I'll keep this short.
Got a city parking ticket for insufficient payment. Have the receipt, all day parking with correct time and date on receipt. Ticket was dated for 4.5 hours after I parked. Tried calling the city bylaw office but they say I would have to take it to trial. Is there any other way to eliminate the Ticket? I don't want to waste much time on this over a $50 Ticket, but I also don't feel like paying out of principle. Has anyone gone through the phone court process for a similar issue? Was it very time consuming?
Further details: It's one of those Eparks where you enter license plate # and then pay via card or coin. Plate # on ticket, receipt and truck match. Also this ticket was issued by the city on behalf of epark. They claim it will show up when I go to registration if I just ignore it. Then I will be forced to pay it plus 10 bucks.

Bună ziua! I'm traveling to Bucharest in two weeks and plan on taking day trips to Sinaia and/or Brasov. I read that there are at least three operators (CFR, Astra, SoftTrans) on this corridor, but can I just show up at the stations to book tickets? I'm not sure how full trains will be in mid-June, but if possible I would like to explore the two cities without time constraints. I also read about having to book online 6+ hours in advance (sorry I forgot where), but if true which operator is this for?
Thanks in advance

Hey everybody, we will be visiting LA in June and got the Go City Pass which includes a 1-Day Entrance to Universal Studios Hollywood. https://gocity.com/los-angeles/en-us/attractions/universal-studios-hollywood-ticket
Can anybody tell me if the Go City Pass is eligible for an express pass upgrade on site? I can‘t find any information if it is specifically excluded.
Many thanks in advance

Anyone that's kept up with his Instagram knows he's dropping "golden tickets" in every city. Unless I missed an announcement somewhere, does anyone know what the ticket actually consists of? Is it just admission? A meet and greet?

Ted, I get it. It’s hard to understand what you did wrong. All you ever did was love her and wait for her to clear her head while you gave her space. Instead, she divorced you and dated your marriage counsellor.
Still, you got to ask yourself: did it occur to you to tell Michelle about the job offer from your good pal Rebecca?
Did you ask Michelle if she considered working in the UK?
Think about it. Michelle loves Paris. The few days she spent there with Jake were probably not enough to take in all the sights. Plus, he was probably really annoying, which would have made it a miserable trip.
If Michelle worked in London, she could go to Paris by train. It’s only two and a half hours, dawg. She could go every weekend if she wanted! She could visit other European cities too: Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona, Athens… the list is endless.
Oh, a job? Dawg, your boss bought a first class ticket just to say goodbye. Don’t you think your good pal Rebecca would figure something out? She’s got plenty of wealthy friends who could sponsor Michelle for any kind of job that she likes. Heck, I bet Rebecca would pay Michelle just to sit down and read comments on the Daily Mail, if it meant keeping you on as coach.
We know you want to stay in Kansas but did you check with Michelle or Henry if they did?
This makes me think that perhaps you had one or two opportunities to go to Paris with Michelle but you never saw them because you didn’t focus on the right things. You are rather distractible.
This is why you’ll never have Paris, Dawg.
Diamond Dogs dismount! Woof!

