Wielding the Red Pen at the Rocky Mountain News

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…

Everything You Need to Know About Boulder in Under a Minute

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…

The Boys and Girls of Summer Live On

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…

Body Snatchin’ Body Snatchers. Again.

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…

A Performance of Pleasure and Pain

If you like your entertainment erotic and your pleasure tinged with pain, consider a trip up to Fort Collins this weekend for the Voodoo Fetish Ball at Club Static, 1437 East Mulberry. Master Goliath will perform Shibari (Japanese rope bondage) and the dommes of Pavlovia promise something special and twisted…

Star Car Update: Project Bubblepuppy

Flickr user Seetwist has come through with a wealth of info on the awesome space car photos. “The name of the car is ‘Project Bubblepuppy’ a.k.a. ‘Welpe Luft-Blassen.’ The person who made the car is a local artist named Sean Guerrero,” he writes. “He’s done some other stuff that you…

From Black Hole to Pretty People

Despite the much vaunted pooch-walking service, there wasn’t a pet in sight at French 250, which hosted an opening party last night. But with plenty of pretty people pouring in and bottles of champagne pouring out, it doesn’t look like this restaurant will be going to the dogs anytime soon…

The Temporary Return of a Rocky Mountain News Expatriate

As noted in this Message column from April, Rocky Mountain News video game writer Brian D. Crecente (pictured) was one of four members of the tabloid’s feature staff who management wanted to transfer back to the news division, in order to fill holes left by attrition. Crecente, who’d built a…

Addicted to Dunkin’ Donuts

I have good news for everyone who’s been bugging me since I mentioned back in March that Dunkin’ Donuts had signed a deal that would put its excellent coffee into retail locations across the country. Finally, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is available at Colorado Rite Aid locations…

Star Car

This incredible art car was spotted somewhere in Denver by Flickr user Seetwist. The full-size version of the photo above can be found here. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have any info about who built or owns the thing, but he does have quite a few more pictures of it,…

Fishing for Compliments

On September 5, assorted chefs from the Oceanaire Seafood Room restaurants will offer up the Ultimate Seafood Experience at the James Beard House in New York City – and Matt Mine, chef at Denver’s Oceanaire that opened just a month ago at 1400 Arapahoe Street, will be among them. On…

The Brunch Bunch

Rise and shine, hipsters! Two of Denver’s finest bar/pub hangouts are now serving brunch. Sputnik — located at 3 South Broadway next to the hi-dive — has been serving up brunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays for about a month now, and offers a nice,…

The Caged Life

When the goon squad showed up at his place at five in the morning, Tommy Silverstein knew something was up. He wasn’t accustomed to greeting guests at such an ungodly hour — much less a team of corrections officers, helmeted and suited up for action. In fact, Silverstein wasn’t used…

Baby Half-Wit

When I visit my parents, I usually take one of the dogs for a walk. Dorothy and Sylvia are the two creatures that make me most happy in this world, and a walk is the very least I can do to show my gratitude. And it is on these walks…

Fortress of Solitude

A hundred miles southwest of Denver, the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum houses a killer lineup of mobsters (Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano), gang leaders (Barry “The Baron” Mills), assassins (Colombian hit man Dandenis “La Quica” Muñoz Mosquera) and terrorists (John “American Taliban” Walker Lindh). But not to worry — despite…

Bad Joke

Until recently, the most popular pages on the North Denver News’s website included a 2005 article on Sunflower Market’s plan to open a store at the old Elitch Gardens site and information on how to submit your poodle for the paper’s “pet of the month.” That changed last week, when…

People Power

Just like the district he represents, Chris Nevitt contains two seemingly contradictory sides. First there’s the hardcore union activist: “Unions built the middle class. Historically, when unions were strong, America was strong. And, frankly, over the years many union-supported politicians have sold working people down the river over and over.”…

You on the Tube

Plenty of new media boosters hailed the July 23 YouTube debate of Democratic presidential contenders on CNN as an egalitarian breakthrough — the first event of its type at which real people, not Beltway insiders, asked the questions. But Adam Schrager knows better. For the past several years the veteran…

Letters to the Editor

“Prize Patrol,” Patricia Calhoun, August 9 Eye on the Prize I’m not sure if Ms. Engle and Mr. Suvanjieff understand the rarified company they would find themselves in should they win the Nobel Peace Prize. Jimmy Carter, perhaps the most feckless and ineffective American president of the twentieth century, and…

Geeks on Board

Board games can be a lot of fun, but unless you have a bunch of friends with identical schedules and equally geeky taste in pastimes, it can be hard to get enough people together for a good game. Luckily, the Internet can be used to bring people together for more…