The Pen Lover's Daily Bag

In 1999, the U. S. women’s soccer team captivated sports fans across the globe when it won the World Cup and became the first team in the female league to do so on home soil. The championship title was a pivotal moment for women’s sports that inspired a generation of young girls, among them Miranda Spencer and Annie Weaver. “I remember the 1999 World Cup and the Fab Five and the rest of that group, the ’99ers,” said Weaver, who was 5 years old then.

Colorado is known for producing some of the best beer in the world, but cocktail fans here also have access to bars where mixology keeps step with some of the nation’s best. Need proof? The 18th annual Spirited Awards, part of the esteemed Tales of the Cocktail conference in New Orleans, recently announced its roster of 2024 regional honorees, which included three Denver bars.

Denver recently beat out New York, Chicago and Detroit to take the top spot on a controversial list of the best pizza cities in the country. How did it happen? A data team from a company called Clever Real Estate tallied up Yelp ratings and the average price for a large cheese pizza, along with the number of pizza restaurants in 50 cities nationwide to create the list. Plenty of people were thoroughly bewildered — and certainly angry — since Denver doesn’t even have a signature pizza style, let alone a storied pizza tradition.

AI-based text-to-image generation models are everywhere and becoming easier to access daily. While it's easy just to visit a website and generate the image you're looking for, open-source text-to-image generators are your best bet if you want more control over the generation process.

Remember when a TV was just a screen that played shows and movies? Those were simpler times! With so many TV brands out there these days, it's easy to get lost in the maze of options.

Dear Readers: Periodically, I publish “updates” to previous questions and answers published in this space. The following was published in 2018. The update follows the original Q&A. Dear Amy: I grew up with two siblings — a brother and a sister. My brother, his wife and three children lived near our parents.