::Double-Header Hump Day at Armadillo Palace:: Happy Hump Day, Houston! Where can you find the biggest hump in town? And no, we're not talking about down on Dowling Street. Why, the Armadillo Palace on Kirby! We're pretty sure it's the biggest "armadillah" west of the Mississippi. Join the American Advertising Federation of Houston & Ad2 Houston as they host thier monthly Networking & Social Mixer at Goode-Co.-Banquet Room-turned-rocking-beer-joint, Armadillo Palace (5015 Kirby Drive). The American......

The Red Sox has permeated nearly every facet of Bostonist's lives. When they're not live-blogging the games, waxing poetic about the games, thanking Curt Schilling for his splendid work, or telling Dane Cook to watch his hair, they're watching certain presidential candidates hop on the Red Sox bandwagon (sorry, Gothamist). The Sox are so branded on the local brain that people are using the Series to spice up their sex lives. Speaking of spice, Bostonist......

Really, it's a typical story: guy and girl go to bar with their various friends, looking to mingle. Guy and girl meet. Guy and girl have drinks. Girl invites guy home to her place to check out her bootleg Top Chef DV--wait, is that part just us? Anyway. When the guy and girl wake up the next morning, it lately seems as if they should get checked for syphilis. The Chronicle reports that Houston's trying......

We know you're out there reading Houstonist — but what do we really know about you, aside from the fact that you obviously have impeccable taste in websites? Not much, as it turns out. So we've developed a quick survey to get some basic info on y'all that we will use to improve Houstonist — from developing new content areas to choosing promotional and advertising partners. The survey covers the basics: some info about you......

Art Director's Club of Houston Hosts "Meet The Board" Social As you know, there are tons of events that go on each day in town. It's a tough job to pick just one to feature as the Daily-ist each day, but what would you do without us guiding you?! Resort to CitySearch? We shudder at the thought. Today's selection, however, was not a tough one. First off, we love this organization and all it's awesome,......

Remember Pedro Espinoza-Escama, the man who police charged with helping his girlfriend sell her two teenage daughters into prostitution? Well, if you happen to run into him on the street, you really should call HPD: It seems someone accidentally released Espinoza-Escama from a city jail early Friday morning. Oops! According to police, 21-year-old Espinoza-Escama and his girlfriend, 35-year-old Nelsi Yolanda Latuda, forced Latuda's 14- and 16-year-old daughters into prostitution, and Latuda even passed out business......

A couple of weeks ago, Houstonist was downtown and noticed a film crew setting up lights, cameras — and, presumably, action — at the corner of Louisiana and Rusk. We wondered in passing what was going on, but we figured it was just Time Warner shooting another of its asinine commercials with a guy in a space suit or a businessman who says "Click! Boom!" for half an hour. In reality, though, what we......

We'll admit that we're not exactly business-savvy, and we'd rather read the comics, or even Ken Hoffman, than the business section. But today, Mary Flood's column about car crash lawyers and advertising caught our eye. We were surprised to learn that Jim Adler, also known as "The Texas Hammer," has even established a presence on Myspace. And what an elaborate Myspace it is! Mary Flood's column said that his page played the theme from Rocky,......

Jack Valenti, the long-time head of the Motion Picture Association of America and Houston native passed away today at his home in Washington. He was 85 and still suffering the effects of a stroke he had in March. Valenti was born in Houston to Sicilian immigrants in 1921, growing up on the still unpaved streets of the 1st Ward. He traced his love of movies to a string of jobs working in downtown Houston movie......

Our bloggers were fairly single-minded this week. We saw a lot of posts on the same couple of topics, but each one had its own distinctive style. Let's take a look at what's hot in the Houston blogosphere this week: Playoffs, anyone? The Rockets are getting ready, and the bloggers are fired up. Globetrotter is getting ready with their "I Urban Houstonian took a more classic approach, with an analysis of each team's chances,......

Andy Warhol: Three Houston Women Exhibit | March 16-July 8, 2007 Menil Collection | 1515 Sul Ross Houston, TX 77006 Wednesday-Sunday | 11am-7pm Cost | FREE Beginning in the late 1960s, Andy Warhol (1928–1987) produced serial silkscreen portraits of three of Houston’s leading arts figures: Jermayne MacAgy, Dominique de Menil (pictured), and Caroline Wiess Law. These portraits will be united for the first time in a special exhibition, “Andy Warhol: Three Houston Women.” Walk......

There's a new kid on the sub sandwich block, folks: Houstonians who worship at the altar of Jimmy John's will rejoice over the grand opening of a franchise on Houston soil today. The first Jimmy John's in Houston is located on 59 N between Weslayan and Buffalo Speedway. The chain of sandwich shops is popular with college students, likely because of their late hours, and their nearly 500 locations are mostly in college towns.......

Via Off the Kuff, Rice Village-area residents are a little ticked off by a sign advertising Sonoma, the residential component of the proposed Piazza mixed-use development just off Rice Boulevard. You remember that, right? It's the $100 million, seven-story behemoth for which a block of Bolsover Street will be closed, with 225 condominiums, 100,000 square feet of retail space and an underground parking garage. But according to the Examiner, it's not the size of the......

So this really sucks: In Montgomery County yesterday evening, a guy checking out a sign advertising cheap gas caused a crash that killed another driver. The accident happened at around 5:30 p.m. at FM 3083 and Jefferson Chemical Road near Conroe, where the driver of a Ford Escort saw the gas prices at a Quick Stop station. He made a sudden left turn — presumably not out of the left lane — causing a driver......

