverage in my apartment. I'm still learning all the configurations, but here are the five most important aspects I've already handled:

5) The desktop charger. You don't need a desktop charger to charge the phone battery, but the cost is a small price to pay for avoiding irritation. This way the phone end of the power cord doesn't fall down from my desk when I remove the phone.

4) Voice dial entries. It's easy to import data from your computer to your phone, but voice dial information isn't syncable. Voice dial isn't necessary to use the phone, but once you are accustomed to using it to call certain people, going back is impossible.

3) Locate (lack of) call timer. I like to know how long a call lasted at the end. However, Siemens somehow forgot to add this basic feature to the phone. Fortunately, I have unlimited night and weekend minutes, although a call timer is also useful for work that is billable per hour. I will have to check my watch more diligently.

2) Set phone to vibrate. I like my phone on vibrate all the time. It's less annoying for me, and for everyone else. Unlike my previous phone, the Motorola 720, this phone actually stays on vibrate when it is charging. The Motorola changes from "vibrate" to "loud" (ring) when you charge it.

1) Home number speed dial. Most phones today come with the "1" key pre-programmed to speed dial your mobile phone voicemail. My other crucial speed dial setting is the "2" key to dial my home number to check messages left on my answering machine. (I'm still trying to figure out how to program my backup AT&T voicemail in a way where all 27 required digits are dialed with the proper pauses between phone number, mailbox number and PIN.)

It's impossible not to enjoy the Food Network show "Unwrapped." Its appeal, though transparent, is compelling: who couldn't be amazed at the sight of 10,000 Twinkies simultaneously being filled with cream as they proceed down massive conveyor belts and other industrial food preparation infrastructure?

Almost nobody, apparently: this show is now on every single night at 11 p.m. It will be interesting to see whether the formula becomes old from oversaturation. This should be called the "Behind the Music" phenomenon, named after the rockumentary series that made stories of fame, decline and subsequent redemption (with a new or forthcoming album) available on VH1 twenty-four hours a day.

"Unwrapped" may sustain its popularity, but if doesn't, nobody should be surprised.

Occasionally you run into an album that never drew much attention and is from a band whose time seems to have passed, but nonetheless is really good and undercredited.

Welcome to My Party by Rusted Root falls into this category. Rusted Root is best known for its mid 90s hit "Send Me On My Way," a cheery, upbeat song bursting with chant-inflected vocals and earthy neo-Deadhead instrumentation. Welcome to My Party, released six years later, features a decidedly sanitized derivative of this sound, but in a way that doesn't deflate its character. There's less of a feeling of a Wetlands immersion but it's still unmistakably Rusted Root. I highly recommend this album.

The best deal I've gotten in awhile has to be for the microwave oven I recently ordered from Amazon. Initially, on the Target Web site, I found the same Sharp model I have for $60 plus $13 shipping. However, Amazon features a Panasonic model for $50, with a $10 rebate. In addition, this item qualifies for free shipping, so the shipping fee of $24 is waived. I hope Amazon sells enough profitable items to other consumers to sustain these kinds of savings for me.

There's a little less fat around McDonald's these days. Today the company announced it's selling its stake in Donato's Pizza and will limit the development of its Boston Market chain outside the United States.

The whole point of acquiring these interests was to mitigate against losses in its flagship burger chain propelled by increasing public disenchantment with fatty foods. But then something happened: McDonald's started to innovate from within rather than relying on bureaucracy-bulging acquisition sprees. Now with its core business buoyed by fresh menu items such as premium salads, there's less of a need for entanglement with ancillary foods.

The company's announcement is the latest in an impressive sequence of divestitures including Time Warner's dumping of Warner Music. Now maybe Cablevision can sell the Knicks and Rangers.

5) Bob Marley's Last Burrito (jerk chicken with chili and cinnamon) from Burritoville.

4) Chili with fresh green pepper, onions and tomato and chicken fingers with tomato sauce from Pizza Joint Too.

3) Aloo papri (chick peas/potato/yogurt/chutney), chicken tikka masala and saag panir (spinach with cheese) from Baluchi's.

2) Anything from Monsoon. The entire menu is superlative from beginning to end.

1) Bean curd soup (featuring large chunks of tofu with scallions in broth), sweet and sour chicken, brown rice, and broccoli with garlic sauce from Hunan Park.

Calling all e-mail application programmers: it would be so nice if I set an expiration date (in days following receipt of the message) for mail from specific senders.

I receive all kinds of newsletters of various associations and groups, some at my primary e-mail account and some using a Yahoo! Mail account that is used for mailing lists. When I first receive a newsletter or event announcement, I want to save it, because the event hasn't happened yet. Usually the message is stored away and then three months later I no longer need the last-minute airline fare specials from September. This kind of "newsletter manager" would make keeping my inbox clean a little bit easier.

For the last year or so, I've noticed that roundtrip airfares are $5 more using Yahoo! Travel (powered by Travelocity) than using the airline's own Web site. In addition, sometimes the airline offers an additional incentive, like Delta's offering 1000 SkyMiles for purchasing a ticket through its site. So I've stopped buying tickets through anywhere except airline sites.

