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Five food gadgets and gimmicks that are impossible to resist

Any food-nerd knows that it's almost impossible to keep up with every new culinary gadget or cool DIY kit -- but it's almost as tough to resist them. You contemplate giving up imported cheese or cartons of duck fat for a month just so you can buy some food-tastic item you really don't need -- but re ... More >>

Repertory Cinema Wishlist: The Duellists

Before the original Alien clinched stardom for director Ridley Scott, back when Blade Runner was just a twinkle in Scott's imaginative eye, there was his first film, The Duellists, a Napoleonic-era yarn based on a slip of a real incident that was later embellished into a short story by Joseph Conrad ... More >>

Repertory Cinema Wishlist: Crossing Delancey

Since the beginning of time -- or at least the beginning of cinema -- there have been chick flicks: three-hanky tear-jerkers and, conversely, romantic comedies. In honor of the Sie FilmCenter's new Hey Girl chick-flick series, debuting April 24 with Dirty Dancing -- which might just be the greatest ... More >>

Five retro foods and drinks that should be resurrected

There are certain snacks and sips that were just too good to last forever -- but they damn well should have! Some really great ideas didn't last much past their initial hype; the companies responsible hurled them almost as quickly as they'd unfurled them. And while discontinued items do, on occasion ... More >>

Screw Fifty Shades; check out the kinky work of local authors Reggie and Kasi Alexander

Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey. E.L. James' popular trio of "mommy porn" books are popular, but there was kinky romance before them -- and thank the various gods, there will be plenty after. Local Colorado authors Reggie and Kasi Alexander (two of the three subjects of this week's feature story, ... More >>

Boulder's Left Hand Books will close in April

After 33 years, Boulder's Left Hand Books is closing its doors. Since it was founded in 1979, the bookstore has offered alternative books and periodicals by such noted authors such as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. According to Louise Knapp, a member of the bookstore collective, closing the store be ... More >>

Stoner MacGyver: Embur cordless/flameless lighter

Now and then, companies send us medical marijuana-related products ranging from vaporizers to board games to books. We showcase them in our quasi-regular product review section, Stoner MacGyver. The latest? The Embur cordless ceramic lighter.

Ten best marijuana gifts of 2012

It's been a big year for marijuana in the state of Colorado, and for a few stoners who've been nice this year, it's about to get even better. Have pot lovers on your list and no idea what stocking stuffers they'd like? Forget the malls. Forget even SkyMall. We've lined up the top ten must-haves for ... More >>

Three unlikely online wine clubs eager to quench your thirst

It seems like everybody and their neighbor wants to be in the wine business. Last week, we spilled the juice on Denver-based Club W's first year in the monthly wine club business. While we found their edgy-cool offerings well worth the hype, as we did our research we couldn't help noticing that the ... More >>

Stoner MacGyver marijuana book review: Super Charged

Now and then, companies send us medical marijuana-related products ranging from vaporizers to board games to books. We showcase them in our quasi-regular product review section, Stoner MacGyver. The latest? Super Charged: How Outlaws, Hippies and Scientists Reinvented Marijuana

Shanna Katz's top five tips on how to become an oral-sex rock star

Who should learn -- or re-learn -- how to give their lovers the best oral sex possible? Everyone. Local sex educator Shanna Katz has a new book out this week, Oral Sex That'll Blow Her Mind: An Illustrated Guide to Giving Her Amazing Orgasms. Her inspiration for this guide was simple: She wanted t ... More >>

Top ten outmoded industries Colorado should lure after snagging Blockbuster

If the last time you rented a movie from Blockbuster also happened to be the last time you watched an Eddie Murphy movie, you're not alone. But just in case you did feel like giving up Netflix, Hulu and Redbox, and rewinding that copy of Beverly Hills Cop III you borrowed in 1994, Colorado's got you ... More >>

Denver Public Library now loaning out Kindle eBooks

​As counterintuitive as it might initially seem, if you own a Kindle or a device with the Kindle app (iOS, Android, PC, etc), you can now check out books from the Denver Public Library via its eMedia site. Yes, students, that includes CliffsNotes, if you've managed to seriously drop the ball o ... More >>

Will cloud storage help indie labels?

