Not-so-fresh off the heels of last year's Wild Mountain Nation, Portland's Blitzen Trapper swings by the Bayou City tonight at Walter's on Washington. Even though they're painfully under the Houston musical consciousness' radar, it'll do you some good to check their set out. Released on Sub Pop Records last year, Wild Mountain Nation proved to be one of the strongest releases of 2007, although somewhat overlooked considering the heavyweights that ended up dominating the ridiculous......

• A Fort Bend County student has been accused of bringing a 9mm gun to school. The student was immediately expelled. • Two teens have been arrested after carjacking a family from their Cadillac Escalade at First Colony Mall. • Authorities are looking for a man claiming to be a police officer who attacked a 15 year old girl at a park in the 6400 block of Rustling Elms Drive back on November 18th.......

Houston, Rockets, basketball, McGrady, NBA, All Star...

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......

Now that Halloween is over, you’ll start hearing Christmas music everywhere you turn – on the radio, while shopping, and from that annoying singing Santa doll on your cubicle neighbor’s desk. Well, we have a sanctuary for you from Michael Bolton singing “Silent Night”: the "Houstonist iMix. Our picks for November include a track from excellent new CD from now Austin-based Sam Beam, otherwise known as Iron & Wine. The latest from Seattle’s indie-pop Band......

Each week Houstonist checks out the Missed Connections on Craiglist. Here's a few that we found interesting. thats funny - m4w - 20 hey, i dont understand what the hell is wrong with you?! first of all you dump me for some ugly ass jobless loser, because i went out with my friends?! how the hell does that happen im hot, in great shape, and thats what you leave me for a fat, huge......

Did you hear that Alamo Drafthouse's Rolling Road Show is featuring The Big Lebowski at Copperfield Bowling Center? No? "Well, okay, you're not privy to all the new shit, so uh, you know, but that's what you [read Houstonist] for." The Coen Brothers' follow up to Fargo, The Big Lebowski is the story of mistaken identity involving a slacker and a millionaire. Jeff Bridges stars as bowling slacker Jeffrey Lebowski (but everyone calls him......

::Inprint Brown Reading Series - Richard Powers & Jennifer Egan:: For the 27th year, Inprint presents one of the finest reading series in the country, giving Houstonians a chance to hear from and meet some of the world’s leading writers. From September through April, 14 renowned authors will come to Houston, many for the first time, sharing their work and insights. These authors’ works address pressing contemporary issues, taking us on a journey around the......

We promise that we're not Ethan Hawke groupies here at Houstonist. But don't blame you for thinking that given last week's Flick and this one. Hawke, Texan via Austin, hits the screen in a new film, The Hottest State, and a cult classic, Gattaca. He wrote the book; now Hawke is behind the camera to direct the film. Despite what you may be thinking, State deals with a young couple's romantic issues and not the......

Thursday night saw the Texans fall in their final preseason warm up against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-24. The defense was harried, but the much-maligned Mario Williams turned in a good performance, with 3 unassisted tackles and a sack. (Which, for you stat-heads, was one more sack than either Vince Young or Reggie Bush recorded last week. So there.) The first-string only saw limited playing time as head coach Gary Kubiak made evaluations leading up......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

Good morning, Houston. Weather got you down? Here's a fun story to lighten your mood: drunk astronauts. A report on astronaut mental health (undertaken after the infamous Lisa Nowak incident) revealed that NASA has sent astronauts into space totally sloshed. This happened in spite of the fact that they put a ban on alcohol consumption at least 12 hours before launch. Oops. We hope they're not too hard on the astronauts. After all, it's......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

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......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

80's hair band Poison is coming to Houston tomorrow night. Believe it or not, they'll be playing at the Sam Houston Race Park tomorrow night after the horse races are over. (We want to call that a career low, but since the track hosted the great Merle Haggard recently, we can't justify that claim.) Poison had a good run of hits from '87 to '92 ("Talk Dirty to Me," "Every Rose Has It's Thorn,"......

Monday Movie Nights @ Domy Books Presents: The Monster Squad Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're sick of the freaking rain, too. Rethinking that job offer in Seattle? You could sit at home and complain about it (like us), or you can get out and, well, get indoors. Looking for indoor-friendly activities? (ok, dirty minds) Check out Domy Books each Monday night as they screen some cinematic jewels. Case in point: tonight's 1987 cult classicThe Monster Squad.......

Good morning, Houston. When we hear the words "concrete canoe," two other words come to mind: "doesn't float." But our instincts are wrong: Concrete canoes can be seaworthy, and one created by University of Houston engineering students floats so well that it's headed for the national concrete canoe competition in Seattle. The national contest is set for mid-June, and it could lead the team to a spot in the international competition in Holland in......

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get......

Thanks to our friends at Shanghaiist, we have word of another list Houston's on — but this one doesn't have anything to do with our weight, children, dog poo or gold diggers. No, this has to do with The Economist magazine's Worldwide Cost of Living index, which ranks Houston 47th among the world's 132 most expensive cities in which to live, up one spot from last year's 48th place ranking. Shanghaiist has the details;......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Houstonist is always excited to find out our city has been been recognized as a "top" destination for anything. Over the last few years we've been awarded with having one of the nations most visited museums (HMNS), boasting the 2nd most theather seats in the nation, and even one of the top places for relocating singles. With all of this recent attention on our metropolis, it's no surprise that the nation's socialites would soon......

Choreographer Donald Byrd, who was nominated for a Tony for his work in the 2006 Broadway production of The Color Purple, is bringing Indian industrial/club dance music to Houston this weekend. Seattle-based Spectrum Dance Theater, for whom Donald Byrd is the artistic director, will perform at the Wortham Center's Cullen Theater - part of the IW Marks Dance Series tonight and tomorrow night. A pre-performance lecture by Donald Byrd begins each evening at 7:10 in......

Back in June, we heard that Six Flags was planning to sell or close several of its properties, including Houston's Splashtown. And sure enough, the company is selling Splashtown and six other parks in a $312 million deal. The parks' new owner, PARC 7F-Operations Corp. of Jacksonville, Fla., will immediately sell them to CNL Income Properties, then will lease them from CNL. Whatever. The good news for all you Splashtown lovers is that the park......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Good news for you Texans fans planning to attend this weekend's game: The FBI said the threat to blow up seven NFL stadiums, including Reliant, was a hoax. The online threat, you'll remember, made the news Wednesday after the Homeland Security Department put local officials and stadium owners in the cities named in the threat — Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, New York, Oakland, Miami and Seattle — on alert. But it turns out the bomb threat......

The Homeland Security Department has put officials and NFL stadium owners in seven U.S. cities, including Houston, on alert after a warning was posted online claiming that the cities' stadiums would be destroyed by dirty bombs this weekend — but the government says it's looking at the threat "with strong skepticism." The threat was posted Oct. 12 as part of an ongoing online conversation. It warned of attacks on NFL stadiums in Houston, Atlanta, New......