crunchtastic

snowmageddon!! Must stop at Specs on the way home. Snow without Irish whisky is like...well, something. Ugh, so does this means the grocery stores will be slammed with people buying bottled water and pop tarts? American General tower was offline from 6-ish to 7, am according to the property mgmt people. Just checked in with my SO and there's been no interruption at home in Eastwood yet.

Given how starved the east end is for basic, non-dollar store retail, outside of Idylwood and the usual Eastwood clique I doubt there will be meaningful opposition. Another grocery store in proximity will hopefully put the pressure on Kroger to step up their game at the Polk/Cullen store. Gulfgate HEB could stand to clean its act up, too. Interesting how this story broke about the same time it appears the Foleys warehouse is up for sale. I had always imagined that would be the logical place for the next big retail center along 45 South.

Ew, looks like someone is flying their pretentious flag. Frumpy, middle-aged white collars need bars too. I'm pleased to see the facelift hasn't changed that.

macht schnell! ok, so I don't have many chances to use my only German. This sounds like one of those places where someone decided what sort of skimpy waitress outfit they wanted to use and built the theme around that.

I'm trying to remember the name--we drove past a couple of weeks ago and saw a sign that said something like The Depot--and I believe with a little tag that said 'neighborhood bar'. Which leads me to believe it's not lounge-y but probably nicer than the Roll-N. Speaking of bars, I hear the D&W in my hood has its mardi gras tree up. Time for a visit.

Thus, my question to you asking if you've hired the homeless to 'work for it.' You're a property owner, after all. No? Then you're part of the problem, not the solution. You don't want your tax dollars spent on the homeless; and you expect other people to create the jobs that fix the problem. Yet you attempt to take moral high ground? That's some balls.

Excellent. I expect then you will pay some homeless people going hourly pick-up rate to work on your place, or clean up the blight in your your neighborhood, which doubtless is not gentrifying as fast as you would like it to.

As a PSA, I'd like to ask Fringe what tips he has about fire prevention and mitigation should one break out. I live in an old frame house; we are up to code and are pretty militant about prevention and escape situations, but this fire really brought out a strong childhood fear of house fire in me. Any tips?

That seems like some creepy Westworld action. Part of me thinks this is an AdBusters joke. Block parties??

I stayed in for NYE and actually watched some of it on Channel 13. After about 90 seconds of lighted hula-hooping, we switched the channel to Andy Cohen. Gina Gaston seemed a lot tipsy and was sporting black leather gloves, despite it being 60 out. Looked like the kids were having fun, though. Maybe this is an anecdotal sign of economic recovery-- the quality of fireworks shot off by my neighbors was much higher this year than in the past 2, and only 1 gun shot that we heard.

I would echo Niche's thoughts, and I'd even say my outlook is even more dim. The need for a college education, or at least the 4 year general degree, keeps diminishing because we simply don't have enough work to go around. Most of us without specialized or applied degrees work for some middleman in an economic culture based on extracting a percentage on moving someone else's money or property around. That's a big risk to take on job security on a $50,000 investment (on the low end). If I were giving advice to my 10-year old niece on her future, I would tell her that if she really wanted a college degree with meaningful ROI, to stick to applied math and sciences, become fluent in at least one other language, and be willing to move out of the country more or less permanently.

We're stacking 'em deep and selling 'em cheap! Interesting commentary. I think it greatly oversimplifies the issue, but expect it will be very useful ammunition for anti-labor conservatives in other states during the next election cycle. The re-districting fight in Texas will be a dogfight.

I'm a latent anarchist. When I see people take to the streets and riot when they're screwed by the powerful, it makes me happy for humanity. Americans are so pussywhipped.

Maybe it's the Holiday Effect. Who really is hankering for a carb blowout right now? For the next two weeks, if I had nothing but sashimi, liquor, and Super Dieters Tea things would be good. too. much. food. everywhere.

Exactly. Anyone can look good at night with the right treatment. But how do you look at daybreak?

how utterly, deliciously ironic! A self-proclaimed visionary who speaks with the royal we and doesn't care what the neighbors think. It doesn't get any more West U than that.

I can only wish I never heard of Trans Siberian Orchestra. ugh. double dog ugh. Like a crappy Kansas tribute band with Highlander thunder effects and a glockenspiel.

not that I'm aware of. The Alabama and later at the River Oaks. In the spirit of the Tower thread... I was at that Hunter Thompson show. He was a mess. Typical; was on one of his many lawsuit-fundraiser speaking tours. The last time I saw the Butthole Surfers in Houston was at the Tower in its waning days, circa 1994. A far cry from the Island ten years earlier.

Nah. It appeared to be mostly college kids with a late surge of slightly obnoxious club kids after midnight. Squeaky girls teetering on their 5 inch heels, etc. Very much reminiscent of an outdoor BBQ stand with patio tables and a yard. The sausages were great and they had some very good buns, almost like a brioche dough. The rabbit was very good, want to try the duck. A great addition to the neighborhood.

Well crud, I didn't meet any of you guys knowing you were HAIFers, that's too bad! Ours was the house with the phone booth, not the upstairs Charlie's Angels rumpus room. (those owners give great parties, BTW) LOL Travelguy, my sno-globes were on the shelf in the bathroom, but I refrained from talking about them. Mostly we were just busy explaining to folks how we didn't do any of the actual renovation work ourselves, but have been busy with undoing bad re-muddling and lots of deferred maintenance. It was fun, and tiring. I loved that it was laid back. I went into it with feelings of general unease and unworthiness, because we're just nothing like the places you see on home tours, what with our cracks in the drywall, mix and match furniture, etc. In the end, though, it was great and most people realy seemed to enjoy themselves--I know I did.

!!!!!! Excellent on running the punk off. Are you more or less freaked than the first time it happened?

The thread on festivals reminded me how quickly we go from the dog days of summer to an absolutely event-jammed October... The Eastwood Home Tour is next weekend, so if you've been curious about the east end, come on out. http://www.eastwoodcivicassociation.org/hometour.html Casa de Crunch is on the tour, so stop by and say hi!

These pics just reinforce my beef about the completely ass-backwards nature of so-called preservation in this city. Rather than Sue Lovell and friends jack-booting homeowners, why aren't we focusing our collective efforts on commercial and industrial structures-- all over the city? Because the city lacks the wherewithal to do the hard work of raising funds or interest to do so. It's easier to push it off on the small guys, the non-investor homeowners, and claim we're preserving 'neighborhoods,' than to tackle much more expensive, useful and visible sites.

So True. I have two motivations on the job: I want the co-workers I like and trust to succeed, and the dickheads in my way to perish. I know it's wrong of me to approach it like that, but that's the way it is. My work life is a constant battle against deadline, aggression and incompetence. For some sick reason, I thrive at it. Not thrive enough to pull down the big bucks, mind you, since I'm also rather allergic to anything over a 60 hour week. Nevertheless I'm very protective of my people, who are awesome.