From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Two men were rescued from the Gulf of Mexico 130 miles southeast of Galveston when their helicopter crashed. • Deer Park resident and former Astros pitcher, Andy Pettitte, admitted to using a human growth hormone during his recovery from an elbow injury in 2002. • During future evacuations and before boarding public transportation criminal background checks will be standard operating procedure to......

Good morning, Houston. Hey, guess who's having a birthday today? Well, OK, it's technically not Houstonist — our second birthday was back on Nov. 20, but we figured that if the queen can have two birthdays, so can we. And so we're throwing ourselves a little birthday party tonight, and you're all invited. It starts at 6 p.m. at Monsoon Wok, Lamar at San Jacinto (yes, street parking is free downtown after 6). Six......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. I'm a 32 year-old man, and I've never been in a fight. A real fist fight, with bloody noses and all that. Have I missed out on something, some necessary, primal step in my adolescent development that would have turned me into a he-man? Should I go pick a fight (preferably with a teenage girl or an elderly person)? Would it do any......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Good morning, Houston. In case you haven't noticed, it's finally hot. We've had temperatures in the high 90s so far this week, and coupled with high humidity, they're making it dangerously warm — so much so, in fact, that we were under a heat advisory yesterday. And it looks like today's temperatures will be about the same, so remember to avoid heat exhaustion by drinking plenty of fluids, avoiding strenuous outdoor activities in the......

Good morning, Houston. The AP reports on an interesting phenomenon: According to preschoolers, anything tastes better if it's wrapped in McDonald's packaging — even carrots, milk and apple juice. The study was done by Stanford University researcher Tom Robinson, whose subjects were 63 low-income children aged between 3 and 5; Robinson's conclusion was that the kids' perception of foods' taste was "physically altered by the branding." Anyone want to make the argument that marketing......

Good morning, Houston. You know what today is, right? It's the day before what's apparently the most important book in the history of the world, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is released. If you're a Harryhead and a fan of Katy, our neighbor to the west, you should be delighted to know that Katy has been named the "Harryest" town in Texas — the distinction that goes to the town that pre-ordered the......

Good morning, Houston. Been missing the Texas Cyclone since it was torn down last year? Then you'll be happy to know about the Boardwalk Bullet, a nearly 100-foot-tall wooden roller coaster set to open this summer at the Kemah Boardwalk. Tim Anderson, Kemah Boardwalk manager, said the Bullet will have more crossovers than any other wooden coaster in the world, and it'll be a bit taller and longer than the famed Cyclone. "It has......

As Spring teenager David Ritcheson's family heads to Mexico today to claim Ritcheson's body, a few details are emerging about when he jumped from a Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday morning. Witnesses said Rtcheson climbed up a tower near the bow of the Ecstasy about 6:15 a.m., and moments later, ship crew members showed up and began trying to negotiate with him. Friends joined in — "What the [expletive] are......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Senator Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat, can finally return home after jeopardizing his health to fight a controversial voter ID bill. Gallegos recently underwent a liver transplant and a follow-up procedure due to concerns that his body was rejecting the liver. He even had a hospital bed set up in the Senate sergeant's office, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Senate floor. Doctors advised Gallegos to stay in Houston to recuperate, but......

Tomorrow's special election to fill the vacant at-large city council seat has been in the local news often enough lately. But there's something else on the ballot that hasn't been given as much long-term publicity: a proposed Constitutional amendment. In the state of Texas, amendments to the Constitution must be ratified by a majority of voters - even if those voters only make up about eight percent of the total voter pool, which is the......

Good morning, Houston. Have a roach problem? How about turning it into a windfall? The Houston Museum of Natural Science is offering 25 cents per roach for the first 1,000 live, healthy American cockroaches people bring in. No kidding: a whole quarter for trapping and transporting a roach! The roaches will be used for a museum display on insect sanitary engineers — seems the critters, which are often associated with filth, are actually known......

Good morning, Houston. Do you feel more metropolitan? Or bigger, maybe? According to estimates released by the Census Bureau yesterday, the influx of hurricane evacuees has made the Houston metro area the country's sixth largest. The Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area now has an estimated 5,483,857 residents, which puts it ahead of Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach but still behind the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Philadelphia metro areas. Another population fact: Harris County......

Good morning, Houston. So how about this Internet thing, eh? Thanks to it, we now have more information at our fingertips than ever before — but how do we know we're staying on the moral and religious high ground? By looking at sites that take on the godless liberal element of the info superhighway, that's how: Take, for example, Conservapedia and GodTube (we hope we don't need to tell you what sites they're going......

Good morning, Houston. If you're wondering where your transit dollars are going, check the stolen laptop market: Police are looking for a man who they say stole two computers from Metro's downtown headquarters building in mid-February. Seems the guy walked into the building Feb. 16, followed an employee to an eighth-floor conference room and picked up two laptops — unfortunately, we don't know whether he got away using public transportation, but we can dream.......

