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WATERIDO CHROME [Minna 'hendertdorf Gerry Malliu’ ihe Whrrrioo I ,hmmt Ir welcomes Inn-n m uln- I duor tho-vshnukl he srgirert with name. address and [mum numhet and WI" he verirwd for m ( "wry No "unwed Inn-n WI” be Puhltuteai Suhlvusuuns may be l‘dllt‘d [or length. NO plrase tw hurl t ruwnghl In letters and other matt. nals \Ilhnlllll'd mthr Puhlvsher and At ' l'pll'd tor ".qu .mnu mmalnx unh llu' author hut llll' puhlnhn-v AI"! In In rust-vs m.“ frn-l\ wpru nlm r them I" mum rlumum m mlwr harm» , my m.ulmg.n1drm " " lung N! S \ullr Jul “alrrllm Ndl Il'.' our " mull "Uriress IV m hum-r I_rrtvx mo .Iml ml! Ln munlu-v Is my. " “U. ken Boss‘eld Deborah Ctandall undue Publisher Miler. m 215 limpSlluDlnb Ball] Sgt-Mun Ivnn Rarml launv Rldgwav Raglan-I Mal (Mal Man-q" human The Waterloo (Jimnicle is published every Wednesday by The Fairway Group. a division of Southern Ontario Community Newspapers Inc., a division of Southam Publications. a Can- West Company. The views of our coturnists are their own and do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper We. BL 27 5pm: Hum. En. 223 " It; St. South, Subs 201 'KrgtsrhtebthamrA, N21 1P2 Ptahrtrher. Cal w ass-2m Fax: 886-9NB E-mail: wthronicle6sentexmet Manqten Ext. 225 Album International Ntandard serial Number ISSN 033134 It? _ Andrea Bailey Salami: Salami: Audited w. circulation 26.056 "GG- Deb Dumeld Norma Cyra Letters Policy (Amman Ptblacattnos Mail Sales Ptoduct Agreement Number Cal Ban dd 136379 Melissa Hounslow Karen Duty" Clltullllon Bob Wbanar I've never heard of anything so ridicu- lous. Well. actually, that's not true. Here's another one. The other week, Mike and I decided to order those new inside-out pizza thingies from Pizza Hut (the one pizza parlour in town I know of that uses cheese with no animal rennet). I think the pizza thingies are called p'zone, or something like that. Anyway. the guy taking orders over the phone said they weren't serving them yet -» they'd have them tomorrow. So we tried again the next day. The order-taking person apologized and explained that they had the p'mne recipe and ingredients and all, but couldn't serve them because they didn't yet have the plane button on the cash register. Csuit argue with that. right? Back to Burger 1 , ' , "r ' king. I was the ‘ ' only person in r THII\G“‘ line at the drive- 1 thru that day, yet the server still > > asked me to drive ‘ my car around to ’ LI ‘ the front door, and she'd bring FF me my burger in a A” a few minutes. So , ID I did, thinking this was a bit ofa DEBORAH pain, but, again. CRANDALL _ no big deal. -=-=M=H A couple of weeks later, I was back at the same drive-thru (and. yes, I do cook every once in a while). Same thing hap- pened. I was the only person waiting at the drive-thru. yet the server asked me to drive around to the front, yada, yada, yada. This time I asked her, "Hey. how come I have to drive round to the front when there isn't even another car on Victoria Street let alone in this drive-thm?" And she told me. "Well, your car is on a pad that times how long you are waiting for your food. and because the veggie burgers take longer, it makes my service record look bad." Can you believe it?! I have a few sugges- tions. One. explain to your boss that veggie burgers lake longer to serve, and B. learn to serve veggie burgers faster. Let me interrupt myself for a minute. I love the fact that most fast-food restau- rants have added veggie burgers to their menus. The only real holdout is McDonald's, which, I understand. even fries its fries in cow lard. Any card-carrying vegetarian has absolutely no business in a McDonald's restaurant. But most have either a veggie burg or some other healthy. vegetarian choices. And I do know from experience the veggie burgers in most fast- food restaurants take longer to cook than meat burgers (not sure why. though). So on occasion, if there's a big line-up at the drive-thru, I've been asked to pull my car up out of the line so other cars could go through. Then the drive-thm-window worker person brings my burger to me in a few minutes. No ,_A,,,.,,___ big deal. Right? About a month ago. I went through the Burger King drive-thm on Vlcloria Street in Kitchener. Being herbivorous. I ordered the veggie burger, as usual. Maybe I'm just becoming an old fart, but I remember a day when quality of service meant something. I remember a time when the customer was always right, sales clerks smiled, and food wasn't fast but good. That's pretty much gone. Then again. how much service can you expect when you speak into a microphone to order your food and drive up to a window to have it served? Speaking of fast food and drive-thru restaurants, here'? a good one my