Tomorrow is offcially Earth Day and there have been some celebrations or educational programs going on around us. However, we like to think that every day is Earth Day, ever since we saw that infamous anti-litter campaign featuring Iron Eyes Cody. We have some pretty simple tips for being a little bit greener we'll share with you. Yeah, we know, you're going to roll your eyes at some, but, we may impart a new idea......

Celebrate the opening of our new Downtown green space, Discovery Green , this weekend at the Discovery Green Family Day on Sunday, April 13th. It seems like just yesterday we were all in an uproar about the hideous name choice. And here we are now, able to frolick in her glory. Enjoy 12 acres of urban green space including a one-acre lake, children’s playground, interactive water features, amphitheater stage and slope, small and large dog......

All the fuss about the Ashby high rise is over thanks to a new plan to enlarge the development. The new construction plan would make the tower the tallest building in the world and would include dedicated connections to Southwest Freeway and the light rail. Houston Strategies writer, Tory Gattis, had us going for a second yesterday with his story. Everything seemed plausible to our insufficiently caffeinated brain, including a city ordinance requiring all......

Good morning, Houston. If the dearth of new TV in the wake of the writer's strike has left you willing to watch anything, we've got some news for you: HTV, the municipal station, is launching a new program! Woohoo! Entertainment Houston, a 30-minute show, will focus on — wait for it — Houston's facilities, included the Wortham Center, Jones Hall, the George R. Brown Convention Center and the not-quite-finished Discovery Green. A new episode......

>> Poll shows split over Clemens, McNamee: The court of public opinion currently stands divided in Harris County regarding the Roger Clemens steroid scandal according to a poll by The Chronicle. According to the results published yesterday by David Barron, 35.5 percent said believed McNamee; 32.8 percent sided with The Rocket; and, 31.7 percent did not respond. The margin of error is listed at 4.1 percent. These numbers may prove initially encouraging for Clemens......

Many of the NBA’s so called pundits have dismissed the Houston Rockets’ accomplishments in achieving a 10-game winning streak, by exclaiming that until the squad beat a team of true substance, they were simply taking advantage of an undemanding schedule. Talking heads around the nation have stated that Houston’s road match-up against the Western Conference leading New Orleans Hornets would be the true test to determine if the Rockets were legitimate playoff threats. Wonder......

Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey may have been the busiest man not involved in a presidential election over the past two days. Less than 24 hours after trading Bonzi Wells and Mike James to the New Orleans Hornets, Morey was at it again. In what can only be dubbed as a swap of malcontents, the Rockets shipped Kirk Snyder and a 2nd round draft pick off to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for......

The Chron picked this up a few days ago, but we feel it's worth a second mention. The Rice Design Alliance in conjunction with the Houston Chapter of the AIA announced two Houston architects, Murphy Mears Architects, (Kirby Mears, Walter Murphy, Kyle Humphries, Jamie Miller, and Gina Lyons) and Stephanie Eugster as finalists in the recent 99K House Competition. The finalists were selected out of 182 entrants proposing a sustainable, affordable house that addresses......

Darrell Green, a product of Houston's Jones High School, was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this past weekend. Green, who was selected No. 1 overall in 1983 by the Washington Redskins, played 20-years with the same team, an NFL co-record with the Rams' Jackie Slater. During his 20-year career, Green was arguably the greatest cornerback of his time. He intercepted 54 passes for 621 yards and returned six of them for......

Good morning, Houston. We freely admit that we don't like bugs, so we've tried quite a few home extermination methods — but we've never blown the roof off our house while doing it like Patricia Espiricueta of Galveston did. It seems Espiricueta was fed up with her home's roach problem, so she set off five bug bombs and left the house. While she was gone, the fumes hit a pilot light and exploded, lifting......

Unfortunately, our pick of the week has already aired. Kimya Dawson and Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches performed our favorite song from the Juno soundtrack, "Anyone Else But You," on The View this morning. We're hoping it'll pop up on The View's website or on Youtube soon. Monday -CBS, 10:35pm: The Late Show with David Letterman, Ringo Starr -NBC, 11:35pm: Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Subways -ABC, 11:05pm: Jimmy Kimmel Live, Velvet......

We’ve been walking around Rice Univeristy recently and couldn’t help but notice literally tons of construction. It turns out that Rice is currently undergoing an explosive period of development, adding roughly one million square feet of built space to its already 3.7 million square foot campus by 2009. This is pretty impressive as is, but we were more than a little surprised (knowing that universities are businesses like any other) that Rice was recently......

Today, Friday the 18th, our very own Mayor Bill White invites us all to check out the newest addition to Houston’s growing fleet of Green Buildings. Firstly, the fact that anything environmentally conscious is happening in Houston nearly knocks us off our rockers, but now the Mayor’s behind it?! And extending invitations ta-boot! This all just might be a little too much to believe so go see for yourself. Make the Mayor proud. When:......

::Diverseworks Exhibit Opening Night: Two exhibits we are particularly looking forward to seeing both open tonight at Diverseworks. An opening reception will feature a special performance by Brent Green's 3 Piece Band, MK Guth's Ties of Protection & Safe Keeping Interactive Sculpture, and the DiverseWorks Silk Screen Station where you can build you own t-shirt. And everyone loves t-shirts. Flicker Fusion Since 1914 when the first animated film was made, artists across the globe have......

He can make you burn, make you rock, or teach you about triangles. Houstonist recently caught up with Trevi "Big Daddy" Biles, local hot sauce maker/ Whorehound band member/ geometry teacher. Here's what Big Daddy Trevi had to say about Big Daddy's Ass Burn "Hell Goin' In Hell Goin' Out" Hot Sauce: What made you want to create a hot sauce? Was the stuff in the stores not hot enough? Actually the whole thing started......

