Wither Columbus? (Or at least Ohio)

I am. I think I asked about a month ago on some thread if we had the bodies for an oHIo FAP....

I'm from Akron. Columbus is very strictly "ok". It looked a lot better from my teenage vantage point than it does now. Time and experience have changed my mind about the sheer awesomeness of Columbus. One more declarative sentence....and...I'm out. Enjoy Columbus.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/47/BobTaft.jpg/200px-BobTaft.jpg

xpost, who is this?!

Bus service is iffy. If you live in the campus residential area, there is a free school-run service that's pretty good; I use it. OSU students get free service on the local COTA (Central Ohio Transit Authority) buses, but we don't have anything like a metro or subway.

The law school is a little world unto itself. I actually went to school here a long while back, and I don't think I ever went into another academic building for a class. Still, I think you'll be able to find some people you'll click with. I went into law school with similar expectations, and one guy I met on the first day ended up becoming my best friend in the world, bar none.

If you need any info or help, I'd be happy to talk to you. Email me at my ilxor address, minus spam protection exclamation points.

Oh, and Bob Taft's going to be out as guv in January. Our new governor is almost certain to be Democrat Ted Strickland:
http://www.tedstrickland.com/

- J

My favorite thing about CLE is the downtown library. It's to their credit that the voters passed tax increases in order to fully fund them.

http://robertpence.com/cleve_ssp_meet/159_library.jpg

Also, where are there pinball machines in town? I got absolutely nowhere in my admittedly sort of abortive search when I was there for a visit.

http://www.catbirdseat.org/catbirdseat/bingo.html

www.surlygirlsaloon.com

co-owned by Marcy Mays!

doctor casino, what are you doing there? (i'm not an attractive hipster but i did see a bunch when i was there last week)

caitlin: I'm moving into the Short North/Victorian Village August 2nd, to start grad school at OSU at the beginning of September. At that point I will probably cease to exist. In between, let's be ILX pen pals! We can fill this thread with minutia-stuffed reports on anything worth doing that we find in town. What are you doing in the "Big Columbo"? (New project: coming up with insider-sounding nicknames for things before I even move there. Does anyone call Victorian Village 'The Vic'?)

Funnily, Laurence (Lawrence?) KS was the home of another school to which someone tried to convince me to apply. I didn't....

oh i am doing law school, btw

the one bar that i really liked in columbus was the blue danube.

$1 Tacos could almost make me start eating tacos...

The only other place I got a chance to go in town was a small coffee/sandwich/bar place called Victoria's Midnight, which had a really pleasant ambience in the day (lot of good light, in other words, and a neat back patio). Didn't get a chance to try the food but I played an open-mic show there which was surprisingly fun although naturally dominated by hippies. A really nice old guy was so inspired by my Paul McCartney cover that he did an almost all-Beatle set; that was cool.

A ways north of campus on High Street (in the vicinity of Clintonville) I was taken to a pretty decent thrift store although I couldn't tell you the name. The LPs in particular were excellent - tons of classic rock junk rather than the churchy easy listening junk I'm used to finding here.

.. can't think of what thrift store you're talking about unless it's the Goodwill (which is a kinda easy name to remember) or rag-o-rama (which is an overpriced indie goodwill.)

xpost

Good for you on getting rid of the car (and good luck as well!). I'll be getting around strictly by bike myself; if that's the direction you're going, exercise caution as I've been told it's a rough city for bike robberies. Get a good lock and keep your wits about you.

i am not 100% sure about the car. i want to not be a driver and cars are kind of a crutch sometimes but i might want it while i'm there, i dunnooooooo

http://www.cleveland.com/cgi-bin/prxy/photogalleries/nph-cache.cgi/cache=3000;/cleve/images/1910/01-01.jpg

where are the least douchey, non-chain places to have coffee? i asked my friend and she seemed indecisive.

There is, in fact, a coffee shop *in* the College of Law.

welcome to Ohio, btw

Also - what's the deal with nacho platters being so freakin' huge in Columbus? It's not like that everywhere!

Also - if you like roller coasters, you MUST make the drive up to Cedar Point.

