Hello Omni Talks Fans! Chris here, coming to you after being on medical leave for the past two and a half months.

What happened?

ESUS. Yes, ESUS. And that is not be confused with ROUS, for all you Princess Bride fans out there, either.

Yes, in early June, I had what the doctors like to call an Embolic Stroke from an Undetermined Source. Out of nowhere, I lost complete control over the right side of my body and couldn't talk.

Fortunately, I happened to be working out, alongside Anne's husband at the time, and he quickly noticed what was happening, and immediately called the paramedics.

Inside of 30 minutes, I was on the hospital operating table and the doctors busted up two clots in my brain and neck like they were Teddy Roosevelt.

I have virtually zero long term side effects (except maybe a little more grey hair), and thank my lucky stars each and every day that I am able now to return to my work here at Omni Talk, doing what I love -- bringing you what Anne and I hope are both insightful and sometimes funny takes on everything going on in retail each week.

And so with that all out of the way, in this week's Fast Five Podcast, Anne and I:

• Jointly laud Amazon's reported move into department stores.
• Scoff loudly at Toys R Us and Macy's new partnership.
• Call Walmart's new white label delivery service, GoLocal, pure PR sizzle with no steak.
• Love Shipt's new preferred shopper feature but worry about the precedent it sets in labor relations.
• And close with a discussion on Warby Parker, and why it just may not be the omnichannel retailing darling everyone has always made it out to be.

There's all that, plus the baseball player Anne would most want hanging as poster in her childhood bedroom and a birthday shout-out to the late, great, one and only, Mother Teresa.

Listen to This Week's Fast Five Podcast Now

Be careful out there,

-- Chris, Anne, and the entire Omni Talk team

P.S. You will also notice in our main feature the release of Epsilon's brand new Future of Retail Guide. It is a great primer on all the recent and coming changes to third-party data collection and what they mean for understanding our customers as retailers.

P.P.S. Sorry to everyone who tuned in this week to hear Anne's discussion with Epsilon SVP of Client Development Lisa Collings live on LinkedIn. Let's just say LinkedIn was not our technical friend this week, and that they are still looking into what went wrong for us.

In other words, Clippy was nowhere to be found when we needed him most!

But rest easy, we will be rescheduling the event and will send you word of the new date soon.

P.P.P.S. A huge thank you to all the friends of Omni Talk that filled in on our Fast Five podcast while I was away. Big shout-outs to Carl Boutet, Steve Dennis, Oliver Banks, Sucharita Kodali, Najla Kayyem, James Cook, David Ritter, Kristin Kohler Burrows, Mohit Mohal, and Hemant Kalbag.

But the biggest shout-out of all goes to my partner, Anne Mezzenga, who aptly held down the fort and kept Omni Talk churning out great content as a one-woman operation for the past few months.

I don't know where I would be without her.