Do you like Blogging? Do you spend a good deal of time enjoying Denver and Colorado in General? Do you have any “urban Survival” insights you feel like sharing? Maybe you know the best Moroccan restaurant in Littleton? Or the best Sandal store in Boulder?

Maybe you just like to talk and be heard. If so, comment here so we can talk. The Denver Metroblog is looking for new voices, and fresh blood.

What’s it take? A working knowledge of the english language never hurts :) and interest in things Denver (and the surrounding area), and a commitment (what?) to post more than once a month. If I recall correctly the preferred commitment is the ability to post 2-3 times a week, clearly we’re not living up to that standard here, but I’m hoping with a few more voices we can change that.
So fire off a comment and we can talk about it.

Any takers??

To highlands Ranch.

Come this Friday around 8ish, the elephants will be raising the big top of the Carson & Barnes Circus, just north of the Highlands Ranch Town Center.

My wife and I are going to be there, as will I can only fear, 8 million small children, but oh well, what can you do?

It’s only in town for the weekend, so don’t dilly dally, tickets are $12.00 for an adult and $6.00 for kids, in advance. At the door it’s $16.00/$8.00 respectively.

My wife is a potter, and we’re always looking for more and more places to display and sell her wares. Enter the Made in Colorado store.

Made In Colorado, has been around for years selling goods made by local artists and vendors. If for no other reason, Made In Colorado might almost be worth the 5 hour drive to Pagosa Springs (where the store is located). We had some incredibly yummy “whoppers” and I tried ‘elk jerky’ (Beef added).

We figured we’d make a weekend of the trip rather than drive 5 hours down and 5 back, no fun there. Enter, camping, car camping, but still. We packed up the car with our gear (did I mention this was our first camping trip since getting married? No? Oh, it was) and headed south. As a side note, this was the car’s first long haul trip, loaded with two rubbermaid 20 gallon containers of camping gear (cooking stuff, pillows, etc), another 20 gallon of packed pottery, plus another 10 gallon of packed pottery.

We got to the store and unpacked her wares, letting the owner pick what she’d like to display and sell, she kept about half of what we brought. After re-packing the rest of the pottery we headed downtown for lunch. Lunch was mexican at a place that was across the river from the hot springs. My wife wanted to take a trip to the hot springs, but the idea of sitting in a huge human stew pot, really didn’t set well with me, so we opted to camp. I’m glad we did.

After lunch it was off to the campground. We asked the gal at the Made In Colorado Store, as well as the nice guy at the Visitor Center, both said the Williams Creek Reservoir campground, 30 miles outside town was THE place to go. We agreed.
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Tomorrow night, May 25th, the downtown Tattered Cover bookstore will host the Grand Premier of Flying Pen Press! Party! Whoo!

OK, for those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about…

Flying Pen Press is a brand new local publisher who’s releasing their very first titles on June 1. Two of those titles will be available at the grand premier (a cyber intrigue science fiction novel called Looking Glass, by James R. Strickland; and a novel that sounds just as SF-like what with taking place 3000 years hence but is actually being released under the plain old Fiction imprint, Migration of the Kamishi, by Gaddy Bergmann). Meet FPP’s Publisher, David A. Rozansky.

Also, hear music by the Steel River Three! You should totally come cheer them on, because they’re cool. Tell Stace I sent you.

Time: Grand Premier from 7:00 - 9:00 PM, band’s performance at 8:00.
Place: Tattered Cover LoDo, 1628 16th Street.

RSVP suggested: “GrandPremier” [at] FlyingPenPress.com
Mention in your email if you want to purchase one of the newly released novels.

Even if you’re not into checking out new local businesses and bands, you can always come just to hang out at a darn fine indy bookstore. I’ll be there, at any rate, assuming that the train I’m supposed to be getting on that night is as late as it’s been all spring. (I’m going to Chicago for crawfish and cicada jamabalaya. There will be a report at New Orleans Metblogs. There’s a connection, trust me. Stay tuned.) Say hi if you go!

Last weekend my wife and I went with some friends to see SpiderMan 3 (meh on the movie itself.) at the “Imax” screen UA theater by Dave and Busters… Waste of 13 dollars per person. Having seen such greats as “Grand Canyon” in Imax, the super big screen is just not the same effect other than inducing some mild nausea during some of the web slinging scenes.

I like seeing movies in the theater sometimes, like once or twice a year, just to remind me how much people really can and do suck. The showing was the 7:20 pm showing, on a Sunday night, and there were no less then 2 infants. I don’t mean 11 month old infants that are almost a year old, I mean babies, not much bigger than a watermelon, and which (not surprisingly) started to melt down less than halfway through the movies. Why subject yourself to the ire of a few hundred people? Why subject those people to your poor decision making skills?

Like I said I see movies rarely in the theater, just so I don’t forget that people think $8.00 (or $13.00) entitles them to act as if they were in their living room; mobile phone talkin’, seat kicking, loud whispering and all. My wife had a sloucher next to her that slouched so far forward his legs no longer fit in the section his seat allotted him, so he had to sit sideways into her area, where he proceeded to vibrate for the entire movie.

I think I’ll stick to regular screens for my future movie enjoyment and keep my Tivo up to date on what I’d like it to grab when it hits cable, or Amazon unbox.

I’m not breaking any news here, but I went to Little Anitas on S. Colorado Blvd for the first time on Friday.

For $3.51 I got a bowl of green chile, a sopapilla and a flour tortilla. Yum.

I felt bad so I tipped a dollar, but even with that it’s still a great deal.

Has anyone else noticed that the best and the worst restaurants in Metro Denver seem to be found in sorry ass strip malls?

Yes, this is shameless self promotion, but the City Vs. City Pub Quiz is on tonight, Tuesday, May 15th at the following locations. Read the Westword write up here. Or go here for even more crap.

Below is a list of our venues where you can play throughout the Metro area. There’s no cover charge and if you’re the top 2 teams (in all the nine cities) you get a cash purse: $300 for 1st, $150 for 2nd.)

I’ll be hosting at the Irish Snug so you can come say hi and tell me to stop complaining in person.

* 8:00PM, Nallen’s Irish Pub, 1429 Market Street, Denver (LoDo)
* 8:00PM, The Irish Snug, 1201 East Colfax, Denver
* 8:00PM, The Exchange Tavern, 11940 Bradburn Blvd., Westminster
* 6:00PM, Illegal Pete’s (Park Meadows), 8283 S. Akron Street, Centennial
* 8:00PM, Catacombs, 2115 13th St., Boulder (beneath the Hotel Boulderado)

Are you feeling the need (you should be) to get together with some other local creative types? Andrew Hyde is hosting the first Boulder Creative commons, on Thursday May 17th at 6pm (see below for more details). Do something different, meet new people and get free food and drink - just an additional perk of the event.

For additional information, please go to Boulder Creative Commons

“Connect with fellow creatives in the Boulder area “