BTW, Doctor Casino: that might be a good place to check for pinball machines.

does it snow? i have no idea

I ended up having breakfast at Victorian's Midnight the other day (it's right around the corner from me too). Pretty damn decent. My dad was raving about the home fries and Lotus also stands by them. The French toast I had was satisfying, although they're one of those places that only serves sugar-free syrup but doesn't tell you that in advance. Oh well! I'll be going for open-mic on an annoyingly regular basis probably, starting next week? We'll see...

Ate dinner the other night at North Star (High Street & 2nd, across the side street from the White Castle) - VERY delicious basil/pesto chicken burrito. Prices sorta high but it's a huge burrito (I took half home), and they refuse tips since it's counter service and they (supposedly?) pay fair wages. The staff seemed fine with the arrangement and I loved the chocolate truffle cookie.

Oooooh, I need to track down this Hound Dogs' Pizza - I was DYING for a good slice of cheese yesterday but ended up at an extremely mediocre Chinese joint called Yau's. Not recommended.

The heat aside, I'm finding this town wonderfully bike-able and my vibes are positive. Hither, Columbus!

Me: (looking at menu) "Y'all don't serve pizza by the slice, do you?"
Server: (apologetically) "No...no, we don't... what exactly were you looking for?"
Me: "A slice of pizza, mainly."
Server: "Sorry..."
Me: "Do you know anywhere around here where I could get such a thing?"
Server: "No - I just moved here."

Oh well. The pinball (Lord of the Rings - hadn't played that before) was worth it, even if the junior funk ensemble was kind of distracting. I then went to the "Dube" for a milkshake and fries. I don't recommend either of these things there. What I do recommend is The Other Paper, which I'm finding to be markedly more useful than the other paper(s) I've found so far. At least this one actually has a music listing and shit.

Columbus has a great jazz rep, but the reality mostly fails to live up. There are a few acts that are always worth checking out, and there's a venerable open stage at the Dolphin Lounge (which is in a *highly* sketchy area). Dick's Den (just south of the Dube) often has decent jazz as well. Beyond that it's a bit of a crap shoot.

anyway flying pizza is great, esp. how i think they make mushroom pizza slices by plopping a handful of canned mushrooms on top of an already cooked cheese slice AND you get a free drink with 2 slices of pizza during lunchtime!!!! eeeee i love pizza

Books - I went to SBX today (right next door to Flying Pizza) which is very textbooky and prices are generally high. There's a pretty decent sale table, but I second n.b's clamor for a good book shop. I'm going to go check out a couple around the corner right now...

Next open query for the collective wisdom: good veggie places? I'm not vegetarian myself but I'd like to know where to take my friends if they come visit me someday. The aforementioned North Star can do tofu in pretty much everything which is cool, although I didn't try it to see if it was any good.

Vegitarian stuff: Dragonfly on King Ave. in Victorian Village, Whole World Cafe/Pizza on High Street in Clintonville. Northstar's vegan food is pretty tasty. Dragonfly's really pricey.

J: Ooh, those are some promising tips. I think I'll check out Half-Price Books soon - I've been wanting to make an expedition into the unknown lands west of the Olentangy, but haven't had much of a destination to draw me thither. Where is the Village Book Store? Google isn't proving too useful and my curiousity is aroused, ways off or no ways off.

for the record, i was trying to get some sort of sequel to a previous pizza photo in athens, and also some sort of suitable photo to kick off the columbus years in my photo albums, as i haven't really shot anything since i've been here (need to get on that) and what better way to symbolize a new town than the shift from little italy to flying pizza? i dunno...the light in there was pretty green and i suspect we're going to end up with a fairly gross looking photo....oh well. keep your eyes peeled for my next freaky synchronistic appearance i guess.

While you're at that HPB, go a bit west on Lane and check out Liberty Books & News -- best magazine selection in Ohio. And they've got free wireless. And there's a Graeter's across the street. We're getting a LBN in Cleveland (Rocky River actually) this fall and I'm psyched.

i rode my bike to the library yesterday and it was fun

For records: Lost Weekend, at High and Crestview. Pretty good selection on anything older than 1990, spotty after that, but wonderful basement rummaging ambience, and the owner/operator guy was very good-natured and conversational. Turns out he's also from Georgia and we swapped thoughts on a few regional topics, very good vibes. Also picked up Talking Book at a fair price, so I was happy that day.

