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The guy on The Weather Channel (I'm sure channeling someone else) said that Ana should become a minimal hurricane by Thursday. He also said that the computers are going nuts for TD#3.

<iframe src ="http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/HAI/Weather/Stormpulse/2009-03.html" width="1030" height="600"> <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> </iframe> Powered by hurricane-tracking software from Stormpulse.com.

Updated thread title to "Tropical Storm Ana." Sorry it took so long. My regular computer is in for repairs, and I'm working from a tiny netbook.

, originally uploaded by jfre81. Jfre81 got the blue in the shadow just right so that it brings out the brown in the bayou, and the red of the reflected building.

Westheimer Central Plaza, originally uploaded by pinemikey. PineMikey caught this sweet blueness along Westheimer.

This has been upgraded to a tropical depression.

STOP, originally uploaded by bill barfield. Bill Barfield found these great color swatches while on photo safari recently.

Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk 2009 -Lightning Just Above The Court House, originally uploaded by I-SEEN-IT. I Seen It managed to catch a crackle of lightning as it arced through the air over downtown. A one in a million shot.

Actually, I feel the opposite way -- the new iPhone version is MUCH better than the old one. With the old one you could only read messages, and then only in text as a generic user. With the new one you can log in, view most pictures in threads, start new topics, reply to threads, look at profiles, blogs, galleries, and more. It's really a vast improvement. No, there is no messenger. I'm not sure why that is. I didn't realize there's no "View new." Since you can log in, it makes sense that View New should be possible. I'll see if I can add it. Remember, HAIF Mobile is stripped down because not everyone on a mobile device has a wifi connection. Most people are accessing it at EDGE speeds, with the remainder divided equally between 3G and GPRS. If you have a fat connection for your iPhone, then you can switch over to the full version of HAIF and use all the regular features.

Answer: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/index.php?showtopic=21258

http://www.hotelsmag.com/article/CA6674802.html?industryid=47562 Nice gimmick, but is now the time to go all über-luxe on hotel rooms? The hotel industry is hurting. Last week I booked two nights at a Ritz-Carlton for $136/night and got the third night for free. That's how desperate things are. Don't get me wrong -- I love W hotels. I've stayed in them in both Chicago and New Orleans. But I don't see very many people splashing out on fancy hotel rooms these days.

<iframe src ="http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/HAI/Weather/Stormpulse/2009-02.html" width="1030" height="600"> <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> </iframe> Powered by hurricane-tracking software from Stormpulse.com. I know this storm isn't going anywhere near Houston yet, but I thought I'd test out the new partnership we have with Stormpulse. You can use the interactive map above to look at the storm and where it's been, along with multiple projections of where it's going. Each time we have a thread for a storm this season, I'll embed one of these maps at the top of the thread highlighting that storm. They are continually updated to reflect current conditions of each storm. Sorry that the map is so wide. There's not a thing I can do about that.

<iframe src ="http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/HAI/Weather/Stormpulse/2009-01.html" width="1030" height="600"> <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> </iframe> Powered by hurricane-tracking software from Stormpulse.com. I know this storm isn't going anywhere near Houston, but I thought I'd test out the new partnership we have with Stormpulse. You can use the interactive map above to look at the storm and where it's been, along with multiple projections of where it's going. Each time we have a thread for a storm this season, I'll embed one of these maps at the top of the thread highlighting that storm. They are continually updated to reflect current conditions of each storm. Sorry that the map is so wide. There's not a thing I can do about that.

Around here, where the bike lanes share the street with cars (especially where the bike lane is lane 5 of 6), the city has started raising them on green asphalt humps to make drivers aware that it's a bike lane, not a car lane. I don't know if it works since I neither drive or bike.

http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/article_bubt090805SkyGarages Some people can't be bothered to take an elevator from their car to their condo in the sky, so they drive into an elevator which brings them to a private garage on their floor. The article notes that Martha Stewart drives her car into a freight elevator and right up to her office in a New York skyscraper. Historically speaking, this isn't new. The Jeweler's Building in Chicago used to have this for the safety of its tenants. Built back in the 1920's, jewelers would drive into an elevator and park at their offices in the 40-story skyscraper because they often traveled with samples. But after the Capone era waned, the elevator system was dismantled and turned into office space.

I think Austin USED TO get a lot of exposure, but after the tech bubble burst and 90's alternative rock became annoying, it returned to "cultural backwater" status for much of the country. Last Thursday I was at a cafe across from Lollapalooza and some band was in getting something to drink. They introduced themselves to the 20-something girl behind the counter as being "From Austin." The response she gave was, "What part of Boston?" It wasn't a hearing problem, it's a comprehension problem. The standard response outside of Texas when someone would say "Austin" was always "Boston?" until the 1990's. Looks like we've come full circle.

Lots of them do it. All time time. It's to instill a sense of civic pride, and sometimes to head of brain drain or other outflow situations. One of the most famous was the 1970's "I Love New York" campaign. On the surface it was a tourism slogan. But you know who the ads were targeted to? New Yorkers. And it worked. It's still cited in textbooks as one of the most successful ad campaigns in American history. At a time when New York was bankrupt, the garbage was piled 15 feet high on the sidewalks because of strikes, and crime was rampant, it was one part of a larger civic movement that really turned the city around.

That surprised me, too, when I moved to Houston. But I've found that pretty much any city I've lived in from Houston to Chicago to New York -- the locals take what they have for granted because they grew up with it, and it's usually the newcomers who find everything interesting and do lots of research. I'm to blame, too. I spent a bit of my formative years in a semi-rural region of the East Coast that I've always thought of as a cultural and historical wasteland with no redeeming value unless you're into mullets and Led Zepplin. A couple of months ago I discovered the county had a historical society and a fabulous web site that told all kinds of fascinating stories about places where I lived and grew up and knew nothing about. So, don't blame Houston because the majority of Houstonians don't know much about their city. It's the same in every town.

We're back there again with the larger flat screen TVs. For some reason my TV runs Linux and has to boot up. Remember when TVs were TVs, and not computers? When you could make a radio out of a few spare parts? Back in your day a store with a big "vinyl" sign meant it sold music. Now it means it sells sex toys.

Well, let's hope not. I would hope that HAIF would attract better-than-average Houstonians. I think a lot of people span multiple categories. Also, realize that how people are on the internet is usually very different than how they are in real life. You're trying to compare two very different things. If you think it's possible for those three categories to represent any city or population, no matter the size, then you need to get out and meet more people. The world's a big place.

Shoot a PM to ChannelTwoNews -- he seems to have the inside track on these sorts of things.

Count on Telwink to take a very nice picture, add a little computer muscle, and turn it into something extraordinary. Downtown from Sam Houston Park wrapped onto a sphere.

For the most part, toy stores are dead in America. Sure, you can find a few small ones scattered here and there, but they're throwbacks. Wal-Mart killed toy stores in the United States. Even the once mighty Toys R Us went bankrupt and closed most of its stores. FAO Schwartz is planning to expand, but only into protected spaces within Macy's stores. There was a good piece a couple of Christmasses ago on one of the networks about this. Kids these days don't know what a "toy store" is. They've grown up getting toys at the big box stores. Anything else is Dickensian to them.