You may remember that last month our fair neighbor Galveston was in the news because of the perceived need to hire a marketing firm to revamp the city's image. North Star Destination Strategies out of Nashville, Tennessee was hired to try and persuade a few more folks to head south to the island. After conducting a few surveys and finding out that most thought of Galveston beaches as dirty, stinky cesspools of sorts, North Star......

Houstonist always has a big pile of tamales, a cauldron of our venison chili and a pot of pintos (to bean or not to bean - that is the controversy question) with all the sides (cheese, onions, corn chips, chopped tomatoes, sour cream, etc) for Christmas Eve. Finding a mean tamale in Houston is actually fairly easy, here are some recommendations for you, in case you need some and are behind the proverbial 8-ball, or......

In case you missed it, "Don't Mess With Texas" got some national props last week: The 20-year-old slogan won the third annual Advertising Week Walk of Fame competition, making it (officially) one of the country's best advertising catch phrases. A variety of famous slogans were contenders in the Walk of Fame competition, including "Good to the Last Drop" from Maxwell House, "Got Milk?" from the California Milk Processors Board and "Just Do It" from Nike.......

Imagine you're a Missouri City leader and you've stood by and watched as Sugar Land attracted all the fancy business, got developed with huge, expensive houses and built itself a lovely fake downtown. Meanwhile, your own town has managed to stay on the edge of the spotlight, missing out on a lot of the exciting Fort Bend action. What do you do? Press for tax breaks to attract development? Launch a municipal beautification campaign? Advertise?......

The shot from flickr user and Houstonist photo contributor Phototainable. This shot, from one of our favorite photographers, captures a piece of Houston architectural history that, once torn down, most people wont complain about. Information from the author: "The second of my entries for Houston it's Worth it: Whenever I drove along Westheimer this particular advertising board used to make me laugh, especially the hopeless lettering at the bottom that never seemed to make......

The first in our series of Mom & Pop burger joint reviews takes us to Annie's Hamburgers, 10821 S. Post Oak Road. We tried the bacon cheeseburger (dragged through the garden, of course) and an order of onion rings. And we weren't disappointed! The burger was hot, juicy and fresh, cooked over a gas flame — a similar method to some fast-food restaurants. The bacon topping the gently melted American cheese was thick and crispy,......

In all the outrage over the potential destruction of the River Oaks Theater, another Houston institution that could be bulldozed as well is the neighborhood speakeasy Marfreless. According to the Houston Chronicle, the undeground bar with no sign and no advertising would likely be part of the demolition of the River Oaks Shopping Center because it is in the same building as the theater. The quiet, dimly-lit establishment has been long known by regulars and......

Ebony magazine named Houstonian Crystal Brown one of the country’s top bachelorettes. The 34-year-old single mom is the CEO and President of Crystal Clear Communications, a Houston based advertising firm. Brown, who was nominated by someone who is still anonymous, is a long time reader of Ebony: As a child, she read every book and magazine she could get her hands on. She especially enjoyed Ebony, the glossy monthly that often had pretty pictures of......

Houstonist is a sucker for bad local commercials — we've been a fan of the Thunderbolt ad for as long as we can remember — and keeping that in mind, we are happy to bring you this 1990 ad for the Season Ticket sports bar. Cheesy sales pitch thinly disguised as phone conversation! Mysterious, oddly colored bar food! A waitress who can't deliver a line! 18-inch televisions! Yes, it's all here. (If you check......

Madison Avenue gets weirder every day. The New York Times reports that CBS will announce today some advertising plans for its fall lineup. The network, which is anchored by ratings stalwarts like the CSI franchise, is planning to imprint logos for its shows on eggs: 35 million eggs to be exact, to hit stores in September and October. CBS is the only advertiser who will use this form of advertising this fall, and the first......

Here's something we wish we'd seen while it was still up: In Midtown, someone covered a billboard with a homemade poster featuring Jesus holding a can of Budweiser between the slogans "King of Jews" and "King of Beers." Given some of the more bizarre advertising we've seen lately, we wouldn't have been surprised if the sign was an actual ad — but the company that leases the billboard said it wasn't. Officials said they believe......

It looks like Kinky's in and Grandma is out on the November gubernatorial ballot: Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams ruled today that Richard "Kinky" Friedman can use his nickname on the ballot, but Carole Keeton "Grandma" Strayhorn can't because her nickname is actually a campaign slogan. The nickname issue came up a while back, when polling indicated that many voters don't know Strayhorn by her name — she's had a variety of last names......

Sampaist is on the scene in São Paulo beginning this week to become the only ist south of the Equator. Editor Leandro M. Pinto leads the paulistanos down there. You can protest someone at his office, sure, but when the whistle blows at the end of the day can you follow him home? D.C. has sports fans, apparently, and elephants aren't really cut out for zoos. There's this trick where you can read information from......

We've been hearing for years that printed newspapers are on their way out — first because of the Internet, then those e-book readers — and yet we still get newsprint all over our hands every morning. But there might actually be a functional e-newspaper just around the corner, and according to Reuters, the Chronicle may be among the first papers to test the technology later this year. The iLiad from iRex and the e-reader from......

Houstonist loves fried chicken and breakfast — but we've never really thought about combining the two, outside the occasional order of chicken and waffles at The Breakfast Klub. We suspect we're not alone, and apparently Chick-fil-A feels the same way: The company is rolling out an unusual set of new billboards to encourage people to have chicken for breakfast. The billboards are designed in conjunction with Chick-fil-A's "advertising partners" and depict the chain's "Eat......

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has suspended its crackdown on drunks in bars while it investigates complaints from legislators and the public about how the program is run. The TABC stepped up arrests of intoxicated people in bars in September after the Legislature approved funding for 120 new TABC staff members, including 59 new agents, to help the agency decrease drunk driving. The idea was to keep people from being drunk in bars, which in......