If you know someone who works for Continental Airlines — and if you live around here, we're pretty sure you do — they might need some consoling soon. The Houston-based carrier announced this morning that it will cut 3,000 jobs and slash domestic capacity by 11 percent, a response to the rising fuel prices that are wreaking havoc throughout the airline industry: "While there have been several successful fare increases, those increases haven't been sufficient......

By now, you've probably heard the news that Houston-based Continental Airlines has decided not to merge with another carrier right away — but, of course, that doesn't mean Continental won't look into a deal down the road. "We have significant cultural, operational and financial strengths compared to the rest of the industry, and we want to protect and enhance those strengths — which we believe would be placed at risk in a merger with another carrier......

Running a start-up business can be one of the most stressful things in the world; a crushing weight of expectations and hopes, the investments (both monetary and personal) that must be made worthwhile, all conspire to exert considerable pressure on the entrepenuer. Competition is always a serious issue, too: what if someone out there is already performing your job? What if they're better than you? How do you compete, and compete smart? What if your......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Web Based Business Startup School The Houston Technology Center is starting a series of classes on Web Based Businesses. The first class is Wednesday, March 12, 2008 from 12pm to 1pm. The guest speaker will be Kevin Lacobie Founder and Chief Officer of Agoric Source, LLC. Seating is limited so make your reservations now. Living The iLife Next Saturday, the Houston Area Apple Users Group will......

>> Two Houston Area Offshore Drilling Companies Win Big: The oil and money are flowing freely for two drilling companies based in Houston. A report in the Houston Business Journal, lists 2007 revenue for mammoth behemoth, Transocean closed out at $3.1 billion. The company also announced a $586 million contract extension with client Anadarko, another Houston company. The HBJ also reports that The Rowan Companies also inked a three year deal. The Rowan deal......

The Houston Business Journal reported that the Texas State Hotel has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently in the building is Club Quarters Hotel, but they weren't mentioned by name in the brief article even though the company applied for the register listing. The Texas State is a the corner of Fannin and Rusk and opened in 1929. Joseph Finger was the primary architect, and the cast terracotta detailing he often......

The Houston Business Journal picked up this story yesterday, and while we're over-joyed, we can't say that we're all that surprised. We knew those Rice kids were up to something sustainable. A team of Rice students lead by Roque Sanchez and David Dewane have won $100,000 and permission to compete in the US Department of Energy's fourth Solar Decathlon in Washington D.C. Rice will be joined by a number of other schools and each......

Good morning, Houston. We freely admit that we don't like bugs, so we've tried quite a few home extermination methods — but we've never blown the roof off our house while doing it like Patricia Espiricueta of Galveston did. It seems Espiricueta was fed up with her home's roach problem, so she set off five bug bombs and left the house. While she was gone, the fumes hit a pilot light and exploded, lifting......

Good morning, Houston. Remember the plans for the Dynamo stadium on the east side of downtown? And remember Metro's plans for two new light rail lines heading out from the east side of downtown? Turns out there's a question about whether the stadium will be in the way of the rail lines — and it's not clear yet whether the proposed stadium will have an effect on the rail alignments. "We are evaluating a......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Apple Swap Meet Next Weekend It's coming! The Houston Area Apple Users Group semi-annual swap meet is happening next weekend, January 26th at the UH Hilton. Please check the HAAUG site for registration information and fees. Good luck finding that Apple Newton or Lisa you've been looking for! Sprint Nextel To Close 35 Retail Stores In Houston From the Houston Business Journal come this interesting news......

The Dynamo are in a quandry. On the heels of winning their second consecutive MLS Cup, they're at the center of a dispute with the MLS. The Orange are owned by AEG, an entertainment conglomerate owned by Phil Anschutz. AEG used to own close to half of the teams in MLS, but are now down to just our all-conquering hometown boys, and the pretty boy-signing LA Galaxy. The MLS is ready for AEG to shed......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. The $199 PC Dwight Silverman reviews the Everex/Google $199 PC whose target market includes low-income and first-time PC buyers. The Kids Are Alright The Houston Business Journal covers the emergence of Gen Y's in the modern workforce and the specific needs of this generation of workers. Must Be Jelly Cause Jam Don't Work Like That Have you heard of Jelly? "Jelly is an every-so-often casual coworking......

Americans for the Arts' Vice President Policy and Research, Randy Cohen, makes a trip to Houston today to discuss economic impact of the arts results from a recent Cultural Impact Study, which Mayor Bill White formally introduced at the Business of the Arts Luncheon hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership in September. You can view a copy of the study here. This morning's discussion will convey how arts organizations can utilize the findings to......

So many good shows this week, that we don’t have enough space to highlight all of them. Tonight, our pick is the pure pop sounds of Office tonight at The Mink (congratulations to Cynthia for winning tickets through us!). Singer/songwriter fans will have a touch choice Thursday night – Ryan Adams makes a rare Houston appearance at Verizon Wireless and former Toad the Wet Sprocket front man Glen Phillips plays two shows at the......

Good morning, Dynamo fans. Ready to see the Orange in the MLS playoffs again? Well, playoff tickets will go on sale at 10 this morning. Depending on where the Dynamo finish in the standings, the team will play in the Western Conference semifinal match at Robertson Stadium either Oct. 27 or Nov. 3; pick your tickets up at Ticketmaster or the Dynamo's website. >> The scandal effect: TSU's enrollment has fallen to its lowest......

