Local tech news in a compact, digital format. No New Timing System For Houston Marathon Officials for the Chevron Houston Marathon have opted not to use a new timing system by Michigan-based SAI Timing and Tracking after it failed to operate correctly during a marathon in Honolulu. Chevron Houston Marathon officials have decided to stick with ChampionChip, the timing system it has used since 2000. Early Warning: HAAUG Swap Meet Mark your calendars, the......

Good morning, Houston. Are you a local news junkie? Do you already know all the headlines we're covering here? If so, we'd love to have you: Houstonist is looking to build its news staff, and you're invited. You should keep up with what's going on in and around Houston and be able to put up a couple of posts a week, at least; some background in journalism is always a plus. If it sounds......

Good morning, Houston. If you were an HPD cadet, you'd think you'd want to keep your nose clean — but apparently no one sent that memo to a cadet who was busted this weekend for allegedly buying and selling crack in southeast Houston. The man was caught off Scott and Nagle in the Third Ward; according to KHOU, he told police he had been smoking crack all weekend with at least two other HPD......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Chester Miles, the missing Houston minister, has been found in a hospital recuperating from stab wounds. • The space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for launch today at 2:21 pm from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. UPDATE: Today's launch has been scrubbed and will not be rescheduled until sometime in January. • An off duty reserve constable shot and killed a 19 year......

::Flash Yo Stache at Vinyl Ranch:: It's back all you Urban Cowboys and Girls: Vinyl Ranch at Leon's Lounge. And this time a little twisted (at the edges). Tonight's 4th installment of the honky tonk party at Leon's Lounge brings a whole new level to the shindig. Local charity Mustaches For Kids will team up with Vinyl Ranch creator, Dave Wrangler, to create a meeting of the 'staches! How perfect is this? Be on......

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......

Good morning, Houston. There's nothing quite like a building implosion to lift our spirits at the beginning of the week — if, of course, it's a building we won't miss. That happened to be the case with the Crowne Plaza hotel in the Medical Center, which was reduced to rubble Sunday; click the link for video from KHOU. (Be prepared to wait — there's a lot of buildup to the big moment in Channel......

With half of its Opening Day offense totting clipboards on the sidelines, and its defensive leader headed to the hospital with a busted hamstring, the Texans might have been justified in being pessimistic. Fortunately, for a team that's already been through more injuries than a Very Special Episode of ER, Sage Rosenfels and Ron Dayne wouldn't let them lose hope, allowing the Texans to escape Oakland with a 24-17 win. After starting hot in the......

::Official Houston Launch of Skirt! Magazine:: A few skirt-y things have come outta Houston in the last few months, and we are thrilled our lovely ladies are making their mark in Houston business. First, Houstonian and hilarious blogger, Laura Mayes, co-founds sk*rt, a social media ranking site that caters to the female persuasion (think Digg, but for chicks). And not to be confused with that sk*rt, this last month launched the Houston market of Skirt!......

Good morning, Houston. Have you ever been lounging around on the couch, curious about how the state of Texas spends its money but frustrated because you can't hop online and find out? Well, cheer up: Now you can, thanks to a new feature on the state comptroller's website. The database allows users to search the $74.5 billion in expenditures from fiscal 2007 by agency, payee and spending category. For folks with the ability to......

Houston Astros Hall of Fame broadcaster Milo Hamilton survived a heart attack scare yesterday and is doing OK. Hamilton, who was having Sunday brunch with his son Mark at the Four Seasons, noticed his father wasn't OK. I could tell something wasn't right," Mark Hamilton said. "I said, 'Are you OK?' He said, 'No,' and pointed to his heart. He wanted me to take him home and I said, 'That's not an option.' I......

Kickers are lame. When kids play pickup football games, no one gets chosen first because they can split the uprights with a perfect field goal. Plus, they're only on the field about ten plays a game, if that. But tonight, Kris Brown is the toast of the town after leading the Texans to a nail-biter win over the Miami Dolphins at Reliant Stadium today. After suffering a heel injury on his non-kicking foot on the......

Houstonist's 'Heart of Gold' is a regular feature that gives a little love to the people that make a difference. Yes, we randomly get that touchy-feely. So sue us. And share your ideas with us too! Because shaving is just so uncharitable, Houston is holding its very first Mustaches For Kids fundraiser event. Didn't think kids needed mustaches did you? Well, think of it like a walkathon where the walking is replaced with facial hair......

Good morning, Houston. We enjoy a good, quick breakfast as much as anyone, but seriously, there are limits — just ask the four people who were hurt Monday when a driver who was eating oatmeal at the wheel crashed into a Metro bus near downtown. Witnesses told KPRC that the driver ran a red light at Pierce and St. Charles and hit the front of the bus, which caused the driver's vehicle to spin......

Texans DT Cedric Killings, who was almost paralyzed during Sunday's game against the Colts, arrived at the Texans practice facility yesterday, not to work out with his teammates, but to show them something none of them had expected: he was walking. A full recovery from the fractured vertebrae he suffered while attempting a tackle is expected, and he wanted the team to join in his celebration. Surgeons at Methodist Hospital stabilized Killings soon after the......

