Also, oh, look! Here I am, linking to a MySpace page! It's the MySpace page of an Internet cafe called i Browse (oh, dear!) The reason I link to it is because it is located right down the street from the apartment in which I lived for a while when I was 19. The neighborhood was nothing remotely resembling trendy in those days, but it apparently is now. I'm trying to remember what was in that storefront when I lived down the street.
I think it was one of those places that always had "Going out of Business" signs papered over its windows and sold overstocked crap, such as holiday decorations out of season. These places would be around for years, never keeping their promise to go out of business, and were the despair of every marginal suburban business district around L.A. in the years when shopping malls were beginning to drain away their custom. These days, crap of the sort they used to vend in those stores is usually sold in those places commonly called dollar stores (the dollar stores don't pretend to be going out of business, though.) But that's the sort of neighborhood it was when I lived there-- dull and a bit down at the heels. When I was 19, I'd probably have preferred the neighborhood the way it is now. Now that I've grown dull and a bit down at the heels myself, I think I'd prefer it the way it was then.