Inside the boundless expanse of Loria Online, Guspy the elven mage drained the last of his mana vaporizing a Vickerbite. It was his third hour of grinding this particular mob, and he was getting tired.
“What’s the drop rate on this thing again?” he asked Collins.
Collins cleaved another Vickerbite with his greataxe. “0.02% or something. Getting bored?”
Guspy was indeed getting bored. Despite their grotesque appearance (they looked like flying crocodile heads with mosquito feet), Vickerbites were pushovers.
“Yeah, I might only have a few minutes’ more patience for this.”
Collins slammed his axe into the ground, causing a shockwave that killed another three. “That’s ok, we’ve been playing for a while. It just kind of feels like wasted time if we quit now, though.”
“Are you getting close to leveling?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
A Vickerbite burst when he swatted it with his staff. A loot bag dropped onto the rust colored dirt.
Probably another Vicker Tongue or leg or something, Guspy thought. He almost didn’t bother to check. But when he did, he found what he and Collins had been seeking for so long.
“I got it! The belt dropped!”
“Thank God, let’s get out of here,” Collins said, regrouping with the mage he protected.
Guspy read the item description for The Belt of Endurance.
The Belt of Endurance Slot: Belt Rarity: Very Rare Earth Resistance: %%0 Air Resistance: %%0 Fire Resistance: %%0 Water Resistance: %%0 Physical Resistance: %%0 Magic Resistance: %%0 Debuff Resistance: %%0
“What the hell?” Guspy said.
“What’s wrong? Is it the wrong belt?” Collins casually swatted two final Vickerbites.
“The stats are glitched or something. It’s supposed to be 5% resistance to everything, right?”
“The BoE? Yeah, 5% resist all. Is it not?”
“It shows ‘percent percent zero’.”
Collins shrugged. “Put it on, see what happens.”
Guspy equipped the belt and checked his character’s stats. “Ha, that’s so weird. All of my resistances show backslash, open parenthesis, ‘N’, close parenthesis.”
Collins used the Warrior’s Assessment ability on Guspy. “Huh. When I analyze you, I see hashtag ‘null’.”
“That’s either really good or really bad,” said Guspy.
Collins raised his sword and struck Guspy on the shoulder.
Collins attacks you for 0 damage
“There are safer ways to check!” Guspy said.
“It didn’t hurt you, weird. Mind if I use a little Fire Fan scroll on you?” Collins asked with a toothy grin.
“You have one? Aren’t you a little over leveled for that?” Fire Fan produced a tiny cone of flame that did very little damage.
“I’m a hoarder. So, can I?” Collins wiggled the scroll between his fingers.
Guspy agreed.
Collins casts Fire Fan for 0 fire damage
“Guspy, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think that belt makes you invincible,” said Collins.
Guspy began to bounce up and down in excitement. “Oh man, think of the possibilities! I can solo raid a guild hall. The Nighthawks deserve that kind of ass whupping,” he said, referring their rival guild in Loria. “Or I can loot an end-game dungeon! We’re not far from The Death Pit.”
Collins looked into Guspy’s eyes and gave him the smile a parent gives a child when they ask where rainbows end.
“Oh, you asshole!” said Guspy.
“I think you should turn it in,” said Collins.
“Why?! Why would I do that?! The Nighthawks have been bullying us for months now. With this, I could walk right in their guild hall, wipe them out, and tear the whole thing down. They wouldn’t be able to stop me! You can’t tell me they don’t deserve it.”
“Not saying they don’t,” said Collins.
Guspy pressed, “I can farm The Death Pit for Soulflayers. Everyone in our guild could have a Soulflayer, even the newbies. They’d finally be tough enough to join us on raids. You know how they’ve been dying to play with us in high level zones. Think how happy they would be!”
“Oh, they’d be awfully happy,” said Collins.
Guspy unleashed his coup de grace. “And! I can go to Fort Murder, stroll through it without a care in the world, kill the general, and not have to split the loot with anyone. That means I would get a Headsman’s Axe, which I would of course donate to my dear friend Collins. Wouldn’t you like a Headsman’s Axe?”
“I absolutely would,” said Collins.
“Ok, good. So, I’ll just—"
“Turn it in, Guspy,” said Collins.
Guspy stamped his feet in frustration. “Why though? You just said you were on board with the Nighthawks and the Soulflayer and the axe!”
“Oh, I am. The Nighthawks need to get taught. Having the newbies be tough enough to join us would be great. I’ve been dying for a Headsman for months now. But you’d be cheating. Momma didn’t raise no cheater, and daddy didn’t raise no troll,” said Collins.
“That’s so backward. You know the Nighthawks would do that to us if they got it,” said Guspy.
“Sure enough. But we can’t control what they do, and I can’t control what you do. I just want you to remember what I’ve said before: there’s a person on the other end of that character. A person just like you. I can only imagine how tilted you’d get if someone cheated to become invincible and killed you. Or farmed their whole guild ultra-rares and used them on you. I’m just asking you, as a friend, to turn it in. Please.”
Guilt. He’s put the guilt in me, thought Guspy. What an asshole.
“Fine, I’ll head to Pokate and turn it in,” said Guspy, pouting and kicking an errant stone.
“Thanks, Gusp. I promise I’ll help you find a legit one. I gotta go, though. Play later?”
“You know it,” said Guspy, and he watched Collin’s avatar dissipate.
Guspy walked back to Pokate City, the largest player hub in the area. The journey was a particularly hazardous one. Wild beast attacks, an assassin, a rockslide, even an errant fireball from an ongoing battle, all harmless in the face of his perfect resistance. He crossed into the city proper, whitewashed buildings that held little shops and extra dimensional guildhalls. Pokate Palace loomed over all of this like a resplendent sundial. The stained-glass windows shimmered in the sunlight.
Guspy approached a beggar in the street. The beggar’s body was gaunt. His dirty rags and matted beard spoke of hungry days and cruel nights. The beggars of Loria Online were portals to moderator attention. Speaking to a beggar cued a request. A moderator would eventually take control of the beggar and offer assistance.
Guspy knelt before the beggar.
“I’d like to speak with a moderator, please.”
“All in good time, my boy,” the beggar wheezed.
Guspy felt an itch in his legs. There was still time to run wild, to reap the rewards of his lottery ticket. He cursed Collins for guilting him and attempted to distract himself. Guspy admired the features on the beggar. His eyes traced cavernous wrinkled flesh. Saw the tiny movements of lice in the filthy thick beard. Saw the faintest deposits of salt in two long tracks leading down from the cloudy blue eyes.
The beggar had been crying. Why would they include such a heartbreaking detail? Why haven’t I ever noticed this before? Guspy thought.
The clouds in the beggar’s eyes parted, revealing a bright blue sky. “Thank you for waiting, this is Raymond. How can I help you?” A voice as crisp as autumn wind now spoke through the beggar.
“Uhh, hi. I’ve got a problem with an item I found?” Guspy spoke at the mouth of the beggar.
“Sure thing! Is it an item you have equipped right now?”
“Yeah, The Belt of Endurance. The values look wonky, and It makes me immune to every element. I’m immune to physical and magic damage now too.”
There was a long pause, the beggar’s eye fluttered. “You’re reporting that an item is broken in your favor?”
Guspy winced. “Umm, yes sir? It basically makes me immortal.”
Guspy waited patiently. The moderator was using his tools to see Guspy’s menu screens, something that was normally private.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” the beggar said. “It’s a null shunt error.”
“A null shunt error?”
“Yeah. Sometimes during a drop-roll, the system shunts over a clipped value that…sometimes it breaks.”
“Ah.”
“They’re a bitch to fix. Thankfully very rare. This one is particularly bad, and I’m at the end of my shift.” The mod let out a sigh that prophesized an exhausting tedious future.
“Well…thank you for your honesty! Usually when an item glitches in a player’s favor, they keep it a secret for as long as they can. Then they have a temper tantrum when we take it away. Alright, Guspy, I’m on morning shift tomorrow. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I’m giving you eight hours of god mode. Can I trust you not to make me regret it?”
Guspy was stunned. A mod was allowing immortality for eight hours? Trusting him? Why?
“You can trust me,” Guspy said.
“I hope so. I’ll fix this in the morning, don’t take the belt off or you’ll have negative infinite resistance and die from a sunburn.” The beggar’s eyes clouded back over.
Guspy threw a gold piece into the beggar’s bowl, a good luck ritual that even the highest level raiders did before a dangerous run.
He was in the clear. A mod had okayed him having god mode. Anything I do is the mod’s fault now! Guspy thought, but the thought gave him a queasy feeling the moment it passed through his mind. He was being trusted. He had promised to not make the mod regret it.
What was the mod’s name? Randy? He remembered Collins's words about there being real people on the other end of the game. He supposed that meant Randy too. He imagined telling someone to their face that his actions were their fault, like trust somehow absolved him of responsibility. He imagined someone else doing that to him. Or doing that to his little sister…
He spent a fair amount of gold on fast travel scrolls, valuable, single-use items that would transport the player anywhere in Loria. Guspy now stood on the craggy lip of Salamander’s Eye. The massive active volcano dominated the primordial jungle landscape. A vast column of ebony smoke rose from the lava pit, the birthplace of thunderclouds. Guspy spread his arms wide and fell into the heat, letting simulated gravity carry him downward to the roiling floor of liquid earth.
At the last moment he reflexively raised his hands to shield himself. Lava was instant death in Loria, doing an infinite amount of damage per second. Guspy was now sinking slowly in this most dangerous of elements unharmed. He raised his hand in a thumbs up as he sank beneath the surface.
Whorls of incandescent crimson, brown, and orange materialized and dispersed endlessly. It was like looking into the fickle furnace of creation, so eager to invent but too chaotic to design.
Guspy wondered if he’d fall forever. At last, his feet settled on something solid. He was the first player to set foot here. A unique accomplishment, one he could keep. He moved through the lava as though it was water. Must not have been a very important thing to program considering you die as soon as you touch it, he thought.
Guspy explored the floor of the volcano. It was perfectly smooth and without texture, an entire volcano held up on a pane of glass. But then he found something. A deformity in the bottom of the world. He explored it with his hand. It felt like a solid bubble sticking up out of the flat plane beneath him. It moved a little.
It’s a doorknob! Guspy realized. He turned it and felt it fall away beneath him. He sank further and dropped into a vast open room, the lava didn’t follow past the entry. Guspy cast a series of Light spells, banishing the darkness to the black obsidian of the walls and floor.
A giant floating sign that hung suspended in midair grabbed Guspy’s attention.
“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET HERE.”
“Shows what you know, sign,” Guspy said, and began to explore.
In the secret chamber Guspy found dozens of monster models from the surrounding area, frozen in the sterile T-position. He took the time inspect them in the minutest detail. He saw the way salamander skin glittered with the luster of countless ruby gemstones. He watched the dancing flames of fire elementals, and discovered their heat rose above the limitation of their hitbox. He looked deep into the eyes of a stone golem and saw that they were prisms. They split the blue glow of the golem’s magical core into a frigid winter sunset, whites and blues dancing and concealing a secret whisper of deep red.
I don’t think I ever really looked at the models before, he thought. Even now he couldn’t recall any specific details of any monster he had fought. They were all colored blurs in his mind, faceless values and blocks of information.
Despite his immortality, he still froze in fear when his spell illuminated a colossus of steel tucked away in a corner of the room. It was a broad suit of cold iron armor, bereft of adornment and pockmarked with the careless ministrations of a thousand hammers beating the metal into shape. In one clenched fist it carried a wicked looking cleaver, one that belonged in a giant’s butcher shop, used to crack the toughest dragon bones and partition the choicest bits.
Guspy had never seen or heard of this creature in his life.
You must not have made it into the final game. At least not yet, thought Guspy. Despite its beastly ugliness, Guspy felt a pang of remorse. Someone worked to design every aspect of this monstrosity to evoke the feelings of fear and disgust, and they had been very successful. But it had gone unused and unseen since the game’s inception.
I remember the Christmas ornament I made in middle school. A Christmas light made to look like a reindeer, googly eyes and fuzzy brown pipe cleaners for antlers. I was so proud. But when Christmas came, they didn’t want to put it on the tree. They thought it looked too silly.
Guspy left a gold coin at its feet, alms for unsung effort.
He was preparing to depart when he noticed an unadorned chest had appeared beneath the presumptive sign. Guspy was certain it hadn’t been there before. He approached, circling the chest, before reaching out and lightly tapping it. He may invulnerable, but this was a developer’s world. Who knows what treachery could hide here? He lifted the lid, tilting his head and peeking at its contents with one eye shut. Inside was a billiard sized ball of translucent glass. Guspy recognized a Title Sphere. These rare items would grant a moniker to the character’s name. It was a single use item worth tens of thousands of gold. Too curious to resist learning what it would bestow, he shattered the sphere in his palm. Red dust flowed between his fingers like Martian sand. His name had changed from Guspy to Guspy the Wanderer.
Guspy used his next scroll and teleported to the shipwreck of the Soothsayers Doom. A brig suspended above the ocean on a monstrous coral bed, the ship itself was a mid-level dungeon. Players could fight their way from deck to deck, battling undead crewmen that fired grapeshot salvos into crowded rooms, shredding players into bloody clouds. The Captain was the boss of the dungeon, and part of his loot was a map that would send players on a quest line that eventually led players to the halls of the merfolk king, an extremely high-level dungeon at the bottom of the ocean.
Being immortal, Guspy took what players called the ‘express route’, swimming directly downward from the open sea. It was suicide. Besides suffocation, players had to contend with titanic carcharodons, giant squid, invisible water elementals, and elite merfolk guard. These creatures had mastery of the terrain, and few players were accustomed to attacks that could come from any direction.
Beneath him, the phosphorescent glow of the Coral Castle overpowered the distant sun for dominion of the depths. Guspy slipped into a castle window, ignoring the tridents of the pursuing Knights of Pearl. The Castle was a dungeon that needed to be completed quickly, lest the player’s water breathing magic wear off. That made it the perfect sight-seeing location for someone who didn’t need to breathe. Guspy examined the meticulously decorated royal bedrooms. The books in Loria were filled with open source stories from the real world. Players spent hours in this fantasy world engrossed in the prose of Tom Sawyer and Paradise Lost. But yellowed letters fell from between the pages like autumn leaves.
Never whole without you, my beloved Jennifer,
B.C.
Guspy didn’t know the merfolk princess even had a name. Neither had he any idea who B.C was, or if these pages were part of some fetch quest he had never come across.
Deeper in the palace he found the throne room of the merfolk king. The king was gigantic, of course, all raid bosses were. The king was also an enemy that demanded constant focus and attention to defeat. He cycled seamlessly through attack patterns, buffs, and stage activations. Missing the tell-tale signs would leave you a step behind the dance and doomed to failure.
Guspy now had a unique opportunity. He ignored the king completely. The throne room was heaped with chests of gold and artifacts plundered from sunken ships. But they were only decorative, ersatz décor designed to regale the room with the trappings of wealth and luxury. Being worthless, players ignored them. Guspy took the time to closely inspect the mountains of coins and bejeweled quillions that rose from the coin piles. Ignoring the world-shaking bolts of lightning, magical rays, and great sweeps of the merfolk king’s trident, he crouched to the level of a single coin.
There, in the face of the coin, were three smiling children. The normal relief of Empress Aubrianna, a mythical figure in Origin’s history, was replaced with a picture of a family. The normal Latin phrase, “A solis ortu usque ad occasum”, had been replaced with, “Jason, Melody, Brock”. He moved from one coin to the next. Families, pets, and selfies looked back at him. Some had names written, others messages, “Thx Mel, my rock <3” “Joe & Cara 4 eva” “We did it!”
Guspy wondered if any player had ever seen these. Maybe, but he hadn’t, and that made it special to him. He wondered what he would put on his own coin. Me, Collins, and Becca at the beach, he thought. A picture that had been his desktop background for years. The only evidence of a perfect day.
Having taken his fill of the throne room, Guspy pulled out another scroll and teleported away.
Hogglerock dungeon was an aberration. Most dungeons tried to evoke a sense of awe or fear, but Hogglerock was just gross. Its entrance was at the center of a mud-smothered swamp. Poisonous insects and carnivorous slugs roamed the wastes searching for carrion to strip or making their own if none could be found.
To descend into the putrid depths of Hogglerock, you entered the mouth of a great saurian beast. It was long since dead, its flesh in a perpetual state of decay. Down its mucus-caked throat, you entered a dungeon that had been created from the offal that remained of its digestive system. Noxious acid pools, monstrous parasites, and bloated scavengers challenged players that came to plunder the carcass.
Guspy had to stop and think before entering the sixth stomach of the beast. He had no idea if his plan would work, or even made sense. Guspy removed all his armor and weapons, save for the Belt of Endurance. He entered the dungeon’s final room, aggroing a great bipedal minotaur and its bovine kin. Guspy sat and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breath and his heart. Aggro in Loria was based on a series of factors: proximity, source of damage or debuff, equipment levels, class, movement, and supposedly even biometric data the VR rig was able to obtain.
The monsters were instantly aggroed when the rubbery sphincter of the sixth stomach was touched, converging on their only target. Guspy’s lack of equipment, aggression, and stillness would reduce his aggro over time. He waited and he watched. In time the monsters lost interest, ceasing their attacks and wandering back to their starting positions. Guspy continued to watch. For a time, they only bobbed in place, replaying idle animations and howling blistering war cries. But, in time, Guspy saw a strange behavior begin. One smaller minotaur creature pulled out a hunk of meat, clutching it by the pure white protruding bone. It chomped a piece and munched in contentment, eyes closed in blissful indulgence. The giant boss minotaur began to sniff the air, and a game of keep away began. The smaller minotaurs tossed the meat between themselves as the boss zeroed in on the source of the smell.
Who is this for? wondered Guspy. Who was meant to see this? And how? Why hide it? How many monsters of Loria Online had these little secrets? Tiny moments of humor buried in terabytes of code, only visible in a state of extreme passivity. Once the capering script had completed, the bovines returned to their normal places and continued to cycle basic idle motions.
It’s for me. Since I’m the one watching it, that means it’s for me, thought Guspy.
Guspy pulled out his final scroll, completing the spell just before he was beset again.
Guspy the Wanderer appeared back in Pokate City. His new title drew lingering looks from other players who searched their memories. Guspy’s time was running low, and fatigue massaged his mind and eyes. There was more he could search for. He could run down the hours until the mod logged back on and set things to rights. But he didn’t want the last moments of such an enlightening day to be a race against the clock. It would spoil the sense of calm and contemplation he had cultivated. Instead he sat down next to a beggar and composed a message to Collins.
“I won’t be joining you today, Collins, but I’ve got so much to tell you about when I do.”
He had seen beyond the veil. He witnessed tiny miracles of creation hidden from mortal sight. Sparks of love that flickered once more when observed. For a precious few hours, he was blessed with a peace that allowed him to fall in love with the game all over again, to appreciate its creation like a benevolent god.
Collins and Guspy returned to the red rock canyon. Guspy admired the visible strata of the walls. Simulated eons left perfect layers of color stacked like the pages of a book. Little details, so insignificant yet so engrossing. He appreciated the work that went into this game. The efforts of artists always caught his notice.

Hey, all. I just moved to Minneapolis from NYC and I'm wondering if anyone here knows of Indoor LARPs or immersive theatre events happening around the Twin Cities. I used to go to these events called Fantasy Tavern which were basically social events at a bar with small quests to do and sing-along segments and I'm looking for something with similar vibes, if possible. I saw the pinned post said to mention pricing and these events I went to cost around $30/ticket (though I'd usually spend another $30 or so on food and drinks) and happened once a month. Hoping you can help me find something cool as Google hasn't given me any great results yet.

