Hypes and Gripes

Shoddy facades, breast cancer awareness, shoddy signs and iPhone snobs.

• Gripes to Heritage Cafeteria for being the lone renovation holdout in the Fremont Center, which has recently completed a most startling overhaul. Insiders tell us it’s because they own their space; that’s all well and good, but it just looks tacky—for Heritage. When a Missouri license office is more aesthetically pleasing, we say the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and most of the aughts have passed you right by. Love the chicken, though.

• Hypes to all the restaurants, salons, businesses and entertainment outfits raising money right now for Breast Cancer Awareness Month by hawking everything from pink hair extensions to pink martinis to pink ribbons—and then donating the profits to BCFO.

• Gripes to the Battlefield Mall for their ancient, broken sign at the corner of Battlefield and Glenstone. It’s been an eyesore for years—now it’s a useless eyesore, one that is a sharp contrast to the Lifestyle Center.

• Yes we want one, and yes it’s probably jealousy, but Gripes to faux-hipsters with an iPhone who feel they have to leave it sitting out on their desks or on tables at all times, even when they go to the bathroom—a waitress we know says this trend is borderline epidemic. Next time this happens, we’re grabbing the phone, if only for a few minutes; long enough, at least, for you to contemplate the horrors of having to rock a Samsung like the rest of us proles.

• We’re not sure who exactly does the promotion for Remmington’s Downtown—we suspect it’s a mish-mash of local and regional agencies—but we’re going to give them a mild Gripe. We don’t even pretend to understand the promotion game, but it’s kind of weird to have to find out about two big shows, Lifehouse (November 1) and Tech N9ne (November 6), from a venue’s MySpace page. Many smaller local groups (take local hip-hoppers, for instance) use PR—simple stuff like e-blasts to media—far more effectively.

Do you have a Hype or Gripe you'd like to voice? Leave a comment.