As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture are encouraging their workers to hold big gatherings in "button-down" cities like Denver while avoiding places like Manhattan or Las Vegas. But Rich Grant, a spokesman for Visit Denver, the city's convention and visitors bureau, defended the city in an interview with Westword last week, saying Denver isn't boring; the feds just used "poor wording." Regardless of what the feds think, Denverites expressed their opinion with numbers this weekend during the Dragon Boat Festival at Sloan's Lake Park. In 2001, just 15,000 people attended the event. This year more than 100,000 turned out to see Hawaiian dancers, musicians, island fashions, surfboards, and sushi made of Spam, even though it rained a bit (via The Denver Post) and despite the fact that police had to fish a body out of the lake (via CBS4). And there's nothing boring about monkey balls, which were also served during the festival, notes the Rocky Mountain Independent.