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4/22/2021 Hand of Fate 2
4/15/2021 Deponia: The Complete Journey
4/15/2021 Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
4/15/2021 The First Tree
4/9/2021 3 out of 10: Season Two
4/1/2021 Tales of the Neon Sea
3/31/2021 HITMAN 3 Access Pass: HITMAN 1 GOTY Edition
3/30/2021 HITMAN 3 - Free Starter Pack
3/25/2021 Creature in the Well
3/23/2021 Magic: Legends
3/18/2021 The Fall
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - The Millionth Mile
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - Norse Dragons
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - Second Korean War
3/6/2021 Wargame: Red Dragon - Russian Roulette [10v10 ...
3/4/2021 Wargame: Red Dragon
2/28/2021 PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2
2/25/2021 Sunless Sea
2/18/2021 Absolute Drift
2/18/2021 Rage 2
2/11/2021 Halcyon 6
2/4/2021 Metro: Last Light Redux
1/28/2021 Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition
1/21/2021 Galactic Civilizations III
1/14/2021 STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II: Celebration Edition...
1/7/2021 Crying Suns
12/31/2020 Jurassic World Evolution
12/29/2020 Solitairica
12/28/2020 Stranded Deep
12/27/2020 Night in the Woods
12/26/2020 My Time at Portia
12/25/2020 Darkest Dungeon®: The Musketeer
12/25/2020 Darkest Dungeon®
12/23/2020 Tropico 5
12/21/2020 Alien: Isolation
12/20/2020 Defense Grid: The Awakening
12/19/2020 The Long Dark
12/18/2020 Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Carols, Candles and Candy
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Pearls From the East
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Match Day
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines
12/10/2020 Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition
12/10/2020 Tyranny - Gold Edition
12/3/2020 CRSED: F.O.A.D.
12/3/2020 Cave Story+
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Old Timers DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Valley DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Ridge DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner
11/19/2020 The World Next Door
11/19/2020 Elite Dangerous
11/13/2020 Neverwinter
11/13/2020 The Textorcist
11/5/2020 Dungeons 3
10/29/2020 Blair Witch
10/29/2020 Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered
10/22/2020 Layers of Fear 2
10/22/2020 Costume Quest 2
10/15/2020 Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
10/15/2020 Kingdom New Lands
10/8/2020 ABZU
10/8/2020 Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
10/1/2020 Pikuniku
9/29/2020 Heroes & Generals WWII
9/24/2020 RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3: Complete Edition
9/23/2020 Rocket League®
9/17/2020 Football Manager 2020
9/17/2020 Watch Dogs 2
9/17/2020 Stick It To The Man!
9/10/2020 Railway Empire
9/10/2020 Where The Water Tastes Like Wine
9/7/2020 Spellbreak
9/3/2020 3 out of 10, EP 5: "The Rig Is Up!"
9/3/2020 Into The Breach
9/3/2020 Diabotical
9/1/2020 Commander Lilith DLC
8/27/2020 3 out of 10, EP 4: "Thank You For Being An Ass...
8/27/2020 Shadowrun Collection
8/27/2020 HITMAN
8/22/2020 3 out of 10 Episode 3: Pivot Like A Champion
8/20/2020 God's Trigger
8/20/2020 Enter The Gungeon
8/13/2020 The Alto Collection
8/13/2020 Remnant: From the Ashes
8/13/2020 Might & Magic: Chess Royale
8/13/2020 3 Out of 10 Episode 2 Foundation 101
8/13/2020 A Total War Saga: TROY
8/6/2020 3 Out of 10 Ep 1 Welcome to Shovelworks
8/6/2020 Wilmot's Warehouse
7/31/2020 Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
7/31/2020 Barony
7/31/2020 20XX
7/23/2020 Next Up Hero
7/23/2020 Tacoma
7/16/2020 Torchlight II
7/10/2020 Delores: A Thimbleweed Park mini-adventure
7/10/2020 The Escapists 2
7/10/2020 Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition
7/10/2020 Killing Floor 2
7/3/2020 Trackmania
7/3/2020 Hue
6/25/2020 AER Memories of Old
6/25/2020 Stranger Things 3: The Game
6/18/2020 Pathway
6/11/2020 ARK Valguero
6/11/2020 ARK Crystal Isles
6/11/2020 ARK The Center
6/11/2020 ARK Editor
6/11/2020 ARK Ragnarok
6/11/2020 ARK: Survival Evolved
6/11/2020 SAMURAI SHODOWN NEOGEO COLLECTION
5/28/2020 Sludge Life
5/28/2020 Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
5/21/2020 Sid Meier's Civilization VI
5/14/2020 Grand Theft Auto V
5/2/2020 Amnesia: The Dark Descent
5/2/2020 Crashlands
4/23/2020 For The King
4/17/2020 Wheels of Aurelia
4/17/2020 Just Cause 4
4/15/2020 Paladins
4/15/2020 Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments
4/15/2020 Close to the Sun
4/4/2020 Gone Home
4/4/2020 Drawful 2
4/4/2020 Hob
3/26/2020 Tormentor X Punisher
3/26/2020 Figment
3/26/2020 World War Z
3/20/2020 Watch Dogs Standard Edition
3/20/2020 The Stanley Parable
3/2/2020 InnerSpace
2/21/2020 Magic: The Gathering Arena
2/21/2020 Assassins Creed Syndicate Standard Edition
2/21/2020 Faeria
2/14/2020 Aztez
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - English
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - German
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - French
2/14/2020 HD Sound Pack
2/14/2020 HD Texture Pack
2/14/2020 Kingdom Come: Deliverance
2/6/2020 Ticket to Ride
2/6/2020 Carcassonne
1/30/2020 Farming Simulator 19
1/23/2020 The Bridge
1/16/2020 Horace
1/10/2020 Sundered Eldritch Edition
1/1/2020 Darksiders Warmastered Edition
1/1/2020 Steep
1/1/2020 Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition
1/1/2020 Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
12/30/2019 Hello Neighbor
12/29/2019 The Talos Principle
12/26/2019 Faster Than Light
12/23/2019 Ape Out
12/13/2019 The Wolf Among Us
12/13/2019 The Escapists
12/5/2019 Jotun Valhalla Edition
11/29/2019 Rayman Legends
11/21/2019 Bad North Jotunn Edition
11/15/2019 The Messenger
11/7/2019 Nuclear Throne
11/7/2019 RUINER
10/31/2019 SOMA
10/24/2019 Layers of Fear
10/24/2019 Q.U.B.E. 2
10/17/2019 >observer_
10/17/2019 Alan Wake's American Nightmare
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Mysteries Resupply Pack
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Space Race
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars
10/4/2019 Minit
9/26/2019 Metro: 2033 Redux
9/26/2019 Everything
9/19/2019 Lego Batman Trilogy
9/19/2019 Batman Arkham - Trilogy
9/18/2019 Conarium
8/29/2019 Inside
8/29/2019 Celeste
8/23/2019 Fez
8/21/2019 The Cycle Early Access
8/15/2019 Mutant Year Zero
8/15/2019 Hyper Light Drifter
8/8/2019 GNOG
8/3/2019 Alan Wake
8/3/2019 For Honor Standard Edition
7/25/2019 This War of Mine
7/25/2019 Moonlighter
7/18/2019 Limbo
7/11/2019 Torchlight
7/4/2019 Overcooked
7/3/2019 Dauntless
7/3/2019 Last Day of June

I was cited as going 36 MPH in a 20 MPH school zone. This is in TX. I have a dashcam and can back up all claims made below with total accuracy and proof in the form of video, screenshots, and local city ordinances from their own website.
There are number of issues with the ticket and I would like to have it dismissed outright.
Is there enough proof below to have this dismissed?
clerical error on ticket
Cop cited me for speeding, but the “school zone” field of the ticket is marked “NO”
city ordinance differs from signage
Recently passed local city ordinance specifically defines the school zone around the school as the following, recently updated 2020. Previous ordinances passed in 2018, and 2019.
“M to F, 8:15 to 9:15 AM, 3:45 to 4:45 PM. From a point 200 feet south of XYZ Drive to a point 200 feet north of ABC Lane”
While I was within these bounds, there is a missing sign on the section of the road I was on where I suspect the school zone marker used to be. Thus for around a quarter mile as you go past a wooded area, there is only a sign for 35 MPH. As you go along, you come to a lighted crosswalk, cut through in the median, and right before the cut through but after the crosswalk is a flashing school zone sign. I was lit up as I passed the pull through where the cop was sitting. I was pulled over after the school zone marker before which point I was slowing down and after which point I was doing 20 MPH or below.
Issue is, I was pulled over at 3:15 PM, not within the time limits set in the ordinance. However the signage I passed while doing under 20 MPH indicates the zone is active 2:15 PM to 4:45 PM.
Which takes precedence? The older signage using past ordinances or the “newly” passed ordinance?
I feel the cop is unaware of the law change based on what he said and I’m sure he’s aware of the lack of signage and opportunity to pull people over on false pretenses. How to proceed?

Hey everybody,
​
I'm a 30 years old EU citizen (M) and am planning to visit China with my elderly grandmother (80) this fall (September / October) for a period of between two and three weeks. It's always been her dream to go to China and with the country opening up for tourists again, I thought that this might be the best chance we'll get before she is too old. While I have done a decent amount of travelling in the past, there are some points that I am anxious about, especially with me taking along a senior citizen and a lot of the available information still being pre-Covid, which is why it would be greatly appreciated if you could give me some feedback and help clear up some of my questions.
First off, some information regarding us and what we currently have planned. The basic itinerary involves going from Beijing to Shanghai (or the other way, whichever turns out to be more convenient). Along the road, our primary destinations are Luoyang, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing and then a Yangze river cruise to Yichang. I am still working on how long I would like to stop at each individual place (heavily dependent on travel times, which I still need to figure out) and I know that there are many more great places that one could potentially visit, but these are pretty much set in stone. Getting a tourist visa and a covid test before departure shouldn't be an issue, so I am relaxed on that front.
I am using the most recent version of the lonely planet China travel guide as my primary reference for planning the trip. The last update to the book was made in December of 2021, so while it explicitely states that Covid related changes were taken into consideration, I am sure that there is a lot of information in there that is no longer accurate.
Neither of us speaks Chinese, though I am close to fluent in Japanese, so I shouldn't be completely lost interpreting signs and such things, plus I plan on taking a Mandarin crash course before going. I also consider myself to be somewhat proficient at communicating using only my hands and feet, so I think that we should be mostly fine when it comes to basic communication.
So, here are the things I am currently the most concerned about:
​

1. Registration with the authorities, what to do and not to do. I have seen a couple of people ask similar questions on this sub and the general consensus seems to be that while you technically have to register with the police every time you move to another city, this is usually done automatically by your hotel. Considering that we plan on staying at relatively large hotels every night (barring the river cruise), am I therefore correct in assuming that this shouldn't be an issue for us? Are there any other travelling restrictions unique to China that we have to keep in mind or would a basic common sense approach to travelling in a foreign country (i. e. follow local customs, listen to authorities, ask politely if you don't understand something) be enough to avoid major issues?
2. Accessibility of museums, sights and tourist attractions post-Covid. Considering that both domestic and international tourism have been back for quite a while, I am assuming that there are no Covid related temporary closures anymore. What I am more concerned about is sights that require a registration or booking prior to getting there. Is that a thing that is currently still common in China? If so, are there lists or booking apps specifically for this purpose? Of course, just checking individually for every attraction we would like to visit is an option, but I usually like knowing how much I have to plan in advance and how spontaneous we can be. On the topic of which, are there any major attractions in any of the places I listed where making an early reservation is absolutely essential?
3. Buying train tickets. We mostly plan on travelling from city to city by high-speed train. I already know that there are a number of sites online where you can book tickets in advance, some of which even seem to offer digital only tickets, e. g. trip.com. What are the best sites and apps for this purpose? I also usually plan out my trips using Google Maps, which doesn't seem to have information on most Chinese trains, so are there any convenient places where you can easily look up both local and intercity train schedules?
4. Booking local tours. Although I do like the freedom that comes with individually planning one's trip, there are some places where I'd definitely prefer a guided tour. The book I use as reference has some information on local tour providers in any given region and I am going to assume that most hotels will have some information on this topic. What I was wondering is whether or not there are any services, be it a website or an app, where one can search for and book guided tours in a more convenient way.
5. Making reservations for restaurants. Basically the same question as the last. Are there apps or websites where you can make reservations for restaurants or check their availability? Some restaurants probably have websites and calling ahead of a visit is always an option, but this would definitely be more convenient.
6. Paying for services. This too seems to be quite a contentious topic on this sub and is of course connected to my previous questions. I am assuming that a European credit card (MasterCard) won't get me very far and I intend to always carry a significant amount of cash with me, which, as far as I can make out, should be accepted by most vendors and merchants. I am more concerned with paying for online services such as the ones I talked about above or purchasing tickets for the subway. Would the Tour Pass function from the Alipay app for Android be enough for this purpose?
7. Other necessary apps. Are there any apps not connected to my previous points that one can not do without when travelling to China? The reason I ask is that there are some things that I may take for granted that no longer work once in China, e. g. having to substitute Google Maps with Baidu Maps. FYI, I usually use DeepL for translations, but there may be better solutions that I am not aware of.

​
Any help is highly appreciated, thanks a lot in advance!

Back again with a great night of comedy at Mystic Farm and Distillery! This month we have headliner TARA BROWN!
Tara Brown is an award-winning comedian who performs clean and family-friendly comedy across the country. CharlotteFive.com named her as one of “The Standup Comedians You Need to Know in Charlotte;” while Queen City Nerve named her as “Best Comedian” for 2019. She is the most recent winner of Jeanne Robertson’s “Comedy with Class” Humor Competition. Tara can be seen on the 2nd season of the television show “Stand Up Nashville” on the Circle Network; and her Dry Bar Comedy special is available on both www.drybarcomedy.com and the Dry Bar Comedy+ app.
​
Ticket Link. https://mysticdurham.ticketspice.com/comedy-night-6223

THIS IS JUST AN INCOMPLETE PLACEHOLDER. CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR THE FULL LISTING.
Events are listed by the day. Events that happen every week appear first, one time stuff after that. If you have anything you’d like people to know about, comment here or message me and I’ll add it in. If you’d like further info about any of the events, look it up! I usually don’t have any extra to add.
Large Scale, Ongoing, and Multi-Day Events

Local Running, Walking, and Biking Info: https://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/
OutdooFarmer’s Markets:

• Lake Ella Grower's Market: Wednesday, 11am-2pm. You can always find organic vendors, and foragers: The Holistic Cannabis Community, Artzi Farms, Hickory Nut Gifts, and others. Including Pita Queen! Farmer's Market Nutrition Program Coupons gladly accepted!
  
