If you're anything like Houstonist, you may have lately noticed a proliferation of tiny, yellow-and-black spiders in your backyard, garden, garage or other outdoor spaces. Don't be scared! These spiders, along with their lesser-seen Orb-weaver cousins, are one of late summer's greatest gifts. The widely-seen spider pictured to the right is the Argiope aurantia, also known as the Yellow and Black Garden Spider. This little spider, which can be anywhere from three-quarters of an inch......

Calling all pooches! Oliver, a friendly (obviously, he's hosting this soiree) Golden Retriever is having a little canine social event, the Bow-Wow Bash at the Houston Arboretum this Saturday from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. Please RSVP quickly here, to ensure your participation. There will be music and refreshments in the meadow and dog owners get poochie punch and a doggie bag with bottled water and a treat for their "party animal". Please be sure......

The Queen of Hip Hop Soul, Mary J. Blige takes the stage at the latest installment of Vh1 Storytellers, airing tonight at 7pm on Vh1. Monday -Vh1, 7pm: Vh1 Storytellers, Mary J. Blige -NBC, 11:35pm: Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Super Furry Animals Tuesday -ABC, 7am: Good Morning America, Janet Jackson -CBS, 10:35pm: Late Show with David Letterman, Chingy with Ludacris -NBC, 10:35pm: Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Lupe Fiasco -ABC, 11:05pm: Jimmy Kimmel Live,......

We hope you have your Saturday cleared out because The Proletariat is dishing out so much local music goodness this weekend that we just don't know what to do with ourselves. Besides Friday's Fatal Flying Guilloteens and Co., the Pro serves up the always great Elaine Greer, the indomitable Hearts of Animals and the band formerly known as The Dimes on Saturday, February 2. Oh, and the Fiery Furnaces happen to play, too. Besides the......

Good morning, Houston. Remember Mayor Bill's agreement with Clear Channel that would result in the removal of nearly 900 billboards across the city? Well, it's not necessarily a done deal after all: On Wednesday, six City Council members voted to delay the plan, saying they still had questions about its ramifications. The problem, they said, was that the deal would allow Clear Channel to move remaining billboards: "We're allowing new billboard locations to pop......

When it comes to music in Texas, we all know that Austin pretty much has the scene in an awkward and uncomfortable chokehold position. Between South by Southwest, ACL and Fun Fun Fun fests, the state capital has music festivals down to a science. But instead of making that trek up 290 and finding the perfect seat between the broseph who can't stop talking about how cool it would be if DMB was on......

The question that has burned in men's minds since 2000, invading their slumber and disturbing their very ability to enjoy music, has finally been answered emphatically. It was Jerome Mathis, wideout and kick returner for the Texans, who let the dogs out. Mathis was given a citation by Brazoria County authorities on Saturday when four of his pit bulls were menacing neighbors near his home in Manvel. Animal control officers were able to intervene without......

Candlelight Open House at Bayou Bend Dec 7, 2007 5:00 PM at the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has been hosting Candlelight Open House nights at their Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens on Friday nights. This Friday night is your last chance to go to the open house and tour the property in all of its holiday season glory. The central figure in Yuletide´s Holiday Heroines is......

The incredibly talented and modest Mlee Marie Suprean has to be one of the hardest working musicians in Houston. Juggling five musical projects (including the fantastic Hearts of Animals) at the same time can’t be easy for anybody, but even while recovering from a nasty cough, Suprean still made time to talk to the Houstonist about what’s on both her mind and plate. Mlee is an interesting name. Where did that come from? My......

An urban swampland: Bayous, rice fields, and floodplains Paved over and built. Water moccasins make do with drainage ditches, Corrugated banks. Huge frickin roaches flutter 'bout sodium lights, New haunts for mating. Outside my window, These old tenants observe me, Watch me watch telly. Worryingly large Stinkbugs grace the window screen, Bask in houselight glow. One night, a possum ambled across the lawn (lost?) Like some big, weird cat. I crouched, tapped on glass......

The Biomimicry Guild and the AIA Committee on the Environment will host a lecture this Wednesday (12/05/07) on Biomimicry its uses and applications. Dayna Baumeister, PhD, and co-founder of the Biomimicry Guild, will give the evening lecture which will then be follow by two workshop sessions on Thursday and Friday. For those less familiar, Biomimicry is "a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and imitates them to solve human problems." But wait, aren't......

Good morning, Houston. We remember our days as student drivers — not bad overall, though we did have a pregnant in-car instructor who had a nasty habit of slamming on the brakes every time we passed a doughnut shop. Still, we didn't have it anywhere near as bad as the kid who passed his driver's test Monday, then crashed his car into the side of a Houston DPS office. The driver was parking his......

If you see a lanky, red-bearded biker pedaling down I-10 in the next day or two, that’s A.J. Rowell, a passionate biker and fundraiser from North Carolina. So what’s he doing in Houston? Mostly just biking, in fact that’s pretty much all that A.J.’s done for the last six months on his trans-America bike tour. A.J. pushed off from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska on June 2nd with 90 pounds of gear strapped to his road......

Goat cheese is another one of those ingredients that people either love or hate. On the one hand, we think goat cheese is a delectable, multi-talented piece of dairy. On the other hand, one hater told us he thought it tasted like 'farm'. Hmmm. Hopefully this article will inspire a second taste, perhaps even transforming 'farm' to 'farmtastic? Goat cheese, also known as chevre cheese, has a slightly tart taste due to the higher content......

We love seeing local peeps get overdue credit, especially when they are big, orange and furry. That's why we are super stoked that the Houston Zoo made it to Animal Planet's Top 10 Places to Visit Orangutans in North America. Animal Planet says: The Houston Zoo is developing long-term partnerships in Borneo, and with other organizations and zoos, to ensure the survival of these species. Houston Zoo’s support for wildlife conservation initiatives in Malaysian Borneo......