As the Texans 2007 campaign draws to a close on Sunday against the Jaguars, putting a bow on top of the most improved season in franchise history, we can look back at the highlights and lowlights. Pros: Mario Williams, the rock solid consistency of healthy Andre Johnson, Mario Williams, rookies Fred Bennet and Abomi Okoye, Mario Williams, possible tradebait Sage Rosenfels, Mario Williams, the revived Ron Dayne, Mario Williams, DeMeco Ryans' appearance on the national......

Houstonist has an active and amazing Flickr photo group. We receive many, many photos of Houston and the surrounding areas every day and unless you are an active visitor to our photo pool many of these photos go unnoticed. So in a weekly effort to bring you more amazing photos from Houstonist readers and photographers, we are going to feature a block of photos submitted to our Flickr photo group. The images will be dug......

Houstonist normally throws all of our trash out of the car window during our daily commute into town. It is so much easier than having to put the trash can on the street. But, the holidays tend to bring out the eco-friendly version of us each year as we wrap all of our Christmas presents in the shopping bags from whence they came or in the pages of our favorite magazines. Actually our small recycling......

Good morning, Houston. One thing about the holiday season: You hear Christmas music everywhere you go (and if you haven't been hearing it, just tune in to Sunny 99.1 — you'll catch up quickly). With that in mind, we were interested to check out ASCAP's list of the most-played holiday songs this year. It was released on Dec. 4, but by that time, the group reported that 1,562 different holiday songs had already been......

Several more venues are celebrating the holidays this week with showcases. The Meridian is hosting the annual Holiday Babes Christmas Party tomorrow night with our favorite local musical babe, Katie Stuckey. Verizon Wireless will be a haven for country singer/songwriter lovers tomorrow night (includes Roger Creager and Bruce Robinson). Warehouse Live celebrates twice with the Jingle Balls Friday night, showcasing local favorites Paris Green and Glass Intrepid, and their annual Eve of Christmas Eve......

This looks to be the last big release week of the year, and 2007 is going out with a bang. We'll see you in '08! The Cool is Lupe Fiasco's follow-up album to last year's fantastic Food and Liquor. The record is filled with clever and forward-thinking tracks like “Dumb it Down” that manage succeed on both an underground and commercial level, and features noteworthy contributions from Snoop Dogg, UNKLE, newcomer Matthew Santos, and Food......

Kermit, you’re wrong. Jeff Kaplan, owner and founder of New Living -- an eco-friendly home supply store, is out to show us that in fact it’s quite easy being green. But, honestly Kermit can’t be blamed. Times have changed and surely back in the ‘80’s being eco-friendly wasn’t such a piece of cake. New Living, the “Healthy Home Essentials” store will open in the Rice Village sometime early this week, and offer customers the......

Football on a Thursday? Does this mean we have to skip 30 Rock? Damn, this is a hard decision. Gary Kubiak vs. Jack Donaghy. Sage Rosenfels vs. Judah Freidlander. Texans Cheerleaders vs. our completely defensible crush on Tina Fey. Tracy Jordan vs. Travis Henry's illegitmate children. Mike Shannahan's hair vs. the Sheinhart Wig Company. Who are we kidding? You can watch 30 Rock any time on NBC's website. It's like Tivo for poor people! The......

"We gon' rock it till the wheels fall off," the poet Nate Dogg once said. If he was referring to the Houston Texans' 2007 season (and we have no reason to believe that he wasn't), then the rocking will soon cease, as the wheels are at very least wobbling their way out of place as a prelude to actually falling off. The annual optimism has given way to the annual draft speculation, as the never-ending......

Looking for a little green space to stretch out those overworked holiday shopping legs? Check out Mosaic on Hermann Park's one acre, 7th floor amenity deck, as they host Hermann Park Conservatory's Urban Green for a Holiday Al Fresco event. Tonight's party will feature cocktails and canapes poolside, and all proceeds will benefit the Hermann Park Conservatory. Tickets at $30 and can be purchased at the door. We were bummed to learn this week that......

Steveland Hardaway Judkins is in town tonight. Why aren't you excited? Wait, you might know him by his stage name: Stevie Wonder. That's right, the R&B/pop master graces the stage of the Toyota Center as part of the final leg of his current tour. In fact, we expect to hear a minimum of two Stevie Wonder tracks at every wedding party we attend, and not just because we actually request that the DJ squeeze it......

Texas A & M has scheduled an 11 a.m. press conference today to announce that Houston Texans offensive coordinator Mike Sherman will be the next head coach. Sherman is returning to A & M where he was the offensive line coach from 1989-1993 and 1995-96. Sherman replaces Dennis Franchione who resigned after a 38-30 A & M upset win over rival Texas Longhorns. This is Mike Sherman's first college head coaching job, but he......

When a bye week is one of the highlights of your team's football season simply because no one got hurt, you know that the rest of the season won't be much to write home about. Given that this is exactly the position that Texans fans find themselves in, it's at least comforting that they're coming out of the bye week to face a team almost as disappointing as the Texans. After an inspiring 2006......

Houstonist has been waiting 22 years for a movie version of The Mist. Our prayers have finally been answered. Note: the last time we got our prayers answered, Point of Impact was brought the screen in the form of Shooter. Let's hope The Mist delivers more betterer than that film. King first published The Mist in 1980 as a submission for a horror anthology called Dark Forces being compiled by his friend, Kirby McCauley.......

::Ken Burns' The War at the Wortham Center:: How did you spend your Veteran's Day? Did you fly a flag? Did you hug a Vet? No? Well, here's your last chance at redemption. If you missed Ken Burns' World War II Series, The War, on PBS a few months back, you can catch it again tonight at the Wortham Center, as Burns is on hand to screen and discuss the series. Burns' works are......