Parking in Uptown Waterloo

Personally, I'm thrilled that they're putting a small park in front of Waterloo Town Square. There are certainly other parks in the area, but none of them are adjacent to food or shopping so they have never attained "central meeting place status." I want a place where I can sit and read, surrounded by lots of other people who are socializing and eating and having a break between shopping sprees.

I can also tell you that when things get really hot in town, a park is a blessing and a parking lot a terrible curse.

But you see, the park will replace a certain number of parking spots around the shopping mall, and a lot of people are outraged by this. They say that it's hard enough to find parking in uptown Waterloo as it is, so replacing that parking lot with green space will drive people away from uptown businesses.

Now, I walk through uptown Waterloo every day so I get a pretty good sense of where people are parking. I agree that cars are constantly cruising around the entrances to Waterloo Town Square, getting frustrated because they can't find a spot...A SPOT WITHIN THIRTY FEET OF THE DOORS.

Maybe I'm just particularly able-bodied, but there is a huge free lot next to the mall -- right across Willis Way -- that is NEVER more than 1/3 full. That lot is literally a minute's walk away from Waterloo Town Square -- and by extension the rest of the uptown shops -- but most people would rather drive their cars around the entrances than walk for more than a few seconds at a stretch.

I have only recently begun driving again so perhaps I'm missing something, but I simply don't see a "parking for shoppers" problem in uptown Waterloo. There certainly seems to be a logjam of city workers who need to park in the garage adjacent to the bank -- something needs to be tweaked there during rush hour, for sure -- but if you want to park within walking distance of the shopping, YOU CAN.

I made the mistake of asking one of the nice employees in the mall when the new park would be built, and she went off on a surprising tirade about it all. Strangely, her objection was NOT to the removal of the parking spots. She said the new park would "attract all the bums, bring in more alcohol, become dangerous..."

And I was like, "the bums are already IN uptown, and the park is going to be tiny and full of businessmen on their lunch." It had never even OCCURRED to me that the park could somehow be a "safety issue," being as you'll be able to walk from one end to the other in fifteen seconds.

I can only assume that this bizarre "dangerous park" thing is a fallback complaint after somebody deflated complaint number one ("not enough parking") by monitoring the mostly-empty lot next door and presenting their results.

Sometimes I jump to conclusions without having all the facts. But until somebody can explain to me why they can't park within walking distance of uptown -- with or without the new park -- I can only assume that those folks are lazy bums who'll be surprised to learn they actually have feet.

In the Kingdom of the Sighted, the Vision-Corrected Myopic is Peer

I understand that's not a very catchy title but I felt the need to stretch an old saying, maybe because conventional wisdom has always told me to "get glasses" and I just never have...until now.

About ten feet in front of my nose, objects begin to fuzz and blur. This is one reason why I ignore you when you walk towards me on a street or in a bar; unless you have a characteristic hairstyle I simply don't know it's you. Other than needing to sit near the front of lecture halls and movie theaters this hasn't really disrupted my life.

But there was no way I was going to drive a car in that state, so part of my "I'm driving again" regimen required buying my first two pairs of glasses.

It was surprisingly easy, though apparently cannot be done all at once. I walked back and forth to Hakim Optical far too many times in order to make a vision test appointment, actually TEST my vision, pick out frames, and return on two separate days to pick up the two pairs I ordered. None of this was actually fun.

But when I put the glasses on...wow! I can see every stain on the bricks of the apartment building across the street! My cat's dandruff is suddenly apparent! My carpet needs vacuuming! Maybe I should take the glasses off and return to blissful ignorance!

Vanilla makes fun of me when I say I plan to only wear them while driving, and I see her point: when I put the glasses on it takes about ten minutes for me to stop walking like there's an invisible pit in front of me, and when I take them off I'm virtually blind for another ten minutes or so. Plus I don't really want to spend the money on another pair if I fall over and break them.

So if you see me with glasses on (probably falling down a flight of stairs because I'm not used to the way they refract my vision yet), tell me that they look good. I don't want to be like Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," implying by extension that I also don't want to die of a drug overdose, no way.

Saving the Compact Disc, One Dollar at a Time

One of my fears is that I'll wake up tomorrow morning, go out to buy a CD, and find a great big hole where the CD shop used to be. More likely the shop will have been converted into a condominium. The people who used to work at the store will yell, "why didn't you help save our business, and save the compact disc format in general?" And I'll cry, and I will be unable to buy that CD I wanted.

So today I went out to buy CDs, just to help worthwhile people keep their jobs, and to support the artists I love, and perhaps also because I enjoy buying CDs.

Here's what I picked up, a mixture of new and used:

• The Sisters of Mercy, "Floodland." A big part of my wanna-be goth highschool days, this album made me feel so credible...and it's also really good! But its sweeping grandiosity was marred by sludgy CD mastering. This is a "remastered" version, so hopefully it sounds better, and it also contains "Emma" (a much-loved B-side) and an essay about what a jerk Andrew Eldritch is (as if we needed to be told).
  
• Erasure, "Erasure." So good they named it twice! Actually I don't know if it's good at all, but it was cheap, and I've never picked up a cheap Erasure CD that I didn't like.
• The Fall, "Middle Class Revolt." I make it a habit to always buy a Fall CD when I go shopping. I buy them randomly, choosing the first one I see that I don't already own (and avoiding the live albums). I have never regretted doing this, and these 2-CD Castle Music reissues are GORGEOUS. Plus they include essays about what a jerk Mark E. Smith is.
• Skinny Puppy, "Mythmaker." Probably rotten but I feel the need to give it a chance. I bet Ogre's going to "sing." I bet I'll cringe.
• Ween, "La Cucaracha." A new Ween album is a cause for celebration. Look past the unshakable college stoner fanbase and you have two brilliant guys, writing music that simultaneously pays tribute to and improves upon every musical style you can think of. Not even Parliament funks like Ween, I'm afraid to say.
• Adam and the Ants, "Dirk Wears White Sox." I'm not a HUGE fan, but I've heard good things about this album...and it was cheap.
• The Cardigans, "Long Gone Before Daylight." I didn't buy it when it came out because I thought I'd be disappointed, after the evil lurking moroseness of "Gran Turismo." Now I realize that I like The Cardigans in all their incarnations, so there you go. I bought it.
• Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention, "Freak Out!" Again, I'm not a big fan but I have an immense respect, and supposedly this one is a gem. And it was cheap.