2024-09-23

"If There's A Heaven" by Melt - Album Review


It’s a damn masterpiece! The songwriting! The vocals! The production. It’s solid gold all the way through! The last song, man… It’s just a perfectly constructed album. Listening to it on the record player is a wonderful experience. I feel like only a handful of albums I’ve ever listened to in my lifetime have this kind of emotional resonance.

Best Album of 2024! If you don't own a record player, at least listen to it on Spotify or something.

2023-07-31

Dispatch Set List - with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra - Red Rocks Amphitheater 2023-07-30

  • Windylike
  • Curse + Crush
  • Open Up
  • Only The Wild Ones
  • Rice Water
  • Came For The Fire
  • Walk With You
  • Flag
(Orchestra takes a break, Dispatch stays)

  • Out Loud
  • Bang Bang (incl. Friend Of The Devil during jam section)
  • Lookin' Out My Back Door
  • Flying Horses

(Orchestra returns)

  • Skin The Rabbit
  • All This Time
  • Dear Congress
  • The General
  • Letter To Lady J

(Photos taken, basically this was the encore break)

  • Crazy Train
  • Elias

2019-02-08

Guster Set List - The Ogden Theatre [sic], Denver, CO 2019-02-07

  • What You Wish For
  • Careful
  • Look Alive
  • Endlessly
  • The Captain
  • Airport Song (note: Ryan actually caught a ping-pong ball in his mouth!)​
  • That's No Way To Get To Heaven​
  • Hello Mister Sun
  • Red Oyster Cult
  • Rocketship​
  • Come Downstairs​ And Say Hello
  • Do You Love Me
  • "Back-breaker Jam​" (improvised)
  • "Key Your Car" (improvised -- Ryan requested that any recordings of this not be posted to internets)
  • Stay With Me Jesus
  • Satellite​
  • Happier​
  • Simple Machine​
  • Hang On​
  • Barrel​ Of A Gun
  • Dear Valentine
  • Overexcited
  • Fa​ Fa
(Fake encore break -- they did not actually bother leaving the stage)​
  • Long Night​
  • Terrified​
  • Amsterdam​

2018-04-04

Horse Rankings

  1. Diablo — Day and night he stands guard at Denver International Airport. All hail the demon horse!
  2. Thunder — A purebred Arabian gelding who serves as the Denver Broncos' mascot.
  3. Comet — Bruce Campbell's co-star on The Adventures of Brisco County Jr who basically carried the show.
  4. Artax — That is, the horse from The NeverEnding Story.
  5. War Horse — We'd all be speaking German right now if it weren't for this heroic animal.

2018-02-21

Buyer Beware - Greek Yogurt Isn't Actually Greek

I like normal-old American style yogurt with the fruit on the bottom. The Safeway where I shop doesn't have any of this for sale (probably because Safeway seldom has the selection of, say, a superior grocery store like King Soopers). They do, however, offer loads and loads of so-called "Greek" yogurt.

By law, Scotch has to be from Scotland, and Canadian Bacon has to be from Canada, but these same labeling rules apparently don't apply to yogurt. A closer perusal of the labeling on a few of these allegedly hellenic cultured offerings reveals that they are not, in fact, from that same birthplace of Western civilization, but rather trace their origins to less exotic locales such as New York and Minnesota.

Flagrant false advertising or harmless puffery?

As a side note, I also have yet to get to the bottom of the difference between "yogurt" and "yoghurt." I suspect it might be related to the superfluous letters they add to "donuts" in order to arrive at "doughnuts."

2017-08-15

Top Things To Do In Denver

After seeing a similar list at a festival last weekend, my girlfriend and I (both Denver natives) decided that we could do better, so we put together our own authoritative list of the best things to do Denver.

Presented in no particular order:

RESTAURANTS AND SUCH

  1. Casa Bonita - Legendary national landmark. It is known that the food is terrible. Go anyway.
  2. Bonnie Brae Ice Cream - The overall best ice cream anywhere ever.
  3. Duffy's Cherry Cricket / My Brother's Bar / Park Burger - One of these places has Denver's best burger, but we're not sure which, so you may have to try all three.
  4. House of Kabob - Denver's best Middle Eastern food.
  5. Kaos PizzeriaCosmo's Pizza - Now that Beau Jo's is gone, one of these places has Denver's best pizza.
  6. Kokoro (Colorado) - My favorite place for Japanese food.
  7. Banzai Sushi - Cailin's favorite place for sushi.
  8. Pete's Kitchen (Colfax) - One of Denver's last remaining old-school diner-type places. The University location is also good.
  9. Lucille's Creole Cafe - Denver's best breakfast. Either location.
  10. Uno Mas / Adelitas / Los Chingones - One of these places has Denver's best tacos.

