The 2011 Kinetic Sculpture Race was not about speed (photos)

Like a psychedelic gathering of Jules Verne honorable mentions, this weekend’s 2011 Kinetic Sculpture Race at Union Reservoir in Longmont pitted crazy Rube Goldberg contraption against even crazier Rube Goldberg contraption in a contest that wasn’t so much about speed as it was about sheer silliness: Competitors vied for supremacy…

All comment threads lead to illegal immigration

It’s like a weird rule of web-based journalism that, if a post generates more than about six or seven reader comments, the discussion must somehow inevitably delineate to illegal immigration, no matter how unrelated to illegal immigration the original post was. It’s still pretty disconcerting every time it happens, but…

Columbiana is this week’s most ridiculous trailer

Q: A little girl grows up to be a badass assassin with a relentless thirst for vengeance — why? Take a few moments to think about it. Have you come up with an answer? If you guessed “because her parents were killed in front of her, then congratulations! You’ve seen…

50 reasons Colorado is the best state in America

Basically all of these United States are pretty crappy — or at least that’s what Gawker would have you believe with its 50 Worst States in America series this week, in which Colorado took 41st (worst) — not a bad ranking, provided you give two sailing shits what some liberal…

The five weirdest events at the Colorado State Fair

All fairs are basically about excess — let’s see what random shit we can deep-fry; let’s see who can grow the most freakishly large tomato; let’s see how long this guy can stay on top of a really pissed off animal much larger than him; let’s see how far this…

Better Than Fair

At the end of Colorado’s summer fair season each year comes the granddaddy of them all, an epic eleven-day extravaganza of corn dogs, rodeo, country music, demolition derbies, racing pigs, beer, carnies and everything else that makes fairs awesome: It’s the Colorado State Fair, and this year’s edition should kick…

Beauty In Motion

The 32nd annual Kinetic Sculpture Race is indeed a race, but as the word “sculpture” suggests, it’s really not about the racing. “There’s certainly a recognition of who’s the fastest,” says Paul Bailey, a kineticist who’s been involved with the race since its inception in Boulder all those years ago…

Reader: Going to give you guys much props

Perhaps with good reason, furries are a sensitive bunch, it seems — or at least the ones that are also commenters are. Whether it was our Furry Field Guide (they really didn’t like that one) or our interview with Rocky Mountain Fur Con coordinator Sorin Katt, our furry readership largely…

Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis: Sleazeball or victim? Probably both

Consider this scenario: The guy who created Girls Gone Wild, the collection of Mardi Gras tit-flashing videos popular with frat-boys and lonely unskilled laborers everywhere, offers to give three girls a ride to their car — but then instead of taking them to their car, despite their protests, takes them…

Reader: Lee Mulcahy is a bit of an idealist

Lee Mulcahy’s protracted and very public battle with Aspen’s Skico (which operates Snowmass) over ski instructor pay may have ended in some sense with his firing, but he’s not giving up yet; when he got a commission to do a bike sculpture for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge’s leg through…

Lil Wayne, please join the Denver Nuggets

Ever since the days when Skee-lo wished he was a baller, it’s been a universally accepted truism: Every rapper wants to be an athlete, and every athlete wants to be a rapper. On the other hand, Skee-Lo also expressed his somewhat more baffling wish for “a rabbit in a hat…

Denver TV host Chris Parente gets bitch-slapped by Steve Carell

Don’t talk shit to Steve Carell, because apparently he will slap you like a bitch. Not in a scary, Wayne-Brady-turned-evil kind of way — no, Steve Carell is way too nice for that, and also, in a weird way, he’s even scarier. Because somehow, Steve Carell is a sweet enough…

Viva la Lucha! Mexican Wrestling takes over El Diablo (Photos)

It was back in 1942 that a mysterious, silver-masked Luchador known only as El Santo appeared on the scene in Mexico City as an unknown contestant in an eight-man battle royale. He won that fight, but what was more important was that he would change wrestling forever — an influence…

Conan the Barbarian 3D is this week’s most ridiculous trailer

This late in the summer blockbuster season, it’s pretty much like 3 o’clock on a Friday for Hollywood: You stopped caring right around yesterday, and at this point you’re just churning shit out so you can go home and get ready for Oscar season. At no other point during the…

Reader: A vote cowardly goddamned middle-of-the-roaders everywhere

There were a lot of things wrong with Erin Roberts-in-a-chicken-suit’s victory over me in Wednesday’s epic Man vs. Pigeon race — like, she was on a moped and I was on a bicycle, for starters, meaning she is a cheating cheater who cheats. But Roberts didn’t just win the race;…