mkultra25

I recommended their puffy tacos to a friend from San Antonio (aka "the birthplace of the puffy taco"). He thought they were pretty good but commented that anyone who tried to sell puffy tacos in San Antonio for the price they were charging at El Real would get shot. I usually have the same reaction to >$10 enchilada plates, but my principles on that front tend to weaken when faced with El Real's Cheese Enchiladas #7 topped with a fried egg.

That deserves to be quoted prominently on their menus. There's arguably no higher praise when it comes to Tex-Mex.

Some of my favorites, in no particular order: El Real (http://elrealtexmex.com/) Spanish Flowers (http://www.spanish-flowers.com/) El Patio (http://elpatio.com/2013/), home of the infamous Club No Minors Fiesta Loma Linda (http://www.fiestalomalinda.com/), one of the oldest continually-operating Tex-Mex restaurants in Houston Molina's (http://www.molinasrestaurants.com/) Spanish Village (http://www.spanishvillagerestaurant.com/) Tony's (http://tonysmexrestaurant.com/) Teotihuacan (http://www.teomexicancafe.com/)

Great news! Apparently the homeless aren't really homeless. They're living the "home-free lifestyle". Even better, more of us can look forward to being able to partake in this disruptive innovation in modern housing trends as the gig/sharing economy continues its noble mission of liberating folks from the oppressive shackles of home ownership. https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/670643569489780736/photo/1 I'm sure we'll all be sleeping easier now that that's been clarified.

Mack McCormick passed away last week at the age of 85: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/rip-mack-mccormick/

Rice has come a long way from where it was a generation or so ago, when engineering disciplines ruled the roost and everything else was almost an afterthought. I have no doubt that a generation from now, they'll have undergone equally significant changes for the better.

Sometimes the cars with the most leg room are not obvious. I'm 6'2", and drove a Honda CRX for years. People would regularly express disbelief that I could fit comfortably in it, but there was more than enough leg room for someone several inches taller than I am. Head room might have been a different story.

I suspect that a significant chunk of the perceived "research power" is due to sheer scale. Rice has less than 650 full-time faculty, as opposed to UT-Austin with just under 3100. Similarly, in terms of sponsored research, Rice pulls in roughly 20% of the money UT does (~$115MM vs. ~$540MM). A different metric of prestige: Rice's two Nobel Laureates were members of the Rice faculty at the time of the award, whereas UT has had several affiliated faculty that were Nobel Laureates, but I believe only one of them was on staff at the time of the award.

I'm guessing that not many people participating in this thread can remember when the downtown bus station used to be a relatively sleepy facility with no homeless folks hanging around. On any given weekday, you could park outside and wander around the terminal without being hassled by anyone (obviously in the days before ubiquitous security checkpoints). There were typically only a handful of people hanging out in the lobby, where small individual coin-operated black-and-white TVs were attached to chairs. It's been slightly dilapidated and seedy for a long time, but I'm not sure exactly when it began to be perceived as unsafe and a blight on the neighborhood.

Two words: "security theater".

Yep. When Enron was in the broadband business, they built out their Houston-area POP there, and ever since then that center has primarily housed network/data/colocation-related companies.

Yeah, Someburger is still there at 11th and Studewood. There was a rumor going around a while back that the property had either been sold or was about to be, but so far that hasn't happened.

Assuming this is the column that resulted from the original inquiry posted above. Nice work, enjoyed reading it and will be keeping an eye out for further articles in the future. http://redpub.com/images_articles_2015/culture_louisdickerson.php

Great news. None of the other Prince's locations is anywhere near that area. I'm kinda partial to Mytiburger on 43rd, but it'll be nice to have Prince's as a nearby option. And Tacos-A-Go-Go is opening another outpost in the former Roznovsky's location on TC Jester in the near future as well.

I can't remember the last time I actually voted on election day. Early voting is the way to go, and as mollusk pointed out, the polls are open on Saturday during the early voting period. In addition, employers in Texas (and many other states) are required by law to give employees two consecutive hours off to vote on election day: http://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/news/texas-law-mandates-workers-get-time-off-to-vote/ It's definitely voter apathy, far more than the logistics of when and where to vote, that drives poor turnout.

Twitter owns Periscope. They purchased it in March, right around the time that another live-streaming video app, Meerkat, became an overnight viral sensation. I downloaded it when it was first rolled out in the App Store and played around with it, but although it's a cool app I haven't used it as much as I thought I would. It sure came in handy during the ALDS when home Astros games were blacked out locally and a couple of users were streaming the broadcasts, even if they wound up going offline before the games were over. Twitter is already the best source for rapidly-breaking news of significant events, and I think adding live-streaming video to that mix will definitely augment their existing strengths.

I'd expect all streetlights to eventually be replaced with LEDs. They recently started swapping out the old lights in my neighborhood. This thread reminded me of an article that ran in the Sunday Times a little over a week ago discussing the same transition in NYC and objecting to the perceived ills of blue-spectrum LED lights: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/ruining-that-moody-urban-glow.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1&referer=

There were three different Majestic theaters in Houston. The Majestic Metro that survives was not one of them - it was originally the Ritz. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1672 http://www.cinemahouston.info/mmetro.shtml

I'll assume you haven't been by there in quite some time. The old Landmark complex was acquired in January 2011 by a John Deere dealer who relocated their heavy equipment dealership there after demolishing the old buildings and building new ones. I believe they subdivided the property with the intent to resell some of it, as the new dealership buildings don't take up nearly as much room as the massive Landmark complex did. The new dealership just opened recently. https://goo.gl/maps/hUbwZRTih7v

It took me about 18 hours to get to Lufkin from Houston during the Rita evacuation, but I wound up getting off of the multi-lane parking lot that was 59 and taking a detour on the backroads into Coldspring - I was about to run out of gas and knew there was no way I'd be able to get any near the major highways. Fortunately, a tanker truck showed up to replenish the supply of gas at the Brookshire Bros. I stopped at after I'd waited in line at the pumps for about half an hour or so with a couple dozen other folks. Ironically, Lufkin took a bigger hit from Rita than Houston did - my neighbors in Houston said our street never lost power, but it got knocked out for two days at my aunt's house in Lufkin where we were staying. There were quite a few trees down as well, at least in the areas of Lufkin that we ventured into the day after the storm had passed. I think almost everyone that experienced the Rita evacuation said "screw it, I'm staying put" when Ike came along.

http://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/news/houston-city-council-approves-arts-and-cultural-plan/ Contains a link to a PDF of the plan.

Which might come in handy for Mr. Flood's clientele. Sounds like a win-win scenario all around.

Yeah, several years ago when Porsche was buying up VW shares as part of its abortive takeover attempt, it had to also make an offer to buy Scania as a result of its increased stake in VW, who was (and still is) the majority stakeholder in Scania. Someone obviously decided to have some fun with Photoshop as a result, but I like to think of it as a natural outgrowth of the Cayenne Turbo, only bigger.