Gary

Baton Rouge is known for having awesome water, and that's what I grew up on out of the tap, perhaps why I can't drink Houston water unless it's filtered through the fridge. If you want to know mineral contents that contribute to the taste you should be able to get that. I know we requested a profile for Baton Rouge water because we wanted to know mineral content for brewing purposes, and like we expected everything was way too low to have an effect. For brewing we actually added some in.

I'm in Baton Rouge often and can confirm that the water is the best/softest I've encountered. Showers there are a different animal as well.

SSC here we come. Seriously, could you guys give it a rest.

I suspect that the height restriction is for anything built within "The Enclave".

American Christianity (not to be confused with anything remotely related to the teachings of Christ) is a joke. I lose respect for all the so-called "Christians" I know.. honestly.. I do... a TRUE BELIEVER... is someone you wouldn't know is one.... yea... and before you respond... B.S. to the garbage about a Christian's duty is to spread the word.... what crap.

You've reiterated the above at least twice. In other words, we get it. Now go pop a valium.

I heard there's still the fake building facades and the walkway to nowhere, just as it had been in March 2008.

I was there yesterday and all remains the same. In fact, there isn't even a fake building facade at the Mervyns site. It looks pretty bad.

have recently returned to an affinity for harry james, jo stafford and jackie gleason mood music albums particularly those with Bobby Hackett.

Ahhh, a man after my own heart. Congrats man.

I remember a club called "The Fizz" on Richmond (about a block east of Fondren) that was so hot they had people being bussed in. I also seem to remember that it was before exctasy was made illegal and they would have the pills in glass bowls before you walked in the door. Of course my memory may be a little fuzzy on that one.

Ditto to what Richmond Kid said about the sauce. I like it, but some I've found don't. I've been going there for about fifteen years and have always loved the place.

I'm confused... Where do you find any "Homerisms" in any of the quotes in this thread. There is nothing here that boosts Houston other than the fact that most don't care (at least for the most part) what some goofy biased publication says about the city. Look at it this way... Via your thread your finding out what the culture of the city is, and that's a city that is comfortable in it's own skin. That's Houston.

What, do you want me to link you to the PDF or something? As I said, Houston is describing various different things as "bikeways" as can be seen on the map. These are not necessarily bike lanes, in fact the majority are not.

Yes, I want you to provide a link which is commonplace here. You'll get shot down everytime without one, especially when your asking us to take your words as fact.

345 miles is definitely not accurate for Houston. There may be 345 miles of "bikeways" as they call them, but that ranges from dedicated path along bayou to bike lane to non-bikelane road with signs indicating its a bike route to absolutely nothing (no lane, no sign, no nothing).

How is it "deffinately not accurate"? You have yet to provide one source for your claims and two posters have cited your inaccuracy with verifiable facts.

I was thinking the same thing. Kylejack, we'll be waiting on your response.

Unfortunately that same bad press has influenced way too many of our fellow citizens. Montrose and the Heights are artsy hip and cool, but because they're in Houston, many Houstonians think they're somehow not worthy of the same respect as similar neighborhoods in other cities.

Not to be a jerk, but where do you get your info from? I've been here for years and have never heard anyone make those type of statements regarding the hip Houston places.

Average Houston suburbanite refers to anything inside the Loop as "downtown." Example, I was talking to a woman on a dating site who lived in Katy and told her I live "downtown". She said oh, I love to go to downtown and see the museums and for football games.

So once again someone is using the "I have a friend" analogy? That's not exactly great statistical info. I live in the burbs and have never encountered anyone who thinks Reliant is downtown. I guess you might get that from a new resident, but not from someone that's been here for a year or two, and that doesn't have an IQ of a shoebox.

I think your wrong regarding Houstonians not knowing about their city, and for a native of the area not to know where or what Montrose is is just plain silly. Also, keep in mind that this place is so huge that it can be difficult for outsiders to find the "cool" places like they can in the smaller cities you mentioned.

If I had to pick the one thing that made me settle down in Houston, and I've mentioned it before, is the people. Houstonians are a different breed from most and they generally don't give a flip what outsiders think. In fact, (not to be reduntant) I've always found it very charming and hope that it never changes.

Edit: I think it was Musicman who said... Keep the bad press coming as it'll keep out the undesirables.

Man this would be a great idea, but

1. This is just speculation so it doesn't need to be in the "going up" thread... needs to be in either Downtown or General discussions

2. What kinds of toys do kids want nowadays? We as a society have managed to screw kids up to where they think they are miniature adults... IPod this, Twitter that, toy cell phones and computer games. They don't even want to get dirty. As sad as it sounds, a major toy store would fail in downtown b/c we as a society are raising kids to not even want REAL toys. They're just supposed to do like adults and play on the internet all day. Until we decide that we should reinvest in the human imagination, the only toy store we're going to have is Wal-Mart, Taget and the kids isle at HEB.

Great post. I've often wondered how our "miniature adults" will view the culture they grew up in. I'm constantly trying to inform my kids about the time I grew up in where there was an actual culture.

There are numerous primitive camping opportunities throughout the State of Texas, whether you're talking about a state park, a national forest, a public beach, or along the riverbed of a navigable stream. It's actually pretty easy to isolate yourself from the crowd if you really want to.

As an avid camper I can say that your right on Niche. There is a plethora of primitive camping throughout Texas. Recently a buddy and me braved primitive camping at "Lost maples state natural area" and it was tough, but fun.

Carrie Feibel has some more details on the tree die-off in this week's Move It! column.

"New seedlings"???? How exciting

So, you're suggesting that citykid drew this?

I'll be there. Should be sitting in with my drummer buddy Steve Candelari ouside of "Wear it again Sam".

It's a relatively small middle-to-low-end grocery store that typically caters to rural and exurban Texan populations primarily east of I-35 and north of I-10. Considering their business model, it doesn't surprise me that Spring no longer really fits with their target market. One of their stores is anomalously located in Houston, however, at the corner of Wayside and Canal Street. It always seems to be doing decent business.

We have a Brookshire Brothers in Katy (old Katy near Pitts rd). There is also a Brookshire Brothers close to my property in Bellville, and while it's low end, the prices are very good and the employees are super nice.

This on the same day someone sent me the youtube video of a lady filming a rainbow misting from her sprinkler, and she's going on and on about how something must be in the water, that it didn't do that 20 years ago. Just reinforces my belief that most people are incredibly useless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sq-VmBMHkw

Maybe not useless, but they're damn sure stupid.

Dallasscaper, you got talent my friend. Great composition.

Maybe if we offer to pitch in we can get them to paint "TheHAIF.com" on the freeway walls.

It would be a hell of alot better than the giant stars at each intersection. The black star at 99 and 10 has got to be the ugliest thing they've come up with. Who are the people that approve this stuff?

Most of the trees have now been cut down leaving just a few pines. Also, many of the trees that line Hwy 99 have also fallen victim to TXDOT's incompetence. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that TXDOT has no plans to replace them since they've left every single stump in the ground. It's frickin deplorable.