• Frenchtown Market: 524 N MLK Jr Blvd. Saturdays, 10am to 2pm. Come grow community and support your local farmers and makers, while you get your groceries for the week! Don’t forget! We match SNAP/EBT, so you DOUBLE your money to go towards locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables!
  
• Tallahassee Farmers Market: 2904 Kerry Forest Pkwy, Saturdays, 8am to Noon. Come see us at Tallahassee's longest-running farmers market! We are a year-round market, featuring local farms and vendors that provide the best seasonal produce, meats, baked goods, and more. We welcome you and your whole family (leashed pets included) to come out and meet your local farmers! Ample parking is available between our lot and the shopping center lot next door (by Red Elephant). Come early for the best selection.
  
• Tallahassee Downtown Market: Ponce de Leon Park, Saturdays, 10am-2pm. Join us for a stroll in the park among local makers, bakers, artists and farmers as live music is played by local musicians!
  

THURSDAY, 6/1

• Blue Tavern: Happy Hour Pickfoolery. 5pm
  
• The Hub at Feather Oaks: Bingo. 6pm
  
• Dreamland BBQ: Weekly Open Blues Jam. If you'd like to sing, please bring your own mic. 6pm
  
• Blu Halo: Upside Avenue. 6pm
  
• Lake Hall: Thursday Night Paddle Series. Weekly paddles at Lake Hall every Thursday starting at 6PM. The park closes on a sliding scale each night dictated by sun set. The park entrance fee is $6.00 (the ranger station closes at 5:30 and they typically do not charge for entry after this time). While there is no fee for this event ALL paddlers must have filled out the ACKC insurance waiver. Link here: https://form.jotform.com/JLAagency/apalachee-canoe--kayak----club-waiv Welcome to our weekly Thursday night paddling event at Maclay Gardens State Park in Tallahassee, Florida. Our event is designed to be both casual and instructional, offering paddlers of all skill levels the opportunity to improve their kayaking abilities while enjoying the beautiful surroundings. Starting at 6pm and ending at sunset, our weekly paddling event will provide participants with the chance to learn and practice different strokes, capsize recovery, and kayak rolling techniques. Sometimes there will be knowledgeable instructors on hand to provide guidance and instruction helping you to develop your skills and build your confidence on the water. Whether you are a beginner looking to learn the basics of paddling or an experienced paddler looking to improve your technique, our event is perfect for you. We welcome all skill levels and provide a supportive and encouraging environment to help you achieve your goals. Join us each Thursday evening at Maclay Gardens State Park and experience the thrill of kayaking while learning new skills and making new friends. Don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity to improve your paddling abilities and explore the beauty of Tallahassee's natural surroundings. 6pm
  
• The Great Games Library: Solforge Fusion Sealed-Deck Tournament. Anyone interested in SolForge: Fusion, please come out! Thursday nights at 6:00pm to 9:00pm ish will be dedicated to SolForge Fusion gameplay and weekly tournaments. If you play or have played MTG but would like to spend less, this is a great alternative CCG with inexpensive entry and minimal purchases to enjoy playing competitively. In-store and online tournaments may be played with the same decks purchased at any store. SolForge was created by the same designer for MTG, Netrunner, and Key Forge, Richard Garfield, and the designer for Ascension, Justine Gary. 6pm/$35 Entry Fee for 4 Sealed Half-decks, Special Art Playmat Prize for 1st Place
  
• Oyster City Brewing Co: Open Mic Night! Join us on Thursdays from 6:30-9:30 PM for Open Mic Night hosted by the incredible Mike Ingram of The Brown Goose! 🎙️ 🎶 This is your chance to show off your skills! Whether you're a musician, poet, comedian, or have a hidden talent, we can't wait to see what you bring to the stage. 6:30pm
  
• World of Beer: Trivia Night. 7pm
  
• Lake Tribe III: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Smitty's Taphouse: Trivia Lab Thursdays. Teams of 6 or fewer players can compete for $30 / $20 / $10 Prizes + The Golden MacGuffin prize table! New format! Interactive smartphone answering for your comfort and safety! 6 Fun Rounds - 42 Total Questions. 7:30pm
  
• House of Music: Prime Rib Thursday & Karaoke. 7:30pm
  
• Cap City Video Lounge: Red Zone Cuba: MST3K May the Fourth Double Feature. Join us Thursday as we climb aboard The Satellite of Love along with Joel, Tom Servo and CROOOOWas the Gang riffs filmmaker Coleman Francis' 1966 neo-noir art film magnum opus, RED ZONE CUBA! immediately proceeded by the short, SPEECH: PLATFORM, POSTURE AND APPEARANCE! 8pm/free but donations encouraged
  
• Fire Bettys: Electronic Thursdays. There will be rotating music genres from local artists! 8pm/free/21+
  
• Poor Pauls: Trivia. 8/21+
  
• 926: Karaoke. 9pm
  
• Fire Bettys: Electronic Show. Join us for Experiment 002 and take a mind-bending trip into the sound of the future! Our electrifying music party will transport you to another dimension with cutting-edge beats and non-stop excitement. 9pm
  
• Bird’s: Karaoke with Nathan. 9pm
  

• Blue Tavern: Bluegrass Jam with Dennis Hardin. 5pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Wasted Potential Brass Band. 8pm
  
• House of Music: Steeln’ Peaches: The Music of the Allman Brothers Band. 8pm
  

FRIDAY, 6/2

• Lake Tribe: Flannel Friday. Flannel Fridays will be featuring a wide range of fall themed 'Pop-up' activities such as food trucks, live music, campfires, s'mores roasting, new seasonal brews, and more! Come dawn your flannel and cozy up to the simpler things in life. Our beers taste like the outdoors feel, let our tasting room be your Friday cabin retreat. 4pm
  
• Gamescape: MTG Friday Night Magic. FORMAT: Standard Constructed. Swiss rounds as determined by the number of players with a maximum of 5 rounds. 7pm/$5
  
• Hobbit West: Friday Night Dart Tournament. Anyone can Enter! Sign ups at 7:30, Darts fly at 8:00/$10 entry fee
  
• Ouzts Too: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 8pm
  
• Club Downunder: CDU X Hip Hop Club Presents Freestyle Friday. Show off your freestyle rap or poetry skills at Freestyle Friday! Doors are at 7:30 with the show starting at 8:00 in Club Downunder! Send an email to [email protected] to sign up! 8pm
  
• The Bar at La Casa: Karaoke with DJ FUSION. 9pm
  
• Just One More: Karaoke with DJ Rah. 9pm-11pm/21+
  
• 926: The Hot Friday Night Party and Drag Show. 9pm/$5/18+
  

• Blue Tavern: Everett Young. 5pm
  
• Square Mug: Jordie Hendrix. 6pm
  
• The Plant: Maker’s Market featuring local artists selling handmade items and live music by Bad Weather, High Speed Suicide, Speed Runner, ArsonGender, and Computer Man. 6:30pm
  
• Ology Midtown: Kanise featuring Facey. 7pm
  
• Island Wings: Lee C Payton performs a tribute to Kathryn Belle Long. 7pm
  
• Fire Bettys: Groove Merchants. 8pm/21+
  
• The Bark: Saturnalia, Gangs of Paris, Headfoam, and Wojtek. 8pm
  

SATURDAY, 6/3

• Brinkley Glen Park: Invasive Plant Removal. Join Master Gardener Volunteers at this weekly invasive plant removal event. This is a great way to learn to ID our invasive plant species and how to remove them. We recommend wearing long pants and sleeves, closed-toed shoes, gloves, a hat and mosquito spray. Bring gardening tools such as hand clippers, loppers, trowels, etc. if you have them. We are removing coral ardisia bushes and berries, nandina, tung trees, Tradescantia flumenensis, cat's claw vine, winged yam, Japanese climbing fern, skunkvine and more. Directions: The best way to get there is to take Meridian Rd to Waverly Rd, go to the next intersection and turn left onto Abbotsford Way, then turn left at the next road called Woodside Dr. At the stop sign turn left onto Lothian. Lothian ends in a cul-de-sac and there is a sign that says Brinkley Glen Park. 8:30am-11:30am
  
• The Rose Room: The Rose Revue. Performances by your favorite entertainers and special guests! Shows at 8pm, 10pm, & Midnight! A unique cast EACH show! 7pm
  
• Duke’s and Dottie’s: Line Dancing Plus Lessons. 7pm/21+
  
• Bird’s Oyster Shack: Laughterday Night Fever. This week: Five Year Anniversary Laughterday Night Fever! Join us every Saturday at Bird's Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack for a free comedy show! 8:30pm
  
• La Casa Bar: Karaoke With Nathan. 9pm-1am
  

• Blue Tavern: First Saturday Swim with Bluegill Bill. 5pm
  
• Tally Print Studio (225 E Pershing St): Grand Opening featuring local printmakers, food vendors, live screen printing, clothing swap, and live music from DJ Enigumatic, Danitza, Rachel Hillman, and Sleep John B. 5pm-10pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing Co: Mechanical Lincoln. 7pm
  
• The Bark: Boy Named Sue, Teens In Trouble, and Copyright Claim. 7:30pm
  
• Square Mug: Suddenly, Bench Warmer, and Sarah Morrison. 8pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Prine Time: Local Songwriters cover the music of John Prine. 8pm
  
• House of Music: The Funky ‘Taters featuring Lili Forbes and friends. 8pm
  

SUNDAY, 6/4

• Bicycle House: Sunday Ride. Ride at 10:30 AM from Bicycle House. We will ride the Cascades trail to the St Marks trail and down to Wakulla station and return, about 31 miles. Ride speed is 12 to 14 mph, with periodic regroups. Vernon Bailey is the ride leader. Vernon is a new CCC member who’s been biking for 50 years enjoys riding with small groups and weekend touring. 10am
  
• Gamescape: Pokémon League. Come learn, play, and trade with the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the Pokémon video games! We LOVE seeing new players, so come learn how to play! We play both the Trading Card Game and the Video Game casually and competitively. The store offers lots of different seating arrangements to meet our group's needs, as well as food, drinks, and Pokémon products for purchase. We are also hold regular, officially sanctioned tournaments for Pokémon Trading Card Game and Video Game Competitions! 2-4pm
  
• Lake Tribe: Colby Scheib. 3pm
  
• House of Music: Songwriter Sunday. Songwriters of Tallahassee hosted by Rachel Hillman. Bring your original songs on Sunday - sign up is at 4:30. No Cover Songs please - this is an event celebrating original music. Accompanists and Bands Welcome - you must be able to set up within two minutes, so no crazy pedals or amp shenanigans. No Backing Tracks - Please find someone to play your song with you. 5pm
  
• The Plant: Open Jam. All instruments, all players welcome. 5pm-9pm
  
• House of Music: Perkins Street Pickers. 5pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing: Comedy Night. Come have some laughs with us on Sunday nights! If you are interested in participating in the show, reach out to [email protected] 7:30pm
  
• The Rose Room: Synful Sunday. 8pm
  

**MONDAY, 6/5

• Just One More: Bingo. 5pm-6:30pm
  
• American Legion Hall: Cha Cha - Weekly Lessons. 6:15pm/$5
  
• Hangar 38: Bingo. 6:45pm
  
• Vino Beano: Tipsy Trivia. 7pm
  
• The Rose Room: Karaoke Night. 8pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing: The Bachelor Watch Party! 8pm
  

TUESDAY, 6/6

• Blue Tavern: Happy Hour with Paddy League. 5pm
  
• World of Beer: Poker Night. 6pm
  
• The Rose Room: Drag Bingo and Open Stage Night ft. Britney T. Foxx! 6pm
  
• Crafty Crab: BOOMIN' Karaoke. 7pm
  
• Ology Midtown: Jazz Jam Sessions. 7pm
  
• Island Wings: Trivia. 7pm
  
• House of Music: Tuesday Trivia & Karaoke. 7pm
  
• Burrito Boarder: Karaoke with DJ Roldus. 8pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Tuesday is Blues Day. Every Tuesday is Blues Day @ the Blue Tavern and Blues Meets Girl is a Tallahassee favorite. This perfect, intimate venue provides just what you need for both a mid-week break and authentic blues music experience. 8pm
  
• 4th Quarter: Professor Jim's Tuesday Night Trivia. Popular for a reason! 8pm
  
• Argonaut Coffee: Trivia Tuesday. 8pm
  
• 926: Tacos and Trivia. 9pm
  
• Fire Betty’s: Comedy Show. 9pm/21+
  

• Retrofit Records: Janelle Monáe “The Age Of Pleasure” Album Listening Party. 8pm

WEDNESDAY, 6/7

• Rose Room: Women's Wednesday. Featuring Our Rose Roulettes and drink specials all night long. A night for all of our female-identifying friends to enjoy a safe space and an awesome happy hour! 5pm-2am
  
