>> Two Houston Area Offshore Drilling Companies Win Big: The oil and money are flowing freely for two drilling companies based in Houston. A report in the Houston Business Journal, lists 2007 revenue for mammoth behemoth, Transocean closed out at $3.1 billion. The company also announced a $586 million contract extension with client Anadarko, another Houston company. The HBJ also reports that The Rowan Companies also inked a three year deal. The Rowan deal......

Good morning, Houston. Suppose you're trying to keep up with piles and piles of government reports. How can you tell when there are too many? Simple: You ask for a report, of course. That's what the Texas State Library and Archives Commission did — and in a 668-page report, the commission has declared that the state is over-reported. The commission looked at more than 170 state agencies and universities and found more than 1,600......

Good morning, Houston. Here's one of those things that ended up selling for much more than we would have expected: A Rosenberg man bought a lock of Che Guevara's hair yesterday for $100,000. Bill Butler, a bookstore owner, was the only bidder; he said he collects items from the 1960s and that the hair will fit in well. "A lot of his writings are still worth reading today," Butler said of Guevara. Gustavo Villodo,......

Good morning, Houston. Time to flex your democratic muscle again: Early voting begins today for the Nov. 6 election. You can check out a map of early voting locations here and get more information on where and how to vote from the Harris County elections website — so now, you can't say you haven't been informed. See you at the polls! >> For some, a flood of bad news: If you're a property owner......

Good morning, Houston. If you, like Houstonist, are looking forward to the day when Buffalo Bayou will be redeveloped as parkway from the East End through downtown to Shepherd Drive, you might be interested in this: The county is planning to build a massive new jail smack dab in the middle of that park system. The proposed 2,500-bed jail, which would be located next to the county jail on Baker Street, would apparently take......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. [All of today's questions are from "JB" of Houston. Thanks for writing in, JB! As for the other eleven Houstonist readers - I'm still waiting to hear from you.] Who should have control of what we watch on TV at home - my roommate, whose TV it is, or me since I own the house? Assuming your roommate is paying rent and thus......

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......

Good morning, Houston. We've seen various incarnations of Google, but this one was new to us. Blackle is a search engine that is very similar to Google, but with a darker color scheme. And it's not just Google for the depressed - it's meant to save energy. A predominantly black screen requires less energy to display than Google's white background. One blog said that Blackle could save 750 megawatt-hours a year (or $75,000), if......

Wow — it's still six months to Christmas, and yet we're getting gifts already: The AP reports that everyone's favorite golden-haired politico, Shelley Sekula Gibbs, is laying the groundwork for her campaign to return to Congress. Oh, yes. Sekula Gibbs (notice that she's dropped the hyphen, which she worried could be a problem during her write-in campaign for Congress last year) announced that she has some high-profile Republican supporters for her 2008 campaign, including homebuilder......

Juneteenth Celebration at Miller Outdoor Theater Happy Juneteenth! Join the city in celebrating the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation when slavery in Texas offically became a thing of the past. Tonight, Miller Outdoor Theater presents “Sarah and Joshua – a Juneteenth Musical” – the premiere of a new musical drama by Texas Southern University playwright Thomas Meloncon in commemoration of Juneteenth. The play tells the story of two slaves in love and the events leading......

If there's one thing we love, it's an election. And the city has been obliging lately. Melissa Noriega and Roy Morales, the two candidates left standing after last month's special election to fill a vacant at-large city council seat, traded remarks on immigration as early voting began yesterday. Noriega, the clear favorite after garnering 47% of the vote in May, accused Morales of using "fear as a tactic to try to get people worked up."......

Good morning, Houston. We hope you got your fill of the Texas Legislature, because the 80th session is officially over. Your Senators and Representatives have been hard at work since January, passing lots of bills and making even more news, and now they'll be taking a break. The Houston contingent did us proud, from strip club taxes to baby-selling to overcoming liver transplants. We hope all the Texas political blogs can survive until 2009.......

Good morning, Houston. If you haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the city lately, consider yourself lucky — a lot of your fellow Houston drivers have. According to a report from the National Motorists Association, Houston is the third worst speed trap in the nation (up from fifth place last year). The ranking was based on the number of Houston-related posts to the NMA's Speed Trap Exchange — which, by the way, is definitely......

Looks like The Woodlands is a step closer to being a real city: On Tuesday, the state Senate approved a piece of legislation that will give The Woodlands the ability to extend a sales and property tax district throughout the community. If it's approved by Gov. Rick Perry, the bill could lessen the property tax burden of Woodlanders Woodlandites Woodlandonians Woodlands residents. The bill, along with one Perry signed last week enabling The Woodlands to......

City Council candidate Roy Morales probably has more important things to do than deal with a signmaker who has accused him of not paying $1,000 he owed for signs made during the 2005 election. The printer, Michael Franks, says that Morales also owes him $4,000 from this year's election. Morales didn't deny that he owed Franks the money. The Morales campaign told ABC's Miya Shay that they were working out a payment plan with the......

