The Return Of Mechasmack

What the hell is up with all the loading zones on North Avenue near Milwaukee and Damen?

One thing I have always enjoyed about the Bucktown / Wicker Park area was the bounty of places to shop and hang out at night. And you could usually find a parking spot within two blocks of the activity. In the past couple of years the entire neighborhood has changed and it's almost become Lincoln Park West. That in itself isn't so bad, but now there's a new pain in the ass - Loading Zones.

You used to be able to find a spot on North Ave without searching too much but now it seems a third of strip from Ashland to Damen is loading zones. All these places have valet parking now, which is nice, but they cut out way too many legitimate parking spots to facilitate this. Last night I had to pass up a ton of open spaces because they were loading zones until 10pm. WTF? And after I finally found an open meter, I encountered two women who were confused through no fault of their own as they couldn't figure out if the spot where they parked was legal or not because there were three parking signs that seemed to indicate you couldn't park there anytime but luckily there was a 12 foot length of curb was it was ok. Lucky for them.

My car is making noises anyway. Maybe I should just give it up and join the hipsters on their bikes.

I have a feeling I'm going to find something to bitch about all week.

Today was the first day I rode the train since before Christmas. And in addition to the bright new lights at the stop near me, I got the sticker shock. The price went up by 50 cents. That's an extra $20 a month!! In these hard economic times I need to be saving as much money as I can for beer!

Steve Jobs decided to skip MacWorld yesterday. There's all this talk about his failing health. IMHO, that's his business and people need to respect his privacy. And people need to start getting ready for Apple without Jobs at the helm. Yes, he's become the icon of innovation for the company, but he can't do it forever unless they're working on a Steve Jobs android.

So let the bitching continue!! Apple caved in to the record companies' demand for variable pricing for tracks on iTunes. In return we get DRM-free music. Coolz!! But what about all the stuff I already bought from iTunes with DRM on it you ask? Oh, you can get it de-DRM-ed, but it's gonna cost you. 30 cents per track. So they're charging us again for something we already paid for? And if that's not shitty enough, you can't do it for individual songs. It's all or nothing. So that would cost me about $480. Yeah right.

I'm sure I've bitched about this before, but it something that gets me slightly riled up every few months or so.

Women need to learn to hold the door for people behind them!!

I'm not asking for anyone to go out of their way to be nice to me. I'm certainly not asking women to be chivalrous. I'm just asking for a little common courtesy. Maybe it's their parents' fault. When I was a child, my parents taught me that it's polite to notice if someone is entering a door behind you and to hold the door for them. This seems to be an accepted practice here in the United States of America. It's really not that hard to be somewhat aware of your surroundings, especially in public places during your commute to work. You just got off a train with about 50 other people. Maybe one of them is walking about 3 feet behind you and would appreciate not having a door slam in their face. And it's even worse when the person in front of YOU holds the door and you just slide through without even holding it for yourself.

Now I know that it's not only women that do this. It's just mostly women. Perhaps it's because men are taught to be gentlemen and ladies sort of expect to have doors held open for them but don't think about holding doors for anyone else. In any case we could all try to be a little more considerate to our neighbors.