Legal eagles take a flier for humor
Local lawyers and judges will laugh at themselves this week during a musical revue by members of the legendary Denver Law Club. And if history repeats, it’s sure to be a stitch.
“The Ethics Revue,” hosted by the Colorado Bar Association’s Ethics Committee on Thursday at a downtown hotel, probably won’t draw many non-jurists. But the 90-year-old Law Club has a reputation for putting on a side-splitting show – if you find jokes about tort law funny, that is.
A program for the event describes it as “… 10 loud lawyers in white shirts and red cummerbunds singing slightly off-key and slightly off-color lyrics … ”
“Just don’t ask who wrote the song lyrics. The Law Club never tells,” the program continues.
One of the songs goes like this: “Sharks gotta swim, bats gotta fly, I gotta bill those hours ’til I die, can’t help billing that client of mine.” (to the tune of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”)
That and other details about the event were revealed in the Denver Bar Association’s October “Docket” newsletter. According to The Docket, participation in Denver Law Club shows can be risky for judges. One local judge hasn’t been considered for a Supreme Court appointment because of his involvement with the club, the newsletter said.
Priciest ski homes? Aspen has the most
Half of the 10-most-expensive ski homes listed on Forbes.com are in Aspen.
Ranked No. 2 is the Wildcat Ridge, a 14,300-square-foot retreat built by U.S. Surgical founder Leon Hirsch. It sits on 200 acres and features 11 bedrooms and 11 full baths. List price: $35 million.
Other properties range from $21.5 million for a ranch near Telluride to $37 million for a Lake Tahoe estate.
Now, “Cliff Notes” for busy business folks
Trying to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in business, but don’t have time to read long books? Core Magazine, a business and lifestyle publication for Colorado residents, is offering eight-page summaries of books on its website www.core-media.org.
Starting at around $8 each, users can download the summaries, read them at the computer, or print them out for reading on the go.
“Our readers said they had little time to read and needed to be kept up to date,” said Bruce Hunter, publisher of Core Magazine. “They wished there was a way to get an outline and summary of important books for businesspeople to read.”
Hunter has partnered with Soundview Executive Book Summaries, a company that provides synopses of thousands of books. The book summaries can be found under the Tool Box menu option on Core’s website.
A costume: Just the treat for cellphones
If you think Halloween outfits for dogs and cats are ridiculous, you probably won’t appreciate the latest fad: costumes for cellphones and iPods. One expert says that’s unprecedented – but to be expected.
Given how Halloween retail sales are second only to Christmas, “It was probably inevitable that the holiday would collide head-on with the hottest products,” said Lisa Morton, author of “The Halloween Encyclopedia.” “Since you can’t feed an iPod candy or carve it into a jack-o’-lantern,” she said, “all that’s left is dressing it in costume.”
Thus your iPod portable music player can become a jaunty pirate on Oct. 31, complete with teensy eye patch and sword. Your flip-phone can masquerade as a fuzzy monster named Ruphus. Or maybe a pink monkey.
Shari Maxwell of Extreme Halloween Inc. in Dania Beach, Fla., said sales of her $10.95 pink monkey outfits on the “Cell Phone Costumes” section of the company’s website, anniescostumes.com, are so brisk that the staff is having trouble keeping up. Shanalyn Victor’s Pixelgirl Shop (pixelgirlshop.com) sells furry “iPod monsters” in various colors for $30. They’re handmade by Ann Arbor, Mich., artist Marty Flint – and hard to keep in stock.
Colorado finesses dueling ski parties
How do you compete with a fancy dinner party thrown by Ski France, the trade group that represents 10 of France’s most famous ski resorts, including Chamonix Mont-Blanc?
At the Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Show in London earlier this month, Colorado Ski Country USA happened to throw a cocktail party for dozens of important United Kingdom journalists on the same night as Ski France’s annual media dinner.
To ensure that the journalists hit both events, Colorado Ski Country hired the eight London taxis it had wrapped in Colorado skiing advertisements last summer to ferry them from one party to the other.
“Everybody loved it, they thought it was fantastic,” said Colorado Ski Country spokeswoman Molly Cuffee. “Some people even had their pictures taken with the cabs.”
The journalists were also impressed with the slide show that showed many of Colorado’s slopes already covered in more than 30 inches of snow thanks to strong early-season storms, said Cuffee.
“It really cemented the fact that the ski season is already here in Colorado,” she said.
Hungry passengers buy on the fly
Air travelers who get hungry enough are willing to pay that extra premium – on top of their airfare – for a bite to eat.
According to United Airlines, an average of 15 percent of customers on 3.5-to-five-hour flights buy their food onboard, while an average of 30 percent buy the food on longer transcontinental and Hawaii flights.
United charges $5 for either a snack box or fresh food like a salad or wrap. Food offerings vary depending on the length and type of flight. United first started selling food onboard in 2003.
