Slate takes notice of what millions of Houstonians already know: Houston, We Have No Problems (a longer version of the article can be found here, in Newsweek). Similar to the recent Kiplinger's article that named Houston as the nation's best city in which to "Live, Work and Play," the Slate article touts Houston's booming and diversified economy (we're only 50% dependent upon oil and gas, you know), the Texas Medical Center, the Port of......

So we're not sure what qualifies Leonard Nimoy to be an expert on this subject, but, we fully support feminist concepts, especially when negative stereotypes and cultural biases are put into question. So we're going with it. Especially considering Mr. Nimoy seems to have really tamed his raging machismo since his space-traveling days, as evidenced by the disturbing image seen at left. We commend him for growing as a person, and as a Vulcan. Tomorrow......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Comcast Raises Your Rates In October Get ready to dig deeper to pay your cable bill because the amount you pay will be going up. Yes, that's right, Comcast will be raising your cable rates starting with your October bill. How much is this rate increase? Comcast says bills are going up 6.1% for all its subscribers. What are you getting for this 6.1% increase? Increased......

Houston's Museum of Fine Arts continues to present to the public significant films from film makers who shaped the industry. Their currently running Homage to Antonioni is no exception. Michelangelo Antonioni, who died at the age of 94 on July 30th, was a film maker from an era when films were more about the craft of film making, acting and provocative screenplays. His seminal films are portraits painted with characters of men and women in......

Not many musicians in their mid 20’s can say that they’ve been in the music industry for over a decade, but Texas native Ben Kweller can. When he was only 13 years old, he formed a band called Radish, which was hyped-up to be the next Nirvana. But, even after a major push from their record label, Radish’s hype turned out to be rubbish. Ben Kweller has now made a bigger name for himself as......

Trips to New York City always entail a few specific requirements for Houstonist, one of which is a visit to Joe’s Shanghai for the mind-blowing soup dumplings. Our last visit to NYC was over a year ago, but the soup dumplings have haunted our dreams ever since. So we set out to find soup dumplings of our very own in the international mecca of Houston. After many disappointing experiences, we finally found a place that......

We've long known that Houston was a popular place for singles to relocate (and rightly so), but here's some new news: according to this map, we've got more than our fair share of single men. A LOT more than our fair share - that big blue dot = 20,000 - 40,000 more single men than women. Men in Austin and the DFW metropolis suffer similarly. So why the disparity? Creative Class commenters had a few......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. I live in a two bedroom apartment, but I’ve run out of space for all my stuff. Is there a mini-storage facility you could recommend? Unless you're about to go overseas and have to lose the apartment, you don’t need mini-storage. What you do need is to go through your shit. If there are things you can live without long enough to put......

Houstonist was driving out 290 the other day and noticed a new Luby's under construction — it normally wouldn't attract our attention, but we could tell this Luby's was going to look different. And now we know why: According to the Chronicle, the new restaurant is the first of Luby's next-generation locations, designed to bring the venerable cafeteria chain into the 21st century. Outside, the new Luby's will be faced in stucco and limestone; inside,......

If you haven't been to one of the Houston Filmakers Organization's First Monday Mixers, we would suggest popping your cork tonight, in honor of filmmaker-turned-winery-owner Francis Ford Coppola. This Monday, the HFO will be exploring one of the greatest living directors in the making of his most daring project. Find out why Francis Ford Coppola was the ORIGINAL GUERRILLA FILMMAKER! The fine people from the STUDIO MOVIE GRILL will be on hand with a special......

Yep, you read that correctly. Sunday morning an inflatable blue elephant visited Bridge Community church in Galveston. The elephant is part of National Porn Sunday campaign which is trying to beat out battle the multibillion dollar Porn industry. All bad puns aside, the 25ft inflatable blue elephant is a symbol of the “elephant in the pew,” said J.R. Mahon, pastor of XXXChurch.com, which spearheads the National Porn Sunday movement. Although their website name seems......

So this is kinda cool: Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports are the first airports in the world to have mobile threat containment units — basically, bomb-proof trash cans — that can be used to get suspicious carry-on baggage safely away from passengers without shutting down the airport terminal. The units, which in all fairness bear little resemblance to actual trash cans, are manufactured by the British company Aigis Blast Protection. The circular containers weigh around......

So you've heard all the discussion about how cities must lure the so-called "creative class" if they want to be great places, right? Basically, the idea is that the creative class — knowledge workers, artists, intellectuals and creative types, a subset of workers identified by economist and author Richard Florida — spurs economic power, high-tech industry, new ideas and growth in places that court it. Sounds like something Houston should be trying to attract, right?......

