From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • HISD has canceled all area Saturday school events except for a basketball playoff game at 1pm between Westbury and Lamar High School. • METRO has announced that a train operator is at fault in the most recent accident involving Metro Rail and a cyclist. The accident occurred last week and left the cyclist hospitalized. • Part of US-59 near West Bellfort was......

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......

Hey, registered Houstonist commenters: You now have avatars! If you have a profile (and if you don't yet, why not register?), just go to "Edit Profile" and upload a 100 x 100 pixel image. Then try commenting (on this post!) and bask in the glory of our ever-improving commenting system. For now, the default avatar for registered commenters across the Gothamist network is a baby panda — and no, it's not clear why, though we......

Every week, usually on Mondays (sue us), Houstonist braves the wilds of the internets to bring you a summary of what people on sports blogs are saying about your hometown teams: -Shasta, the UH Cougar mascot has responded to the assault at the wings/hands of the Oregon Duck from the first week of the college football season. Sounds like he's got a pretty good attitude about it. - The Colts-Texans game took place on "Deep......

This has been making the rounds on the sports blogs this week, and we were a little hesitant to show it here lest we rile up any University of Houston grads. But we're feeling sassy today at Houstonist, so here's a clip from the sidelines at U of H's opener at Oregon: Um, when you get your legwarmer-wearing ass kicked by someone dressed like a refugee from Disney World, it's time to reconsider the importance......

Good morning, Houston, and a happy Labor Day. We're abandoning our usual posting schedule today in favor of all-American grilled foods and the Jerry Lewis Telethon. We'll be back with our regular schedule tomorrow, but first, how about some Labor Day trivia? Labor Day began in the 1880s as annual street parades to show "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." In the early days, there was a movement......

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......

A musical about Tammy Faye? Topical. Penned by former Chronicle giant Fernando Dovalina and making its Houston premiere tonight? Even better. The Gospel According to Tammy Faye is a two-act musical based on the life of iconic televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. Dovalina, who spent thirty-two years at the Chron, along with co-writer and former UH classmate JT Buck was granted a long interview with Messner in 2005 in which they discussed her childhood and......

After nineteen hits led to a win on Friday afternoon in Omaha, the surging Rice Owls baseball team scored fourteen runs on as many hits on Sunday to remain in the winner's bracket, and now gets two days off before playing again, which should put Rice's already deep pitching staff in great shape. Friday's star Danny Lehmann, who led the offensive attack in the earlier game, hit an early double and anRBI single, and......

Rice swept Texas A&M in two games over the weekend to win themselves a trip to Omaha's College World Series: their sixth trip in history and fourth in the last six years. (Last year, the Owls were eliminated at the very end by Oregon State). In the first game of the Super-Regional, a sellout crowd watched freshman All-American Ryan Berry pitch into the eight inning, striking out ten, and went home happy as the Owls......

Is there a greater partnership in Houston than Theatre Under the Stars and the Hobby Center? The Hobby Center is the ideal venue in every way, and TUTS, since its founding in 1968, has produced more than 275 spectacular musicals -- with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers being no exception. An outrageously talented cast, genius choreography, beautiful scenery, and delightful music come together to make this show one not to be missed. Seven Brides......

Face it. You've been wanting to go treasure hunting ever since you saw the Goonies chasing One-eyed Willy's loot and running from the Fratelli's. Don't lie or we'll make you do the truffle shuffle. Lucky for you thousands of objects are hidden around the greater Houston area just waiting for you to find them. All you need is a hand-held GPS receiver (less than $100) and a bit of creative thinking (priceless). The game is......

When Houstonist hears about an upcoming festival we typically think of sweaty strolls to downtown, meat on a stick and sword fights by knights in homemade armor. CityFest Houston, adds a new wrinkle to the mix when it brings "festival envangelism" to Eleanor Tinsley Park on Saturday & Sunday. Festival evangelism aims to spread the Gospel to the non-church crowd by attracting them with a mash up of music, extreme sports and bible study. Festival......

Since the Austin City Limits Music Festival is this weekend, we thought we’d play a video from one of the bands were most excited to see live. To make it even more special, we thought we’d play a performance from an actual Austin City Limits series airing. The band is The Shins, from Portland, Oregon. This show aired in 2004, when they were still touring supporting their CD Chutes Too Narrow. The song, “Gone......

SustainLane, a web resource for making choices about personal health, home, and city sustainability, has published this year's City Rankings, which measure the quality-of-life and economic factors of the U.S.'s fifty largest cities. There are fifteen categories ranging from air quality to housing affordability, and four possible rankings in each category: sustainability leader, moving to sustainability, mixed sustainability progress, sustainability at risk, and the melancholy sustainability laggard. Surprisingly, Houston ranked best on metro transit, city......

In case you've forgotten or planned to watch America's Got Talent (David Hasselhoff is alive?!), remember that the Rice Owls will be playing tonight in the CWS semifinals against Oregon State. If you're not a college baseball fan, or baseball fan for that matter, consider that Oregon State's mascot is a Beaver. We're not sure what our point is, but hopefully this helpful reminder will be enough to get you to tune in. For more......

Tuesday Houstonian Lee Alexander has been placing in the finals of several international songwriting competitions. You can catch Lee and his clever lyrical style at Clark’s downtown. Music: “The Downside” 9 p.m. at Clark’s | info Wednesday The Fruit Bats are led by singer, songwriter, keyboardist and guitarist Eric Johnson (no, not the guitar-god from Austin, a different EJ from Chicago). Good new folk/pop. Music: “A Bit of Wind” 9 p.m. at Walter’s on......

NBA: The Rockets fell to the Bulls 94-89, the team's seventh loss in a row College football: UH beat Rice 35-18 to take the Bayou Bucket, which may send the Cougars to a bowl; Grambling State trumped Southern 50-35 in the temporarily relocated Bayou Classic College basketball: Rice fell to Oregon 84-60; UH dropped a nail-biter to Virginia Commonwealth 62-61 HS football regional semifinals: La Marque came from behind to defeat defending Division II state......