Look, we're gonna make this one real easy for you. No thinking involved. Music. Art. Community. And a scientist who raps about space travel to a power point presentation. See? Simple. Houston, Our Ears Depend on You, this Saturday at Diverseworks, materializes Rice Radio's KTRU's presentation of Ashmathitic Kitty's 4th Unusual Animals party. Huh? See, we told you we were gonna make it simple. Just trust us. Or, just keep reading. DiverseWorks is excited to......

So many good shows this week, that we don’t have enough space to highlight all of them. Tonight, our pick is the pure pop sounds of Office tonight at The Mink (congratulations to Cynthia for winning tickets through us!). Singer/songwriter fans will have a touch choice Thursday night – Ryan Adams makes a rare Houston appearance at Verizon Wireless and former Toad the Wet Sprocket front man Glen Phillips plays two shows at the......

Good morning, Houston. If you've lived here a while, you probably know that the city is prone to livestock running amok — so it shouldn't be too surprising that Third Ward residents found a pair of ewes loose in their neighborhood yesterday. Some neighbors and a KTRK crew tried to catch the animals and eventually chased them to the TSU campus, where a Harris County sheriff's deputy and KTRK photographer Ben Lutman made a......

Rice Window Exhibit + Closing Gallery Talk by Artist Mike Stilkey While other campus spaces had some downtime this summer, Rice Gallery was busy with its summer window exhibit "When the Animals Rebel." The installation's Los Angeles-based artist, Mike Stilkey, will give a talk tomorrow, Aug 30th, at noon at the Rice Gallery. A complimentary light lunch will be served, and the event is free and open to the public. To create the installation, Stilkey......

Good morning, Houston. Nothing to lol at here: the Houston SPCA is rolling out a new policy for pet owners who drop off their pets. From now on, there will be a fifteen minute "counseling session," during which the owners will know if the pet is going to be a candidate for adoption or if it's going to the big litterbox in the sky. The policy is meant to make it harder for owners......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. Don't telemarketers and bill collectors know that the long pause when you answer the phone or the (even worse) "please hold for an important announcement" greeting is just a signal to immediately hang up? They're already inhibited by caller id. Why do they make it even harder on themselves? -- Jeff Balke, Houston A lot of things don't make much sense, Jeff. Why......

Remember earlier this year, when the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration began a probe into dozens of dead dolphins that had washed up on Southeast Texas beaches? Well, several months into the investigation, the NOAA hasn't figured out what killed the dolphins — and officials say they're unlikely to find an answer. Nearly 70 dolphins washed ashore on beaches in Galveston and Jefferson counties, at least 60 of them in March — a sharp upturn......

When we were very young, there was a pizza joint called Showbiz Pizza (which became Chuck E. Cheese), which featured the usual: cardboard pizza, games, and singing animals. Well, those singing animals (known as Rockafire Explosion) that scared the bejesus out of us back in those days are back -- singing Bubba Sparxxx's hip-hop tune "Ms. New Booty." It seems that someone who calls themselves Christhrash on YouTube, bought these mechanical animals and decide......

Good morning, Houston. As we prepare for the rain chance to increase again — yeah, sorry, we hate to be the bearers of bad news — we're stopping for a second to realize just how much it's rained so far this month. Officially, we've had 8.34 inches of rain so far in July, smashing the 2.34-inch average for the month and making this the eighth-wettest July on record. And there's still a week left......

This is your last chance to see Jana Hunter perform before she moves to Baltimore, MD. Along with KABLE and Hearts of Animals at DiverseWorks this should be an amazing performance and at $7/ticket - you cannot go wrong (it is an all ages performance). The music begins at 9:00 p.m. and DiverseWorks Art Space is located at 1117 East Freeway (I-10 folks), between San Jacinto and Main. Jana is promoting her latest release "There's......

Remember Dan Duncan, the founder of pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners and the richest man in Houston? He's in the news again today, but this time it isn't for his wealth. Instead, Duncan may face criminal charges connected with a 2002 hunting trip in Siberia; it seems Duncan shot and killed a moose and sheep from a helicopter during the trip, a practice that's illegal in Russia. And though no complaints or charges were filed......

Good morning, Houston. You might want to grab a drink before you get started on this morning's news: According to KHOU, a shift toward growing corn in Mexico could lead to a spike in the price of tequila. It seems a lot of Mexican farmers are getting rid of their blue agave fields to make way for corn, which is in demand thanks to the growing popularity of ethanol — and as the amount......

No, it's not by driving as fast as we can around loop 610, but it does include city-wide celebrations, all hoping for the same thing: No rain. Here are a few of the events we'll be checking out tomorrow. Where will you be? Tell us, maybe we'll ditch our plans and join you. But probably not. >>Freedom Over Texas Festival Houston's Official 4th of July Celebration. Chevy presents a concert and Independence Day celebration at......

By Jake Dobkin Hey everyone: you may have noticed that we've made a few small changes to our commenting and feedback systems: 1. Commenters now have profile pages with a bit of information about them, and links to their recent comments, along with comments other people have left in response. If the commenter is also a Gothamist network author, the page will include a list of their recent posts. Here's mine. You can register here......

Here's your rain plan -ist List, should such a situation be necessary. You know there's a great time - a great outdoor experience, that is - to be had this eve at Miller. Just read today's -ist List for details. But, should it rain, let's still have fun by mixing and elixing somewhere. We know! Head out to the glorious Museum of Natural Science's hip new Friday(s) event: Mixers, Elixirs and Imax. Alright, so the......