Is it anything like "Ticket to Ride"? which is a game about cross country train building, that one is a lot of fun.

Also is that the right link? I dont see anything about board games or the District, its people talking about a Mexican place by PV Mall.

I still like the anti-social versions of games like Sim City 4 and RailRoad Tycoon.

Ya, it is sort of like ticket to ride. This one, however, you get pieces of track in different forms and have to place them to connect your cable car departure station to the arrival station or power station.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/58602/cable-car

I have one called Power Grid that is more like Ticket to Ride but is heavy in market forces and economy.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

If you wanted to come and bring Ticket to Ride, I've been dying to play it.

^Im going to try to convince my buddies to go, one of them is the fellow who owns all the games we play, he's got well over a dozen, so hopefully he'll come and bring some. The only one I own is the basic set of "Settlers of Catan" which is quite fun.

Also Im not on Yelp (or don't have an account anyhow) or Twitter, so if you wouldn't mind posting the time whenever its settled upon that would be most appreciated.

Hoover - we should play Settlers some time. We ALWAYS need a third. The happy hour starts at 4 and runs till 7. I think most people will be there around 5 though. We'll play till we are too drunk or tired to do anything else. I'll post an update on here next week.

According NG we are worse than Detroit
 

It looks like the National Geographic Network is going to give Phoenix the ol’shaft job this weekend. They’re going to air a “documentary” called Narco State. I just saw an interview with Lisa Ling and she essentially is equating Phoenix to Jaurez, Mexico. This is coming from the same network that sensationalizes street gangs in Utah, and Anchorage, Alaska and attempts to make them sound as dangerous as the mob. Tabloid journalism can suck balls, all this is sensationalist reporting. I live here. Am I missing something? Are there running gun battles through downtown that I’m not seeing? WTF? She must be upset she didn’t get all the attention her sister did when she got caught trying to sneak into North Korea. Either that or they must be out of Tiger Wood hoes to report on.

You have to remind yourself that people who work in TV 'news' aren't hired for being smart, or well educated, informed, witty or any other reason that may make sense. They're hired because they're charismatic and by far most important, pretty.

Once you go in with that mind set, you can pretty much ignore the buffoons and watch them on mute and enjoy their perfect smiles while you watch the crawl of sports scores and the stock ticker along the bottom of the screen.

I hate twitter and board games. I'm also anti-social.

yeah, it's cool to read up on stuff and think back to when i was at ASU.

I went downtown today for a walk, between the Public Market, a Tamale Festival on Washington, events going on at the Symphony Hall and Herberger things were looking pretty lively. Still far too many closed on the weekend retail spots and eateries, but it was encouraging none the less, it was hardly the complete ghost town it wouldve been 5 years ago.

the tamale festival is this weekend? zomgwtfbbqwwjd!!1!11!!! I am there.

I love the tamale festival.

Looking East towards Cityscape.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2657/...878f5a50_b.jpg

Rico's Tacos! If you attend tomorrow, I highly recommend that you stop here.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2685/...815f5d46_b.jpg

These ladies bought 23 dozen tamales.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2697/...566a31dc_b.jpg

So is the cat show John. You can do both!

I wanna put my cat in the show!

Just a reminder - Board Game night is tomorrow at the District Kitchen. If anything, it will give you the chance to check out a great local restaurant if you've never been. http://www.yelp.com/events/phoenix-u...ght-happy-hour

Wow, it looks like I'm late as hell for this. I usually just click on the subscribed threads to check out the new posts.

I'm 22, live in North Phoenix...attending ASU for cultural geography/history.

So I went to the Scottsdale Block Party (to see Reel Big Fish) last night and it was a fun time. I got to thinking Scottsdale, Tempe and Glednale (Westgate) all have big New Years Eve events, its really sad that the burbs dominate the holiday and Downtowns got nothing going on. Sure some of the bars have events, but meh. I really hope Jackson St happens eventually and they can start a block party down there.

I went to the Tempe block party last night. It seems like they cheaped out compared to previous years (smaller area, shorter fireworks shows, County Fair music talent). The Light Rail seemed a whole lot less chaotic than last year though.

My girlfriend pointed out some guy walking around in really short Santa shorts that I'm guessing is a regular on these forums...

watched a show on TLC... 650 LB Virgin. Takes place in Phoenix and they have a lot of cool shots of Downtown. Time lapse, light rail trains, and show the downtown park and they make it look good. The shots of downtown aren't too old... the cladding of City Scape was about halfway up.
Thought it was cool to see Phoenix displayed on a national level and done well.

Did you guys see the implosion show on TLC on Dec 30th? It was really interesting with the NIMBY who kept walking onto the work site. Crazy people.

LOL...that would be me. You were too afraid to come up and say hi? :)

Our photo is in both The New Times and The Arizona Republic, and we had a ball. Lots of friendly folk stopped us and wanted to take photos. I should have charged for that...would have recouped my investment to get in.

Oh, and the shorts weren't that short. If you think those were bad, you should see what I usually wear...heh.