you. Service, schmervice And I durum: (mm- in a while Honest m AXOTI llill 1 THING... l r , Ii, "il_tii, VIEWPOINT And. in the words of larry Smith. an econo- mist at the University ofWaterloo. this is a pros- perous part of the country, and you'd naturally expect some outflow because there are parts less aftluent than we are. Road's Scholar: It's rare that a government doesn't brag about its successes. but the PCs " think) may have missed one in not Irumpeting the sun‘s-$9 of its young driver program, Scarcely a loll: It appears that our abbreviat- ed recession has come or is coming to an end. That will come as bad news to the calamity- howlers who from the first hint of a recession start screaming the Poor Us blues. Change of Season: Here's proof that real spring is on the way: Mug- gerghavg warmthands. Prophet and boss: I suppose we all knew we paid more than we got from provincial and federal taxes. but gosh, how could we know the debit was that big? We pay aimosi a cool $900 million IE: in taxes more than we get back in grants. and brethren, that's a bit more than loose change. But Canada's Technology Triangle. which underwrote the study. isn't complaining. Quoth a spokesman, the point of releasing the informa» tion is to show the province and the feds get a good return on their investments when they spend in Waterloo Region. And there are parts, of course. where work is scarce. But. naturally some people are just born for their work-like an exterminator with flat feet. First, let us face some facts: The so-called recession hasn't cut very deeply and hasnt lasted very long. It's admitted though that people whose jobs were phased out have been surely stricken. Anyhow, as recessions go it hasn't been a bad one at all. Just compare it to the _¥v moaning from the United States and I . - you'll be listening to a recession in 1 ()\( u spades. ‘ But the word is that George Dubyah has figured out a way to solve all the economic problems of the country: Make complacency tax- able. Better the police should apologize and the program go on. It'd be a pity to see it go kaput over one police mistake. But such a fuss! There wasn't much more made over the kidnapping of the Lindbergh bapy. ranted. police shouldn't have told that fih Gn the Crime Stoppers item, but that was hardly the reason for making it a federal case and having all manner of media quit the program. It'd be a pity to see Crime Stoppers go kaput l t, ri", SAN DY ttttai FEE: But, of course, right now Waterloo has a lorri- ble image problem At the mumem it coukhit sell a fire extinguisher m loan ofArr. 1 But it's climbing by almost half ' the gap on I0th-place London. In I 1996 Lyndon had 33.066 more peo- ple, but the margin shrank by 18,6ll last year. And that means ilthe paces DY continue, greater Kitchener could RD pass London for I0th spot by 2006. It will be neat I0 pass London because it's always been such a snobby commur nity. " a lot like the Saudis in trying to blend the Mideast with Western technology. At the moment in downtoirm Saudi Arabia, they're trying to put up the world's tallest strut turt--yftyorey tent. Aching Seams: look at the reason Kitchen- er's urban area has boomed and youll look fur, ther than Waterloo. " gained ll per cent to a population of 86543. For that matter, Cambridge made a fair con- tribution of 8.8 per cent to a population of Il0,372. By contrast, Kitchener added 6.7 per cent for a population of 190.399 Yes sir, the days are long since gone when Kitchener could chortle at its m-ighbnurs over its explosive growth rate. And think of the lives that have been saved by acclimatizing the youngsters to driving safely. And not only lives lost, but lives destroyed. And with all the recalls, we're finding out how danger- ous cars can be-even before teenagers get into them. Out in front: With (natch!) Waterloo leading the way, the greater Kitchener urban has grown 8.2 per cent since 1996, a rate more than twice the national average. And we're hardly tillers of the soil any more. More that 93 per cent of Waterloo Region's citi- zens are classed as urban residents. Only Toron- to, Peel and Halton are more urbanized. That leaves York. Hamilton and Ottawa as more rural than we are. The Kitchener urban area census (Waterloo is the big winner m - ‘ in that) includes a population of IM I R ‘ 414,284 in the three cities and two of It r its four townships. Without going into details, the kids are phased in on driver's licences, and the result is a dramatic drop in the number of mishaps the youngsters have. And across this fair Dominion. only five big urban centres are grow- ing more while 21 of them haven't kept pace. We're lllh biggest-the same ranking we held in 1996-the thh biggest in 1991. I'D FATHER You NOT P66k IN THERE...