A scene from Mile High Social's first casting call.

Although Mile High Social, Denver's newest reality show, is pegged as an honest project with a humanitarian bent, its creators were still amazed by how "real" the first casting call turned out. "I was surprised by how open the women were on camera," Koncrete Media co-founder Dennis Flippin says. "It felt like real people, not just people putting up a front."

The show's first episode won't hit the Internet until mid-April at the earliest, but the crew has created a video preview using outtakes from the casting call -- and Westword has a sneak (below) of many of the more than fifty people who auditioned to become part of the upcoming show, which will focus on women making a difference. Mile High Social will eventually air via regular 7.5-minute episodes, but this funny three-and-a-half-minute outtake reel provides a strong indication of how open and engaging many of the casting candidates can be.

Seriously. The teaser topics include -- but are in no way limited to -- Jaeger, Burning Man, one particular sexual experience there, cow-tipping, open relationships, the Mile High Club, traffic, sex in Paris and, of course, women and their pussies. (It's not what you think.) Keep reading to watch the full preview.

See also:
- New Denver reality show Mile High Social looking for women making a difference
- Want to be a reality TV star? Haunt Ghost Plate & Tap Sunday
- Photos: Ten Colorado-connected hotties, ingenues and reality-TV stars

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Melissa Wollenberg

"Fires Be Damned!"

When Melissa Wollenberg of Highlands Ranch snapped a cute/surreal photo of her son in a gas mask, standing before the orange haze of this past last summer's out-of-control fires, she had no idea that it would eventually be chosen by film legend Ron Howard and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy for their upcoming short-film project. "It was just a fluke," remembers Wollenberg, who submitted the improvised pic to Canon's Project Imagina10n photo contest, where it was selected (along with nine others) by Murphy as a storytelling directive for the film. "I was just really excited when I found out that the photo made it at all. I am a complete amateur and yet when I saw [my son in a gas mask], I had to take a picture. It was just a weird feeling. I didn't really have any expectations."

See also:
- LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
- Gio Toninelo's Little Denver photography exhibit looks like big fun
- Month of Photography's The Big Picture: It just keeps getting bigger and bigger

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The Octa whale tail, perfect for your next rave.

Denver-based Octa has created a new product that aims to make your iPad more user-friendly, and also more adorable in the process.

"When we got our first iPad, we said, 'This is really cool, but really hard to hold,'" says Octa co-founder Kevin "Prometheus" Trotsky.

So the group made a handle for it.

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otterbox.com

The Consumer Electronics Show, that yearly technology bacchanal, kicks off today in Las Vegas. It's an orgy of smartphones, tablets, Justin Bieber and ... gospel singers belting out tweets? You better believe it. A host of Colorado companies are there, showing and telling and (hopefully) generating buzz. Here, we present a list of ten Centennial State CES exhibitors.

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Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs says he's more a hippie than a nerd. He hires computer programmers who, in another life, would make excellent poets, musicians, even zoologists.

"The spark of that was that there was something beyond what you see everyday. There's something beyond a job, a career, a car...That same spirit can be put into products," he says in Steve Jobs: the Lost Interview.

The movie, with a limited theatrical run, plays at the Esquire Theater at 7:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. tonight, and tomorrow at 7:15 p.m.

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Who qualifies as an arts blogger? We'll leave that up to you, but here are some suggestions: It can be anyone, from those who write about local arts news to artists who create content for their own blog, or just someone with an incredible tumblr account.

The Denver Web Awards are back, and Westword is looking for your nominations. In addition to our award for best arts blogger, we're recognizing achievements in these fields:

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Calling all photo students! Village Voice Media (Westword's parent company) is recruiting undergraduate photography students for its Fall 2011 Photo Intern Program.

By "student," we do not mean " student of life." There's no cash offered with this gig, only credits. Don't bother applying if this doesn't apply to you.

Still interested? Read on!

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If you nerded out on the EpicMix app while skiing or snowboarding at the Vail Resorts last season and love to boast on Facebook about just how sick your "sick days" are by posting photos and status updates from the mountain, then EpicMix 2.0 is just for you, adding EpicMix Photo and new social media sharing tools into the... uh... epic mix. Yesterday, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz unveiled the EpicMix 2.0 social media app and dropped details about $80 to $95 million in other improvement projects at Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge here in Colorado (Breck's 50th anniversary season begins on 11/11/11, so get ready to party), plus new developments at Heavenly in California and $30 million in capital improvements at Shaun White's new home mountain, Northstar-at-Tahoe.

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The Revolights v4 prototype, via Revolights.com

Look out, Moonlight Classic 2012, here's a product surely destined for just about every nocturnal bike in Colorado: The Revolights project is less than $10,000 shy of its $43,500 goal on Kickstarter.com, with 42 days to go as of this writing, which means fully-functional wheel-mounted cycling lights could soon be a reality.

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