• Blue Tavern: The Wednesday Night Lab Session hosted by Jim Crozier. 5pm
  
• Sugar and Spice Tally: Game Night. Join us every Wednesday Night for community game night. Bring your own or use ours! Let me know if you need to reserve space for a large group. Free to attend! 5pm
  
• Tara Angel’s Magic: D&D Experience - Adult (18+) Group. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Candlekeep Mysteries. A one-shot is a D&D event that starts and finishes in the same session, typically lasting 3 - 4 hours. We have pre-generated characters for players to choose from. WHAT TO BRING: Pencils, Dice (can be purchased in store), Mask (encouraged for unvaccinated participants), Enthusiasm! Please sign up in advance to reserve a spot in this campaign. Tickets can be purchased in-store, over the phone, or on the website. For more information, please email [email protected], or call: (850) 878-4555 6pm-9pm
  
• Goodwood: Wonderful Wednesday. 6pm/$5
  
• Level 8 Rooftop Lounge: Trivia. 6pm
  
• The Great Games Library: Open Game Night. 6pm/free
  
• American Legion Hall: Sue Boyd Country Western and More Dance Class. Session 2 - Beginner 6:30 to 7:45 pm What: East Coast Swing and Waltz. Cost: $8.00 per person. Wear comfortable shoes you can turn in. 7:45 to 8:15 - Practice dance with paid admission. 8:15 to 9:30: Intermediate - 2 Step and WCS. $8.00 per person or $13.00 for both classes. Vaccines are required. Face masks are optional. Changing partners is optional. 6:30pm
  
• Perry Lynn’s Smokehouse in Quincy: Wed Night Open Mic w/ Steven Ritter and Friends. 6:30pm
  
• Hangar 38: Trivia. 6:45pm
  
• Oyster City Brewing Tallahassee: Trivia. Teams up to 6 players for three rounds with 10 questions and a tie breaker each round. Winners are by round so don’t worry if you need to come late or can’t stay the whole time! Prizes include a round of beer, a 6 pack and a gift card! 7pm
  
• Proof: Trivia. 7pm
  
• Vino Beano: Wine Bingo. 7pm
  
• Fermentation Lounge: Trivia. 7pm
  
• House of Music: Open Mic at House of Music. Join us Wednesday nights for open mic in the bar with host Mike Ingram of The Brown Goose. Come early for Happy Hour and dinner! 8pm
  
• Blue Tavern: Warehouse Wednesdays Open Mic Night. The open mic night that has run continuously for almost 20 years, once housed at the Warehouse, lives on at the Blue Tavern. Doc Russell continues as the host with the most. Sign up starts at 8pm/free to attend
  
• Fire Betty’s: Karaoke! 8pm/21+/free
  
• Dukes and Dotties: College Night and Line Dancing Lessons. 8pm
  
• The Bark: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 9pm
  
• 926: Dragged Out Wednesday. 10pm
  

• The Bark: Dikembe, Glazed, and Professional Businessman. 7:15pm

Public opinion of TriMet's decisions have been pretty mixed, mostly because TriMet's decisions are so convoluted that they can be a real challenge to understand. In reality, Metro and Portlanders need to have a bigger civic conversation about the future of TriMet, looking at the big picture. We have 3 looming existential crises of TriMet to be concerned about that are bigger than revenue dips, crime, or homeless people.
Civic leaders and the public are focused on a quick "fix" for TriMet revenue drops - even though we've seen this coming for a long time, it's very predictable that TriMet's Board of Directors acts at the last minute. Also, very predictably, TriMet's Board opted for a fare increase because over the previous 20 years that's been a go-to answer to every problem (except for that one time they killed Fareless Square). The politically appointed boards of TriMet and Metro lack the unique specialized knowledge of the issues I'll bring up here. If TriMet knows about these larger issues, they're obviously burring it from public view. In the short term, increasing fares is like putting fresh paint on a house that's on fire; in this situation, that paint is HIGHLY flammable.
First - fare hikes as a tactic is a brain-dead move. Just the most utterly stupid and self-sabotaging response to a looming budget shortfall. I'm dwelling on this because it illustrates their terrible decision-making, which is functional proof they have no idea what they're doing. Some of the core reasons for this:

• Increasing fares reduces utilization. Higher cost means fewer people ride, which will decrease the ridership revenue. It will also marginally increase the number of people who won't pay (funny story, some of those who don't pay actually can't afford to). TriMet isn't a monopoly or inelastic service, and plenty of other choices exist that didn't exist 20 years ago: an actual bike share, scooters, electric bikes, UbeLyft, shared vehicles, and more bike paths. Before the pandemic, it was common that I would bus into downtown for work and then take a Lyft home because it wasn't all that expensive, like $8 more than a bus ride - TriMet's price increases make a system that wasn't very competitive simply less compelling.
  
• Across Portland we need to go through a process of austerity and downsizing government. I absolutely support Wheeler putting a pause on rate increases, but for God's sake, we have far too much largesse in every layer of government. If you need to learn what I'm talking about, read my old article on Parks & Rec. So many divisions/agencies have doubled their staff while reducing service levels. It's bonkers. Cutting throats needs to be an imperative. This is because the great majority of public sector employees in Oregon and Portland are incompetent, redundant, and only exist because Oregon and Portland have been reluctant to use automation. And I don't mean the cutting-edge AI stuff, I'm talking about people who still handle business processes as if they're paper forms. I could tell so many stories from my professional experience - but you'll have to take my word for it for now: culling this bureaucracy is the right move, and until there's a significant downsizing, the political class is taking none of the financial crisis or cost of living situation seriously.
  
• TriMet's operating budget/revenue is primarily Payroll Taxes, not passenger revenue. About 20-30% of TriMet's budget comes from people buying fares, whereas the bulk of money TriMet needs comes from payroll taxes that businesses pay directly. Because of this, transit activists (including myself) have been proponents of increasing the payroll taxes marginally to make TriMet free for riders. Of course, fareless transit comes with a wide variety of new and different problems (that's an article for another time). Still, when you understand that only a sliver of revenue comes from fares, increasing the fare simply results in a marginal increase in revenue. The much bigger problem is going to businesses investing outside of Metro, and changing workforces that 1) won't pay payroll taxes reliably, 2) don't need people to go into the office. Think about the longer-term game here: is TriMet's board going to increase fares as utilization drops and payroll taxes continually diminish? (See my point above about how their default answer is "yes" because it's the only politically expedient answer.)
  

Reading comments about the fare hikes, most of the public thinks TriMet is dealing with a safety or utilization issue. Both of these are 100% true: soft-on-crime progressives have wholly obliterated the working class perception of TriMet safety - there are so many different ways this has happened, but we should thank so many people in the media and political class: Ana del Rocio's crying wolf about racism in fare inspections (and the media entertaining it), or Mike Schmidt deinstitutionalizing of the justice system, or Legislature's inability to act on the massive mental health crisis and drug addiction crisis in Oregon. No matter the underlying cause, we have a system where deranged violent mentally ill tweakers can be disruptive on the train, but working-class people face a $250 fine if they can't afford a $2.50 ($2.80) ticket. TriMet is less safe, especially the light rail and bus lines. We could hypothetically talk about various policy and infrastructure changes, such as turnstiles and security guards - but pragmatically, this won't do shit when our society has adopted a philosophy of transforming the urban core into an open-air insane asylum and opened the doors to the prisons. This safety issue is well beyond TriMet's scope, and even if there was consensus among TriMet and Metro to solve this, the entire justice system and Legislature is still broken.

Fare Hikes and Utilization is the Red Herring - Let's talk about TriMet's future

In reality, multiple design choices made decades ago set us up for failure. But we also have to thank brain-dead progressive lunatics and corrupt politicos who have steered our transit decision-making into the ground.
There are three specific issues I'm going to talk about, with each becoming more consequential and disastrous for TriMet:

• Hub and Spoke Design and the need for a redesign of the entire system to fit new commuting/transit patterns
  
• Portland Light Rail's short cars are a capacity problem not worth the price tag to fix
  
• Autonomous vehicles are here, and it's just going to get worse for TriMet
  

The strategic design of TriMet's system is broken, and it's been broken before.

If you looked at a map of TriMet's bus and rail system, you'd see a design pattern often referred to as a "Radial Design" or sometimes a "Hub And Spoke" design. The Hub and Spoke strategy is building our transit system around centralized locations to connect to other routes. For Portland the idea is to go downtown (or sometimes a Park and Ride) where you can connect to your next destination. This is why the majority of bus routes and all the max routes go downtown, to our Transit Mall and Pioneer Square.
Downtown planning was a smart idea in the 1960s when it was coupled with Main Street economic theory and prototype urban development zones - all of this wrapped up in the 1972 Downtown Plan policy. During these decades, the primary economic idea of urban revitalization was that downtown cores could provide better business climates and shopping districts that amplify economic activity synergistically. In other words, packing all the office jobs and luxury shopping in one area is good for workers, business, and civic planning.
All very smart ideas in yester-year, so TriMet became focused on serving the downtown business community myopically. This myopia became so paramount that it was considered illegitimate (actually taboo, borderline illegal) if you used a Park & Ride facility to park and NOT ride downtown. Amanda Fritz once explained that we couldn't expand Barbur Transit Center because that would result in students parking at Barbur Transit Center and riding the bus to PCC Sylvania. This view implies that TriMet exists only to service downtown workers, not the students, not the impoverished mom needing to go to a grocery store.
How does TriMet's hub and spoke design represent its purpose?
Portland's unspoken rule of transit philosophy is that jobs pay for the system (remember, business payroll taxes pay for most of it), so TriMet should be focused on serving people utilizing it for their job - employers pay for it, and they get value out of it. But this is both unspoken (never said aloud) and largely unobserved. The whole idea of TriMet as a social service to serve low-income people, to help impoverished people - well, those ideas were just lukewarm political rhetoric that is tossed out as soon as some Undesirable with tattered clothing reeking of cigarettes gets aboard - then Portlanders jump right back "this is for workers only!" Sadly, there hasn't ever been a public consensus of why TriMet exists because I could equally argue that TriMet's purpose isn't serving the working class; it's actually vehicle emissions reductions - but here, too, reality contradicts that this is the purpose for why we operate TriMet. TriMet's real purpose seems to be "Spend money on lofty capital projects" and if we want to be cynical about it, we can elaborate "…because large capital projects enable grift, embezzlement, and inflating property values for developers."
We haven't always depended upon a hub and spoke design. A great article from Jarrett Walker written in 2010 on his Human Transit blog explains in "The Power and Pleasure of Grids"

Why aren't all frequent networks grids? The competing impulse is the radial network impulse, which says: "We have one downtown. Everyone is going there, so just run everything to there." Most networks start out radial, but some later transition to more of a grid form, often with compromises in which a grid pattern of routes is distorted around downtown so that many parallel routes converge there. You can see this pattern in many cities, Portland for example. Many of the lines extending north and east out of the city center form elements of a grid, but converge on the downtown. Many other major routes (numbered in the 70s in Portland's system) do not go downtown, but instead complete the grid pattern. This balance between grid and radial patterns was carefully constructed in 1982, replacing an old network in which almost all routes went downtown.

Over the years the grid pattern was neglected in favor of a downtown-focused investment strategy. To a real degree it made practical sense: that's where the jobs were. But again, this is the presumption that TriMet and Mass Transit ought to service workers first, and there's not much consensus on that. But while we can't decide on TriMet's purpose, we can absolutely agree on one important thing: Downtown is dead.
No 5-star hotel is going to fix it. (As of writing, I'm not even convinced that this mafia-connected bamboozle of public fraud will open.) No "tough-on-crime" DA to replace Mike Schmidt, like Nathan Vasquez, will fix downtown. It's not JUST a crime problem: most of the problems we deal with today mirror the problems facing Portland in the 1960s, especially our inability to invest in good infrastructure people actually want to use. That's on top of crime, vandalism, and an unhealthy business ecosystem.
IF we want to maintain TriMet (and that's a big IF, for reasons I'll explain below), then it will be focused on something other than downtown. We need to move back to a grid-design transit system, as this is a much easier way to use transit to get around the city, no matter your destination. If TriMet continues to exist and operate fleets in 20-30 years, this is the only way it exists - because it will just be too inconvenient to ride downtown as a side quest to your destination, especially as we look at 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
Of course, we can only transform some parts of the transit infrastructure this way, and there are no uplifting and moving train tracks here. So light rail doesn't have a future in the grid system - but even without the grid system, light rail is doomed.

The fatal flaws of light rail in Portland.

