3 Day Blinds

Q. We have a ceramic tile floor in our bathroom, and, over the years, the grout has become stained. I've heard of a grout colorant that works as a dye, changing the color of grout. How does it work, and how easy is it to apply? S.B. Yorba Linda A. Colorant works like a paint; it has a sealer mixed in it, and it's useful for people who want to bring their grout back to its original color, says Richard Sneyd of Tileville in Garden Grove.

There's 4-Day Tire, 3-Day Blinds, and now, 3-Day Suit Brokers, a men's clothing store whose time may have come. These stores have discovered that by limiting the days of operation they can cut their overhead tremendously and afford to offer low prices on their products. 3-Day Suit Brokers, open just a few weeks, is one of the first retail apparel operations in the Los Angeles area to adopt this concept, and it is open only Friday through Sunday.

Their voices move imaginations, widen smiles, even refresh our fantasies. So we pump up the volume when Casey's bedroom chuckle and Jack's easy nuances make foreplay of radio commercials for Shedd's Country Crock. Or Beringer Wines. Or 3-Day Blinds. Clearly, their marriage must be an endless honeymoon. In our minds, Tom Bodett is a fictional character. Or he could be an actor taking a cue from Garrison Keillor's cracker barrel. Maybe he's the president of Motel 6 looking to break into show biz.

America's Olympic basketball "Dream Team" could soon become a marketing nightmare. Although 15 major corporate sponsors--from McDonald's to AT&T--will together invest more than $100 million for advertising and promotions that link their products and services to the team of top professionals, there is growing speculation by marketing consultants that this huge investment could be a bust. Advertisers initially viewed the team as the marketing opportunity of a lifetime.

The landscape is already littered with remnants of the go-go 1980s. BMW automobile sales cascaded as the German mark strengthened. Pasta salads became passe. Executive women are eschewing the navy-blue power suit. Then there is the mini-blind. The popularity of mini-blinds soared in the '80s. Mini-blind dealers joined video stores and fitness clubs among the hot new-business ventures of the decade. Now, however, mini-blind sales are as flat as day-old Perrier.

Dictation? Toss out those steno pads, forget that shorthand. These days, bosses can write their own letters on their own personal computers. Need to schedule a meeting for 50 staffers? Let a PIM (personal information manager) in your computer scope out everyone's calendar, send E-mail invitations and record the RSVPs. Add another figure to the list of endangered species: the traditional office secretary.

Enter the night. The province of possums, bats, night-shift workers and insomniacs among us. Or those who simply wish to be alive, rather than unconscious, on the other side of day: in darkness, in quiet, in peace, in defiance of structure and congestion and heat and traffic and checkout lines and TV noise and drive-time radio and lunchtime voices that announce, "No. 22, you're order is ready." Thanks, we'll pass. It's not a loner thing. No, it's an aesthetic thing.