Good morning, Houston. Can Texas gas prices get any higher? Well, sure — they increased for the 15th straight week last week, and now they're edging toward the previous record high. The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in Texas last week was $2.952, just 1.2 cents short of the previous record, $2.964, which we hit after Hurricane Rita in September 2005. Houston's average price is $2.92, still lower than most major......

Houston Filmmakers Organization's First Monday Mixer Sure, Houston may not be the first town that comes to mind when one thinks of the film industry (aside from Jenna Jameson's appearance last month at Rich's---no, not that kind of film), but filmmakers such as Wes Anderson, James Brooks, and Houston native Mel House, have helped have helped put Houston on the map, er, screen. Every first Monday of the month, the Houston Filmmaker Organization gathers at......

Good morning, Houston. Blah blah blah, et cetera. (Yeah, you can tell it's Friday again.) >> BP: Managers to blame for 2005 blast: An internal BP report on the deadly 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery recommends that four top managers be fired for bad judgment and failing to do their jobs. The report — completed in February but kept confidential until it was released under court order Thursday — named Pat Gower,......

Out of curiosity, have you tried to book a hotel anywhere in Houston this week? Checked out the prices? Wondered why all rooms have gone up by a hundred dollars or so? If you don't know what we're getting on about, then you probably don't work in the energy industry, and you probably don't know that the OTC (Offshore Technology Conference) is going on this week. The convention is currently taking up the entire......

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......

Jack Valenti, the long-time head of the Motion Picture Association of America and Houston native passed away today at his home in Washington. He was 85 and still suffering the effects of a stroke he had in March. Valenti was born in Houston to Sicilian immigrants in 1921, growing up on the still unpaved streets of the 1st Ward. He traced his love of movies to a string of jobs working in downtown Houston movie......

Hamilton, Houston's very own custom shirtmaker, was recently featured in an issue of Men's Vogue. Even if the article does make fun of their location "on a gaudy suburban strip a block beyond Kwik Kar Lube & Tune and across the street from a purveyor of erotic novelties" (on Richmond, near Chimney Rock), we were very excited to see Hamilton get some great press. Hamilton's shirts are impeccably designed and crafted, and are available only......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

Oops! Houston siren Beyonce's getting sued. Seems she wanted to cover mid-90s popstar Des'ree's song. (You'd recognize Des'ree from her song "You Gotta Be", which Houstonist runs into at the gym every single time we go. Also? Five words: Sunny. Ninety-Nine. Point. One. Or is that four words? We never understood about the hyphenated thingies....) Ahem. Anyway.... Des'ree's song "I'm Kissing You", which was featured in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet back in 1996 somehow......

Service Corporation International, the Houston-based funeral-services giant, has found another way to rake in piles of money from the families of the dead honor the cultural heritage of its community: At its Forest Park Westheimer cemetery, SCI has built Houston's first feng shui-designed burial ground. The feng shui-compliant area of Forest Park Westheimer is arranged in circles centered on a pond, allowing the more than 1,700 plots to face all eight of the compass points......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

The Houston Dynamo unleashed their new mascot this morning at the Houston Zoo - meet Diesel, an orange and white fox. The mascot was chosen from entries by students at the Art Institute of Houston. Eric Hulsey and Leslie Lopez, the winning artists, will receive a $500 scholarship for their winning entry. The Dynamo marketing team says the name Diesel “plays off Houston's famous petroleum industry. Diesel is a fuel needed to run an engine......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

In an official proclamation that probably made the entire world cheer for the courage of our mayor, Bill White has officially declared today the Day of Azerbaijanis. And it's about time, literally, as today March 21st is the traditional Azerbaijani festival of Novruz, commemorating the spring equinox and "the awakening of natural life", in Mayor White's words. As devout members of Bill White's fan club already know, our mayor's fondness for the country on......

Lindsay Perth is a transplanted Canadian artist who now resides in Scotland. She is one of the artists whose work is exhibited in the Never Been to Houston show. On the right is one of her photographs from the exhibit. Lindsay answered a few questions about Houston and the show for us. Read on: What was your perception of Houston before you started this project? My perception was of lots of glass and reflections and......

There's an interesting legislative battle brewing in Austin over the appropriateness of a tax that would go toward funding sexual assault prevention, response and counseling. No one would oppose a measure supporting that work, would they? Ah, you'd be surprised: There's opposition when the funding is tied to the adult entertainment industry. At issue here is a $5 fee that would be added to price of admission to adult entertainment clubs, which was proposed in......

Busy week for live music, thanks to SXSW and it's overflow of artists into Houston. Some of the showcases you can check out include Super Happy Fun Land's nightly extravaganza and Alternative Press brings you "Bands you Need to Know" on Friday at the Meridian. Proletariat and Walter's on Washington are just two other of the many venues hosting SXSW artists. We highly recommend checking out a few of these shows this week --......