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Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Ah, where did the weekend go?

I didn't do anything all weekend. Well, I went to Daiso, the Aberdeen Centre's anchor tenant. $2 for anything in the store, but with a Japanese twist! What does that mean? Well, $2 metric speed wrenches for one thing, and a lot more cheap ashtrays than you would expect. Also, strange foodstuffs!

No joke, the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond has a really neat fountain. First, it's pretty big, probably about 20 m long and 6 m wide. But while I was waiting for The Lovely One and her mother to finish shopping, the fountain went into full long-form musical dancing waters mode, a production that was at least 15 minutes long, shot water up three stories, had several musical movements, and pretty moving water and light effects. Hey, maybe it was the sensory deprivation sensation you got from being in a mall where, outside of the stores, this was the only notable feature. But I was transfixed.

The history of the mall is pretty crazy. It opened in 1989, but they obviously weren't happy, so they tore the whole thing down and rebuilt it. Now, it's the Mall of the Future, to look at it. Very pretty, not too many stores yet, and my not-easily-impressed father-in-law commented on the quality of the floor tilework.

But note to the owners: put some places to sit down, darnit! Coquitlam Centre figured this out: they have sofas and easy chairs about every 150 feet in the major mallways, and they're lovely. They even have a lounge area with two big TVs and lots of couches, basically so you have a place to park husbands and children. After getting bored with Daiso, the only place to site that wasn't in the food court was the edge of the fountain. Backless marble...not very friendly.

Okay, mall critiques sound daffy. But my tendons are feeling a bit better. I'll try an extended ride to UBC and most of the way back tonight. Won't that be nice?

I feel I should comment a little on the federal election right now: the Liberals, and I'm saying this completely objectively [yeah right] have the stink of fear about their campaign right now. And while Steven Harper scares me considerably less than Vuvuc, my evil cat, even the Conservative ads make his visage look just a tetch unreal. I figured it out: through some sad quirk of hair and facial features, I think he falls into the Uncanny Valley!

Seriously, though: stink of fear. And death. The Liberals are showing an attractive desperation. I think their internal polling shows them on the kind of slide that could lead to a strong minority (or even bare majority) Conservative government.

Okay, enough politics. the new Campy crank is going on the BMX LX soon. Other bike projects: fix the commuter bike's wheel and install the new indexed shifters Imaginary Dave gave me, change the cranks on the Kilauea for shorter ones, turn that strange Italian frame I found in the garbage into yet another fixed-gear, and replace the front brake on the BMX LX so The Lovely One doesn't die trying to stop that bike.

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