So I was sitting in an A&W in Virginia on Sunday when I received a text from one of my daughters: The Broncos were tied with the Patriots in overtime. Because my cheap phone isn’t Internet-enabled, that meant my only chance of hearing the action was the radio in my…
Of course it’s good news that 54-year-old Ricky Lee Harnish, the killer of Holly Andrews, who went missing in December 1976, has belatedly — really belatedly — taken responsibility for the crime. But the price of this confession was a reduced charge of second-degree murder and a likely sentence of…
I got an intriguing e-mail yesterday from my buddy David Thomas, a local syndicated videogame columnist and professional contemplator of all things related to joysticks. “I am meeting the Nintendo van tomorrow at 1 if you want to come along,” he wrote cryptically. I’m not a big videogame player, but…
Last week, we asked actual twits why we should follow them. We received many amusing responses from lots of people, including an unreasonable amount from one Mr. Cargo (@defconqueso) who gets th enod this week for both his dogged persistence in winning us over, and the fact he’s actually a…
In the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2002, Denver police arrived at a home in Congress Park after dispatchers received a call about an attempted suicide. But when they arrived, the front door was locked, and the man, Kurt Sonnefeld, either wouldn’t or couldn’t open the front door…
Colorado State grad student Greg Schroll has taken the idea of the spherical robot — basically a robot contained in a ball, as seen above — and made it a reality. Well, not quite a reality, but close enough for Schroll to be named one of Popular Mechanics’ 10 Most…
The end of baseball season is always a sad day, no matter when or how it ends. It means, among other things, that Saturday-afternoon errands will no longer be buoyed by the baseball on the car radio; that excuses to drink $9 drafts and yell at grown men are limited…
State representative Glenn Vaad was appalled to discover recently that corrections officials have delayed opening a $200-million supermax because of Colorado’s fiscal woes. There’s nothing that offends Vaad, a Republican who represents the Greeley area, more deeply than the idea of a brand-new lockup sitting empty, forlornly bereft of the…
The selection of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird for this year’s “One Book, One Denver” city-wide book club program must have seemed like a safe bet politically. The book’s long been entombed in the shrine of high literature, a staple among middle-school curricula everywhere. Plus, this year is the…
As part of our search for a marijuana-dispensary critic, we asked applicants to write in and tell us what marijuana means to them. In the coming weeks, we’ll publish some of our favorites, including this one, from a badass hippie girl from Manhattan…
Our daily gathering of local bloggage. On the Huffington Post’s local page, Jim Thomas makes the case for changing the name of Columbus Day. And unlike most of the things written on the topic, his take is reasonable and measured. Colorado Pols breaks down (in their Colorado Pol-y way) the…
Having to utter the words “emergency room” is almost never good. And when the sentence also involves your kid, it’s even worse. Such was the case for me recently when I took my seven-year-old kid to the ER at Rose Medical Center after the fever he’d had for two days…
On CBS last night, 60 Minutes added to the pile recent stories about brain damage being suffered by NFL football players. Among the story’s lead characters was former Colorado Buffalo Ted Johnson, who went on to star for the New England Patriots. Johnson’s post-career life has been marred by health…
The study of neighbors through their lawn decoration … Figure 37. Ruby Hill: Mixing themes gives yard art a new slant The Ruby Hill neighborhood is unlike any other in Denver. Ruby Hillers seem to have a different perspective on life than most other Denverites. Perhaps it has something to…
I know, we couldn’t believe it either. But it happened — at least according to the slideshows on the slideshow page and the many concert reviews on the Backbeat blog…
Rick Upchurch was the best at what he did when he did it. But the former Denver Broncos return specialist isn’t in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nor is he in the Broncos’ own Ring of Fame at Invesco Field. This fact was all the more glaring Sunday when…
I’m not generally in favor of so-called NFL “legacy” games, in which teams are required to wear their hideous and humiliating uniforms of yore and the fans are barraged with waves of schlock and nostalgia: old geezers from golden-age squads out on the field to get special plaques, commemorative programs,…
When 20-year-old Leo Beitz visited an old friend in Boulder last weekend, they did what old friends do: Went out. Got drunk. Came home. Played video games. But at some point in the night, Beitz, for reasons that remain unclear, did some things old friends usually don’t do: Grabbed a…
If you happen to be a perpetually-stoned TV junkie who toggles between Idol and The Soup and enjoys the occasional Tank-from-Old-Scool-style streaking, tonight’s city council debate in Boulder is most definitely in your wheelhouse. As the Daily Camera reported this weekend, the debate, sponsored by New Era Colorado, will be…
OK, so the excessive fist pumping in the exact location of 47 camera men was a little odd, but other than that, let’s see … – He traded a sore-losing, sore-winning, sour-faced quarterback for one who is calm (and even jovial) under pressure, rarely makes mistakes and has an awesome…
Homer Duggins is the biggest sports fan in Denver and Westword’s gambling, uh, “expert.” Read his dispatches every Friday in the Latest Word sports section. What’s that noise? It’s a little whisper I keep hearing, a whisper becoming louder and louder, blowing on the wind until it becomes a roar…
