Domelover

Discovery Center? No no. The GRB looks much more like a "Starship Discovery" candidate.

I recently visited Greenspoint Mall for the first time in about 12 years. They had one of those traveling carnivals in the parking lot next to the freeway and a friend of mine suggested we smoke a bit and do some people watching/zipper riding. I grew up in Oak Ridge North and hadn't been to Greenspoint since the opening of the Woodlands Mall. I was very interested to see what was inside the mall today and whether it lived up to its "Gunspoint" reputation. Long story short, I found the mall to be extremely charming. Most big department store anchors left the place years ago and there was not a Forever XXI anywhere to be found. Instead, the mall was full of nicely maintained local clothes boutiques catering naturally to black and hispanic Houstonians. There was a great music store in there that had a treasure trove of signed posters from every local rapper of note and a fine selection of chopped and screwed discs and rap DVDs, the kind you can't find at Best Buy. The clothing stores and kiosks all appeared to be locally owned and operated and I don't remember seeing any vacant storefronts. It was fun to see a mall that had its own identity and seemed to be doing fine without an Express and Hot Topic. We left the mall at closing time on a weeknight and rode carnival rides and ate funnel cake for hours and never felt unsafe.

Thanks for the info, that's pretty interesting. I'd been meaning to check out Dean's for some time now, and I guess pretty soon they'll come to me! The truck shop (the cotton exchange, it's called?) often leaves huge flatbeds, buses, and other vehicles in their lot overnight, as there's really no other place to put them. On weekends the TNT strip's parking is packed, and in fact people parallel park all up and down Taft. There are about 6 bars and restaurants on the Fairview/Hyde Park drag and none of them have much parking to speak of, yet they seem to be doing well. I went in Boheme briefly on Saturday and it was stupid-packed, couldn't get any service from the amateur bartenders. Dean's ought to fit in nicely, and hey, you won't have to go far for your drugs or bj needs.

Whether it's at the college, high school, or pee-wee level, any soccer stadium in downtown Houston WILL have football played in it. It's just a fact: A lot of football is played in this town and there's money to be made by hosting it. TSU is pretty much only good for sucking dollars out of the state government, so if their funds go to a soccer stadium for the city rather than a china hutch for the new school president, I consider us all to be coming out ahead.

Is there any news on getting that old Blockbuster leased out? This is one of the busiest intersections in town and it feels like Flint, Michigan, with that huge abandoned space there.

Just to be clear, those 80 acres would be used for a Dynamo practice facility/public recreation fields. It's not a location being discussed for the Dynamo's Soccer-Specific Stadium.

Cardi's was still going as late as four years ago... A friend of mine went down there to check out a friend's band. We snuck in a bottle of Jager and ended up puking in the parking lot when it was time to go home. Cardi's was fun. The last "real" show I remember seeing there was probably in 2001. A Bad Brains reunion with Candiria and Haste opening, I believe it was. I haven't heard anything about Cardi's in several years, but then these places come and go. It had a decent run, sounds like, U2! Wow. Due to the place's layout my friends and I always speculated that it had begun life as a stripclub.