Some of excitement comes from the fact that I'm down to 208 pounds from 260 pounds four years ago. In fact, as recently as last year, I was still around 225 lbs. Eating multiple small meals per day and avoiding fast food and soda (for the most part) has been the biggest help in getting the pounds to fly off. My waist size dropped from a 38 to a 33 and now I have to get new dress clothes since almost everything I had was for my larger self.

--don

Don, way to go with the diet!

They say one can drop 10 lbs. quickly by simply cutting soda out of the diet. I rarely drink soda anymore, usually iced tea or water with a lemon slice.

Now beer, thats another story...

Don, it honestly didn't occur to me that it was you until I got on SSP the next day, right before I posted that.

My girlfriend did actually want to take a picture with you, but we were in an enclosed bar patio and you were out wandering around in the street, and we didn't see you again for the rest of the night.

We went and ate at Cibo on New Years Eve, before heading out to Scottsdale to ring in the New Year.. it's quite sad how dead downtown was on NYE. The only thing I saw that might have been a little happening was Amsterdam.. it was all lit up and had spotlights and such, but other than that, it was completely dead. Had a blast in Scottsdale for NYE tho.. I highly recommend Scottsdale over the Tempe block party..

that whole tempe area is just too much, but then again, Tempe is the urban center of the universe it seems.

It's amazing how much more urban it is than Phoenix.

There may not have been a huge block party in Phoenix, and there wasn't a lively street scene downtown for NYE, but there were some busy bars downtown. My GF and I laid a little low and rang in the new year at Carly's, which was full. We also had a drink at The Roosevelt earlier in the night, which was also semi-full.

I think the places downtown had nice nights for people that didn't want to be in a mob of people for NYE.

Finally, an event I can really eat my shorts for:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...0651088&ref=mf

:D

--don

I'm pretty sure you have to wear pants before you can take them off. But I like the event!

Congratulations, Don! I'm a little late here. Hope it's worked out well for you.

About one hundred fifty drunk people pushing shopping carts charged down our street today. I later found out that our street was part of the route for the 2010 Phoenix Idiotarod (http://www.azcacophony.org/idiotarod/). It made for an entertaining afternoon. Here's a sample:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2677/...2b59f03a_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/...3b48632f_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/...942f4791_b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/...e5003221_b.jpg

^ I was going to organize a team for that, but I had a conflict with another event on my schedule.

But, the Brides of March is coming up fast!

http://www.azcacophony.org/brides/

:)

--don

I had my lunch at the Civic Space park today, those trees with the white blossoms that are blooming are quite lovely and I'm sure will look even nicer when they're mature. Does anyone know what type of tree that is?

EDIT: VV Cool thanks, luckily I was a bit stuffed up today so I didnt catch a stinky odor.

Flowering or Ornamental Pear. i have one. they're great, tho the blossom scent is not that great.

Phoenix Developement
 

Having been interested in Phoenix Development for over 50 years all I can say is hang in there. I have seen the good and the bad and the ever so slow.
The things that I see as having had a severe deterimental affect on Phoenix develpoment during those years are as follows:
1. The city allowing high rises to be built down midtown Central Ave. In particular the Del Webb Complex that sits between Osborn and Indian School,
on the west side of Central. Worthy of note the picture, Vice Lord, shows of the building that from the backside looks like an old IBM COMPUTER CARD,
was originally suppose to be a three building complex with a much higher high rise in the middle of two building the size of that existing building.
2. The voters rejection in the 70'sof a "Bart" Type Transit System that could have been built to bring people downtown rapidly from all points of the metro area.
3. The stall and delaying of freeway construction which would have, yes, maybe increased sprawl, but at the same time made it easier to get to the heart of the city. Most people back then, including writers for the AZRepublic
saw freeways as all having to be like the original ugly Black Canyon Freeway,
with ugly cement walls and no landscaping, vs a beuutiful landscaped freeway
like most of the ones we have now. They feared Phoenix becoming an L.A.
yet had no alternative solutions for sprawl and traffic, their myopic solution, was don't build freeways. Tucson is repeating that same mistake.
4.Lack of City incentives for hospitals, businesses, and shopping to be built in the cities core.
5. In most recent time, not having the Cardinals and Coyotes build their facilities in downtown Phoenix, which with the Light Rail and Convention Center would have give the city some incredible momemtum to accelerate the buildiing of a city with a much larger core.
6. The city of Phoenix needs a more proactive mayor, (yes he has done some good things), to convice people who are building projects to build them downtown, examples of this are the Apollo Groups Headquarters of the I-17 in South Phoenix. Why not get them to bring those buildings downtown?
Another example is the new Instrument Museum out on Tatum and 101. Why not pitch the guy who built that to create some synergy, by building downtown, or at least near the Phoenix Art Museum and Heard Museum.

