Selection:
A full range of Thai dishes, standard beverages plus Thai Iced Teas, bottled beers and wine.

Price:
$10-15 per person, some seafood entrees more. Lunch specials for under $10.

Atmosphere:
I do find the atmosphere to be a bit on the cheap side; partly due to location and partly due to the plainness of the building. The interior is nicely done though, with lots of authentic artwork. The lights could be dimmed just a bit.

http://www.thaichilirestaurant.net/
1030 S Virginia St
Reno, NV 89502
(775) 786-7878

Afternoons are usually very quiet and provide the perfect environment to study or read. It usually gets a little busier and louder towards 7 or 8 PM, but still never approaches the loudness of a normal bar. The usual patrons consist mostly of college students doing homework and local twenty- and thirty-somethings. The normal college bar crowd is not usually present.

A projector and surround sound system come in to play for Movie Nights every Wednesday, and free Wi-Fi is always available. Everyday music usually consists of someone’s iPod or satellite radio, usually Alternative or Rock.

Food:
Some offerings from local bakeries and shops; usually includes cakes, pies, small packaged sandwiches and soup. Nothing quite meal-worthy, more in the snack category. $5-8 for most

Beverages:
Just about any type of tea you could want, tea-based drinks like chai lattes and bubble teas, espresso drinks, soda, full bar with five beers on tap and others in bottles, average selection of liquor.

Events:
$2 beer nights Monady, $3 well drinks Tuesday, Movie Night Wednesday, and other misc music and art events throughout the month. Participates in both the Wine Walk and Beer Crawl.

http://www.seenatse7en.com/

100 N. Arlington.
(At the corner of Arlington and First.)

The other thing running through my head is the lack of reviews or articles about local restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc. The RGJ has the occasional dining article, Reno News and Review has some good info, and the Reno Passport is starting to have more content along those lines. However I still see very few of the places I go ever reviewed or listed. Some are mentioned, but there isn’t really much info about them.

The obvious solution to both problems is to start writing some short reviews/articles on some of the places I like to frequent. I hope this list will provide some insight when someone asks “Where should we go [eat, drink, hang out, do homework] ?”, or even encourage me to go try new places in the interest of reviewing them.

For now, watch the sub-categories under Food & Drink for new posts.

“A similar report Wednesday showed oil, gasoline and other fuel supplies unexpectedly rose sharply. Traders saw both the petroleum and natural gas reports as reasons to sell, as they reinforce data that show consumers are cutting back on their energy use.”

-http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080717/oil_prices.html

It would seem that oil being so expensive encouraged people to use less.
Huh, the laws of supply and demand seem to work. Imagine that.

Thanks to Dave for bringing this amazing piece of entertainment to my attention .

Last week I stopped by the Sparks farmer’s market in Victorian square. I was less than impressed. While I understand that it is early in the growing season and many growers don’t have much available yet, there was still a disappointingly high ratio of fast food/trinket vendors to actual fruits and vegetables. If I had to guess, I’d say the farmer’s market portion of the event was less than 10%. All but one of the growers were from California.

Yesterday, I found the first annual Sommersett farmer’s market. While much, much smaller than the Sparks variety, there were more vendors selling actual fresh food. I counted six booths compared to the five in Sparks, and only two non-farmer booths compared to several dozen in Victorian Square. It had much more of a neighborhood event feel, and at least three local farmers represented.

I’m sure both events will grow as the summer progresses, but at this point I can’t imagine any reason to return to Sparks. I look forward to checking out the various other markets that take place around here, including the soon to open West St. Market. I have high hopes for that particular venue.

The Sparks Farmer’s Market takes place in Victorian Square every Thursday 4-9PM through August 21st, and the market in Sommersett Towne Square is every Wednesday 4-8PM through August 20th.

It irks me to no end when people pull the discrimination card when its not warranted. Now don’t get me wrong - there have certainly been, and still are, many occasions in modern times when someone has been blatantly discriminated against due to their race. The problem I have is when the situation does not even come close to being racially motivated, and is instead due to the fact that the person or persons have some other trait that is a valid reason to disqualify them, or that the so-called discrimination is actually just choosing someone based on merit.

I see headlines all the time claiming that someone was fired from their job or denied a job, or whatever it happens to be, due to race. Again, sometimes this is valid, but sometimes it is just a lazy, ignorant person trying to take advantage of previous cultural stigmas. If a black applicant can prove that he is more qualified as the white co-applicant (or can prove obvious racial discrimination, i.e. derogatory comments) and is still denied the job, then he has a valid complaint. If, as it often seems, the black applicant appears to be about equally qualified with the white one and does not get the job, that does not automatically mean it was due to racial discrimination. It most likely means the other applicant had some trait or ability that made him slightly better for the job. Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion, but this seems to happen all the time if we’re to believe the media.

This is the type of thing I am reminded of by situations like the one David discusses; a racially oriented group (NAACP in this case) claims that something being done will discriminate against their constituents. In this situation, the NAACP is claiming that raising the minimum GPA for admission to the University of Nevada Reno may discourage minorities from getting a higher education. While this may be true on the surface, it is not discrimination against Blacks, Hispanics, or any other ethnic group. Its “discrimination” against those who did not exert the effort, or did not have the intelligence to do well enough in high school to maintain a 3.0 GPA. The fact that minorities have a lower average GPA shows that there is something that needs to be fixed at that level. It does not indicate that we should lower the standards of higher education to allow those minorities a chance. That, by definition is actually discrimination.

Dictionary.com defines discrimination as the following:

“Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.”

Yes, it works both ways folks. By making special considerations for minorities, we could possibly discriminate against others. If we really want to get beyond racism, beyond the hatred and classification of people based on their color or gender, then we have to stop both the discrimination AND the special treatment. Equality cannot exist otherwise. While I understand that we are not there yet, we have to start thinking that way.

If I was a minority and felt that it would be more difficult for me to get a certain job, I would not want special treatment because it would only reinforce the fact that I was different in some way. I would want to work to be thought of as no different, equally as capable and incapable as everyone else. For true equality to exist, race can’t be a negative or a positive factor. End of story. It really can be that simple if we just try.

All of the images appear to have been taken in the last year to year and a half, so I can only assume Google has had cars driving around for that long and just waited to make all the imagery available at once. To see the images, just find a place on Google Maps, zoom in fairly close and click the Street View button. Kind of scary/interesting all at the same time.

Now I wouldn’t want to spend very much time in most of these places; I thoroughly enjoy living in a moderate sized city where there is easy access to amenities and usually always something going on. I would even begin to miss rush hour traffic after a bit. However, its… refreshing to pull out of that for short periods of time. It’s almost the same feeling I have after waking up from a really good nights sleep.

I never really realize how different a city can be from the small town U.S.A. type of place where I grew up. Spending just that small amount of time there immediately brings back the little differences; everyone knows everyone, the newspaper is full of articles about local high school students and extensive coverage of the smallest street repair, people randomly talk to you as if they’ve always known you. The same type of things exist in larger cities, but they get lost in everything else that is going on, and the scale of things change their meaning.

While there’s a long list of things I despise about small towns to go right along with this, I still enjoy feeling like I’ve dropped out of the rat race, even if just for a few hours.