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As opposed to life within the four walls of the MCC.
It occurs to me that yesterday was a 100% junk food day. Brunch was taken at Taco Bell, while dinner was served at McDonald's. What must I have been thinking?
Perhaps I was in shock after walking around the Baybrook Mall? There have been so many changes... The Sam Goody store is gone, replaced by something called the "Build-A-Bear Workshop" (I wish them luck, but I wonder about the long-term prospects of a store that appears to cater to customers wanting custom-built teddy bears).
The Montgomery Ward is, of course, gone, and I noticed that an adjoining jewelry store had permanently abandoned its commanding position at the corner of a pedestrian intersection. The Store of Knowledge is gone. It used to have all sorts of neat stuff inside. It's been replaced by a Sharper Image. The Warner Bros. store is closing, too.
There's new construction over where the Radio Shack used to be, but like the ubiquitous cockroach, there's really no getting rid of Tandy stores. It just shifted locations. The store that sold games (and which had the absolutely best selection of chess sets I'd ever seen) is gone, replaced by something called Yankee Candle, which is still under construction.
The store that sold videos is gone. A shop that sold all sorts of electronic gizmos, à la Sharper Image, not only is gone, but the store that replaced it - they sold kitchen gadgets - is gone and in its place stands a Spencer Gift store.
The shop that sold products intended to raise consciousness about the environment is gone too, replace by I forget what.
Across Bay Area, the Bookstop has been closed, but that was to be expected ever since Bookstop and Barnes & Noble did the corporate "marriage" bit last year. I was always a sucker for their "frequent buyer" card, and although B&N was kind enough to convert my Bookstop card into a B&N one, it's just not the same. I first ran into the Bookstop concept over on Alabama, near Westheimer (if memory serves) over on the west side of Houston back before we came to live here (heck, back before we moved to California). The store there was (and still is, as far as I know) inside the old Alabama theater, with bookracks standing in the balcony and down in the main hall, where the seats used to be.
The second half of the shift was pretty hectic last night, and it didn't help that a few folks on the Russian end of the wire tended to mumble here and there. I must've asked for people to repeat themselves about half a dozen times, and misunderstood what was said a couple of times, which resulted in incorrect interpretation and a couple of moments of confustion, but I managed to repair the situation and eventually get the message across.
When I got home, I was very tired, as evidenced by the fact that - for the first time since arriving here - I got a full 8 hours of sleep. Although that's good, on the one hand, it also means I have only... 4 hours to go before having to start to get ready to go in to work.
Of course, one contributing reason to the sudden influx of junk food in my life is the utter lack of any cookable food in the house. So... is there a trip to the food market in my immediate, foreseeable future? or shall I again avail myself of the good offices of the folks at Taco Bell?
I shall delegate that decision to my stomach as I go shower.
Cheers...
It occurs to me that yesterday was a 100% junk food day. Brunch was taken at Taco Bell, while dinner was served at McDonald's. What must I have been thinking?
Perhaps I was in shock after walking around the Baybrook Mall? There have been so many changes... The Sam Goody store is gone, replaced by something called the "Build-A-Bear Workshop" (I wish them luck, but I wonder about the long-term prospects of a store that appears to cater to customers wanting custom-built teddy bears).
The Montgomery Ward is, of course, gone, and I noticed that an adjoining jewelry store had permanently abandoned its commanding position at the corner of a pedestrian intersection. The Store of Knowledge is gone. It used to have all sorts of neat stuff inside. It's been replaced by a Sharper Image. The Warner Bros. store is closing, too.
There's new construction over where the Radio Shack used to be, but like the ubiquitous cockroach, there's really no getting rid of Tandy stores. It just shifted locations. The store that sold games (and which had the absolutely best selection of chess sets I'd ever seen) is gone, replaced by something called Yankee Candle, which is still under construction.
The store that sold videos is gone. A shop that sold all sorts of electronic gizmos, à la Sharper Image, not only is gone, but the store that replaced it - they sold kitchen gadgets - is gone and in its place stands a Spencer Gift store.
The shop that sold products intended to raise consciousness about the environment is gone too, replace by I forget what.
Across Bay Area, the Bookstop has been closed, but that was to be expected ever since Bookstop and Barnes & Noble did the corporate "marriage" bit last year. I was always a sucker for their "frequent buyer" card, and although B&N was kind enough to convert my Bookstop card into a B&N one, it's just not the same. I first ran into the Bookstop concept over on Alabama, near Westheimer (if memory serves) over on the west side of Houston back before we came to live here (heck, back before we moved to California). The store there was (and still is, as far as I know) inside the old Alabama theater, with bookracks standing in the balcony and down in the main hall, where the seats used to be.
The second half of the shift was pretty hectic last night, and it didn't help that a few folks on the Russian end of the wire tended to mumble here and there. I must've asked for people to repeat themselves about half a dozen times, and misunderstood what was said a couple of times, which resulted in incorrect interpretation and a couple of moments of confustion, but I managed to repair the situation and eventually get the message across.
When I got home, I was very tired, as evidenced by the fact that - for the first time since arriving here - I got a full 8 hours of sleep. Although that's good, on the one hand, it also means I have only... 4 hours to go before having to start to get ready to go in to work.
Of course, one contributing reason to the sudden influx of junk food in my life is the utter lack of any cookable food in the house. So... is there a trip to the food market in my immediate, foreseeable future? or shall I again avail myself of the good offices of the folks at Taco Bell?
I shall delegate that decision to my stomach as I go shower.
Cheers...
