crunchtastic

Nutria?? Sounds like dinner! No wonder Niche likes it over here. The cat porch in the pic is going toward Polk, but I know the place you mean at the Harrisburg corner. I'm just off Lockwood. Been driving past that Metro sign for a year, wondering when exactly 'soon' is.

cool, you rode right through the middle of my hood. And even got a pic of the cat porch around the corner from me.

Referencing a much earlier post.... we paid full pop for the Remington 870 instead of a knockoff. I wanted the pistol grip. Plus it came with a cool breach tool on the end. As the old timers say....you could put an out with that, to say the least.

But it's not an issue of credit being readily avaialable, rather jobs and job creation. I would call the outlook bleak: http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco2003.htm#occupation_d Look at the table for occupations with the largest numerical growth, and how the majority of those jobs are low-skilled, low wage. For those able to get a higher skill/wage job, the increased cost of higher education creates a signifiant debt burden--which is also a significant impediment to re-training that I rarely hear people discuss. For a former union manufacturing worker to get a new skilled job at a middle class wage, he or she has to go back to school at significant cost, not only the cost of school but possilble opportunity cost of lost wages (albeit low) that could be had. A country full of home health care aides and cafeteria workers cannot sustain the consumer driven economy of the past 20 years, regardless of whether banks make easy credit available again to the higher income brackets. The middle class is not just getting squeezed, it's getting squeeezed out of existence.

I'd think a lavaderia would be just as attractive an idea inside a mall as in a strip center. And, they are getting bigger and better these days. If a giant laundromat opened at Gulfgate, it would pack 'em in. Sounds like a sound business venture for re-purposing a mall in an area with a large immigrant population, IMO. I've spent quite a lot of time at laundromats in the east end when we were renting, and like with grocery shopping, people bring their families to do laundry, which provides increased traffic to the adjacent businesses.

Look like I'll be getting some exercise this month. I have a box of those big black contractor bags that will be illegal soon, and a corner lot full of leaves and sweetgum balls. Of course, my neighbor had his yard crew out yesterday, same as every week, blowing all his leaves into the storm drains. I must be a complete chump to rake my own.

I tend to agree, unfortunately..... my tea leaves say that the this year's mid-terms and probably the next presidential election will see this country embrace a level of anti-immigration and protectionist 'populism' we haven't seen since in a hundred years. There are simply too many people terrified of the prospect (for a host of reasons) that in just a few years, white people will be the minority in Texas and other wealthy, populous states. Isn't 2014 the year the Hispanics will become majority here? That seems to ring a bell.

This is what really pisses me off about the the 'bailouts'. The Banks get to continue padding their margins by charging 29% interest, yet pay nothing in interest. It's an absolute affront that 1.25% is a GOOD interest rate for a minimum $5,000 CD. Those on fixed incomes will see their standards of living plummet further as there is now no way to get ahead of inflation other than betting on the market. There is no incentive to for the average person to save, because there is no longer any safety of principal. Money market yields? T-bonds? What a joke. Thank you, Fed. If it wasn't clear the past 30 years that your monetary policy is written for the sole benefit of the banks, it sure is now. It's great that businesses and the already wealthy can borrow at low, low rates. Now how about throwing a bone to the people who work for a paycheck? I just hope my parents can make it another 15-20 years on what they have. Talk about the lost decade: It took me all of the 00s to make up the $50,000 or so I lost out of retirement savings in the dot com bubble of the late 90s (because people in their 20s and 30s are supposed to invest aggressively, right?). Then I promptly lost it all again the past two years. (Because people in their 40s are still supposed to be invested in the market, or they risk not beating inflation, right?). Another 20 years of this cycle is going leave me with enough money to live on for a few short years-- if I'm lucky--and that's assuming I stay employed the next 20 years, which seems more and more laughable a proposition each day. I am not as pessimistic as Kunstler or even BryanS, ........ but we did just get a new law-enforcement-grade pump shotgun at the gun show this weekend. It's not as if that $600 was going to earn me any realized income.

Red makes some good points. His neighborhood is a good one for the bus. My main beef with bussing it was trying to stay presentable. I find it difficult to keep office attire looking good when battling the elements. It sounds petty, I know. Metro wouldn't be as much a hassle if I could go to work with jeans and a backpack. As it is, I schlep too much stuff, what with work bag and gym bag.

Will your wife be working from home as well? If not, it just entirely depends on where she'll be working. I lived for a few months without a car in Houston--my apartment was on Fountainview. My office was at Waugh and Allen Parkway. Taking the bus from San Felipe and Fountainview to work was an hour to and hour and 15 minutes each way (compared to 15 minutes commute each way by car through Memorial Park) Granted this was on routes years ago but the exact same ones still run today. A big grocery was 2 blocks from my place, and actually I think Rice Epicurean still has delivery service for the blue hairs, at least the the River Oaks location. I could take the bus from my current house to the same location in half that time, and would do it without much complaint if I had to, but would not be my preference. It's not the heat, it's the rain, and getting sprayed by cars running through muddy potholes. Bus stops in this city SUCK. Most don't offer cover. If she worked downtown or in the medical center, or Galleria area, renting nearby without a car would be easy enough. I would just throw down for a dependable used Corolla or something.

I agree that Discovery Green is much more deserving, but my guess is the author would say that without the convention center Hilton, we wouldn't have had the park. What an odd list. Bridgeland??? I can't figure out this guy's angle.