If you didn't get a chance to vote in Saturday's election, don't worry. You'll get another one on June 16 - that's when Roy Morales and Melissa Noriega will go head-to-head in a runoff. That's also Mayor White's birthday, so let's make him proud, although he was coy about who he voted for himself. The special election was held on Saturday to fill the vacant at-large seat formerly held by Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. The S. S.......

Good morning, Houston. So a record high 40,182 Texas high school seniors won't be graduating this spring because they failed all or some of the TAKS test, the standardized exam required to get a high school diploma. Overall, 84 percent of students passed all four parts of the test — math, science, social studies and English — but black and Hispanic students seemed to have the hardest time, with 28 percent of black students......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. Is it true that the New Orleans Poboy lot is going to be turned into a Barnes & Noble? You’re getting your Houston landmark bulldozed for crappy chain store story confused. I'm not sure what will be built on the lot where Original New Orleans Po-Boy served up some of the best burgers in Houston. Whatever it becomes, it won’t be as interesting......

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......

Due to a number of problems that have already been reported with early voting, several counties are ready to get rid of the voting records system used in Texas because it is too flawed. The system, TEAM, began operating in January in order to comply with federal regulations on centralizing voting information across the state. Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said that the new database is "causing statewide voting problems" and that "it's a......

Good morning, Houston. Did you read the Chronicle over breakfast this morning? We're sure the paper is thanking you: According to the Newspaper Association of America, the Chron lost 2 percent of its circulation in the six-month period ending in March. That's really not so bad compared with drops among some of the other biggest papers in the country: 3.5 percent for The Washington Post, 4.2 percent for the LA Times and a whopping......

Good morning, Houston. So here's something cool to look forward to for the next two years: In mid-2009, 20 of the famed terra cotta warriors of Xi'an will be on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The exhibition will run from May 18 to Sept. 25; until then, you can visit the local knockoff, which is quite impressive in its own right. >> Early voting begins today: Harris County voters will be......

A museum membership really is the gift that keeps on giving. Twerpette blogged this week about a museum passport program that lets you get in free to nearly 300 museums all over the country if you're a member of one of the participating institutions. Included on the list are the Houston Children's Museum and the John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science. Twerpette has a link to the list of all the museums,......

The Chronicle's update on fund-raising among candidates for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' former at-large City Council seat probably has Melissa Noriega feeling pretty good: Noriega, it seems, has raised about four times as much as her two closest competitors in the race. Noriega — the wife of state Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Houston), has raised more than $100,000 in total and still has more than half that in the bank headed toward the May 12 election. That's 10......

Senior Time magazine columnist Joe Klein will speak tonight at the Wortham Center on Islam, Iraq, and the War on Terror. Klein is "one of America’s most astute observers of politics and international affairs" and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of a number of books, including his most recent Politics Lost: How American Politics Was Trivialized By People Who Think You’re Stupid, a tirade against political consultants in......

Good morning, Houston. Are you registered to vote in the May 12 special election? If not, you'd better get on it: Harris County residents must deliver their registration applications to a county tax office by 4:45 p.m. today or have them postmarked before midnight tonight. Remember, if you don't vote, you give up your right to complain. And we will enforce that. >> New organs, a new life: Maria Mendez, a 14-year-old girl, is......

Remember Tom Nixon, the HPD officer who was reassigned and later fired after publicly criticizing the department's chase policy? Two bits of news about him this week: First, City Council is set to decide whether to spend $35,000 more fighting his suit, which alleges the city abridged his First Amendment rights by firing him; and second, Nixon is running for a seat on City Council. (Yeah, Nixon's candidacy in the special election for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs'......

This is the third in a series of posts on upcoming City Council races. Check out last week's post about District I and District E and keep reading Houstonist for campaign coverage. There's no shortage of interest in the city council seat that Ada Edwards, District D's representative, will vacate due to term limits after this election. District D includes Neartown/Montrose, Midtown, and part of the Third Ward, as well as other neighborhoods. Local businessman......

Houston politicians really are men and women of the people. Tonight, State Rep. Ellen Cohen will host a town hall meeting at Rice University to hear from her constituents about education in Texas. There will be two presentations, one by former Lt.-Gov. Bill Ratliff, of Raise Your Hand Texas, and a second by students from Lamar and Bellaire High Schools discussing tuition deregulation. After this, there will of course be time for comments and questions......

In the midst of all the news about juveniles being abused in prison, Halliburton's motives and who will say what in the (still distant) presidential election, it's nice to run across a heartwarming story about a cat that fell from the fifth floor of a building. Oh, that's not the heartwarming part — this is: The cat's alive and doing well. And she's cute! Cat, the name the kitty's going by for now, fell from......