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This is why a guy in a fat suit and fake beard shouldn’t try rappelling from one level of a mall to the next, especially if kids are watching. I hope that mall gives out gift cards that repair shattered childhood dreams!
–via Geekologie
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When the New South China Mall opened in 2006, it was marked as another wonder of the world for China and the world’s largest mall. Today, it has an occupancy rate of only 2%.
“Sometimes tour groups come here from [nearby cities] Guangzhou or Shenzhen,” said Hu Xiaocui, a bored ticket taker at the Teletubbies playroom that is the only functioning business on the mall’s third floor. “But they don’t show them the empty parts.”
Only 47 of an astonishing 2,350 retail spaces are filled, the most successful businesses being McDonalds and KFC restaurants near the mall’s front entrance. Fast-food wrappers and empty paper cups litter ghostly hallways in other parts of the complex. The elevators and lights are switched off, and voices echo off atrium ceilings four storeys high.
“We only sweep near the Teletubbies playroom. The other floors – what’s the point?” laughed a member of the cleaning staff. “No one ever did any shopping here, even when there were stores. It was too expensive.”
Two things I would do here: run up the down escalator and create a secret living space.
A shopping center in Perth, Scotland was flooded with small red balls when a contest went awry. An Alfa Romeo was filled with balls for a “guess how many” contest at St. John’s Shopping Centre to benefit Comic Relief. However, the contest organizers failed to ensure that all the car doors were locked. A child, thought to be about three years old, opened the passenger door and released hundreds of balls.
Crowds gathered and cheered the farcical scene as several of the centre’s security team battled to gather up the balls, while many young children were seen making off with a few.
Siobhan McConnell, the shopping centre manager, said: “This was a bit more comic relief than we had originally planned.
Most of the balls were eventually retrieved, and the contest will resume this Friday. Link -via Arbroath
When a TV show has been running as long as The Simpsons has, you get to know its fictional world pretty well. Jeff Wysaski took the information from the show and mapped out all the stores in the Springfield Mall for your convenience. This is only a small detail of the entire upper-level and lower-level map at Pleated Jeans. Link
Oh, this should be good. Apple has had a good and long run wow-ing the public with their hip iPhones and iPads in their oh-so-sleek Apple stores in malls, and Microsoft isn’t going to take it anymore: the boys of Redmond are opening up their own store (bigger, in fact) in the Mall of America, directly in front of the Apple store.
Techi’s got the story (and the video clip):
I can see it now: Apple’s ‘Geniuses’ folding their arms and glaring across the hallway at Microsoft’s … ‘Experts’, or whatever they end up calling their employees (do they already have a name?), who glare back in kind. What I’d really like to see, though, is all sorts of Spy Vs. Spy shenanigans happening between the stores. If life were only like that.
What do you think the Microsofters that work there should be called? I propose Best Servicepeople On Demand. T-Shirt from the NeatoShop for the best entry (write down what you want along with your comment, otherwise you forfeit the prize, mmkay?). Have fun!
Update 10/29/10 – Fishbowl wins with “Paperclip,” but forfeited the prize.
Forget the teenage audio repellent we posted about on Neatorama before. A mall in New Zealand will use Barry Manilow songs instead to get rid of its pesky mall rats:
“The intention is to change the environment in a positive way … so nobody feels threatened or intimidated,” Central City Business Association manager Paul Lonsdale told The Associated Press. “I did not say Barry Manilow is a weapon of mass destruction.” [...]
The city council, police and local property owners covering 410 businesses agree that “nice, easy listening” music like Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You,” “Mandy” and other hits might change the behavior of loitering teens.
Link – via stratoblogster
From the Upcoming 
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