Words cannot begin to express how little I care about this issue. The very term "skate park", whenever raised as a miraculous panacea for the scourge of alienated youth, which is at least daily, stirs within me a veritable tempest of furious indifference.

Adolescence is a time for masturbation and shoplifting. Later on, alcohol and drug abuse, despair, hopelessness, and finally marriage. Young people need a skate park like they need a zeppelin. Doubtless a small percentage will think it pretty cool, at least for a while, but not enough to make it worth the investment.

Persistance can be a fine virtue, provided it's directed towards a worthwhile end. Otherwise it's just bone-headed idiocy. You know that skateboard trick you succesfully executed once and have ever since - day after day, week after week, month after month - been striving to duplicate, often on the footpath out in front of my house in the middle of the day while I'm trying to sleep? Chances are you will never do it again, and if you do I can guarantee nobody worth impressing will be impressed. Then there will be nothing to do except try to repeat it again. Day after day, week after week, month after month.

Seize the day, alienated young person! Go to the mall, steal something you don't need or even particularly want, then go home and have a wank. There will be plenty of time for pointless, repetitive activity when you get a job and/or a drug habit.