BARS AND THE LIKE

  1. Platte Park Brewing Co - Denver's best brewery.
  2. Williams and Graham - Supercool speakeasy in the Highlands.
  3. Mile High Spirits - Cool distillery, located downtown. Nice place to play cornhole.
  4. Grizzly Rose - There is a mechanical bull. Also lots of country music. Sometimes line dancing.
  5. 1-Up - Two Denver locations. A classic video game arcade that also serves drinks.
  6. The Pioneer - The best of the DU bars. Great nachos and a nice rooftop patio.
  7. Pint's Pub - They have every kind of whiskey. Also a brewery. Also there's food.

MUSEUMS AND WHATNOT

  1. Museum of Natural History - Dinosaurs.
  2. Denver Zoo - Animals.
  3. Denver Art Museum - Art and historical artifacts.
  4. Denver Botanical Gardens - Plants.

EVENTS AND SO ON

  1. A beer festival (i.e. GABF, Denver Winter Brew Fest, etc.) - All of Denver's beer festivals are good -- some are even Great.
  2. South Pearl Street Farmers' Market - Better than the one in Cherry Creek because you don't have to pay to park. (summer)
  3. Cinco De Mayo / Peoples' Fair / Taste of Colorado - These three free events are all basically the same thing.
  4. National Western Stock Show and Rodeo - This is why Denver exists.
  5. Oktoberfest - Outdoor festival. (fall)
  6. Christkindl Market - Outdoor market and (heated) beer tent on 16th Street Mall. (holiday season)
  7. City Park Jazz - Free outdoor concerts. (summer)
  8. Broncos Game - Mile High Stadium. Be absolutely quiet for the offense and make as much noise as possible for the defense. (football season)
  9. Rockies Game - Coors Field. Peanuts and cracker jacks. (baseball season)

OTHER THINGS

  1. The Wizards Chest - Awesome store for toys, games, magic tricks, costumes, props, etc.
  2. Tour of the Capitol - The best State Capitol -- the dome is made of gold!
  3. Tour of the 4-Mile House - Historical old house.
  4. Cherry Creek Trail - One of Denver's many excellent trails for biking, walking, rollerblading, etc.
  5. Washington Park - Denver's best park.

NEIGHBORHOODS, PLACES, ETC.

  • 16th Street Mall - A place downtown with restaurants and stores and stuff.
  • Larimer Square - Also a place downtown.
  • The Highlands - A fancy-shmancy neighborhood with restaurants and stuff, built on the site of a formerly crappy neighborhood.
  • RiNo - Short for "River North," some cool restaurants, breweries, art galleries and stuff, built where there used to be just train tracks and warehouses.
  • Santa Fe Arts District - Art galleries, restaurants, etc.
  • Old South Gaylord Street - Restaurants and stores. Sometimes they close the street for outdoor events.

HONORABLE MENTIONS


As an added bonus, here are some additional things that WOULD have made the list, but for various reasons (i.e. they no longer exist, or they used to be a lot cooler than they are now, or they are an out-of-town chain, or they aren't actually in Denver):
  1. Celebrity Sports Center - Formerly the greatest place ever, destroyed in 1995 to build a parking lot.
  2. Elitch Gardens - The old location was actually a gardens and was awesome.
  3. Tattered Cover Book Store - The old location was awesome.
  4. Beau Jo's - Denver location recently went out of business (you can still visit the original location in Idaho Springs).
  5. Bonnie Brae Hobby Shop - Where nerds used to go for nerd stuff, before the internet and before being a nerd was mainstream.
  6. Caboose Hobbies - No longer in Denver.
  7. The Old Spaghetti Factory - Out-of-town pasta chain. The Denver location is awesome. Ask to eat inside the train car. Order the "Homer".
  8. Voodoo Doughnut (sic) - Out-of-town donut chain. Good donuts.
  9. Torchy's Tacos - Out-of-town taco chain.
  10. Red Rocks Amphitheatre - The world's greatest concert venue, unfortunately not actually located in Denver.
Please leave a comment if you feel something doesn't belong or we've left something out!

2017-06-27

Guster Set List - Red Rocks, CO 2017-06-16

  • Long Night
  • Happier
  • Doin’ It By Myself (during which, while walking through the crowd, Ryan commented "This is a long cable!")
  • Come Downstairs And Say Hello
  • Amsterdam
  • Airport Song
  • Ruby Falls
  • Happy Birthday (singalong with audience, directed to Ryan's kids Lionelle and Dash via FaceTime)
  • Satellite
  • Demons