I just saved over twenty bucks on a textbook by buying it from Amazon’s UK site rather than the US site. It’s the same book, but it apparently costs less to sell it and ship it across the Atlantic than it does just to transport it across a couple of states. Go figure…
The high school friends people I barely knew and didn’t really like in high school have been coming out of the woodwork and accosting me on Facebook of late. I don’t really do Facebook; I find it rather annoying, and I keep my account open mostly for school purposes and because I’ve occasionally been contacted by old friends I actually did want to hear from again. But I’m thinking of pulling down my high school affiliation because there’s pretty much no one from those days that I ever want to hear from again.
On a completely unrelated note, it was a beautifully cold, gray, rainy day today, and I noticed this view out my window at work. The photo doesn’t really capture it at all, but the combination of the rooftop, the smokestack/chimney thing in the background (that you can’t really see), and the overall gloom sort of gave this really enticing Dickensian London feel.
Again, the photo doesn’t really capture it. maybe I should’ve skipped it. Oh well.
This article about a group of downtown Winston-Salem condos going up for auction at potential bargain basement prices was no big surprise. The project involved struck me as a little bit questionable right from the start. It’s sort of far-removed from the “action” and it’s one of those generic, tacky, cheap-looking (and overpriced) developments that you’re seeing downtown in almost all cities now, with a barely-concealed first floor garage and some pitiful and essentially useless street-level retail that’s included because of zoning ordinances rather than because anyone really wants it. These types of developments invariably look almost more like subsidized housing than the “luxury” units they’re supposed to be.
But get this:
Selling the remaining 17 residential units, along with one remaining commercial space, has become a sticking point that’s holding back future phases for the project, Furman said, which led to the idea for the auction.
Let me get this straight. They’re auctioning these things off for next to nothing so that they can move on to the next phase of the project and build even more of the bloody things even though they couldn’t even unload the first group?
Meanwhile, of course, actual downtown housing that people might actually buy has languished for two years across from the new downtown stadium (which itself displaced a whole downtown neighborhood), so that it can eventually be bulldozed to create parking lots or sports bars or whatever the hell is planned for that area.
Of course, building additional housing in the stadium area might have (gasp) involved working within the existing urban framework rather than wholesale clearance (and wouldn’t have resulted in government subsidies for the stadium). Even worse, the existing residents of that area were insufficiently upscale and white, which doesn’t look good when you’re doing “”Emerald City” planning, which is apparently the only kind that’s been considered in most inner-city areas for the past decade or so.
Right now, this (lack of) planing has resulted in Winston-Salem getting two blighted areas for the price of one: the one that was built and then abandoned for no good reason and the one that probably shouldn’t have been built to begin with.
Great article in today’s LA TImes about my favorite eatery in downtown Los Angeles (or anywhere in Los Angeles, for that matter). Every time I see Clifton’s, I’m afraid it will be the last, but I’m really encouraged to see that the family now owns the building, at least.
I need to visit Clifton’s again. It’s been almost six years.
Interestingly enough, the textbook I bought from Amazon UK because it was cheaper than buying it domestically arrived today with a flyer for a service contract from British Gas that might have saved me money on my boiler as well.
Assuming, of course, that the boiler and I were in the UK.
Night
Hot Summer Night, 1979
For counterpoint, check out the original as well.
So maybe someone really will hire me some day:
When the world entered the digital age, a great majority of human historical records did not immediately make the trip.
Literature, film, scientific journals, newspapers, court records, corporate documents and other material, accumulated over centuries, needed to be adapted for computer databases. Once there, it had to be arranged — along with newer, born-digital material — in a way that would let people find what they needed and keep finding it well into the future.
The people entrusted to find a place for this wealth of information are known as digital asset managers, or sometimes as digital archivists and digital preservation officers. Whatever they are called, demand for them is expanding.
Why is it that so many people expect transit projects to pay for themselves, but no one ever expects highway projects to?
Just wondering.
As regular readers know, I used to be a pretty heavy cigarette smoker. I quit over five years ago and have never looked back.
I also swore at the time that I would never become a self-righteous ex-smoker, and that I still thought banning smoking in bars was a rotten idea. Now that I don’t smoke, I generally tend to patronize restaurants where smoking is not allowed, or at least where there’s a very well-segregated smoking section. Granted, it’s easier now that most restaurants (even dumpy diners) are smoke-free by choice even here in Cigarette City. And, of course, I pretty much don’t go to bars at all anymore. For years, I’ve been a firm believer that smoking bans in restaurants and bars should be a market-driven decision by the owners of the businesses in question, not a legislative requirement.
But…
Lately, I’ve started to become swayed by the argument that California used ten years ago: that smoking really is a workplace health and safety issue. While customers can choose where to eat, many employees can’t choose where to work, especially in the current economy. Is it right to force these workers to expose themselves to a known toxin just to save smokers the mild inconvenience of having to light up outside? I’m starting to think it’s not. Maybe I’m going soft in my old age.
Invariably, even here in Winston-Salem, smoking sections are increasingly empty. I’m pretty sure that most restaurants, despite what they say publicly, really want a smoking ban. No sane restaurant owner wants to deal with the extra cleaning issues or (more importantly) the reduction in customer turnover that come with smoking. Privately, I’m sure most would support a smoking ban because it would allow them to institute a policy they already want without having to accept the responsibility for doing so.
Even though it’s still tempting because bars are inherently dangerous places to begin with, I guess this means that consistency won’t really allow me to make an exception for them, either.
Please forgive me.
Donna Destri
Rebel Rebel, 1984