I want to preface this by saying I like light rail as a strategy, it's not a bad system or bad civic investment. I could write another 5,000-word essay on why Seattle did an excellent job with light rail and the specific decisions Portland made wildly incorrectly. In transit advocacy the wacktavists inappropriately categorized skeptics of Portland's light rail as some soft bigotry - as if you're racist if you don't like Portland's light rail - even though, ironically, most light rail systems tend to be built for the preference of white culture and white workers, precisely what happened here in Portland and most cities (but this is all a story for another time).
Portland's light rail system has a capacity problem and has dealt with this capacity problem quietly for the last 20+ years. When you see the capacity problem, you can quickly understand this light rail system won't work in the future. All the other smart cities in the world that designed light rail realized they needed big long trains to move many people. Portland decided to limit the train car length to the size of our city blocks to save construction costs - and this has always been a fatal flaw.
Portland's highest capacity train car is our Type 5, according to Wikipedia it has a seating capacity of 72 and an overall capacity of 186 per train. Let's compare:

• Washington DC has 6-car trains capable of carrying 120 passengers per car, or 720 per train.
  
• Salt Lake City has a 4-car train capable of carrying 230 passengers per car, or 920 per train.
  
• Seattle's Link system has a 3 or 4-car train, each capable of carrying approximately 200 passengers per car, so 600 to 800 per train.
  

Portland's light rail lines have roughly the same people moving capacity as a single lane of a highway, maybe marginally more, maybe marginally less. These other cities have a light rail system that can move the same amount of people as an entire 3-lane highway.
You might suspect that Portland could simply run trains more frequently - but nah, that's impossible because the trains run through the central core of downtown Portland, and they're blocked by the real interfaces with road traffic and bottlenecks. TriMet/PBOT/Metro has offered rosy ideas that we could hypothetically run cars every 90 seconds, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, or 6 minutes (depending upon who you ask) - but these are garbage numbers invented out of thin air. For example, you could stand at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 4:50pm on a Wednesday in 2016 - there was a train opening doors to load passengers, and you could visibly see the next train at Pioneer Place Mall pulling into the station behind. Trains were running at approximately a 3 to 4 minute at peak - but on paper, TriMet will claim anything, as they don't give a shit about lying to the public. But the bigger problem is that trains were full. You might have to wait 90 minutes to find a train that offers a seat. And god forbid you had a bike.
I'm not making this very real capacity problem, Metro even acknowledges:

At the busiest hours of the day, 40 light rail trains must cross the river and traverse downtown – one train every 90 seconds. As the region grows and the demand for light rail increases, the region will need at least 64 MAX trains through downtown every hour, more than one train each minute. Our current system can't support that change.

Suppose you're silly enough to trust government propaganda. In that case, you can read the details of Metro study on this in 2019. If we assumed their numbers added up, it's just fucking impossible to run 62 trains per hour, because passenger loading and unloading can take a full minute (sometimes longer). So unless we want to apply substantial g-forces onto the passengers, the train isn't accelerating out of the stops fast enough. Not to mention how unreliable this whole system would be if a sole tweaker, bike rider, or person with a stroller held up the system for 2 minutes.
This is why the bottom line needs to be upfront about capacity - quoting Metro's study here:

Today MAX is limited to 2-car trains because of the length of downtown city blocks. A tunnel could allow for longer trains if the stations outside the downtown core are retrofitted. In the long-term, this could greatly increase MAX capacity.

Do you see that trick? Build a tunnel, yes - but the entire system has to be retrofitted. Literally every light rail station would need to be redesigned, the lines themselves recalculated for larger heavier trains - and extending platforms at Willow Creek might be simple enough, but how in the living fuck is Metro going to afford to expand the Zoo stop? Doubling the size of that platform would cost $500 million alone.
If the city weren't full of cheap dipshits, we would have elevated or buried our light rail lines in the 1980s or 90s, enabling longer train cars to run. Yes, we all knew back then that it was the best practice not to have light rail running on the street - it's less safe, less reliable, runs slower, and limits train car size. Oops.
Just to keep TriMet's own bullshit inflated utopian vision, it would mean spending another billion dollars just to unfuck downtown, bypass an aging bridge, and potentially allow a marginally higher volume of trains - which again is a band-aid on a mortal wound.
The real buried lede is that to add extra train cars means retrofitting all the stops in the system - that's tens of billions of dollars. You can argue costs, but Metro knows we need to do this. It means shutting down the system for a year or years while construction and retrofits happen. It's fucking outrageous. Is this system worth of people per line worth 20, 30, or 40 billion dollars? Fuck no, it ain't. Again, if we had a raging metropolis of industry and commerce downtown, we could reasonably entertain the idea for a moment - but we don't and never will again.
Some folks might argue that if we kill off the light rail system we'd lose out on all those lucrative Transit Oriented Developments. Originally the public was told that Transit Oriented Development strategy would cause a massive infusion of private investment because the light rail was so damn lucrative and desirable for Richard Florida's Creative Class. Turns out the Creative Class is now called today the Laptop Class, and they don't give a flying fuck about street cars, light rail, or walking scores - because most can't be bothered to put pants on during their "commute" from bed to desk. TOD was all a fantasy illusion from the beginning, as multiple studies about Portland commuters showed that college-educated white folks riding Max were equally comfortable riding their bike as a substitute for the same commute. All of these billions of dollars was to accommodate white fare-weather bikers. So here's my hot take on transit: pave over the rail lines and put in bike lanes, and boy, then you'd have a bike system to give folks like Maus a hardon. But of course, Bike Portland would complain because their focus isn't biking; they exist only to favor all poorly thought utopian transit ideas.
Another group of Max/TOD advocates would claim that TOD is better for disabled and impoverished people. And yeah, there's truth there, but see my entire argument above about the Hub & Spoke design of TriMet being the antithesis of transit as a social service. If you believe that TriMet should serve low-income people, you must advocate for a bus-centric grid design.
But even if you're a die-hard believer in light rail - there's another inevitable reality coming that is the nail in the coffin.

Autonomous vehicles will replace mass transit faster than the automobile replaced the horse.

I work in advanced technology, and the thing about tech is that the public and politicians deny that it's going to be there until the majority of the public finally experiences it. You could say this about personal computers, internet, cloud compute, electric cars, smartphones, distributed ledger (cryptocurrency), AI, and driverless vehicles.
Schrodinger's technology doesn't exist until it's measured in an Apple store or your mother asks you for tech support.
No one thought AI was really real until ChatGPT did their kid's homework, and today most people are coming to terms with the fact that ChatGPT 3.5 could do most people's jobs. And that's not even the most advanced AI, that's the freeware put out by Microsoft, they have paywalls to access the real deal.
In 2018 I rode in my colleague's Tesla in self-driving mode from downtown Portland to Top Golf in Hillsboro. We started our journey at the surface parking lot on the west side of the Morrison Bridge. He used his phone to tell the car to pull out of the parking spot and to pick us up. Then he gave the car the address, and it drove us the entire way without any human input necessary. The only time he provided feedback was to touch the turn signal to pass a slow car on the highway. People think self-driving isn't here - but it is - and it's gotten exponentially better and will continue to do so. People will complain and moan about idealized, utopian, pedantic "level 5" full self-driving, how none of it exists or could exist, as a Tesla passes them on the road and the driver is half asleep.
Of course, Portland and every major city have also thought deeply about self-driving technology, and a few places have implemented self-driving solutions - but so far, none of these are really at scale. Though it will be a short time before cost-conscious cities go all-in.
TriMet kicked around the idea of using an autonomous bus for a leg of the trip of the Southwest Corridor project, connecting a segment of the light rail route to the community college. It was bafflingly stupid and short-sighted to think they could use it in this niche application but that it wouldn't open the floodgates for a hundred different applications that eviscerate TriMet's labor model. The simplest example of autonomous operation would be to operate the light rail systems - because they don't make turns, all we need is an AI vision service to slam on the breaks if necessary - that technology has existed for 20+ years. We could retrofit the entire train system in about 3 to 6 months - replace every Max operator with a security guard, and maybe people would ride the Max again? But I digress.
Let's speculate about the far-future, some 5, 10, or 20 years from now: your transit options will expand significantly. The cost will decrease considerably for services using automated vehicles.
You'll look at your options as:

• Drive to work: fastest, takes $100+ worth of gas a month, but you also need $50+ for insurance and $500+ for the monthly car payment, plus those surprise maintenance and broken windows. Also, do you pay for parking? Pick a number for how much it costs to drive your personally owned and manually operated vehicle to work each month.
  
• Autonomous vehicle service: price TBA, but think of how much an Uber costs when you don't have to pay the driver, you don't have to pay for gas. An Uber that runs for $20 today would likely be $10 or less. So, to and from work 20 times a month, $200. $300? Ok, let's just say it's $400 a month. It's still all cheaper than owning a car and driving it to work. No parking fees, and it picks you up quickly enough that it's not a nuisance.
  
• Mass Transit: $150 per month, but ugghhh it's slow, it smells like piss, a guy jacked off in your hair, and you can't schedule a meeting for the first 30 minutes of your anticipated workday in case you miss a connection - and it breaks so often the government actively hides the reliability data from the public and media.
  

Just a few years into this future we'll see a brand new trend, one that already exists: a shared autonomous vehicle like a privately operated bus. For example, Uber Bus - it already exists as a commuter option in some cities, it's just not autonomous yet. The significant benefit of an autonomous bus is that these shared vehicles will utilize HOV lanes very commonly, and commuting in an autonomous vehicle will be as fast as driving to work in your manually operated car while also being less expensive.
Simultaneously automobile accidents in autonomous vehicles will be virtually non-existent, and insurance companies will start to increase prices on vehicles that lack AI/smart assisted safety driving features. Public leaders will see the value of creating lanes of traffic on highways dedicated explicitly to autonomous vehicles so that they can drive at much higher speeds than manually operated traffic. Oregon won't lead the way here, but wait until Texas or one of the Crazy States greenlights a speed limit differential, and self-driving vehicles have a speed limit of 90, 120, or 150 miles per hour. You might think "accidents would be terrible and deadly" but there will be fewer accidents in the autonomous lane than in manual lanes. At this point, it will be WAY faster to take an autonomous vehicle to your work.
Purchasing power of consumers will decrease while the cost of vehicles will increase (especially autonomous vehicles), making ownership of any vehicle less likely. Frankly, the great majority of people won't know how to drive and will never learn to - just like how young people today don't know how to use manual transmission. However, fleets of autonomous vehicles owned by companies like Tesla, Uber, and Lyft will benefit from scale and keep their autonomous bus fleets operating at low cost. This will lead to a trend where fewer and fewer people will own an automobile, and fewer people even bother learning how to drive or paying the enormous insurance cost.... while also depending upon automobiles more than we do today.
Eventually, in the distant future, manually driven vehicles will be prohibited in urban areas as some reckless relic from a bygone era.
Cities and public bodies don't have to be cut out of this system if they act responsibly. For example, cities could start a data brokering exchange where commuters provide their commuting data (i.e., pick-up point, destination, arrival time). The government uses either a privatized fleet or a publicly owned fleet of autonomous vehicles to move as many people as possible as often as possible. Sort of a publicly run car-pool list - or a hyper-responsive bus fleet that runs for the exact passengers going to exact locations. A big problem companies like Uber, Lyft, and Tesla will have is that they'll lack market saturation to optimize commuting routes - they'll be able to win unique rides, but the best way they can achieve the lowest cost service model is these super predictable and timely commuter riders. The more data points and riders, the more optimization they can achieve. These companies can look at the data for as many people as possible and bid for as many routes as possible - optimizing for convenience, time, energy usage, emissions, etc. The public will voluntarily participate if this is optimized to get the cheapest ride possible. If the government doesn't do this, the private sector will eventually.
As a parallel, no one today even considers how Metro runs garbage collection. No one cares. And if you didn't like Metro's trash service, if you needed a better service for unique needs, you go procure that on your own. Likewise, you wouldn't care about the quality of the commuting trip as long as it's up to some minimal standards of your class expectations, it's reliable, nearly as quick as driving your own vehicle, and it seems reasonably affordable.
If the public ran this data exchange, fees could subsidize lower-income riders. This is a theory on what a TriMet like system or mass transit system could look like in a primarily autonomous world where most people don't own their own or drive an automobile.
This system would be far from perfect, opening up all sorts of problems around mobility. However, it's hard to see how autonomous vehicles will not obliterate the value proposition of mass transit.

Another narrative on the same story.

