• Over a dozen people have been robbed at gunpoint on and near Lower Westheimer. HPD says that the robbers approach victims with a gun, rob them of cash, cell phones, wallets and purses and a then a black truck pulls up and the robber and accomplice speed away. • HPD has a new toy. It's a 12 ton armored truck dubbed, "The Bear" and it will be used by SWAT and can transport......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. Why do some people talk on the phone when they're walking/jogging at Memorial Park? Can they not go 30 minutes without their cell phone? The jogging trail seems like the one place you should be able to go without hearing cell phones and people's annoying chatter. What can I do to solve this annoyance? -- Eric W., Houston There are a few options......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness – we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

We're starting to reconsider our plan to apply for a job as a Metro bus driver: On Tuesday, two men attacked a bus driver after arguing with her over the fare, marking the second assault on a Metro driver this week. According to the Chronicle, the men — who appeared inebriated — got into a dispute over fares with the driver and made a threat against her, then walked back into the bus. About 10......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

Spoken Word @ Mind Puddles Where Human Beings Meet Coffee Beans The fourth Thursday of every month, come hear readings by local poets at Mind Puddles Gallery. Tryst @ Mind Puddles is a place to come and relax where there are no cell phones or laptops, but rather an atmosphere created where art is entertainment and artists meet art lovers. It is a place where ideas form, acquaintances are made, and friendships flourish. The goal......

Mayor White, along with the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities Executive Director Michelle Colvard and Connectivity Source Director of Marketing and Development Richard Saler announced yesterday a new program to provide hearing impaired Houstonians with cell phones. The phones use updated technology that provides better sound quality and is less likely to interfere with hearing aids. Connectivity Source has committed to providing people with hearing disabilities with the right technical features compatible with the......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

An exhibit which features art that reflects on the death penalty will open at M2 tomorrow evening and be on display until February 18. The Austin Chronicle called the show "nothing short of powerful." The pieces in the exhibit are in all sorts of media and were created by artists from all over the world (including Houston). Saturday evening there will be an opening reception at the gallery, beginning at 7 pm. There will also......

Houston is having one hell of an Arbor Day and you too can be a part of it (you just have to get your hands a little on the dirty side). Arbor Day was established in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska. It seems that the Nebraska Territory was not readily settled, due to the lack of trees on the tallgrass prairie (the better to build and heat cabins - log cabins,......

Dear Al Gore & all those people who keep telling us that driving cars causes global warming, An inconvenient truth of a misplaced vehicle led to Houstonist riding the bus to work yesterday instead of driving. Turns out that things were a bit more convenient that our assumptions about the use of mass transit in car-centric Houston. So, we thought we'd share a bit of our experience with you in hopes that other non-mass......

Does this cell phone make my backside look big? Rather than tossing it into the garbage, recycle it! Houstonist recently received some environmentally friendly news: That old (circa 1984) brick phone and rechargeable batteries can be conveniently recycled, as can cordless power tool batteries (yeah, we know, that phone cost you nearly $4,000 — but hey, the Commodore 64 used to be all that, too). We like doing our part to save the planet,......

We love reading about the mindless acts of people with too much money and free time (otherwise known as celebrities) on the internet when we should be working. And with Beyonce Knowles having a new album out, her PR team is working overtime to keep her in the press. Her album, called "B’Day", (pronounced like the shortened version of the word “birthday”, not to be confused with the French bathroom invention, the bidet) hasn’t......

Eighteen HISD high schools didn't meet federal standards set under the No Child Left Behind law, meaning the district must offer students at those schools the chance to transfer to better-performing campuses Police in Baytown and west Houston are on the lookout for three men who have stolen thousands of dollars' worth of cell phones and equipment from local stores Matthew Knowles, the father of singer Beyoncé, will help the city try to land the......

It seems that yet again someone has done something that will soon be viewed as indispensable to the modern world. The latest example of greatness from the Nietzschian overmen at South Korean manufacturer LG is the LP4100, a cell phone that can, and will, let you know when you have had that one chardonnay too many. A phone with a built in Breathalyzer?!? The He@# you say! Did Houstonist mention that the fabulous LP4100 will......

HISD trustees unanimously approved a new do-it-yourself cell phone policy yesterday that will allow each of the district's 305 campuses to make its own rules on whether or not mobile phones are allowed. The district hopes the policy will let schools set appropriate rules for phones, which they say are a distraction and an academic problem: "What we've seen with the use of cell phones is it's made principals and teachers equally miserable," said Gayle......

