places of note

[errin]

The rooms list has a lot of nice, broad areas for people to run around in, but I thought it might be nice to have a thread for interesting places PCs might be interested in knowing about. There are a lot of cool things in Denver, this city is pretty rad you guys.

Anyway. I'll post whatever cool interesting things I find in here.

Also, if you guys find cool interesting places in your research and would like pictures or more information, post in here to let me know and I will go out and look at things.

[errin]

I know Phil has a character that might be interested in knowing about this, some others might like to know it as well.

There's a Buddhist temple in downtown denver [click me!]. I've only ever walked past it, but it's really cool looking. They've got a bell and everything. If anyone would like more information or pictures or something, I have a friend in that area that I visit occasionally and I could snap a few!

Also, Sakura Square, which is about a block south-ish from the temple, is kind of a center for the Asian culture in Denver. I'm fairly certain that's where the cherry blossom festival is held each year (I don't know for certain because I've never been, because I keep messing up the dates). I finally drove past it the other day, though, and it's very pretty.

[errin]

I have a bunch of pictures I meant to upload ages ago, but I forgot and then I was busy and then ah well. Here are just a couple.

This is from a few weeks back when we were getting a lot more rain. Tamarac and I believe Hampden, which is also where a new Target recently opened. Rainshine! Sorta.


And last week I drove my friend down to Pueblo and a few of you asked me, "What's Pueblo?" This is Pueblo.


Picture taken from a car dealership, but even so that's pretty much it. Like most of southern Colorado, Pueblo is very picturesque and lovely but there is nothing there.

And, as if it knew that I had been talking shit about it earlier that day, Pueblo tried to change my mind with some double-rainbow action. (triple, actually, there was another one just a little to the north of where my friend and I stopped to get new directions to the dealership.)


Also of some note, if you follow this link to Google Maps and zoom to street view you can see some of the buttes off I-25 to the north and east. That view does not even begin to do them justice, not even a little (Larkspur Butte is pretty freakin' huge), but I almost always seem to be the one driving between Denver and Colorado Springs so can never get a picture of them. And a note: Those are kind of really freaky to me when I'm driving in the middle of the night. They're silhouetted by the light pollution from Castle Rock/Denver, but it's such a slight thing that to me I always go, "Wait, is there...is that...what is that??"

At some point I'll go down and get some pictures of Colorado Springs, because even though I greatly dislike that city, it's also right up on the foothills which is awesome. Also: Garden of the Gods *happy sigh*.

[errin]

I've started doing a thing where I troll through my friends' facebook pages and steal pictures, particularly a friend of mine that lives downtown (that jerk).

Sunset last night from Westminster:


Downtown somewhat recently. My friend lives down the street from Union Station:


And a panorama of downtown, facing west:

[errin]

Because someone set a thing there recently, a super bizarre fish-eye view of the second floor of Tattered Cover bookstore downtown.



This place is awesome, and I am suddenly reminded that I need to go there again soon.

[errin]

I Googled "cool places to hang out in Denver" (I live here but am not cool and so do not know where the cool places are) and this came up:

Top Hipster Hangout Spots in Denver

Which then led me to:

Top Dive Bars

[errin]

This isn't so much a place of note as a Thing of Note that I keep forgetting to mention.

Smoking in Colorado

The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect on July 1, 2006, making all restaurants and bars 100% smokefree. Only a few places still allow smoking indoors, these are mostly things like cigar bars or whatever. But clubs and bars and restaurants all require smokers to be outside.

Also!

Legalized sale of marijuana went into effect yesterday with pretty awesome results. The smoking ban applies to pot, as well, and in fact goes further. From what I understand, pot cannot be smoked in public at all. However, it's Denver, so people are more likely to ask pot smokers to share than they are to call the cops on them for smoking in public.

[errin]

This weekend I got to hang out at a friend's place. This friend's place is the real life location of Samantha's condo. I didn't take any pictures inside because that felt really weird to me? But I have no problems taking outdoor shots.

1767 Pearl St:

Exterior (I did not take this pic. The cash register building is the Wells Fargo building):


View from the corner of 18th and Pearl (1999 Broadway is the tall building on the right):

Note: That parking lot is the best place to park to visit there. Theoretically you can park on Pearl but there are never ever any open spaces when I go there.

Steps to the entrance:


And the entrance:


And the balcony view:

[errin]

The Ogden Theater

Monday night I had a chance to see one of my most favorite artists in concert! It was pretty amazing even though The Ogden is a fucking horrible venue. Which makes it ready-made for the World of Darkness, eh?

The Outside:

Hah, Guster.

Anyway, yes. The Ogden's located on East Colfax and Ogden. Also along this stretch are the Filmore (right next door practically to The Ogden) and Bluebird Theater (a few blocks to the east), all owned by the same company and all, so I hear, pretty godawful.

The problem is their sound system, and I don't know the acoustics of the venue or something. One person at the Ingrid Michaelson concert put it pretty succinctly when he said, "It's a music venue, it shouldn't sound like your neighbors nextdoor."

To which I replied, "Yeah I keep expecting it to fade out as the car drives away."

And they don't try to match their filler waiting-while-they-set-up-the-bands music to the artists performing. We heard Macklemore's Thirft Shop three times, once when we walked in, once between bands, and again on the way out.

The Ogden is general admission, so everyone mills around across the venue's two levels, both of which have a bar at the back.

View from the second level [Portugal the Man, October 2013]
This concert was good but hard for me. If I didn't already know the music I wouldn't have been able to tell you what I was listening to, it was literally just a lot of loud noise. I guess their lead singer forgot the lyrics to his own song once but I couldn't even tell ¯\_(ツ)_/¯




View from the main level [Alternate Routes, April 2014 (HE'S PLAYING A TOOLBOX)]:


And again [Storyman, same concert]:


And again because! Ingrid Michaelson is one of my favorites.

This picture doesn't do her justice, she's fucking adorable, but I was kind of busy trying to enjoy the concert to try and take really good shots.

Anyway. That is The Ogden in a nutshell.