Morning Roundup: Volume, volume, volume edition

Good morning, Houston. Seems like everyone's listening to iPods these days, eh? And even if you don't have one of the near-ubiquitous mp3 players, all might not be peace and quiet: As the AP notes, iPod-related noise pollution is a growing problem. It can happen in several ways, including people who turn their iPods up to top volume and others who sing along with the music in their heads. Bbut there are ways to deal with it, experts say. Anna Post of the Emily Post Institute talked about one story she'd heard in which a woman asked a fellow subway rider who was listening to an iPod at high volume to turn the volume down, but the passenger ignored her — so the woman started singing along with the music. "And all of a sudden, boy, did that iPod get shut off," Post said. "A little social shame can go a long way."

>> City emergency staff: We missed out on overtime settlement: A year after the city finished paying out a $79.7 million settlement to city emergency personnel seeking overtime pay they say they didn't get, a new group of 46 paramedics and EMTs have filed suit for their share, claiming they, too, weren't paid. "They worked over 40 hours, but they didn't get paid the overtime," attorney Kristopher Ahn said. "These are people who take care of us in an emergency, and they are entitled to get paid for the time that they work." Though the federal Fair Labor Standards Act stipulates that overtime be paid at 1.5 times the regular pay rate after 40 hours of work a week, the city claims EMS workers fall under an exemption for police officers and firefighters: "Anybody out in the field working emergency operation would be exempt from the 40-hour work week," assistant city attorney Tim Higley said.

>> Did we miss the memo about the demolition derby?: Looks like it was one of those weekends when it was probably a good idea to stay off the roads (or, for that matter, to avoid vehicles altogether). Things kicked off Friday night, when a man driving in circles in an apartment complex parking lot crashed into a woman sitting on her porch, sending her to the hospital — that should have been our first sign. On Saturday afternoon, a man was killed in northwest Houston when he ran into oncoming traffic, and later that night, a suspected drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into an HISD police car in northeast Houston. Oops. Then, early yesterday morning, a driver on Almeda-Genoa jumped a railroad track and died when her SUV rolled over. Wonder if anyone's selling an armored car on Craigslist?

>> And you thought your laundry bill was high: Ever wondered what it would cost to dry clean clothes for a giant? (Come on, we know you have.) Well, now there's an answer: right around $600, which is the total for cleaning Big Tex's clothes. You know Big Tex — he's the 52-foot-tall icon of the State Fair of Texas, and his blue jeans, Western-style shirt and bandana have to look their best when the fair opens. Dee & Hattie Specialty Cleaners of Dallas handles the job, which takes quite a while to complete (washing Tex's jeans takes 90 minutes, and drying them takes an entire day). It's all in a day's work for the folks at Dee & Hattie's, though: "He's one of our biggest celebrities," the cleaners' production manager, Jeff Barnes, told The Dallas Morning News. Get it?

>> This week's weather: The good news is that it looks like we're going to dry out this week — finally. The bad news: Once the rain moves out, summer will hit with a vengeance. Look for highs in the mid-to-upper 90s all week, with the heat index hovering in the low 100s each afternoon. We'll kick things off today with partly cloudy skies and a high of 95; tonight, look for the clouds to dissipate as the temperature drops into the upper 70s.

Remember, drink lots of water and read plenty of news ...