Archives: January 2011
The Drop will be featured on Drinking Made Easy tomorrow
%{}% There aren’t many places in America where you can get a solid cocktail — a literally solid cocktail that you eat with your fingers. That’s why the Drop’s edible cocktails are drawing some national attention. Drinking Made Easy, a drinking travelogue television show hosted by Zane Lamprey, will air its Kansas City episode tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. on…
Police chase ends after suspect runs into McDonald’s, surrenders as officers swarm
These are the days that I wish the Pitch Action News Team chopper wasn’t in the shop for repairs. Kansas City had a living-in-Los-Angeles moment as local TV stations followed a police chase that ended at a McDonald’s at 134th and State Line. KMBC Channel 9’s aerial video and slideshow are something to see as the suspect stops at the…
Stop abandoning your pit bulls in Swope Park
Last week, five dogs, mainly pit bulls, were abandoned in and near Swope Park. KCTV5 reported that the Missouri Pit Bull Rescue group has saved all of the dogs (except for one that was already dead when volunteers found it in the park), including one named Conquest, who was found barely alive after being dumped in the park. And you…
With help from Pryde’s, 10 handy kitchen gadgets you never knew existed
When John and Connie Perucca started Pryde’s Old Westport in 1968, they carried more patio furniture than kitchen products. That has certainly changed over the last four decades. Sometime in the 1980s, kitchen gadgets became among the hottest sellers at the Westport shop. And while the Peruccas sold the business to their daughter, Louise Meyers, a decade ago, the gadgets…
How I Met Your Mother: ‘That dress makes you look like a Kansas City whore’
The writers of How I Met Your Mother have never seen a Kansas City whore. I’m quite certain of this after watching last night’s new episode, in which the father of Jason Segel’s character, Marshall, dies. If you’ve never seen the show, it’s good stuff, which I can’t remember ever saying about a CBS comedy. Why am I writing about…
Starbucks’ new Trenta size big enough for a Sasquatch
You’ve probably walked into Starbucks dozens of times over the past few years and thought, this 20 oz. Venti is just about 11 ounces short of satisfying my thirst. Well, your call for gluttony has been answered. Starbucks unveiled the Trenta on Sunday, which at 916 ml (a shade under 31 ounces) is actually bigger than the holding capacity of…
Kim Carlos, PR specialist, hasn’t explained why she was worth $40,000 to the city
A public-relations specialist who had a $40,000 contract with the City of Kansas City, Missouri, appears to be struggling to produce evidence that she was worth the money. In 2009, the city formed a committee to study a potential 1,000-room convention hotel. The committee received $500,000 to hire consultants, and a portion of the money wound up with communications pro…
Orlando Smith, KCMO homicide No. 3 of 2011: Deadly shooting at 16th and Holmes
%{}% UPDATE: Kansas City police have identified the victim of Monday morning’s homicide as 19-year-old Orlando Smith of Kansas City, Missouri. Read the update after the jump … Original Story (January 17): An early morning homicide has Kansas City police searching for a suspected killer. Around 1 a.m., police were near 16th and Holmes to handle a traffic problem at…
Karla O’Malley wants to outlaw harassment in online memorials
%{}% Death and taxes … and asses. Yes, despite all of its awesomeness, the Internet has ensured that miserable jerks are another of life’s guarantees and that they have a place to share their awfulness with the world. The worst of the Web are the bastards who defile online memorial sites. With just a few keystrokes, anybody can be the…
Five great electronic film scores that aren’t Trent Reznor’s
This weekend, perpetual angry man Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails won a Golden Globe for his and Atticus Ross’ original motion picture score for The Social Network. (You know, that Facebook movie that sounded really fucking dumb when the project was announced, but actually turned into a fine film that swept up awards.) In more batshit-crazy film-score news, Wham…
Mario Brown accused of robbing the Coffee Wonk of Syn incense and money
Patrons of the Coffee Wonk on Broadway might remember a few weeks during the fall when the store’s stock of Syn — an incense with a “Not for Human Consumption” label that was frequently ignored, if you know what I’m talking about — had been confiscated by the Kansas City Police Department. Rather than confiscate the incense out of fear…
American Heartland and Quality Hill turn up the romance
I’m a fool for love, but I’m a cynic for love stories, especially those involving such tired tropes as bad blind dates, decreasingly selective dating criteria, and cataclysmically bad wedding-reception dancing. These jokes, the material of a thousand bad stand-up routines, are so old that they’re like Metamucil sprinkled on All-Bran. Nevertheless, even my icy heart couldn’t help but be…
A break from the Get Up Kids’ longtime label offers new freedom
Matt Pryor, frontman of the Get Up Kids, is talking on the phone from his home on the east side of Lawrence. Wonky cartoon sounds echo in the background, alongside a child’s laughter. They’re mundane, domestic noises but, for Pryor, they also signal one of the benefits of taking control of one’s career. “It was a business and philosophical decision,”…
Culture isn’t the culprit
Dear Mexican: I’m not Mexican (or from a Spanish-speaking country, for that matter), but I get mad when the gabachos in my town say all that Mexican girls do is take drugs and get pregnant, drop out of school and end up on welfare. I know a lot of Mexican women who haven’t done any of these things, who have…
The Way Back
The protagonists of The Way Back, veteran director Peter Weir’s first movie since 2003’s Master and Commander, are Soviet prisoners who escape the Gulag during World War II, trekking 4,000 miles from Siberia to Outer Mongolia, across the Gobi desert, over the Great Wall, and through the Himalayas to freedom. Young Polish officer Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is sent to a…
Find The Pitch
