5:20 pm, Dec 14, 2012
Rant: Traffic ticket vans are out of control.Here's a familiar scenario: You're cruising around town with your holiday shopping list whittled down to just a few stragglers. The flow of traffic is steady, you're jamming to some tunes, and then ... FLASH! You are temporarily blinded by the bright lights of a photo radar van. Just like that, your...
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1:44 pm, Dec 7, 2012
Rant: First Fridays on Santa Fe is getting too crowded. This week marks the last First Friday of 2012. Thanks to Denver's ever-expanding arts scene, what was once a niche distraction has evolved into a full-fledged, citywide monthly event. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Santa Fe arts district—and that's the problem.You see, Santa...
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12:45 pm, Nov 30, 2012
Rant: Social Conservatives, Your Time Has Passed In 2004, after beating challenger John Kerry by 50.7 percent–48.3 percent in the popular vote and 286-252 in the Electoral College, President George W. Bush famously said, “I have a mandate, and I intend to use it.” In this year’s election, President Obama won a second term by 50.9-47.4 and 332-...
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2:10 pm, Nov 23, 2012
Rant: The National Western Stock Show is staying in Denver. So what's next? Last week, a host of local officials announced that the 106-year-old National Western Stock Show would remain in Denver. This concluded about two years of wrangling over the event's future, and at one point it seemed like a lock that it would end up in Aurora. ...
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1:40 pm, Nov 16, 2012
Rant: Ordering off the kids' menus should be acceptable for grown-ups.Why are kids' menu options not always available to adults? I know most dining establishments don't make you break out your ID to prove that you are, in fact, 12 or under, but you still get a scowl from the server like you're purposely cheating him or her out of an extra dollar...
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2:20 pm, Nov 9, 2012
Rant: The Rise of DaVitaThis week, the occasionally controversial kidney dialysis company DaVita announced that Warren Buffett had again increased his ownership stake in the business, a percentage that has doubled to about 12 percent this year. Given that an endorsement from America's favorite billionaire carries at least as much weight in the...
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11:15 am, Nov 2, 2012
Rant: Vote. Now. We've reached that time of an election year when certain people, so weary of our hyper-dysfunctional electoral process, begin making reasoned arguments against voting. These usually invoke some or all of the following: That your tiny little vote won't make any difference in a nation with tens of millions of eligible voters;...
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9:00 am, Oct 26, 2012
Rant: Are you sick of political polling, too? As we finally, mercifully arrive at the last few days before Election 2012, the pollsters are in full swing, tracking races nationally and state by state and giving us up-to-the-minute info on...absolutely nothing. A current sampling of the most <cough> reputable <cough> polls show...
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9:19 am, Oct 19, 2012
Rant: I had to go to the DMV. Need I say more? This is obvious. I don't know a soul who looks forward to the day they must venture to the Division of Motor Vehicles, unless they are a 16-year-old who is finally testing for a driver's license. The underlying problem with the DMV is that, to the outside public, this seemingly simple process—...
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11:20 am, Oct 12, 2012
Rant: I want a sticker. Forget high school graduation; the best thing about turning 18 was earning the right to vote in elections. And even if I was still making very questionable decisions about hairstyles (perms? orange-ish hair?), I know that I researched the candidates on that first ballot thoroughly and made informed choices. I stepped...
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8:05 am, Sep 28, 2012
Rave: NFL referees Well, that’s a relief.Even prior to this week’s officiating debacle on Monday Night Football, some fans and sportswriters had begun calling for a boycott of NFL games to protest the ongoing lockout by owners of the league’s officials. (The most doable suggestion was for fans—who’ve paid an average of $80 per ticket league wide—...
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10:40 am, Sep 21, 2012
Rant: Earbuds I like music. I rock out (or, more accurately, country out) in my car, in my kitchen, and silently in my office cube. But when I need to focus all of my attention, I do. Seems like a simple common courtesy to me. But out on the streets of Denver—and I'm sure far beyond its borders—if a person is wearing earbuds, they are absent from...
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10:16 am, Sep 14, 2012
Rant: Coupon Site Cleaning Services By now, most of us have sampled from the daily offerings of Groupon, LivingSocial, and their copycat competitors. To twist an old cliché, generally speaking, you don’t get what you pay for, particularly with their service-oriented offerings. It’s easy to see why a budding business would want to sign up with one...
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2:20 pm, Sep 7, 2012
Rant: Not local? Right around 3 p.m. each day, I get a hankering for a pick-me-up. That usually translates into a cookie—and when I'm downtown, that means a hamantaschen from the Tattered Cover Book Store. Over the years, I've eaten dozens upon dozens of these triangular, preserves-filled cookies (the apricot flavor are my favorite)....
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9:32 am, Sep 4, 2012
Rant: Always Mile High Stadium? It’s September, which means one thing: Broncos football. I’ve only lived in the Mile High City for six years, but I’ve followed the Broncos all of my life, or long enough to know that the team’s home will always be Mile High Stadium. For a time, I begrudgingly called it “Invesco.” I tried to use “Sports Authority...
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