The Ottawa Citizen (really The Vancouver Sun – just regurgitated back east) gives us the “lowdown” on the new Loden Hotel:

Its hip interiors, created by an award-winning San Francisco design firm, were designed to appeal to business travellers with a keen sense of style — movers and shakers in the entertainment, design and fashion industries, the kind of people who wouldn’t think twice about spending $750 for a pair of designer jeans.

And they’ll get style in spades at the Loden. There’s nothing bland or boring here — from bottom to top, the hotel exudes post-modern chic.

The otherwise understated lobby gets a hit of drama from a double-sided zebra onyx fireplace, which also fronts into the lounge of the 80-seat Voya restaurant headed by executive chef Marc-André Choquette, formerly of the top-rated Lumière.

In the compact guest rooms, a chocolate brown marble floor segues into boldly patterned carpeting, set off by a punchy orange velvet chaise and sleek Scandinavian-style wood cabinets.

Adding an über-cool touch is a sliding wall that lets you open up the streamlined bathroom to the sleeping area.

And you’ll know for sure you’re in the city where Lululemon was born when you open the hall closet — inside, you’ll find a yoga mat, which will come in handy when you tune in the all-yoga channel on the flat-screen TV.

In the piece, reporter Joanne Blaine had me until she employed the “über” gambit, a relatively new journalistic device used to aggrandise one’s hip cred. I’m no arbiter of etymological exactitude, but I do know that usage of this German word (from the Latin super and the English over, as in “overlord”) in everyday conversations (and writings) of people over the age of 18 is done, like Betamax, Atkins, and The West Wing. Though marginally tolerable a few years ago, even in print, I suspect it’s now an unflattering badge of squareness, especially with the cool kids. I certainly bit my lip, and I’m so far from cool that using über in a sentence would be the least of my worries. Just sayin’ is all. No hard feelings.