Snooze (above) and McCoy’s couldn’t be more different, but both serve a purpose in the Fort Collins brunch scene. Photo and review by Kristen Browning-Blas.

This is a tale of two diners. One has been serving breakfast and lunch in southwest Fort Collins for 10 years. The other opened in Old Town in April and is already drawing morning and noontime crowds.

McCoy’s Morning Glory is the kind of place people go after church for coffee and a brunch buffet. Newcomer Snooze (pictured above) is where you meet your hip cousin for pepper-infused vodka Bloody Marys and bacon-caramel pancakes.

With its blond wood tables and chairs and country garden theme, McCoy’s does not pretend to be cool. Snooze (which also has two Denver locations) is all about image, from the over-the-top menu descriptions to the midcentury-modern decor. When a restaurant promises “breakfast bliss” and calls its pancakes “brilliance,” expectations naturally will soar.

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Award-winning Brookly comedian Reggie Watts was tapped to open for Conan O’Brien on his national theater tour.

Describing Reggie Watts’ genre-hopping comedy act is a lot more difficult than simply experiencing it. Terms like “postmodern” and “meta” might help locate his mix of stand-up, beatboxing, off-the-cuff sampling and a cappella improvisation, but only because his disorienting performances are as much about commenting on the forms of stage entertainment as the content.

Ultimately, Watts’ unique voice knows how to do what counts: make audiences laugh. That’s probably why Conan O’Brien picked up the Brooklyn resident and festival favorite as the opener on two-month, 32-city “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television” tour, which played CU-Boulder’s Macky Auditorium last night and stops by Denver’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Monday.

We chatted with Watts, whose first Comedy Central CD/DVD “Why $#!+ So Crazy?” is out May 18, about the reception he’s gotten from O’Brien’s fans, how he landed the gig and what’s next for him.

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Skeptical outsiders Daria and Jane (right) address the bubbly Brittany in a scene from MTV’s animated series “Daria,” which sees DVD release on Tuesday.

Somewhere in the laidback mess of apathy that was the late 1990s, a TV show emerged that was — and in many ways still is — the antithesis of most teen programs.

“Daria,” MTV’s cult animated series that ran from 1997 to 2002, was an improbable show, to say the least. A spin-off of the willfully gross, mindless “Beavis and Butt-head,” “Daria” was led by the smart, sarcastic high school student Daria Morgendorffer, whose world was populated with friends (Jane), family (parents Jake and Helen, sister Quinn) and various archetypical American teenage characters (jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, etc.).

Though not a ratings champ during its initial run, the show’s sharp sensibility and evolving characters attracted a devoted cult following who would eventually demand — via a 50,000-strong online petition — the show’s release on DVD . That release, however, was complicated by the huge amount of licensed music in the original series that needed to be replaced with cheaper, more generic background songs. (The same problem also prevented MTV’s “The State” from DVD release for many years).

But fans can rejoice: On Tuesday, March 11, MTV will finally release all five seasons of the “Daria” plus both “Daria” movies and various special features on DVD.

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Cinco de Mayo may have been yesterday, but East Colfax hangout Mezcal is going strong with the celebrations through Sunday. Denver Post file photo.

There’s only one thing to say when Cinco de Mayo falls on a weekday. “Es muy triste.” Many working folks were very sad that they couldn’t indulge their Cinco party ideas to the fullest Wednesday. Sure, there was a margarita here, a Tecate there, but when a drinking holiday is in the middle of the week, it’s hard to muster a lot of enthusiasm.

Those who did work up the courage on Wednesday likely found themselves very sad as well — this morning. All is not lost, however. The heartiest Cinco de Mayo partyers are going strong through the weekend. Here are a couple tabernas to consider on a weekend quest to salute the Mexican army’s defeat of the French at Puebla in 1862.

Mezcal (3230 E. Colfax Ave.), always a popular choice for Cinco de Mayo revelers, started rockin’ on Monday. The party continues this weekend, with happy hour prices all day, every day through Sunday.

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The Golden Lotus is more about spectacle than food, but that’s not a bad thing.

Sometimes the food isn’t so important. You want ambience. It could be the pub with the dark bar, the diner with the neon and the jukebox, the Italian joint with the checkered tablecloths and the operatic soundtrack.

Or maybe this: the “fancy” Chinese place beside the mall that has held steady since the 1970s, a pagoda’d, fountained, red-and-gold-painted, dragoned, aquariumed, Buddha-garnished, Lazy-Susaned, drink-parasoled, plastic-orchided sprawl. You want the atmospheric background music, the familiar “house specials” (moo shu pork, Happy Family) and the green-tea ice cream.

If this mood strikes in Boulder, then head toward the Target on 28th and look for the joint with the pagoda motif and big parking lot — a.k.a. the Golden Lotus.

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