Year: 2007

In addition to causing me to neglect far too much work, YouTube has fostered a bizarre fascination with Bollywood within me. I don’t think I could ever get through an entire three-hour epic, but at five to seven minutes each, I find the individual song and dance numbers irresistible. I’ve…

Here’s a brief look at some of the items America is desperate to learn about today: Faceball It’s the hot new sport with the unbeatable motto: “Your face, our balls.” Invented at the offices of Flickr, it’s a simple game that involves mashing a Day-Glo ball into a coworker’s face…

The current issue of Time magazine takes on the nation’s foreclosure crunch by using the Denver housing market as an example of the havoc reaped by subprime loans and adjustable rate mortgages. About 25,000 homeowners will receive a first foreclosure notice this year in metro Denver, the magazine notes, one…

Monday was the first day of a scheduled three-week trial in Jefferson County, a trial in which nineteen-year-old Michael Tate faces charges including first-degree murder. Tate has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent much of that first day in court with his face buried in his hands,…

“Stop giving him pork chops!” The woman is hissing, eyes flashing, using her mom voice on her husband, one arm thrown protectively over the top of the car seat beside her on the banquette, two tables down from me. “I’m not giving him pork chops. I’m giving him pieces from…

Here’s a brief look at some of the items America is desperate to learn about today: Donkey Kong Kill Screen The documentary King of Kong has just opened in select cities and it’s set off something of an Internet buzz about the nearly impossible to achieve Donkey Kong kill screen,…

Boredom can lead to beautiful things, such as this image of DIA that looks more like a gilded city straight out of a space opera than the sprawling monstrosity of an airport we know and love (or hate). Colorado Springs photographer Chris Coleman took this stunning shot to kill some…

In print-journalism parlance, “penetration” isn’t as nasty as it sounds. Rather, it applies to the number of households reached by a particular newspaper — and the folks at the Denver Newspaper Agency, which oversees the business operations at the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, have frequently crowed that…

As longtime Denver Post readers know, there’s good sentimental Woody Paige and there’s bad sentimental Woody Paige. The former is epitomized by “Little Sis Model of Courage,” a moving December 2006 eulogy for his sister, who had just died of cancer. And “Williams’ Grave Needs Our Help,” which appeared in…

As noted in this August 20 More Messages blog, Rocky Mountain News restaurant reviewer John Lehndorff is doing some copy editing for the paper while dieting in advance of hip surgery. But he’s busy on a lot of other fronts, too, food included. His August 17 column provided readers with…

Slide Show The 2007 Denver Kickball Coalition (DKBC) officially ended its sixth season in style on Saturday night with its annual Kick Ball, a prom-themed awards ceremony and dance party at the Hi-Dive, 7 South Broadway. The night, besides being fantastically drunken, was predictably bittersweet for me (as a member…

Thanks to buyouts and staff shrinkage via attrition, there are fewer editorial employees at the Rocky Mountain News than at any time in recent memory. As a result, management at the paper is having to focus even more than usual on efficiency, in order to insure that those who remain…

Like practically everyone else in the known universe with an e-mail address, I regularly receive loads o’ spam, much of which comes in cycles. Granted, there are some constants: Long live Cialis! But on some months, I’ll be inundated with, say, an unusual number of offers for low, low mortgages…

Despite their good intentions and generally harmless nature, hippies are natural targets of ridicule and scorn. Maybe it’s the poor hygiene, or the overly familiar way they call everyone “bro” or the fact they walk around in a drugged-out stupor all the time? No, it’s all of that and a…

Team Rarebird was depressed. Sitting around crying in their beers about yet another season of the Denver Kickball Coalition gone and the inexorable march toward death weighing heavily on their rolled-up pants and sideburns, they had an epiphany: The Denver Volleyball Coalition. The Commish would be proud. So here’s the…

THE INVASION Is there a Razzie Award for worst casting? If so, reserve it early for this fourth, spectacularly lousy screen version of Jack Finney’s 1954 novella The Body Snatchers, which some bright light envisioned as the ideal starring vehicle for the Cold Mountain herself, Nicole Kidman, and for Daniel…