Name: Alderwood Mall, aka "Lynnwood Mall"
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Atmosphere: Decidely Christmassy.
Coffee: At least Tully's, Starbucks
Anchors: The Bon, Nordstrom, Sears, JC Pennys

Alderwood Mall is a tall, single story Mall hung with elephant-sized wreaths. As I walk through the tiled halls of this Northgate clone, my nostrils are assaulted by some sort of orangey perfume. Everywhere. The folks here are a little more inclined to wear sweaters than leather, and as of 10 AM on a weekday, I seem to mostly be seeing the Mom of two crowd. There is this one other guy in this Starbucks with a laptop, hunting and pecking away madly. I haven't developed a prototype for this kind of user yet. They have obviously been using computers, or at elast keyboards for a while, as their typing speed is much higher than, say, 2 wpm. But they don't use all their fingers, or even the first two or three. It's just hi-speed hunt-n-peck all the way.

The way the weekly told it, this place is "exactly as good as the Cha Cha Lounge". I love quoting this. The humor lies in the comparison between something huge and generic, and something tiny and unique. Not to say that the Cha Cha lounge is an especially great place to be, unless you like confined spaces filled with flamboyant effeminate dudes. The mall, I have to say, isn't as bad as I thought it would be. But we'll see what I think after two more hours of this. (Maybe. I might be out of batteries. Hunt-n-peck is bogarting the power outlet here. He's also trying to read and type at the same time. Maybe he's learning perl?)

What was I going to talk about? Well, the guy that drove me here in a brand new Volvo V70 something or other, probably an XC, was named Kenny. Kenny was the strong, silent type. Well, maybe not quite strong - more like, gangly post-adolescent. I got dropped off at the food court without so much as a "You're welcome". That's okay Kenny, I know you might have a cold or something. I do.

Lynnwood is the kind of place where people collect beanie babies and write NaNoWriMo No's about life from their cat's point of view. There are a lot of tire stores, and plenty of people qualified to staff them. Overalls satisfy the dress code at the local Red Lobster.

Well, I'm running out of coffee. I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't sit around at the local Starbucks and snipe at the locals. Perhaps I'll go to some kinda arcade around here and waste my precious quarter collection? I'm carrying ten bucks in Q right now.

Boy, I'm actually pretty excited about this snow tire thing. I've only ever driven on my hoity-toity performance tires. Ride is pretty rough on those things. They're intended to provide uncompromised handling. Compromised comfort. They're also vulnerable to parking damage, since the tires have a lower profile than a typical curb. Pull up too close and you get a bone-shuddering scrape and aluminum alloy particles on the sidewalk. Ouch. The rims themselves are thousands to replace. I'm not even sure they're available anymore, and I'm really overly fond of the design. SNOW tires are going to be all phat and treadworthy. I imagine it will be a lot more like driving on marshmallows. Softer ride, crappier handling, boingy stops... I can't wait.

If I were going to talk to the complete strangers around me, the most interesting conversation I could have would involve gossip with their close friends. And since I can't provide any similiarly juicy stories about my friends (I guess I could mention the salacious info about Ed and Karen), there's no stake in it for them, unless they just really like to talk.

I wonder if I look like I'm writing something worthwhile? I'm not! Hey everybody, I'm just writing for no reason at all! I'm bored! Your fucking mall looks exactly like northgate and tacoma mall and probably south center! What's the fuck with this? Only get alloted one mall design per state? Shit man, we got at least four completely different malls in Hawaii. Plus the sixth biggest mall in the world. We're a mass commerce mecca.

I notice I'm still referring to Hawaii as "we". Is this a similiar condition to where you leave your job, and for weeks you're still talking about your old company as "we"? Or is your home state a more permanent affiliation, like your religion or alma mater. Oh yeah, Castle High School. My alma mater is a strange source of pride. The education provided there is inconsistent at best, and aggressively terrible at worst. That isn't to say I didn't have a couple of good teachers there - in fact, CHS employs probably the best AP Calculus instructor in the state. But I had some really, really lame ones. I had classes which were staffed by substitute teachers most of the time. (Sub teachers have no qualifications. They're just like babysitters. It's like getting grampaw to substitute tech support, and all he does is stay on the line and yodel.) Despite that, I made it out of Hawaii and somehow learned how to program a computer. Perhaps it's all that time I spent outside of school fucking around with, excuse me - ADDICTED TO - my computers. Well anyway, I'm unhappy that my mother tried to keep them from me. Who knows how much of my valuable early brain never saw concepts I need to recall quickly so often these days. I coulda been smarter, ma. Me program pretty some day.

Well I suppose I better come up with something else to do pretty soon. This other guy with the laptop has been here the whole time, though. In fact, everyone here except the two loud women next to me have been here the whole time. I guess I don't have to leave until hunt-n-pech leaves. Oop. There go my nearest neighbors. I'm hungry, come to think of it. Perhaps I will carry on my laptop usage in someplace less traditionally suited to the black turtleneck-clad computing elite. like arbys. ya never see guys on laptops in arbys. Mostly guys wearing john deere hats and jowls.

Well, what the hell am I going to do? Eat, I spose. Explore the mall some more, find out what's out there. Christmas shop? Fuck that noise - I hate christmas.

Name: SR 99
Location: Edmonds, WA
Atmosphere: Midday break
Coffee: Starbucks
Anchors: Kmart, various car lots, Factory Direct Tire Sales

Well, I'm now in Edmonds. It's not a big improvement over Lynnwood, but it is better. I'm in starbucks next to a table for two cops, discussing their police careers. One of them is left handed (glock on left) and has a stripe down his pants. I've always wondered about the strip on the police uniform pants - it reminds me of marching band uniforms. Is it for visibility? To make the pants unstealable? Or just because a uniform is supposed to look a certain way and we've established some kind of stripey tradition? Well, anyway, now one of them has gone off to get caramel machiattos or something, so I don't want to attract too much attention from the stripey one that's left.

I'm getting my [car's] tires aligned at the moment. The ride is definately bouncier. I don't have as much cornering power, but It seems easier to get around my garage for some reason. Maybe I somehow have a shorter turning radius? I'm not scared of curbs anymore either. And normally, when I go through a big puddle on the road, there's a definate difference in the feel of the car as it passes through... extra drag. Helen once described it as "pushing water", and that's what you're doing, I think. Hydroplaning, pushing water to stay on top of it, like a hydrofoil. Except that you don't want to do that in a car. These tires cut through the water, I guess. I stick to the road like a big melty marshmallow.

0.0 / 429.6