Local places of interests

[Kev]

Stillwater, Minnesota!

Come and visit our annoying "quaint" downtown! With really expensive resturants that look "old timey"

We have a stupid "old timey" railroad you can ride and eat dinner on, its expensive!

We have a left bridge, if a big ass boat comes down the St. Croix River the bridge goes up and road traffic gets GOD FUCKING AWFUL!

Streets on the side of a giant hill, some close in the winter bcause they are so goddamned steep!

A rock climbing place inside a old giant metal silo with no A.C., if its summer its 9,000 degrees in there, awesome for climbing!

Antiques shops up the butt, loaded with old people from everywhere every weekend of the whole year! If its the weekend, downtown = old people old people old people!

Your town's old man and my town's old man should get together and go bowling...

[Scourge]

At the risk of inadvertantly starting another Texas city war here, I'll just say Austin altogether. Come visit everybody! But to put a fine point on it...

Sixth Street and the club/warehouse district downtown: It's all clubs... dance clubs, live music clubs, martini bars, whatever. It's there.

Alamo Drafthouse. We have three. One south, one downtown, one north. At Alamo Drafthouse you can order dinner and beer/wine/beverages while watching your movie. They do live things like what is formerly called (because of lawsuit threats) Mister Sinus Theater where they put up shitty movies and a group of improv comics do the whole MST3K thing. They show old movies, new movies, and have film festivals. I went to a Chinese Film Festival a couple of years back and watched Blue Kite. Lots of times they have directors or actors come in to do Q&A, people like Bruce Campbell or Lou Ferrigno. I also saw that Raiders of the Lost Ark Redux remake of the original that those kids did in the 80's at Alamo Drafthouse.

U.T. Campus/The Drag: If you want a place to relax and look at college co-eds, split pretty evenly between hot Texas girls and Asians, this is the place to be. Go to the Union, have a coffee or something. Hang out on the steps of the Tower. Whatever. Good place to read and people watch.

Momoko: There are lots of places in Austin to get Japanese import goods, this is the best of them. It's the best because they have the best Bubble Tea menu anywhere. Anywhere! Sit back and watch some anime, browse the goods, have a Boba.

Go boating on the Colorado River, called Town Lake in Austin because downtown is built along its banks. Go boating and skiing on Lake Travis too. I'd say make sure to go to Oasis (restaurant on the lake) to watch the sun go down, but it just burned down and they have to rebuild.

There are a ton of sushi places in Austin. I used to like Umi Sushi Bar & Grill best, but haven't been in a while. Regardless, the place is nice and did have the best sushi of any place else I'd been. Recently I went to Korea Garden, not specifically for sushi, but I must say, this place is NICE too. Excellent Korean food and sushi.

For more regional type cuisine, you should get tacos at Taco Shack. It doesn't sound too swank, but it's Austin Weird and delish.

That's it for now. More to come.

[Rich]

My Aunt runs Denino's Pizza in Staten. Best pizza I've ever eaten, period. I remember my uncle telling me the place was voted the best pizzeria in the five borroughs by some magazine, if I remember correctly.

It's in the middle of the ghetto and there's good pizza throughout the city.

I routinely drive the 35 minutes to get L&B Spumoni Gardens because, quite frankly, if you're in NYC--that's the ONLY pizza you should be eating. I'm talking best in the world quality. www.spumonigardens.com

Allow me to posit something perverse: it is too easy to find the food of your choice in this city. Mexican? Two blocks away. Sushi? Half a block in the other direction. Don't want to leave home? Leaf through the towering stack of delivery menus in the cupboard. Almost anything is within reach. Almost nothing requires real effort.
Sort of dims the excitement of it all.
So recently, when I had a hankering for that most easily acquired food of all, pizza, I elected a different, more difficult course. I did not go to any of the many pizzerias, including an outpost of Patsy's, in my neighborhood. I did not go to John's on Bleecker Street, which would have required only a subway ride.

The dude passed up Patsy's to come to Staten island for Denino's?
Moron. Patsy's is as good as it gets for thin crust.


Alas, for NYC, there's Spumoni Gardens in Brooklyn and Carl's Steaks in Manhattan on 3rd and 34th. Tastes exactly like Pat's and Geno's in Philly.

[Clash!]

Your town's old man and my town's old man should get together and go bowling...

We don't have a bowling ally.

[Rich]

We don't have a bowling ally.

I went bowling the other day, 2v2, and I started off the first 3 frames with X, -/, X and finished with a 106. My team lost by 6...to make matters worse, it was game 5 of a best of 5. We lost 3 in a row to lose 3-2. ALCS x2

[Tracer]

There's an Alamo Drafthouse in Houston as well. It's a nice place and admitedly better in Austin, where it originated. If you're here and not there, come and catch a movie here.

There's places to catch some shows if they're in town. Fitzgeralds is where the punk/emo kids go. The Engine Room is a great place for Metal and Hiphop and there's a few others like Cardi's and Numbers as well. If you're into plays, ballets, symphonic music, or musicals the Wortham, Jones Hall, or the Alley Theater are all nice world class venues. In the same area as those, there's the Verison where larger rock shows are played.

Lazy? Just like to consume beverages and shit? There's Brazil's or Agora on Westheimer Rd. As well as the Prive Lounge and the Mauseleum and The Prolateriat.