My resolutions were to save more money, cook more interesting and better stuff, entertain at home more often,all pass! visit my friends in San Antonio and Austin more often fail and be more affectionate to the people I care about. pass. Not on my list was quitting smoking, which (other than 3 minor cheating episodes) is a big pass! As for the perennials on my list: lose 20 pounds and keep my nails looking good, they'll just go on the bottom again this year right...... Still fat, with raggedy-ass nails. Sigh. Time to get back on the horse for 2010. I have good feelings for 2010. Not sure why. Maybe it's just a nice round number with good vibes.

Haha, makes me think of the Beastie Boys, License to Ill. Between the overly clever name and the meat-tini, I'm leaning toward it being a restaurant chain based out of either Phoenix, Denver or Dallas. Lucky for us, someone is keeping menu cliches from the late 90s alive! My guess is, it's a tiny portion of shaved tenderloin served in a martini glass. If I'm wrong and it really is some sort of Willy Wonka-ish meat drink, I would be totally impressed.

Thank you, Corn Lobby and Wal-Mart. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for this pricing meeting.

Surely someone is near to perfecting homemade injestable explosives, right? If drug mules are willing to swallow balloons filled with uncut heroin for a little cash, committed jihadists will swallow worse for their God.

Does that say tenderloin-tini ?

You're only as strong as your weakest link. The problem with screening technology is that it cannot keep up with the human propensity to find new ways to blow each other up. We're spending trillions to get beat by cavemen with IEDs in the desert. I think the single weakest link is lack of coordination among intelligence agencies, both ours and foreign. Ideally there would be just one 'list', and it would be international. But there again, intelligence is often faulty and worse, corruptible. Maybe some meaningful changes in the intelligence agency structure will come about because of this.(putting it all under "homeland security' and considering that meaningful: fail) An old Army BF of mine used to work on a lot of joint task force stuff with the DoD/ DEA and CIA, and he always complained that nothing got done because they were all more interested in a pissing match over jurisdiction than anything else.

The government is entirely capable of controlling entry via plane travel. It would involve, among other things, profiling, severe travel restrictions, and other tactics usually associated with police states. The question is, how far are we willing to go? And how much are we willing to spend on that level of security expertise in sufficient numbers? Don't discount the political influence of the airlines and associated businesses, who are in it to make a profit, not defend the borders of the US. I'm too cynical, but IMO when it comes to politics, money talks and a few hundred dead on a blown-up plane will never trump the pursuit of profits. Regarding security--the Israelis are not just experts in tactics but considered innovators in security technology, and their lobby in Washington is quite powerful. I expect we'll be hearing much more about profiling. At the risk of being indelicate, if you want to disarm and marginalize a Muslim threat --which is what this is all really about--they pretty much wrote the book. Policies and technology are only as good as the people paid to implement them, and $10 an hour employees aside, TSA policies are reactionary and useless--the result of beauracrats scrambling to come up with 'solutions' after they get their asses chewed following an incident.

Bryan just totally ruined my warm Snuggie buzz. Kenny Loggins, now that's a shame to the human race. The Snuggie rules. I spent a whole afternoon last week on the sofa rocking my Snuggie, with some bourbon, Christmas cookies and back-to-back episodes of Jersey Shore.

Or maybe the reverse. In a shocking expose of the working conditions at strip clubs, Dominique Sachse will go undercover on the pole.

Are you saying that Dave Ward is outta here??

Big plus 1. With bonus points since you stopped me from having to type a reply, which was going to be what you clarified--that live music is weak as a category next to dining and retail in a mall, and for the large part, there is no crossover appeal to the daytime retail consumer. I predict one of the newly opened resturants will be toast by year end, and at least one of the 'coming soons' won't open at all. Few capital-intensive, high-concept restaurants can survive on those razor-thin margins. With regard to your number 2--there was a really good segment on NPR a few days ago about highly concentrated shopping districts, ala the jewelry district in Manhattan. PPS. Live Nation (ands Ticketmaster, etc) is Pure Satanic Evil. MegaStreisand Evil. Just had to get that in there.....

Here's an interesting story of the reverse of petty parking lot crime: A couple of month's ago I had finished shooping at the West Gray Krog's and was driving toward the lot exit. I saw a cart by itself at the end of the row, with a purse sitting in the the little front compartment. Figuring a lost purse really sucks, I stopped and got it. I rifled around in it and decide to check to wallet for the owner anme and address, then used the cell phone to call someone with the same last name and told them I would leave the purse with the store manager. The thing is, the ladies grocery receipt was in there, and her purse had been sitting alone in the parking lot for nearly an hour! And she had an i-phone, a jillion credit cards, and about 200 in cash. I was just amazed that in an hour's time no one took the bag.

I wish there was more thought put into pedestrian mobility, and by that I don't mean pedestrian-to-train, but for people like me who prefer to park in one spot and have walking access to stuff within a quarter mile or so of the intersection. Especially at the intersection of Westheimer and Post Oak. How nice it would be to park, then have a ped skywalk on all sides of the intersection. That wasy I can buy shoes at DSW, go over to Barnes and Noble, over to Galleria 1/2, Neimans or Dillards, and back over to eat at the deli without delays at lights, and without risking life and limb at street level. Transit planners should focus more on people who are just walking, and not herd them through the same intersections as trains and cars. Do the uptown line plans account for this, and I just didn't look closely enough?

Someone's happy hour was better than ours: remember the girl in the very small gold dress who made such an entrance? Apparently she was doing her best Sharon Stone impersonation at the bar.