As the working class moves to autonomous vehicles, transit agencies will collect fewer and fewer fares - prices and taxes will rise, creating a cycle of failure. As a result, some cities will make buses self-driving to cut costs. It could start with Tokyo, Shanghai, Oslo, et al. Again, it's unlikely that Portland or Oregon will be the first movers on this, but when cities start laying off hundreds of mass transit operators and cutting fares to practically nothing, there will be substantial public pressure to mimic locally. It will be inhumane, it will be illiberal, to make those impoverished bus-riding single mothers pay premiums. As most of the fleet becomes autonomous, responsive, and disconnected from labor costs, the next question arises: why do we still operate bus routes? Why big buses instead of smaller and nimble vehicles?
This alternative story/perspective leads to the same outcome: we figure out where people are going and when they need to get there - then dispatch the appropriate amount of vehicles to move that exact number of people as efficiently as possible.
But our local government getting its act together on all this is outside the world of possibility.
In a practical sense, we're going to see history repeat itself. Portland's mass transit history is about private and public entities over-extending themselves, getting too deep in debt on a flawed and outdated idea. As a result, the system collapses into consolidation or liquidation. Following this historical pattern, TriMet/Metro won't respond to changing conditions fast enough, and laughably stupid ideas like cranking up taxes or increasing ridership fares will continue to be the only option until the media finally acknowledges these groups are insolvent. I just hope we don't spend tens of billions of dollars propping up this zombie system before we can soberly realize that we made some mistakes and these vanity-laden projects 20 and 30 years ago need to die.
You see, the biggest flaw with TriMet isn't the design, it needs to be outpaced by technology, it's that the people making decisions at TriMet and Metro are going to make the politically expedient decisions, not the right decisions. They won't redesign, and they won't leverage technology for cost savings, so this charade will just get going along until the media simply declares they're insolvent.
Back to fares for a second - the media happily reprints TriMet's horseshit take about "The higher fares will bring in an estimated $4.9 million in annual revenue starting next year, the report says." Just sort of amazing to me there's no skepticism about this number - but most spectacular is no media considerations about alternative solutions. For example, I could tell TriMet how to save $9,548,091 next year - a useless program primarily utilized by white middle-class folks who own alternative methods of transport - and this would inconvenience way less transit-dependent people than raising fares. But, that's off the table - we're not even developing a decision matrix for when we kill the blackhole of money known as WES.

Lots of notes from my first trip to Italy in late May. Maybe this will help other first-timers. We did Rome - Pompeii - Sorrento - Positano - Florence over 10 days.
Cities:
Rome: Get out early in the day. On our best day, we strolled to Trevi fountain before most of the shops had opened. We got to see them clean out the money from the fountain and that was oddly satisfying. By around 10 am...all hell breaks loose. It goes from kind of quiet to 'Where did they all come from?'. If there is a restaurant that you have heard of from Instagram...good luck getting in. Call or visit to put your name down. But here's the deal...we found lots of food options and I swear I never had a bad meal. Some were better than others but...good grief, it's all so damn good.
Vatican: I want to start an online petition to change the name to Catholic Disneyland. We booked a 3-hour tour and from the moment we arrived to the moment we left we were shoulder-to-shoulder with people. It was ridiculous and it made the day very very long. There is so much to take in and you are constantly being jostled by people…I can say I did it and I’d never go back.
Colosseum: We booked an underground tour as well as the main tour and that was amazing. You see where the gladiators came in and how they used to flood the floor of the Coliseum and do naval battles! The tour underground was small and you really got a chance to see how it all worked. Romans were impressive engineers and this spot showcases that.
The Forum: Our Colosseum tour included the Forum and…I liked it better. The view from the top of the Palatine Hill was worth the steps. Our guide really helped to bring this area alive for us.
Pompeii: Book a tour. There is so much and you’d miss half of it if someone wasn’t walking you through. We took an archaeologist tour and it was amazing. 2 hours and it felt like it was over in 20 minutes. You can take a regional train line directly to Pompeii and walk to the entrance. There is free (!!) luggage storage at the gate and the restaurant across the street was pretty good...but 'pretty good' in Italy is still 200x better than 'good' in the US.
Positano: Beautiful to look at…not much to do. Lots of shops…but they’re the same shops you’ll see all over this area. The restaurants were…ok. We went to a beach club, got 2 seats ($70), and paid too much for drinks. It was heaven.
Florence: Recommend walking to the top of Michelangelo Hill for the view. I think I should have been more impressed but by the time we got here it was 'ok...another church...cool....'
Weather: It rained every day we were there. Most of the time it rained in the afternoon. Also, most days the weather forecast never said rain was an option. Not a big deal, but bring a jacket.
AirBnB: Both our AirBnBs were great and hosted by fantastic people. Both were located near Piazzas and the listings did say 'some noise at night'. Ummm....yeah...that 'some noise' lasted until 2 am at both places. Bring. Ear. Plugs. Italians like to have a good time...for a long time.
Stuff:
Crime/Scams: This freaked me out a bit before we left. We bought cross-body bags and kept everything zipped up. Maybe it was too much but we made it through without incident. In Rome if anyone offers you a bracelet or says 'nice shoes' or 'Hey American!', put on your best impression of a new yorker and blow right past them. One guy through a bracelet to my son who instinctively caught it...and threw it back.
On the train from Naples to Pompeii it was standing room only...and about 90 muggy degrees. A guy in a down jacket was eyeing the young woman in front of me and paying very close attention to her bag. Her friends noticed and maneuvered him away from her but it was a reminder that you need to keep your eyes open...especially in crowded situations.
Verizon: We used their TravelPass for $10 a day; unlimited text and data. Having Google Maps and Google Translate whenever we needed it was worth it! Check your Verizon account…we found that we had ‘credits’ for 5 days that we could use!
Viator: We booked all our tours through this app and I could not be more pleased. Maybe we were lucky but all of the 5 tours we booked were fantastic. Would highly recommend it.
Ferryhopper: I would be careful here. We showed up for our trip from Sorrento to Positano. The boat hand looked at our ticket and said ‘I don’t know this ticket, I cannot take it’. There were a few exchanges and they let us on. I asked about it when we left and they said ‘It is best to book with us and not this application. We’ve had trouble’. Thankfully we did not book a return trip and could buy tickets at Positano. Take it for what it is…a warning. You don’t want to be stuck trying to find a ride to or from your destination.
ItaliaRail: Fantastic. Clean trains that were always on time for us. Booked directly through their site and it was effortless. Check the price of business class vs. coach. For us, it was well worth the extra $18 per seat.
Uber: Total bust. You are limited to Uber Black and even then…they may not come and pick you up.
FreeNow in Rome: We used this to book taxis in Rome to pick us up and take us to the train station. Scheduled in advance and the driver showed up without a hitch.
AppTaxi, itTaxi & FreeNow in Florence: So frustrating. I think it might have to do with where we were and the time of day but it was frustrating. Wasn’t feeling my best and a taxi ride would have been helpful. I waited over an hour trying to get someone to pick us up…nothing.
And finally...I’d like to kiss the person on this sub who mentioned Mobile Passport Control. This is an app you use when you return home from Europe. You answer the standard questions, take your photo and the app creates a QR code to use during customs checkout. When we got back to JFK there was a line specifically for MPC users. Our line: 5 people….those who did not use it: 125 people and growing fast. This saved us at least an hour at the end of a 10-hour flight. DOWNLOAD IT NOW!
Ok, that's rambling but I wanted to get it out there. I really appreciate this sub. Reading about other experiences helped me make our 10 days special.

Hi there,
me and two colleagues of mine are planning to take 1V-LSD next weekend for the first time. Don’t know those dudes to well, but we started an apprenticeship together and on the first sight I thought, yep we’re gonna be tripping soon. Turned out I was right and there totally up for it.
Since I’m the initiator I feel like I’m responsible for finding a balanced dose that’s adequate for a first trip.
One has no psychedelics experience what so ever, the other one is familiar with mdma and experimented with some LSA seeds as a teen. The last time I took psychedelics must have been around 2014. Grilled my synapses with 2c-e every other week for about a year. But that’s such a long time ago and I didn’t have a lot of the emotional baggage that I have now to be honest.
What would be a good dose for us? I neither want to waste a good day nor do I want someone to get a bad trip. I have plenty of 225 mcg blotters and 10mcg pills sourced in Germany back when it was legal. Vacuum seald and stored in the freezer.
Should I soak a 225 blotter in some vodka and split it by 3? That be 75 each.
Also: Park or apartment? On 2c-e I loved the outdoors but I’m in the city now.

Save the date. :) see you all soon.

Check out our full Durham events calendar.
If you'd like to add an event to our calendar, submit an event here. Please check with the event organizers to see if events change due to weather. Have a great weekend!

June Featured Events

53rd Annual Bimbé Cultural Arts Festival at Rock Quarry Park

• This family-oriented event is a celebration of African and African American history, culture, arts, and traditions.
• Headlined by Intro, Mr. Cheeks, Petey Pablo, and KRS-One
• Free admission

1776 at DPAC

• The show is based on the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, telling a story of the efforts of John Adams to persuade his colleagues to vote for American independence and to sign the document.
• This Tony Award-winning Best Musical is tuneful, witty, and constantly surprising, especially in this revolutionary new production from directors Jeffrey L. Page (Violet) and Diane Paulus (Waitress) with a cast that reflects multiple representations of race, gender, and ethnicity.
• Jun 1-4
• $15+

PLAYlist Concert Series: Raíces, Rutas, y Ritmos at Durham Central Park

• Raíces, Rutas, y Ritmos highlights the importance of music-making among Latin American migrants in North Carolina, as well as the prominence of Latin American-derived music in the Triangle area.
• 6:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Venue Weekend Schedules

Events at The Carolina Theatre

• Fri, Jun 2 at 7:00 p.m. - Leslie Jones: Live
• Sun, Jun 4 at at 4:15 p.m. - The Empower Experience 2023

Events at The Pinhook

• Thu, Jun 1 at 8:00 p.m. - Dead Fox No Groove / Julia. / Dylan Innes
• Fri, Jun 2 at 7:00 p.m. - OCRCC’s 12th Annual Punk Cuts To End Rape
• Fri, Jun 2 at 9:00 p.m. - Yolo Karaoke!
• Sat, Jun 3 at 6:00 p.m. - Teia Elaine Presents: What Would Eve Do?
• Sat, Jun 3 at 10:00 p.m. - House Of Coxx Drag Show!
• Sat, Jun 3 at 11:55 p.m. - Rent Due Dance Party!!!
• Sun, Jun 4 at 4:00 p.m. - (Early Show) The Lover Boyz W/ Phil Cook + Kym Register And Friends
• Sun, Jun 4 at 8:00 p.m. - (Late Show) The Lover Boyz W/ Phil Cook + Kym Register And Friends

Events at Motorco Music hall

• Fri, Jun 2 at 8:00 p.m. - Halocene With Lauren Babic / Alphamega
• Sat, Jun 3 at 9:00 p.m. - Gimme Gimme Disco
• Sun, Jun 4 at 7:00 p.m. - Mike’s Dead with The Haunt

Events at The Fruit

• Fri, Jun 2 at 11:00 p.m. - Job Fruit Residency: IN2IT
• Sat, Jun 3 at 10:00 p.m. - Paradox: A 90s Rave Experience
• Sun, Jun 4 at 12:00 p.m. - The Fruit Flea: Monthly Flea Market

Live Music at Blue Note Grill

• Thu, Jun 1 at 7:30 p.m. - Curtis Salgado Band
• Fri, Jun 2 at 6:00 p.m. - The Duke Street Dogs
• Fri, Jun 2 at 9:15 p.m. - Adam Ezra Group
• Sat, Jun 3 at 7:30 p.m. - JIVES

Events at Moon Dog Meadery

• Thursdays - Free Board Games
• Thu, Jun 1 at 7:00 p.m. - Trivia
• Fri, Jun 2 at 8:00 p.m. - First Friday Swing Dance Night with Nitelife Boogie!
  • Free dance lesson at 7:30 p.m.
• Sun, Jun 4 at 6:30 p.m. - Moon Dog Open Mic

Live Music at Sharp 9 Gallery

• Sat, Jun 3 at 8:00 p.m. - Eric Williams Quintet

Events at Arcana

• Thu, Jun 1 - Jay Hammond & Andy Stack with Joe Westerlund and Tarot with Virginia
• Fri, Jun 2 - Russell Favret and Tarot with Heiltje
• Sat, Jun 3 - Bardo Bloom and Tarot with Rene
• Sun, Jun 4 - Matty Famartino and Tarot with Joy