U.S. Airways seems to have caught on. Earlier this week, it pulled its entire ticket listing from Expedia, citing excessive middleman charges. This makes perfect sense. Why should anyone pay more when they can just go to the airline's own site for the same thing? The only exception would be for special last-minute travel packages where the middleman actually adds value in combining air fare, hotel and car rental fares for a lower overall price.

All over the airwaves these days is a cover of "The Boys of Summer" by the Ataris. Unfortunately, the band does almost nothing with Don Henley's classic except speeding up the tempo. Even most of Henley's original melodic ornaments are intact. This cover qualifies as the most useless I have heard in quite some time.

The best cover I have heard is that of "Been Caught Stealing," originally by Jane's Addiction, performed by Phish. The original is defined more by electric guitar noise than by any particular music notes and seems to be the least likely candidate for performance by an ensemble that includes piano. Phish managed to pull it off, adding to its impeccable credentials as the premier cover band of the last decade.

"The Elevator Is Broken. We Apologized For the Inconvenience."

-- sign on door of Staples, 81st and Broadway

5) A Brief History of the Future: From Radio Days to Internet Years in a Lifetime, John Naughton. Part historical survey, part diary, Naughton offers an innovative examination of the Internet's technical roots--including a particularly fascinating analysis of organizational dynamics of the UNIX development team.

4) Tim McCarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans, Tim McCarver. You didn't know baseball analysis could ever be so dense, but like McCarver's on-air commentary, the book offers a relentless current of wisdom from one of the sport's true scholars.

3) The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions, William Sherden. The author steps back and offers a compelling big-picture analysis connecting meteorologists, economists, stock analysts, and others that make a living telling people what will happen next.

2) A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Burton Malkiel. In addition to being persuasive, this book about theories of stock market performance is also funny, bubbling with wit and personality--not exactly common in business books. It's still the only book about Wall Street you need.

1) Chaos: Making a New Science, James Gleick. Sixteen years later, still my all-time favorite. From an emerging field defined by complex formulas and esoteric calculations, Gleick extracts the fascinating story of the quirky but brilliant pioneers of this new science. Still the epitome of what a book about science should be.

Winter has officially kicked off this week with an Arctic blast followed by a flurry of e-mail concerning the potential winter storm for this weekend. As usual, the computer models offer varying solutions representing everything from a major snowstorm to a mix of snow and rain to a small nuisance for New York City.

Like with many East Coast winter weather events, the key factor is a bubble of cold air over Quebec and how far it spills south. It has to spread far enough south so the air remains cold enough to offset any onshore winds (water temperatures off NYC are around 50 degrees), but be forgiving enough to allow moisture to encroach from the south into our area.

What seems most likely is a sharp cutoff in precipitation somewhere over New York and New England. Dry, cold air will dive south tomorrow night from north of Montreal while more humid air is lifted north from the Virginia/North Carolina coast. Even a small error in terms of distance may result in a blown forecast with large errors in terms of inches of snow.

Some drama at the airport this morning as a U.S. Airways flight to La Guardia was delayed because... the crew members were late. (This wasn't my flight.)

Announcements kept reverberating throughout the airport that the crew members for this flight were late. Then the announcement changed: just one crew member was late. Since I was at gate 74 and this flight was at gate 82, I don't know what happened when the guilty crew member finally arrived.

It must have been fun being on the same plane as the impatient passengers whose trip was delayed because of your personal screw-up. Maybe the announcement was too honest. The crew member could have had a good reason. They could have said something like "due to air traffic control," which nobody is able to verify. At least the flight was only an hour, and not quite as bad as, say, catching a baseball above your home team outfielder's glove.

The single most important aspect of pizza is the tomato sauce. The sauce must be bold. In addition, the amount must be generous and complement the cheese instead of being overwhelmed by it.

Too many pizzerias create multiple cheese layer pizzas only to skimp on tomato sauce. The result is a bland entity solely defined by crust and cheese.

Rigoletto, on Columbus Avenue between 69th and 70th Streets, offers one kind of pie that is especially generous. Bright, flavorful tomato sauce, with spinach mixed in, is placed over (not under) a thin layer of cheese. The result is the perfect dinner for a cold evening.

I love "news" articles that are transparent free advertisements pitched by PR departments. The most recent case in point: yesterday's article in The New York Times about employers' use of personality tests for job candidates.

These tests are incredible! Nowhere do we find any evidence that one of these tests, maybe just once, misguided a hiring decision. And who would wonder otherwise, after assurance by the Association of Test Publishers? (Looks like their PR people came to work happy this morning.)

Is it possible that the tests results are simply confirming attributes present in an already self-selecting candidate pool of people who actually choose to apply for a position? No.

Is it possible that Human Resources departments are at least partly responsible for delinquent due diligence regarding a candidate's background? Absolutely not--at least when you ask the Society for Human Resource Management.

But the most laughable part of this "news" story comes at the end. A newly hired data analyst is thankful for the opportunity to have taken the test. "I'm glad they actually care enough to determine if I am a good match," the analyst says. It turns out that making you fill out Scan-tron bubbles is the way a company shows it really values your future.

Now that's some kind of spin. Coming next from the same PR agency: traffic jams increase employee productivity, because the frequent stalling permits more time to use mobile communications tools -- pitched on behalf of the AAA.