​We've already taken a look at the big three cloud services from Apple, Amazon and Google, but what does any of this mean to local bands and labels? With talk of Apple paying $100 million to the major labels for the rights to store content in the cloud and the launch of its paid service immine ... More >>

Q&A: MoveOn Board President Eli Pariser on his new book, The Filter Bubble

​When we search for things on the Internet, a number of variables determine what we end up finding. Whether it's the configuration of our computers, the location, or our past search history, the information we get is filtered and changed to match our record. When these same algorithms start de ... More >>

How does Apple's iCloud compare to other cloud services? No streaming option, for starters.

​Yesterday, Apple described and semi-launched its newest service, iCloud, an online storage locker that will automatically sync all of your Apple devices together with music, apps and books purchased through the iTunes store. What does that mean, exactly? Well, we break it down and compare its ... More >>

Muve Music from Cricket: Our immediate impressions after taking it for a test spin

It was somewhere around 8 o'clock when the woman in front started dancing like crazy. She had to be in her forties, maybe fifties. She was dancing to Snake Rattle Rattle Snake at the Walnut Room in front of a collection of VIPs who had been summoned to witness the launch of Cricket's new Muve Music. ... More >>

Lady Gaga's Born This Way may go platinum, but it cost Amazon $3.18 million over two days

Last Monday, Amazon decided to give away Lady Gaga's new album, Born This Way for just 99 cents. The sale was so popular it brought the site down, and so the site repeated the same promotion on Thursday. That's all well and good for cheapskate Gaga fans, but it reportedly ended up costing Amazon abo ... More >>

Vote now to help local writer Gregory Hill win a book contract and a hefty advance

Gregory Hill was also in a band called Six Months to Live.​A man with no sense of smell named Shakespeare Williams returns to his familial home on the eastern plains of Colorado to find his senile father living in filth and disarray and his finances even worse, and so he hatches a plan to rob ... More >>

As the music industry circles the drain, Netflix tops torrents in traffic. When is the music industry going to catch up?

​Earlier this year, a report surfaced detailing current BitTorrent usage, with porn being the number one most torrented media and music sinking to a miserable 2.9 percent. Now, Sandvine company has detailed the biggest data hogs of the past year, and Netflix's streaming is on the top. When is ... More >>

Grooveshark challenges Google and the music industry in a battle of legalities

​In case you haven't been paying attention, there are some heated battles going on in the digital space right now with regard to digital music distribution rights. Just three weeks ago, Amazon launched their cloud storage and streaming services much to the chagrin of the major labels. As we wa ... More >>

Amazon gives us the first big cloud, but the major labels want to take it away

​On Tuesday, Amazon surprised everyone by introducing Amazon Cloud Drive. Everyone was literally surprised, including the record labels, consumers, journalists -- nobody had a clue this was coming. In case you've missed it, Amazon Cloud Drive is an online file locker where you can store your f ... More >>

Nielsen study shows off how people are consuming music

​Nielsen just dropped some stats about music consumer behavior that will probably make record labels a bit more nervous. The study uses a bunch of futuristic sounding terms like "hyper-fragmentation" and "digital natives," but when it boils down to it, reveals what we already know: People are ... More >>

Ask the Bartender: What cocktail tools make great gifts?

​Sean Kenyon knows how to pour out both drinks and advice. A third-generation bar man with almost 25 years behind the bar, he is a student of cocktail history, a United States Bartenders Guild-certified Spirits Professional and a BAR Ready graduate of the prestigious Beverage Alcohol Resource ... More >>

Nathaniel Rateliff tops Amazon.com's list of Outstanding Albums You Might Have Missed

​Here's a great capper to an already memorable year for Nathaniel Rateliff, a year in which he made friends and fans on Daytrotter's Barnstormer tour and garnered acclaim here and across the pond with his Rounder debut, In Memory of Loss, earning praise from some of that continent's most respe ... More >>

Philip Greaves: Amazon removes other titles by Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure author

Philip Greaves.​A torrid blast of publicity hasn't exactly boosted sales for Pueblo author Philip R. Greaves II, whose e-book The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-lover's Code of Conduct has drawn death threats and compelled Amazon to remove the book from its site. And now other ... More >>

Would you pay $625 for a cookbook?

