Hypes and Gripes

• Gripes to the City of Springfield for the mostly embarrassing results of the State Auditor’s report on city financial controls and procedures. No, there was nothing criminal, which is cool, but some of the numbers blew our mind. Like the Jordan Valley Ice Park and Car Park—they’ve cost the city $8 million in subsidies since they opened, yet now the city wants to take over a perfectly profitable skate park so it can give the park the “proper oversight”? Sounds like there are other parks (and departments, and programs) to get in order before such a move makes sense.

• Hypes to Sonic for its 2 to 4 p.m. half-price drinks special. Add one of those little airplane-sized bottles of vodka to a cranberry limeade, and you have the world’s tastiest happy hour.

• Gripes to Battlefield Mall gift cards, which lose $2.50 in value every month they go unused. Economics sucks already, ‘kay? We don’t need these crash course lessons in depreciation while we’re shopping at Old Navy.

• Hypes to the Student Book Exchange, which allows you appraise the value of your textbooks at its website, studentbookexch.com (which, as one of our friends found out, are sometimes quite low—she got nearly double when she actually brought the books in). Not only that, when you come in they give you a candy bar!

• Gripes to the jerks who robbed one of our favorite coffee joints in the early hours of Monday, December 17. All Levi Kulenkamp at Hot Shots does is make people feel good—he certainly doesn’t deserve to have his register cleaned out. But Hypes to all the people who heard the news, drove through and left donations—by the end of the day, he tells us, he had enough to cover what he and his mother lost, from their wallets and the till. That’s the real Christmas spirit!

• Hypes and Gripes to Ozark Fitness Center South for tearing out its swimming pool to build a new group fitness room. Yes, the space is badly needed, but what are all those water aerobics folks going to do for fitness, Body Pump? Where’s the love for old dudes in Speedos?

• Hypes to the non-creepy table-to-table singing man at La Fiesta Grill, who serenades diners on Friday nights. He’ll play anything on request: ¡En Español!