Craig Biggio's final weekend as an Astros player will feature a particularly fun blast from the past. Biggio, who has played catcher, second base, and several outfield positions throughout his 20 year career in Houston, will catch the first two innings or so of Saturday's game against the Atlanta Braves. The original plan had called for Biggio to be matched with ace Roy Oswalt, but Oswalt is skipping his final start of the season so......

Like a scene from the movie 300, the Houston Texans players have been dropping like flies. Injuries are starting to take a toll on the Texans who couldn’t make it three in a row to start the season and no longer share first place in the division after losing 30 to 24 to the Indianapolis Colts Sunday. Jerome Mathis returned the opening kickoff 84 yards to start the game with the lead, but the Texans......

Kevin Everett may soon be a walking miracle. Just weeks after a brutal on-field collision almost killed him, and his doctors were convinced he would be a paraplegic, Everett was moved today from a Buffalo-area hospital to a rehab facility affiliated with Memorial Hermann Hospital. The goal: to have him walking within the next several weeks. A quick response by the Buffalo Bills' team doctor is credited with giving Everett the fighting chance he has......

A couple of University of Houston stories for your Friday, so listen up Coogs. First, back on August 13th, Cougar offensive lineman Jarrod Butler collapsed while lifting weights in an on-campus weight room. It was later determined that he had suffered a heart attack as a result of an electrical abnormality in his heart. After spending the past two weeks under observation and treatment at The Methodist Hospital, Butler is being released today to return......

Good morning, Houston. It's August, and that means hurricane season is starting to get heavy. The country's got fins to the left and fins to the right, so to speak. As of last night, Tropical Storm Dean was crossing the open Atlantic with winds at 50 mph, while Tropical Depression #5 had put part of the Texas coast under a tropical storm watch. And over in the Pacific, Hawaii's dealing with Hurricane Flossie. Time......

Good morning, Houston. Do you feel like you're living and dying in 3/4 time? Need a margarita(ville) or two to pick up your spirits on this way-too-hot Monday morning? How about a vintage Jimmy Buffett video to help you through the week? "Come Monday" has long been one of our favorite JB songs, and what better time to listen to it than now? Plus, his girlfriend was super-hot, and we can't argue with that.......

The other day Houstonist popped into the Houston Center for Photography, that haven and support for all things filmic, to see a show entitled, "Japan." What especially intrigued us was the fact that the photographer, an HCP fellowship recipient, had been travelling in Japan while reading some of our favorite contemporary Japanese writers: slightly surrealist Haruki Murakami, cult-star Yukio Mishima, and the spare/smart Kenzaburo Oe. Says Amelia D'Entrone in her artist's statement, "A sense......

Chances are that we all know Alfred Eisenstaedt's iconic Life magazine photo of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day — easily one of the most-recognized photographs in American history. In the half-century since that photo was taken, there's been a lot of speculation over who, exactly, the sailor and nurse were: In the midst of the celebration, Eisenstaedt didn't stop to ask names, and there were apparently a lot of......

Good morning, Houston. Seems like everyone's listening to iPods these days, eh? And even if you don't have one of the near-ubiquitous mp3 players, all might not be peace and quiet: As the AP notes, iPod-related noise pollution is a growing problem. It can happen in several ways, including people who turn their iPods up to top volume and others who sing along with the music in their heads. Bbut there are ways to......

A veritable Houston legend and one of our favorite local celebrities, KTRK's muckraking Marvin Zindler died today at 85 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He announced on air earlier this summer that he was suffering from cancer, but, characteristically, he didn't let it slow him down. In his last days, Zindler was still hard at work, filing reports and doing newscasts from his hospital bed. It's hard to say what exactly Zindler is "best-known"......

The beauty of Missed Connections is that so many are clearly total bullshit while others are endearing works of sincerity and a few make you wonder if they are true or not. Of course stalkers and way too many schlong shots freak us out. Speaking of, some guy wants to feed his hotdog to a JCI fan. When I Saw You, You Had Caught My Eye - 46 You were holding some trendy drink......

Tragic news out of east Houston last night: A woman and her 2-year-old son were killed when their car slid into Hunting Bayou, just off the East Freeway. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that the accident could have been totally preventable — KPRC reports that the car went into the bayou when the woman, 27-year-old Asia Horn, missed the exit ramp at Federal Road and decided to try getting off the freeway by......

Tulsa Drillers first base coach, Mike Coolbaugh, was killed last night when a line drive struck him in the head in the ninth inning as he stood at the first base coaches box. Coolbaugh collapsed and CPR was given to him immediately. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and were he was pronounced dead at 9:47 pm. Coolbaugh is survived by his wife, Mandy, and two young sons, Joseph and Jacob, all of......

So, it would be bad enough to nearly be involved in a wrong-way collision on a freeway — but it would be that much worse to fall from an overpass after you nearly crashed. Don't believe us? Ask a guy who did exactly that on the Southwest Freeway early this morning. It happened in Stafford just after midnight, when police say the man was headed south on the northbound feeder road of the Southwest Freeway......

Good morning, Houston. Where do you go when you want to get away? The Chronicle asked some of its readers that and published their answers Friday — and it's not such a bad list, with day trips, museums and natural attractions. (Also on the list: the mausoleum at Forest Park Westheimer cemetery, which definitely takes a certain kind of person to enjoy.) The suggestion we're most interested in checking out is ex-state Rep. Debra......