It was your typical Friday night on the 3700 block of Main. There were bands playing at both The Continental Club and Shoeshine Charley's Big Top Lounge, The Mink was minding its own business serving drinks and Tacos-A-Go-Go were catering to their usual crowd of taco munchers when the evening started to really get hot! Hot as in flaming barrel hot. Houstonist Flickr photo contributor and resident photographer for The Continental Club, Jay Lee......

Good morning, Houston. If you're hoping that the United States will one day be free of its dependence on foreign natural gas — and we're sure at least one of you is — this isn't your lucky day: According to a report from the Energy Forum at Rice University's Baker Institute, there's no end in sight to our use of imported gas. Natural gas accounted for 22 percent of total primary energy use in......

Good morning, Houston. In these days of near-$3 gas, there's one group of drivers who aren't so worried: hypermilers, who use certain techniques to squeeze every possible M out of their MPG. Hypermiling involves a few pretty simple changes in the way you drive, including coasting, accelerating slowly from stops and the skillful use of cruise control. Used correctly, hypermiling can increase your car's fuel efficiency by 30 percent or more — so why......

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

Last week METRO riders felt a bit unrequited as they Missed Connections with fellow commuters. That beats us. We missed connected once on METRO and got to stand on the shoulder of Hempstead for an hour. Houston Fire Department saves the day without using their hoses. Victor deserves a raise. Grace is confused about Will. And, this woman is pissed. Steam Room Exhibitionist - m4m - 40 Dude... There is a time and a......

Good morning, Houston. According to a government report released yesterday, the national average price for a gallon of gas rose to $2.876 last week, up 7.4 cents over last week. Bad news, eh? But here's something good: A gallon of gas is, in general, a lot cheaper than that in Houston. Not that it's cheap or anything — according to reports, it'll cost you anywhere from $2.59 to $2.99 here. Looks like we might......

So, have you heard the one about the guy who went chasing his prized pet bird, got stuck 60 feet up in a pine tree and had to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter? Good story — and it happened right here. The bird was Geronimo, an Umbrella Cockatoo; the tree was in Porter; and the man was William Hart, a roofer. Hart said Geronimo flew out the window of his house around 4......

Good morning, Houston. Looks like the Legislature could be gearing up for a debate of Biblical proportions: state Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) has proposed a bill that would require public high schools to offer courses on the Old and New Testaments. Chisum said the courses, which would be electives, would focus on history and literature, bt critics worry that teachers' religious beliefs could seep into the classes and that certain historical perspectives — Catholic......

There's a lot of news from Wednesday's northeast Houston office building fire — but, at this point, there seem to be more questions than answers. Among those leading the questioning is KTRK's Wayne Dolcefino, who didn't have any luck getting information from the city about fire department response times. We imagine that'll come out eventually, but Dolcefino also raises questions about the building's safety systems — and the answers are a grim reminder of changing......

Thousands of people have gotten citations from the city's red-light camera system since it went online back in September — so you'd expect that some of them would be public employees driving public vehicles, right? Right. According to the Chronicle, more than 100 government and school vehicles have been tagged running red lights, resulting in some $8,000 in fines. The Chronicle got the information under the Texas Public Information Act; though the 100 citations are......

A Wharton County freelance photographer was recently indicted for something he’s been doing for many years – snapping photos.. It seems what got photographer Elmer Cavender in heaps of trouble this time were his pictures he took for the Wharton Volunteer Fire Department of a crime scene where Needville ISD Police Chief Ernie Mendoza was killed. He later sold those photos to a local newspaper, a common practice in the industry. The story twists when......

Last night in northwest Houston, a car a car hit a natural gas pipeline meter station, causing the line to explode — and the people involved in the accident walked away uninjured. And we thought that kind of thing only happened in the movies. The accident happened near Kuykendahl and FM 1960 at about 7:15 p.m. Police said two cars collided, which caused one to flip over a fence and crash into the meter station.......

Holiday shopping came to a screeching halt yesterday evening at Memorial City when an ammonia leak forced shoppers to drop their packages and flee the mall. It happened around 6 p.m. when ammonia fumes escaped from a maintenance room near the mall's ice rink (the ammonia is used to make the ice); an alarm was sounded and parts of the building was evacuated. Fortunately, it turned out to be no big deal: "Once our Haz-Mat......

One of those Houston institutions Houstonist never got around to visiting burned this weekend: The Great Caruso, the 32-year-old westside dinner theater, was pretty much destroyed by flames Sunday morning. It happened when the restaurant was empty, which raised the suspicions of HFD investigators: The source of Sunday morning's fire is still unclear. The building was empty, which clearly raises more than a few red flags for the Houston Fire Department's arson unit. "When you......

Houstonist hasn't heard much from former TSU President Priscilla Slade in a couple of months, and we were beginning to worry that it might be a long time before we got to enjoy another story of public officials going on taxpayer-funded spending sprees. But it turns out we don't have to wait that long after all: According to KHOU, folks associated with the New Caney Fire District had a good, old-fashioned spend-a-thon — on the......

Yes, it's Halloween today — but that doesn't mean trickery wasn't afoot yesterday, too. Take, for example, the case of a car battery that masqueraded as a ... uh ... a ... well, something on the Gulf Freeway early in the afternoon rush hour: What turned out to be a car battery in the Gulf Freeway caused a brief shutdown of all southbound lanes at Scott during today's afternoon rush. The lanes were closed from......

