Maybe some people born in Colorado do like John Denver, but I'm sticking to my blanket statement that we really don't. I mean, he's not even from here (though neither is John Hickenlooper, and I love that guy), and people who aren't from here don't really know Denver -- as a city, anyway. They know it as a place that's "finally getting a Trader Joe's!", not the first city where Target opened stores outside of its Minneapolis headquarters in 1966.

See also: - Video: Sh*t people from Denver say - Historic Elitch Gardens Theatre: a peek inside the 121-year-old building - Slideshow: Casa Bonita: It's real and it's spectacular - Smoking at Paramount Cafe and 86'd from Coyote Ugly: Happy birthday, 16th Street Mall

I'm not sure why I feel like I have the authority to be snotty to someone because they may or may not have moved here from Texas/California/Vermont for incentives like beautiful weather and a reasonable housing market. But I find myself saying things like " I get angry when I see a gorgeous mid-century building turned into a Pilates studio or, God forbid, a dull but well-constructed box structure in Capitol Hill become another Boutique Apartments project. To me, there is no kitschy attraction to painting an apartment complex toilet-bowl blue and grafting a giant, novelty water spout to the side of it and calling it the "H2O." It looks like the design equivalent of an STD. But that's progress, I suppose.

It's not so much that I dislike people not from here -- obviously a large percentage of my friends, co-workers and even family weren't born in my fair-square state -- but sometimes, my pride just gets in the way. If someone blames the altitude for the reason they feel sick, I laugh at them. Altitude sickness isn't real -- those of us born and raised here know that.