My frustration on these types of things eventually played a factor in my moving to San Diego, but I have always come back to Phoenix often as I have family here plus I was in the electrical sign business and did signs in the Phoenix area, mostly in malls but also some high rises. I have sold my half of my business and spend more time now in Phoenix as I bought a condo near the Light Rail. I have always been a big ASU and Suns fan which is another reason I live with in walking of LRT.
In closing it's my opinion that as we come out of this recession Phoenix needs
to attract business etc, downtown and also find ways to get infill projects built, mix use, townhomes, and condos, some of those very high end,near it's core to really become a vibrant city over time.

Does anyone have any insight on the housing prices in Metro Phoenix in terms of which direction they are likely going to be heading? I plan on moving down there within 3-5 years and am curious to know if I will be able to take advantage of the current low prices that are available on the market in the near future. Thanks!

Its a blessing in disguise Downtown Phx didn't get those venues, especially the Cardinals stadium. The Cardinals stadium would've destroyed the Arts district thats finally bringing some culture and life to Downtown and its only used for 8 home games a year. Theirs a reason why most NFL stadiums aren't in downtown, they're huge, create super blocks, need a ton of (preferably surface) parking for tailgates, etc. Getting the Coyotes stadium and its smaller footprint may have been OK, but its unlikely to think we would've ever had to very similarly sized arenas within a mile or two of each other.

Thats not really on the Mayor himself, Mayor Gordon has been vastly more proactive in promoting Downtown than any other Mayor in my (admittedly short) lifetime. If you want a system like many cities have where one executive can have a stronger influence and stear the direction of the city you'd have to scrap Phoenix's charter government/Council Manager set up. While scratching that system would have benefits, it also has pitfalls, it opens things up for more corruption and what if you end up with a looney big Mayor who uses his increased power to do shitty things like promote sprawl? In this town where most politicians are tied to the land development game that seems quite likely.

I agree with the rest of what you were saying though :D

^^^ Definitely agree with everything in that post.

And your post in the transit thread...you're on fire today :D :tup:

I still think building the Cardinals stadium out in Glendale was a mistake. We would have been better off razing some blighted areas south of downtown and building it next to a revitalized lake in the Salt River.

Oh well...

--don

THey should have built it on that piece of open land by 40th st and mcdowell

i love this idea. yes, no offense to glendale but the decision to build out there is antithetical to the idea of creating urbanity in phoenix. if that's the goal there. maybe not? never sure about phoenix.

Glendale was a mistake. Should've been built on the original site at the corner of Priest and Washington in Tempe.

Unfortunately, politics got involved between Tempe, Phoenix and Sky Harbor and then 9/11 happened and we all know what happened after that.

Id still like to see something like that happen on a smaller scale. With the recent quasi news of LRT perhaps running down South Central Id love it if down the road a new Spring Training facility was built on either bank of the river, just off Central with a dedicated LRT stop (though their probably needs to be stops on both the North and South banks in all likelihood). If the Cactus League can lure any 2 of the Twins, Cardinals or Astros here that would be a good spot. You could do it in conjunction with continued revitalization of the river bed and making it more parklike.

But now we're way off topic, perhaps Sean can lift this whole thread of conversation into the coffee talk thread.

EDIT: Ask and you shall receive, thanks!

I don't live in Phoenix but outside of Texas Arizona and Phoenix is my favorite place to visit I used to go out there every year with my parents (probably been going out there since the early 90's) but I haven't been out there in a few years cause the resorts got expensive but my dad's telephone company does business in Arizona my parents may move out there in a year or two to Carefree or Tucson so I may end up out there. I'm shure it's changed alot since the last time I was out there (i'm 28).

Cardinals stadium
 

the football stadium didn't necessarily need to go downtown across from Heritage Square where it was proposed. It should have gone either at the original Tempe site or at the fair grounds. With those two spots at the furthest, any site closer to downtown west of 19th ave or south of E. Van Buren would have been even better. Any kind of synergy between downtown and the Super Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or big soccer would have just been great.

speaking of the fair grounds I've decided it should move to south of the new south mountain freeway on the Indian Reservation.

when was it supposed to go across from heritage square? My house has been here since 1986 and they sure as hell werent gonna tear that down. Neither the convention center site, mercado, or garage mahal are large enough parcels.

I believe there was some talk about putting it at the site of the old Montgomery stadium at some point, though I dont think they ever got far or were too terribly serious.

There were two sites:

Fourth to Seventh Street, Fillmore to Garfield

Had they did that, there would be no First Friday.

The other was Fourth to Seventh Avenue, Jefferson to Jackson.

Instead, we're left with empty lots with a lot of promise.

FF would've survived, it just wouldn't be in that area.

stadium question
 

I hadn't remembered that W. Jackson St. proposal. I still think at one point the Rep. reported a 7st site on Van Buren but either way it didn't need to impact Roosevelt. Considering they decided to build the new court tower at a different location it's a real shame the Cardinals didn't end up there. Can you imagine having UOP at one end of Jackson and Chase field at the other?

I didn't realize Plaza de Maricopa was going to be more than just the tower. What other buildings were going to be included in the project?

I still dont think football stadiums really belong downtown. Tooooooooo big.