Ah, the (triumphant?) return of Fun for a Hamilton. We could tell you a horror story about why your favorite ten dollar bill has been missing from your lives lately, but merely rest assured that Hamilton's back now. (And since nobody emailed us to complain, we're not even sure you noticed he was gone). Without further ado... Friday, October 20 A production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at St. Thomas this evening updates the play......

So 17-year-old Jonathan Davis who is under arrest for making prank calls to 911 — one of which resulted in an accident that injured four firefighters in August. Yeah, looks like someone's gonna be in big trouble. Scott Clements, an arson investigator, said investigators let Davis listen to the recordings of nine prank calls; he said he made seven of them and a friend of his might have made the other two. The Aug. 31......

As a last hurrah of the summer, the genteel folks of Houston decided to come out of hiding and grace us with their sophistication and, well, grace. These must be the Houstonians eloquent and successful enough to purchase homes like the ones we feature on Saturday shelterporn. See Houston's cream of the crop in this week's Missed Connections. In the elevator You, attractive, mid 40s, wearing a pink skirt and white blouse. Me, dressed......

Back in March, we talked about how the city was getting ready to re-bury some bones unearthed 20 years ago during construction at the HFD complex off Houston Avenue and Dart Street. The fire department office/training facility was built in the 1960s on top of the old City Cemetery, where Houstonians of all stripes (including quite a few Confederate soldiers) were buried between about 1840 and 1870. UH anthropologist Ken Brown, who had criticized the......

About 200 people were exposed to some pretty scary chemicals when a 55 gallon drum containing hydrobromic acid leaked today at Nailor Industries in northwest Houston. More than a dozen were rushed to the hospital. KHOU reports the drum "was punctured", and later reports blame an errant forklift for the hole. The acid, the fumes of which can be very destructive and even fatal, can also cause death if ingested in as little as a......

Continuing in the tradition of reporting on flaming trash cans, KPRC made the most of a slow news day Tuesday by covering a burning tire downtown. No, really — they say it was one tire. Here's the story: A tire caught fire in downtown Houston, sending thick black smoke into the air Tuesday, KPRC Local 2 reported. Officials said the tire blaze occurred at the intersection of Canal and Chartres streets at about 10:45 a.m.......

Crews are still working to contain an oil spill in Nassau Bay after a tugboat sank there last night. The tug, owned by Payne Brothers Inc., sank while it was connected to a work barge and leaked about 75 gallons of waste oil into the bay, which is near Clear Lake. The leak continued this morning. Response crews from the Coast Guard, Harris County Pollution Control, Nassau Bay Volunteer Fire Department, Kemah Fire Department and......

So we hear stories from time to time about identity theft — you know, people getting hold of your credit card numbers from the Internet or maybe sifting through your trash to steal bank account info. But recently, it was much easier to steal people's personal information — old Houston Community College student records, complete with Social Security numbers, were being sold on the street. It seems the records came from a warehouse HCC sold......

You've probably heard the stories about a Houston hospital that was built on top of an old cemetery — but you might not know the stories were actually true, and that a fire department facility also stands on top of the dead folks. The site is off Elder Street just northwest of downtown; Jeff Davis Hospital was built there in 1924 over the City Cemetery, which was used between 1840 and around 1900. In the......

Remember the good ol' days when brothers used to fight over girls, basketball stats and their father's affection? In this day and age, two brothers are perhaps the first Texas siblings to take their rivalry to the polls in the Conroe race for city council. Jay Ross Martin, 57, and Guy Martin, 54, will face each other on the city ballot after Guy decided to run against his brother, the incumbent, for what he......

Steve Sanguedolce, chief of the Magnolia Volunteer Fire Department, resigned amid accusations he used department payroll funds to pay other firefighters to step in for him at the Houston Fire Department. Although no charges have been filed, the FBI and Montgomery County District Attorney's office seized records and other information that they think could provide clues to what went down when Sanguedolce was in charge. They are trying to prove Sanguedolce violated two sections of......

The Chronicle reports this morning that the owner of an East End boarding house that burned yesterday, killing a tenant, had a suspicious fatal fire at another of his properties last year. The boarding house in the 200 block of Delmar caught fire about 3:15 a.m. Monday; tenants said smoke alarms woke them up and they heard screams as they escaped the burning building. Firefighters found the victim's body among the debris after putting the......

Just when Houstonist was starting to think think the day's news was all going to be boring, we ran across a story that proved us very, very wrong: the tale of Kenneth Paul Engle III, who took a joy ride in a Pasadena fire truck. No, Engle isn't a firefighter or affiliated with the Pasadena fire department in any way — and what's more, he can't remember anything about driving the truck. Engle, 28, said......

In one of the most bizarre recent cases of theft, someone stole the Galveston Fire Department's jaws of life on Christmas Day — and since then, the department has been hoping it doesn't have to pull anyone out of a mangled vehicle. The equipment, which will cost nearly $13,000 to replace, was taken from the back of a fire truck on Christmas morning as firefighters responded to an emergency call. "Personally, it hurts quite a......