​A quick perusal of Amazon shows that Thomas Keller's French Laundry cookbook regularly costs $50, the same price Grant Achatz charges for Alinea at Home. Heston Blumenthal's larger volume of recipes, the Big Fat Duck, weighs in at a hefty $250. And Ferran Adria, of the soon-to-close molecular ... More >>

Five ways to stave off an iTunes store monopoly

​ With the disintegration of Lala coming May 31st, we've been left with one less choice for downloading. Lala was one of the best digital music distributors in town, offering full album streaming and low prices for downloading. After the website was gobbled up by Apple in December of last ... More >>

The 10 most popular Latest Word stories of 2009

​It's about damn time this year ended. But before it does, we're taking a look back at your favorite stories of 2009. Here, the ten most popular Latest Word stories of 2009.

Hearsay Bits: Swollen Members tour bus munched, plus get all the 3OH!3 you Want today from Amazon.com for less than two bucks

Dismembered: We're guessing that Swollen Members tour manager BJ smith and the three other crew guys he was traveling with earlier this week are no doubt breathing easy today after surviving a freak accident in Colorado Springs that could've been fatal. Smith and company were in the Springs makin ... More >>

Five things you shouldn't be able to buy online, but can

​When we heard recently that Walmart has begun selling coffins online, our first reaction was stupefied disbelief. Really, Walmart? Coffins? Online? Aren't there some things that just shouldn't be sold online? Well, of course there are. But that doesn't mean they aren't sold online anyway. We ... More >>

Turning the Page

The Denver Book Mall’s epilogue becomes a new beginning.

Mason Tvert bamboozles his way onto the Amazon bestseller list

Amazon.com is no match for Mr. Tvert.​Mason Tvert, executive director of SAFER (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation), which ran a successful 2005 campaign to legalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana in Denver, has long been the merry prankster of Colorado weed activists -- a ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, August 21 edition

Roll out the barrel....​The line starts here. Today in Cafe Society: • Mountains of food and wine this weekend at the Mesa Verde Country Food, Wine and Art Festival. • Cherry Creek North Food and Wine Festival takes over Fillmore Plaza. • Mysteries of Sheehan's Desk: Day 8. • Andrews ... More >>

Meet with the web geniuses of Refresh Denver

Tonight, Denver-area web designers and developers -- and anyone else interested in doing business online, including marketers, writers and mobile/wireless developers -- are meeting up at Casselman's, 2620 Walnut Street, for Refresh Denver's monthly meeting. Refresh Denver is the local chapter of R ... More >>

Denver-based Max3 launches artist-friendly digital distro with free beer

The Photo Atlas and the Still City will be playing this Thursday night at the Marquis Theater. In itself, that might not seem so noteworthy. Sure, the Photo Atlas has been receiving some great national press lately, and the Still City is one of the best bands I haven't seen. What makes this show r ... More >>

The economy sucks, so here are 570 free songs

It's finds like this that make me glad I am a pathetic, house-bound loser who spends all his time surfing the Internet. The good folks at Amazon.com got into the MP3-selling business a while back. Not only are there formats better than the ridiculous iTunes formats (for example, no DRM, universally ... More >>

Spoke-In-Wordz debuts new single on iTunes, Amazon

It appears Spoke-In-Wordz will be pulling double duty this year. He's working on a solo album that he says is due by the end of the year. At the same time, he's also working on a new album as part of the group Infinite Mindz. But to give fans a taste of what's to come from him solo-wise, Spoke dropp ... More >>

Help the Denver Post by paying extra for Obama's Mile High Moment

As you've probably heard, MediaNews Group head and de facto Denver Post owner Dean Singleton is hoping to save $20 million in wages by tinkering with a union agreement not due to expire until March 2010. At least you did if you read our December 15 blog "Denver Newspaper Guild Almost Mum on Renego ... More >>

Book Buffs going out with style -- and big sale

Westword's Freeloader tips you off to the best in legitimate, artist-approved downloads.

Talking Shop: Father's Day

Crossing Over

Music has no borders.

Silly Symphony

Wal-Mart Über Alles

Cat's Guilty Pleasure of Summer Reading

An Open Book

Will everyone in Boulder please get on the same page?

Checked Out

Members of the Friends Foundation donated their lives to the library. Those days are over.

Best local-music how-to

Making a Living in Your Local Music Market: How to Survive and Prosper by Dick Weissman