West University is neat and there's a number of clubs, bars and resturants to find there.

The Galleria area has a lot to it, but its main attaction is The Galleria itself. I honestly don't dig it but it's a huge mall with designer shops like Versase, Raplh Lauren, Tiffanys, and other places selling things you can't afford. There's a place to go ice skaring year round and several 5 star hotels attached to it. If you got money and like to blow it, come here.

Astroworld has rollercoasters. You can ride them for a cost, it is by the old Astrodome and Reliant Stadium.

Beyond that, it's a huge place and you can't possible be everywhere the city has to offer in a visit. Living here, and knowing the traffic, you won't want to go to all of these places because it's always a bitch to get to and everything costs a lot. Houston isn't a tourist city. Try Austin instead, or perhaps San Antonio.

There's also NASA here. You can see that if you want. There's space-race artifacts and a lot of non-descript buildings where they build a lot of things that will go into space one day. When I went there ages ago I saw the ISS being built. It's a really small spacestation.

[OmegaFlareX]

Not much in Augusta. Not that I know of, anyway. I'm sure there are nice waterfront parks and whatnot, but I haven't bothered to go out and look for them. There's a bowling alley on the east side. Whenever they show candlepin games on public access, it's always at that place. We have pretty decent shopping here, and new stores are being added all the time.

I hear there's a TOPLESS DONUT SHOP in Portland. Too bad Maine is one of those states where strippers can't go totally nude.

Those Alamo Drafthouses sound great. Whenever I go see a movie, I always catch myself thinking "this would be a lot better if I had pizza and a Jack/coke."

[station82o]

There's an Alamo Drafthouse in Houston as well. It's a nice place and admitedly better in Austin, where it originated. If you're here and not there, come and catch a movie here.

There's places to catch some shows if they're in town. Fitzgeralds is where the punk/emo kids go. The Engine Room is a great place for Metal and Hiphop and there's a few others like Cardi's and Numbers as well. If you're into plays, ballets, symphonic music, or musicals the Wortham, Jones Hall, or the Alley Theater are all nice world class venues. In the same area as those, there's the Verison where larger rock shows are played.

Lazy? Just like to consume beverages and shit? There's Brazil's or Agora on Westheimer Rd. As well as the Prive Lounge and the Mauseleum and The Prolateriat.

West University is neat and there's a number of clubs, bars and resturants to find there.

The Galleria area has a lot to it, but its main attaction is The Galleria itself. I honestly don't dig it but it's a huge mall with designer shops like Versase, Raplh Lauren, Tiffanys, and other places selling things you can't afford. There's a place to go ice skaring year round and several 5 star hotels attached to it. If you got money and like to blow it, come here.

Astroworld has rollercoasters. You can ride them for a cost, it is by the old Astrodome and Reliant Stadium.

Beyond that, it's a huge place and you can't possible be everywhere the city has to offer in a visit. Living here, and knowing the traffic, you won't want to go to all of these places because it's always a bitch to get to and everything costs a lot. Houston isn't a tourist city. Try Austin instead, or perhaps San Antonio.

There's also NASA here. You can see that if you want. There's space-race artifacts and a lot of non-descript buildings where they build a lot of things that will go into space one day. When I went there ages ago I saw the ISS being built. It's a really small spacestation.

even i didn't know all that

Also houston has a decent musuem district, but yeah, living out in the fucking sticks really makes going to these places a fucking chore, i mean the nearest dennys demands that you drive across huge fields and shit. =\

oh yeah we should check out west university more often... we should've years ago when it was only a walking man's distance. Dammit. =\

[Scourge]

I hear there's a TOPLESS DONUT SHOP in Portland.

It's true!! None of their donuts have tops!!!

[Masaka]

I'm still learning about the DC area, as I've been here for less than a year, and live about 40 minutes outside the city. Even so though, the Metro makes things pretty accessible, so I've had a chance to check out what's available. When I moved up here, I wanted to make sure I wasn't one of those folks who lived around the corner from our nation's capitol and never went to it.

The National Mall: Duh. There's an abosolute ton of places to go and see, it can be almost overwhelming. Go during the week, because the weekends, especially during the summer, are a nightmare of overburdened parents and oversugared children. I had a good time at the National Indian Museum, which is fairly new, as far as museums go. I still want to get up to Capitol Hill and see the White House.

Adam's Morgan District (Columbia & 18th NW): This is where a lot of the action is, outside of Georgetown anyway. It's several blocks worth of bars, clubs, lounges and resturants. Lot's of live music to hear, dancing to be had, and chill atmospheres where you can just kick back with strong drinks and good friends. I've been to several of the places there, and have liked every one. High on the reccomendation list: Madam's Organ (GREAT live music), Heaven and Hell (2 levels worth of dancing), The Reef (lounge-ish hangout with rooftop seating).

There's an awesome Ethiopian place halfway between Adam's Morgan and Dupont called Addis Ababba. Highly reccomended.

Dupont Circle: It's known as the gay district, but who cares? It's semi within walking from Adam's Morgan, probably about a mile. Lots of nice little stores, and a pretty good bookstore called Kramerbooks. There's a good Vietnamese place right near the DuPont Metro Station.

More to come as the summer rolls on.