Camera stuff: The guys at Midwest Photo Exchange (High Street, a little bit below Broadway) were pretty helpful and I got what I needed, but for sheer ambience they couldn't touch Columbus Camera Group, located in an old church on the corner of Blake and East Avenues. What can I say - I'm a sucker for businesses in old churches, and it really does a lot for a mess of tripods and lenses and bellows and things to be piled up in the shadows and crannies of a space lit primarily by stained-glass-window-light.

The Ohio State Fair is unbelievably huge. I didn't see anything close to all of it, but I learned some surprising facts about maple production in Ohio (like, the fact that it happens) and finally got around to trying a fried Snickers bar. The midway is the main attraction - if you get any kick at all out of garishly-illustrated carnival ripoff rides it's worth the visit. Unfortunately I didn't realize until I had already shot half a roll of film that my camera batteries were dead :(

Rag-o-Rama was pretty all right and I was pleased to see that there were plenty of good-looking under-$10 items around. Unfortunately nothing, at all, fits me right now...

The Clintonville Coin Laundry (next to the bicycle shop - by the way, are there any other decent bicycle shops around? I didn't really love the vibe in there) has an Attack From Mars pinball machine! Not to be confused with the vastly inferior Revenge From Mars, this is a genuine classic in excellent working order, and marred only by the 50 cents for 3 balls pricing scheme, which seems worrisomely common in Columbus so far...

http://static.flickr.com/82/219452044_3638ba6f8a.jpg

Columbus:

http://static.flickr.com/89/219473247_7b69f8fb27.jpg

It's a step down, but I'll live.

(More of the same here.)

ONE YEAR(ish) LATER: I still live in Columbus, tho I'm on the road right now cramming in some friend/family visits before school starts. It's an all right town. School kept me so busy this year that I've really only scratched the surface, but for anyone else doing this kind of research I figured I should up my favorite lurking spot, CAFE BOURBON STREET, an out-of-the-way joint at Summit and Oakland. Real hole-in-the-wall operation, in fact containing within it other hole-in-the-wall businesses, formerly the late Taco Ninja, now something called Mr. Peeper's Pizzas. Anyway: they have karaoke every Sunday night and it's really good. One time I went and instead of karaoke Thurston Moore was playing for $5.

Also, the MONDAY NIGHT RIDE: every Monday, between 9:30 and 10:00 PM, meet on High outside the Wexner Center. 50-75 amateur bicyclist types venture off on a rambling, insane path through town and country. Only a few are serious "bike people" - mostly indie, nerd and dirty punk types - so the pace is fairly relaxed and it's already proved a good way to meet people aside from getting my workout in for the week. Finishes up around 1ish? at a bar called High Beck that is unremarkable except it has free "pizza" with purchase of drink. The pizza is really, really bad but it's a good scene for consolidating the cameraderie of the ride.

My OSU friends just came out (to Portland) to visit. I am hoping to be able to visit them later this year. Who knows.

i haven't read any of this thread but i was in columbus for the cheater slicks show and i thought columbus was a great city. go see the grave blankets.

I am hoping to finally, permanently escape Columbus this year. Fuck this place, man!

Every time I go to Columbus I dig it.

Ehh, I mean it's not the worst place I could imagine living by any means, but it's just kind of gray and faceless, physically. Everything is really strung out along a very narrow corridor...the material is here for a really lively city or at least a few really great neighborhoods but it gets dissipated where in a tighter kind of grid or something it would be concentrated. That's an architecture nerd's response of course but I really do think these things have an impact. Also, Yankees are mean. :-(

anyone live here? just moved here for a year for a postdoc at ohio state

left a few months after that sort of discouraging post above. it ain't as bad as i painted it, I'm sure!

i didn’t have high expectations (and the other postdoc i got to the final round interview for was in milan, so there was some disappointment) but.. it seems pretty alright so far? i’m moving from canada so even like basic people watching is fascinating to me. but it’s lively, and there’s plenty of amenities (parks, book/record stores, bars, cinemas). i don’t drive but i’m living in victorian village/short north and it’s very walkable

yeah that area is super lovely. short north has been rapidly gentrified over the past 10-15 years but I'm sure still has some old and special things. and the residential blocks of CV are absolutely lovely. Clintonville was where I spent the most time, but I started out on the South Campus/VV border and really enjoyed it as a place for strolling or bike-riding when time gave me time.