When people ask Jim and Louise Gunderson if they have kids, they reply, “No, we have robots.” But right now, Louise feels like any other harried mother carrying a kilo of toys and bottles and diapers wherever she goes. Today is the first big day out for her little one,…
Blow, fat man, blow! Today in Backbeat Online: • Beyond Playlist presents Xmas-rated, part one: Noel Notables. • Eric Eyl’s Mile High Makeout on reading a top-ten list and checking it twice. • Swallow Hill is calling the next generation of Denver bands. • Chairlift continues its ascent… upward, of…
Bloggers: Send blog-able blogs to joe.tone@westword.com. With Salazar’s departure, Republicans (including AG John Suthers, pictured) are apparently salivating. Yeah, we think it’s gross, too. (Colorado Independent) Guys fighting CU gun ban are not “just a bunch of drunks who are going to shoot each other.” Which is too bad, because…
I really feel for my husband sometimes. In fact, I really feel for all men around this time of year. No, I’m not getting all Glenn Beck on you… I just can’t imagine how difficult it must be to shop for the important woman in your life. After all, if…
Denver’s Road Home, part of Mayor Hick’s plan to end homelessness, launched this pretty creative web video to encourage people to channel their donations away from panhandlers. Check out the clip above courtesy of The Denver Egotist. — Jared Jacang Maher…
This week’s Westword features an overtly robo-gandist cover story about Basil, a beer-serving robot created by Denver’s Jim and Louise Gunderson. But with all this talk of robots, I would’ve been remiss in not listing — as a service to humanity — the most evil robots of all time and…
You’ll be reading all about Basil the amazing bot in this week’s Westword cover story (which will be available online later today, December 17). But you can see him in action here. While the video above may not look all that exciting — Basil’s not slinging any beers or electrocuting…
In an “Extra!” side channel item from today’s Rocky Mountain News, Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey (pictured), expresses her displeasure at an online headline affixed to a story announcing that her boss might receive a $32,000 boost in pay. “I don’t want to sound like I’m…
Local coverage of Barack Obama’s selection of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as the next Secretary of the Interior has mostly been rah-rah, sis-boom-bah. Take the Denver Post editorial “Salazar a Wise Choice for West, Nation.” But as noted in a National Public Radio story, assorted environmental groups are considerably less…
Layoff rumors of the sort Fox 31 general manager Dennis Leonard addressed in this December 16 blog are common throughout the media industry these days. But the loudest such rumblings around here may be emanating from assorted Clear Channel outlets — particularly those on the FM side of the dial:…
Sharles Johnson had a day in court on December 9 — but it wasn’t quite the day he’d planned. As I reported in the December 3 feature article “Sharles Johnson Is a Hero to His Children — and the Arch-enemy of Jefferson County,” Johnson was arrested at his Illinois home…
On December 4, I wrote a blog with the utilitarian headline “Injustice! I Get a Mail-In Ticket For Not Running a Red Light,” in which I griped about receiving a photo-radar ticket even though I actually stopped at the intersection of 6th Avenue and Lincoln during a drive on an…
Only eight blogging days until Christmas. Today in Cafe Society: • The List: Best hotel restaurants. • Happy fifth birthday to Mezcal, which will soon get a sibling. • Is the second Santa Fe Tequila Company drying up? • Smashburger is a smash in Wichita. Today in Backbeat Online: •…
The holiday season is rife with traditions: trimming the tree, kissing under the mistletoe, sitting through The Nutcracker for the umpteenth time, and — for the ultra-hip of Denver — reserving a seat once again for The SantaLand Diaries, the Bug Theatre’s annual staging of the David Sedaris yarn about his stint as a…
Oh, ’80s prime-time soap opera: Where are you when we need you most? First there was Dallas, the story of scheming oilman J.R. Ewing and his family in Texas. Then there came Dynasty, about oil tycoon Blake Carrington and his clan, which was set in Denver but filmed in California…
Today, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free-Press announced that they will reduce home delivery of their products to three days a week: Thursday, Friday and Sunday. It’s a radical move that’s got plenty of Denver connections and correlations. The Detroit papers are linked by a joint-operating agreement, as are…
Steve Kelley has been part of the Denver media scene for a generation, mainly as a radio host. Then, as outlined in “The Rookie,” a 2005 Message column, he was convinced to leave his longtime perch at KOA/850 AM in favor of a hosting gig for Good Day Colorado, Channel…
In an interview for the blog “Fox 31 General Manager Dennis Leonard on Current Rumors, Future Changes,” the new top dog at Channel 31 addressed the recent departure of news director Brad Remington, who accepted a similar position at KTVK-TV in Phoenix. In noting that he’s still looking to fill…
Rumors are flying, as rumors are wont to do, about the stations at the heart of the October 23 Message column “Channels 2 and 31 Mix It Up,” and no wonder. Channel 2’s parent company, Tribune, recently filed for bankruptcy, adding even greater uncertainty to this unexpected business partnership between…
For the most part, Colorado Public Radio’s recent conversation with Wayne Allard doesn’t exactly qualify as scintillating: big surprise. But Mike Saccone of Grand Junction’s Daily Sentinel, whose “Political Notebook” feature qualifies as one of the better political blogs in the state, zeroed in on some of his more telling…
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…