Events at Rubies on Five Points

• Thu, Jun 1 at 10:00 p.m. - Miss B Haven Presents: Midnight Remedies
• Fri, Jun 2 at 10:00 p.m. - Mamis & The Papis And Party Illegal Present: Moodboard
• Sat, Jun 3 at 9:00 p.m. - Star People Gang Presents: Freaks And Beats

Events at Durty Bull Brewing Company

• Thu, Jun 1
  • 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Food Truck: Safari Eatz
  • 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Thursday Trivia with Nick
• Fri, Jun 2
  • 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Food Truck: Tacos Paradise
  • 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. - Open Mic Stand-up Comedy
• Sat, Jun 3
  • 12:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Food Truck: Chop House BBQ
  • 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. - DJ Jack Bonney
  • 4:00 p.m - 6:00 p.m. - Taxicab Preacher
• Sun, Jun 4
  • 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. - Food Truck: Charlie C's Hotdogs On Wheels
  • 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. - Hammered Trivia with Thor

Live Comedy at Mettlesome

• Fri, Jun 2 at 8:00 p.m. - The Racket
• Fri, Jun 2 26 at 9:00 p.m. - Hush Hush
• Sat, Jun 3 at 8:00 p.m. - Bull City Press Presents…
• Sat, Jun 3 at 9:00 p.m. - House Party

Events at Boxyard RTP

• Thu, Jun 1 at 5:30 p.m. - Songstories Live at Boxyard RTP
• Fri, Jun 2 from 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. - Boxyard Bucks
  • First 100 people on site receive $10 to spend at any vendor
• Fri, Jun 2 at 5:30 p.m. - LOJO: Log Off, Jam On
• Sat, Jun 3 from 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. - Turns 2 Family Friendly Celebration
• Sat, Jun 3 from 11:30 a.m. 2:30 p.m. - Saturdaze: Uno Dose
• Sat, Jun 3 from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Wonderbop

Events at Glass Jug Beer Lab in RTP

• Thu, Jun 1 from 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Beer Garden Jam Sessions
• Fr, Jun 2 from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - RTP Food Truck Fridays
• Sat, Jun 3 from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Beer Garden Jam Sessions

Events at Glass Jug Beer Lab in Downtown Durham

• Thu, Jun 1 from 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. - Live Music in the Taproom
• Jun 1-4 from 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - Weekend Food Trucks

Local Sports

Durham Bulls Home Stand at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park

• vs Jacksonville
• Thu, Jun 1 - Pride Night
• Fri, Jun 2 - Friday Night Fireworks
• Sat, Jun 3 - Saturday Night Fireworks
• Sun, Jun 4 - Kids Run the Bases
• $10+

Running of the Bulls 8K at Historic Durham Athletic Park

• The 15th running of Durham’s premiere community road race! This scenic course will wind through the historic and revitalized neighborhoods of downtown Durham, American Tobacco Campus, Trinity Park and Old North Durham neighborhoods, and finish with a lap of the warning track inside the historic Old Durham Athletic Park!
• Sat, Jun 3 at 7:00 a.m.
• $10-45

Thursday, Jun 1

Thirsty Thursdays at Dashi

• Each month Dashi's Thirsty Thursday drink specials revolve around a monthly theme – spirits, cocktails, special ingredients, brand, location, etc. – with new sips every Thursday. Learn more about upcoming themes on their website or visit them in person – there's always something new to try from their expansive bar!
• 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Vinyl Night with DJ Deckades at Gizmo Brew Works

• Enjoy fresh vibes on the patio with DJ Deckades. Bring your own vinyl to share or just listen to what the DJ is spinning.
• 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Boulders & Brews Meetup at Triangle Rock Club - Durham

• Show up and climb at TRC Durham, then head over to Hi-Wire for some brews. Don't worry if it's your first time or haven't bouldered before; everyone's welcome.
• Your first visit to the gym with the Meetup includes free admission and gear rental, and subsequent visits with the meetup are $15 and include harness rental (outside of meetups, day pass rates of $19 apply and do not include rentals).
• 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Trivia Night w/Big Slow Tom at Clouds Brewing Brightleaf Square

• Join Clouds Durham for Big Slow Tom's Trivia Night, every Thursday. Win some prizes, drink some beer, and show your smarts.
• Enjoy $4 select draft and $5 rotating bartender's choice all night.
• 7:30 p.m.
• Free admission

Friday, Jun 2

Tasting at Ten at Counter Culture Coffee

• Every Friday morning at 10 am, Counter Culture Coffee opens their Training Centers to coffee lovers who want to learn more about Counter Culture Coffee’s high-quality, sustainably sourced menu.
• 10:00 a.m.
• Free, but donations accepted

Garden Printing: Cyanotypes and Hammered Flower Prints on Fabric at Duke Campus Farm

• Visitors to Duke Campus Farm can come take a tour of the space, learn more about what is grown and why, and choose from a number of plants from the garden to experiment with two printing techniques that highlight the shape and color of fresh produce and flowers. With cyanotype printing, we will use either the plant as a silhouette to make sun prints using UV light, or make use of parts of the plants to create a composition on the blue-tinted paper.
• 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
• Free admission (registration encouraged)

Saturday, Jun 3

Durham Farmers’ Market at Durham Central Park

• The Durham Farmers’ Market offers locally grown fruits and vegetables, meats, eggs, cut flowers, artisanal cheeses and breads, home-baked pies, honey, handmade chocolates, preserves, local wines, handmade soaps, fresh pasta, and artwork of all sorts!
• 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
• Free admission

South Durham Farmers' Market at Greenwood Commons Shopping Center

• The market strives to support new and growing farms and vendors in the greater Durham area, and they are also home to some of the most iconic Durham brands around.
• 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
• Free admission

parkrun Durham at Southern Boundaries Park

• A free, fun, and friendly weekly 5k community event. Walk, jog, run, volunteer, or spectate. It's up to you!
• 8:00 a.m.
• Free admission

Hayti Walking History Tour at Hayti Heritage Center

• So, how do you pronounce H-A-Y-T-I ? What are the Hayti Neighborhood's connections to the island of Haiti? ...to Black Wall St.? ...to the city of Durham at large? These questions are answered while many more are raised in this 75-minute tour of Fayetteville St., the commercial center of Durham’s largest African American residential neighborhood. Stops include the neighborhood’s founding institutions: St. Joseph’s AME church, The Carolina Times, Stanford L. Warren Library and more!
• Stories include: Women of Hayti, Power of Black Churches and Urban Renewal. The tour begins and ends at the Hayti Heritage Center.
• 10:00 a.m.
• $20+

Nasher Community Celebration at the Nasher Museum of Art

• An outdoor party featuring GRAMMY Award-winning producer 9th Wonder and friends. Celebrate Spirit in the Land with pop-up children’s book readings in the galleries. At 2 p.m., Alberto Barrantes, an author visiting from Costa Rica, will give a reading from his new bilingual book Arts for Diversity. Art activities will be inspired by artists María Berrío and Andrea Chung.
• The Museum of Life and Science will join us with StarLab to view the night sky—and insects to study up close. Piedmont Wildlife Center will also bring several animals. Everyone can sample free cotton candy by Wonderpuff. Also fun to try: temporary tattoos inspired by the natural world. Assorted sandwiches and beverages from the Nasher Museum Cafe will be available for purchase. Cash bar.
• 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• Free admission

MAKRS Pop-up at Durham Central Park

• Shop from 55+ local artists and makers, plus food trucks and coffee.
• 4:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Crafternoons at Gizmo Brew Works

• Free pint with purchase of craft box. Choose from a variety of craft packages available for all ages.
• 12:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Beaver Queen Pageant — Once Upon a Wetland... at Duke Park

• The Beaver Queen Pageant is the Triangle’s own special mix of folly, pageantry, and humor. Contestants take on beaver personalities and compete for the title of Beaver Queen with their fashion, talent, and personality. There will be music, a kid's art activity station, food trucks, and much more!
• Enjoy the fun at this family-friendly and free event which raises funds for the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association. Vote for your favorite contestants - or bribe a judge - at www.beaverqueen.org. You are not going to want to miss this truly weird and delightful Durham experience.
• 4:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Sunday, Jun 4

Al Strong Presents Jazz Brunch at Alley Twenty Six

• Al Strong, the Grammy-nominated jazz trumpeter, composer and recording artist, will bring a rotating lineup of musicians to perform during Sunday brunch at Durham's Alley Twenty Six. Weather permitting the band will perform in the bar’s namesake alley.
• Brunch from 10:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
• Music 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Art-n-Soul Market at Mystic Farm & Distillery

• Shop handmade in this special setting. Mystic Farm & Distillery in Durham offers a unique place to gather and enjoy local spirits. The Art-n-Soul Market brings the best local artisans, food trucks and live music out to the farm for bourbon tastings, craft cocktails, food trucks and distinctive gifts you won't find anywhere else. Bring your friends and meet us at the bourbon farm! Dogs welcome.
• 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Public Tour at Duke Chapel

• Learn about the history, architecture, and life of Duke Chapel in this tour, which is free and open to the public. The tour begins at 12:15 p.m., or immediately following the conclusion of the Sunday morning service, and lasts approximately forty-five minutes.
• No reservation is required but if you plan to bring a large group please notify us in advance. Meet the docent on the front steps of the Chapel.
• Paid parking is available on a first come, first served basis in the Bryan Center Parking Lot at 125 Science Drive. ADA parking is available in the Bryan Center Surface Lot at the same address.
• 12:15 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Trivia at Navigator Beverage Co.

• Hosted by the Triangle’s Trivia team, Hammered Trivia, gather your team and post up to compete for prizes and enjoy an afternoon of great drinks, great friends, and great games.
• 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
• Free admission

Running Art Exhibits

upstART Gallery: A Jim Lee Project at Pop Box Gallery

• upstART Gallery will host its first group show at Pop Box Gallery & The Art Chose Me’s residency in Old East Durham. The show features 27 artists who were selected through an open call review process. Artists were challenged to create work especially for this unique space, scaled 1:12 (one inch = one foot).
• Wed-Sat from 12:00 p.m - 6:00 p.m.
• Runs through Jul 1

Exhibit at 21c Museum Hotel

• Truth or Dare: A Reality Show
  • Runs through March 2024
• Open 24 hours
• Free admission

“Extra-Spectral” at the Durham Art Guild Truist Gallery

• This exhibit highlights several NC-based artists that, on the surface, use colors that are “extra” (which is where their commonality ends) to evoke their intent through a combination of this color with forms and imagery as well as the concepts embedded in color’s many identities. Artists Jane Cheek, Jerstin Crosby, Zach Storm, Tonya Solley Thornton and Leif Zikade all require color to play a primary role in their work and their relationship to an audience.
• Mon–Sat from 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. and Sun from 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
• Runs through June 4
• Free admission

Donna Stubbs, Featured Artist at 5 Points Gallery

• 5 Points Gallery in downtown Durham introduces a new exhibit featuring the work of our member artist, Donna Stubbs. Donna uses an archaeological approach to painting, as she lovingly photographs her surroundings and unearths discarded items in thrift stores to create abstract mixed media works.
• Free admission

Chieko Murasugi & Renzo Ortega at Craven Allen Gallery

• An exhibition featuring both abstract and figurative works by two artists with international backgrounds. The SEQUENTIAL exhibition invites the observer on a visual journey, generating an organic relationship between the artworks and the gallery's visitors. Through the dynamics of color, form, ideas, and narratives, Chieko Murasugi and Renzo Ortega seek to generate a dialogue and the experience of art appreciation with the audience.
• Sat, May 20 at 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. - opening reception
• Runs through July 8

Spirit in the Land at the Nasher

• Spirit in the Land is a contemporary art exhibition that examines today’s urgent ecological concerns from a cultural perspective, demonstrating how intricately our identities and natural environments are intertwined. Through their artwork, 30 artists show us how rooted in the earth our most cherished cultural traditions are, how our relationship to land and water shapes us as individuals and communities
• Tue-Fri from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sun from 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
• Runs through Jul 9
• Free admission

Andy Warhol: You Look Good in Pictures at the Nasher

• Andy Warhol: You Look Good in Pictures explores the breadth of the artist’s relationship with photography through several distinct bodies of work including screenprints of celebrities, all of which were taken from photographs, a group of Polaroids and black and white snapshots illustrating his social circles, and an early silent film of the curator Henry Geldzahler from 1964.
• Tue-Fri from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sun from 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
• Runs through Aug 27
• Free admission

Art of Peru at the Nasher

• This gallery features ceramics, textiles, metalwork and carvings produced by ancient cultures across what is known as present-day Peru.
• Tue-Fri from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sun from 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
• Runs through Dec 2
• Free admission