The Chronicle reports today that Mayor Bill White plans to announce a contract proposal for the citywide Wi-Fi network today. Among the details to be announced this afternoon is which company has been selected to build the $60 million network, which will be the largest of its kind in the United States. But in an interview with the Chronicle yesterday, White gave some of the general terms of the deal, including pricing structure. The mayor......

Good morning, Houston. Did you feel particularly down in the dumps yesterday? There's a good reason for it, according to Dr. Cliff Arnal, a psychologist at Cardiff University: Arnal has named Jan. 22 the most depressing day of the year, what with the gloomy weather, post-holiday bills and failed new year's resolutions. But here's a reason to cheer back up: Today is National Pie Day! If anyone needs us, you know where we'll be......

Houstonist will be taking Thanksgiving off, but that doesn't mean you should. There are plenty of places all over the city that need volunteers to do everything from deliver meals to carry balloons this week. Here are just a few: TXU Energy is sponsoring a 5K Fun Run that benefits Sheltering Arms, an agency that provides a wide array of services for the elderly. Volunteers are needed to help with registration, set-up, water stations, etc.......

With voter turnout generally decreasing each year, some government bodies are looking for incentives to get people to vote. In Arizona, they’re trying a million-dollar lottery for voters. In Houston, we had the free flu-shots at some locations for the elderly, until that was shot down. Houstonist doesn’t need an incentive to vote – we educate ourselves on the issues and then go to the polling station to cast our vote. However, we like Under......

When you're investigating fatal car crashes and other crime scenes, we imagine the last thing you want is a camera that doesn't work — but that seems to be exactly what HPD is dealing with, according to a couple of news reports. The case in question is the death of Leon and Maureen Roberson, the elderly couple killed Oct. 18 when a speeding wrecker broadsided their car as they left Bible study at their northeast......

Nearly two weeks after a speeding wrecker killed an elderly couple leaving a Bible study, the city has decided to tighten the rules governing how wrecker drivers are licensed under the Safe Clear program, Mayor Bill White announced yesterday. Among the changes in the process is a more stringent appeals process for wrecker drivers who are denied licenses. A retired HPD assistant chief will now preside over appeals (a sergeant did so before), and documentation......

Surely you've heard of the national spinach scare caused by some apparently tainted greens from California that have made more than a hundred people sick with E. coli and killed one elderly woman. But this weekend, KHOU reported on a new local twist in the story: A truck driver was arrested in Fort Bend County for allegedly dumping a load of spinach and pre-packaged salad greens in the San Bernard River. Whereas this would usually......

It's a good thing Houston is one of the country's slimmest cities, eh? Otherwise, the streets might be littered with the immobile bodies of obese people struck down by the heat — you see, obese people are at high risk for heat-related illnesses, health officials say. Time to hit the treadmill! Though heat warnings have long focused on children, the elderly and the socially isolated — people who don't get outside much? — non-fatal heat......

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner.......

Police have questioned a man in connection with the search for a possible serial killer targeting women in Acres Homes Three people were injured when an elderly woman drove her car into a southeast Houston store this morning Carole Keeton Strayhorn dropped her lawsuit seeking to have herself called "Grandma" on the gubernatorial ballot Last night, firefighters called off a search after an hour and a half for a man who reportedly jumped into Brays......

Sometimes you need to clean yourself up, get serious, and move in with daddie for a few months before you head to Latin America for a new gig. The District bid's Jenna Bush adios. D.C.-based television shows have an elderly audience and DCist has some suggestions to fix that. They're also throwing Butterstick the panda bear a birthday bash. Yeah, we may have a few issues with our World Cup broadcasters here, but this guy......

No doubt these Houston Texans are serious about getting their act together. They've brought in a new coaching staff, a new general managers, plan to build a championship-caliber defense, and will hopefully reap the benefits of the vaunted Broncos running system. After four years of scraping by and being allowed newbie excuses, it's looking like we've finally got a real organization on our hands. Reggie or no Reggie, hopefully this is going to be a......

Police have arrested three men — Bakari Holland, 18, Koty Holmes, 19, and Rashard Renfro, 23 — in connection with the carjacking Tuesday night that left a toddler dead A judge ruled today that Andrea Yates must turn herself in to the Harris County Jail by Monday evening to wait for her retrial in the 2001 drowning deaths of her children Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens' son Michael was charged with burglary after he was......

Just in time for the 2006 hurricane season — which starts one month from today — thousands of officials statewide will participate in an evacuation drill tomorrow to find out how much Texas learned from the Rita evacuation debacle. The three-day drill, the first of its kind, will test the state's revamped response plan to a Category 5 hurricane hitting the Texas coast. Among the plans that will be included in this week's dry run:......