Depending on a board vote later this week, HISD might crack down on bullying, cheating and classroom distractions — all the things that make school so memorable. A new code of student conduct under consideration by the HISD trustees would give teeth to the district's bullying rules, which now stipulates that students who bully or verbally abuse other students have reports sent home to their parents and might get detention. Under the new policy, principals......

Cell phones are great and all, but what happens when they don't work? Y'know, like when you're trying to evacuate from a hurricane or trying to drunk-dial someone when the Astros win the pennant — or, like yesterday, when nothing at all happens. That was the situation yesterday, when a bunch of Cingular subscribers in the Houston area couldn't use their phones for four and a half hours. Actually, there was a cause: a database......

One local movie theater has decided that kids are not welcomed in their theater after 9 p.m. No, it's not because they are showing Debbie Does Dallas. According to management at the Cinemark Tinsletown Westchase theater, past troubles with loitering is the reason for the new policy (which has actually been in effect since April). We have altering opinions about the new policy. While it’s not really fair to outcast the teenagers for late......

Ah, another national study of something we'd never thought about researching: the best and worst U.S. cities for road rage. Looks like drivers in Miami are the nation's rudest, while people in Minneapolis are veritable traffic angels. The Driver's Seat Road Rage Survey, commissioned by AutoVantage, polled people in 20 major cities to get their thoughts on how nasty drivers in their towns were, and the results were pretty much what you'd expect: People......

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out their art and face off. A plagiarized novel is the......

So here's something to keep in mind when you're out bouncing along some rural road and your car gets smashed by by a jackalope: You can call 911 from your cell phone, but that doesn't mean anybody's going to be able to find you. That's because most Texas counties — about 80 percent — don't have the requipment to allow emergency operators to pinpoint cell phone locations. And that is because the Legislature keeps pulling......

City Council today approved a $15 million contract for 1,500 ultra-modern parking meters on a wireless network that will let people pay their parking fees using cell phones, credit cards and dollar bills in addition to coins. Council chose ACS State & Local Solutions of New Jersey as the vendor for the system, the first part of which should be in place within a year. Matthew Silverman, Vice President of the company's transportation services, said......

Houston could become the first city in the U.S. to manage its parking meters on a wireless network if City Council approves a $15 million contract for a new parking meter system. If the system is installed, we'll be able to pay meters using money, credit cards and cell phones. To pay by cell phone, users would first register online or by phone, then they would make a call, send a text message or visit......

Speaking of questionable city spending, KHOU reports today that some city employees are talking a lot on their city-issued cell phones — for free. The phones are meant for business, but Channel 11's investigation found some employees were making a great deal of personal calls on the city's dime. One HPD inspector, Tony Emanuel, racked up 21,168 minutes during four months last year — that's nearly 15 days on the phone. And they weren't all......

We've all had the pleasure of sharing the roads with enormous SUVs — you know, the kind usually driven by inconsiderate soccer moms who are talking on their cell phones, drinking Frappuccinos and managing a dozen kids, all while trying to stay in one (or two) lanes. According to some estimates, we might be seeing a similar situation in the sky soon if microjets take the world by storm. Microjets, or VLJs (very light jets),......

Houstonist is usually the model of kindness and charity, but there are some people who make us want to kill: the ones who nearly kill us cutting in lines of traffic, for example, or Britney Spears. Right up at the top of that list are people who talk on their cell phones during movies. After we drop a month's salary on a movie ticket, popcorn and a drink, the last thing we want to hear......

It must be a slow news day when the Chronicle has a story on the Business page about people in their 20s who don't wear watches. OF the eight twentysomethings chatting at a table at Luby's, half don't wear watches. "I can get the time from my cell phone," was the main reason cited by the watchless. To wear or not to wear is a generational thing, several said. "My mom and dad wear watches.......

Though we at Houstonist do our best to stay on top of the latest fads and fashions, there's one pop-culture demographic with which we've fallen woefully out of touch: kids 11 and under. Pre-teens these days have so many more options than Houstonist did — back when we were in elementary school, there were no PS2s, no folding scooters, no iPods, no Heelys. All we had were a bunch of cast-iron pistols and a Pong......