Shopping in King of Prussia

Well the sun came out today this afternoon, after it rained a whole lot yesterday. I decided to drive to the King of Prussia area to do some shopping. I figured that it would make up for the night before. I originally was going to drive into Philly and do some bar-hopping Sautrday night. I drove in the city in the pouring rain, getting into the Gayborhood section around 7:30pm. Looked for some on-street parking for the next 45 minutes. Lots of police cars with their sirens going were blocking off intersections like at 12th and Pine Streets; what was going on, some kind of bomb threat or something? Anyway, traffic in the area was a mess. Needed to stop to use the bathroom, so I parked at the garage on 11th and South Streets and I walked to the Last Drop Coffeehouse on 13th and Pine and got some coffee. I could see traffic on Pine being directed up 13th. Seeing that, I had a hunch that it probably wouldn't be a good night to be in the area, so I went back to the garage (I paid $4 for that one hour in there) and drove back home in the rain and cut my losses. A bit of a waste of time and gas money, given that gas now around $3 per gallon, and it takes about a quarter of a tank to drive to Philly and back.

Anyhow today I first stopped at the Tower Records in King of Prussia. I remember when the first Tower in the Philly area opened on South Street in 1987, where my two or three per year visits were like events then. I just don't get that same feeling when I go to Tower these days, since in the past few years in the face of falling sales, they had to make cutbacks such as ceasing publication of their freebee Pulse! magazine (always good for finding out the latest rerleases and sales). The Tower in King Prussia is not as good as the ones at either South Street or the Avenue of the Arts (the later two stores have better singles section) but you can park right in front of the store without much effort and you don't have to pay the extra 1% sales tax like you do in the city. As I walked in the KoP store I heard what sounded like at first a cover of the Cure's "The Walk"--it turned out to be the Infusion Mix of that song, which was featured on Future Retro, a compilation of 80s New Wave classics given the contemporary remix treatment. As I went through the store I heard some more mixes from that album, such as the Richard X Remix of Yaz's "Situation." It sounded intersting indeed, though I didn't buy it (but I do plan to pick it up sometime soon). But I did buy a copy of the remastered Madonna CD (I still have the album on vinyl...and yes I do plan to see her in concert when she comes to Philly on July 12!) which was on sale, and a CD single of "Sick and Tired" by Anastacia for the Jason Nevins Funkrock Remix Edit.

Then I went over to the King of Prussia Mall and mostly just walked around and window shopped. You can get some good exercise by walking, since it's such as huge place. I did stop over at Sam Goody's which was having its closing out sale. Whatever CDs and DVDs were left in there were 90% off, but there wasn't much to choose from, since much of the store was picked clean. (I did pick up a limited edition copy of Maximo Park's A Cerain Trigger with a bonus CD of live tracks for only $1.39!) Stopped by Borders for some iced coffee and drove back home. All and all a good afternoon. Though I think that I won't be going to KoP as much as I did before, considering the price of gas and all that. Oh well at least I won't be tempted to spend my money as much anyway!