Houstonist recently kept you abreast of the “Humberto Incident”, where a low pressure system in the Gulf strengthened in less than 24 hours and slammed ashore, with sustainable wind gusts of 85 mph as a Category 1 hurricane, near High Island, causing power outages, localized flooding and wind damage. When storms give you little warning – the choice is already made for you to shelter in place. The media here is rife with preparedness information......

Good morning, Houston. At Houstonist world headquarters, our e-mail boxes are graced almost daily with offers from people who want to move millions of dollars to U.S. bank accounts and allow us to take a huge share of the money just for helping — eh, all in a day. But there's a new e-mail in the same vein floating around now: It comes from someone claiming to be Michelle Kristine Kraiser, the "the Confidential......

So, Houstonians, you think energy prices are higher than a proverbial cats back? We can power our world on biodiesel, wind turbines and solar power? You have the opportunity to experience what it takes to power a city of 3.9 million, courtesy of Chevron and the publisher of Economist magazine. So, bang here to try your hand at running "Energyville" and learn a little about energy supplies. Here's a blip from the Chronicle that gives......

So what are you doing the weekend of September 28th - 30th? How about hanging out with a bunch of techies, drinking beer and starting an entire company - you foxy entrepreneur you. The very first Startup Weekend Houston is going down at the end of September and could potentially be a good story to tell your minions once you've conquered the business world. An interesting experiment, this, a group of people gather and......

So here's something interesting for people who keep track of abandoned downtown buildings: The Houston Business Journal reports that Omni Hotels has plans to revamp the old Sheraton-Lincoln into a luxury suite hotel. The 28-story hotel at 717 Polk Ave. opened in 1962 and closed in 1986; according to the folks at the Houston Architecture Forum, the nearby Hyatt Regency bought the building in the late 1990s for a proposed expansion, but that deal fell......

Earlier this year, we talked about the downtown real estate boom: One Park Place, the apartment tower under construction at the edge of Discovery Green; Houston Pavilions, the retail and office complex being built on Main Street; and a few skyscrapers in the planning stages. Well, the Houston Business Journal reported on one of those proposed new buildings Friday: a 47-story skyscraper being planned by Hines in the 800 block of Main Street. There......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. City-wide Wi-Fi Is Coming, Protect Yourself A recent story in the Chronicle states that city-wide wifi will require users to download tools to help protect themselves while online. The Tech Buzz feels that the responsibility falls on the user to protect themselves while online regardless if the wifi is free or belongs to the city. Everyone should take precautions and be careful when transmitting sensitive data......

Good morning, Houston. The bad news: You've missed your chance to see the International Space Station this morning as it orbits above Texas. (We suppose it's only bad news if you're interested in seeing the space station — if you're not, hey, you won't be disappointed!) The good news: You'll have three more opportunities before the end of the week. The ISS will be visible at 4:08 a.m. Thursday (for nearly four minutes, beginning......

The Chronicle has a few more details today about the proposed Houston Dynamo stadium downtown — but not many. What we know: It would be an open-air stadium seating somewhere around 22,000 people, and it would likely be built on Minute Maid Park's parking lot C, the six-square-block lot on the other side of Highway 59 from the baseball stadium. Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Dynamo, would pay most of the construction costs, and......

Saturday marks the "piece de resistance" of Art Car Weekend - The Art Car Parade! Houstonist is singing "I Love a Parade" in our very best Ethel Merman voice in celebration of this event (normally, we stick to "There's No Business Like Show Business"). The world's largest and oldest parade of its kind makes its way into downtown on Allen Parkway for the 20th year to an anticipated crowd of over 200,000 people. This year's......

Out of curiosity, have you tried to book a hotel anywhere in Houston this week? Checked out the prices? Wondered why all rooms have gone up by a hundred dollars or so? If you don't know what we're getting on about, then you probably don't work in the energy industry, and you probably don't know that the OTC (Offshore Technology Conference) is going on this week. The convention is currently taking up the entire......

Jack Valenti, the long-time head of the Motion Picture Association of America and Houston native passed away today at his home in Washington. He was 85 and still suffering the effects of a stroke he had in March. Valenti was born in Houston to Sicilian immigrants in 1921, growing up on the still unpaved streets of the 1st Ward. He traced his love of movies to a string of jobs working in downtown Houston movie......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. HelpLine: Outlook Freak Out Jay Lee over at The Chronicle's HelpLine helps a reader who's Outlook email app is opening mulitple windows. Click here for the solution to this wacky reader debacle. Ugliest Building in the World? Someone placed a story on Digg about The Ugliest Building in the World. Yup, that's the Federal Reserve Bank Building on Allen Parkway. Ugly? Maybe, but Houstonist is just......

Service Corporation International, the Houston-based funeral-services giant, has found another way to rake in piles of money from the families of the dead honor the cultural heritage of its community: At its Forest Park Westheimer cemetery, SCI has built Houston's first feng shui-designed burial ground. The feng shui-compliant area of Forest Park Westheimer is arranged in circles centered on a pond, allowing the more than 1,700 plots to face all eight of the compass points......

Remember when a former identity thief found a bunch of personal documents in a Dumpster behind a closed CVS store in Liberty back in late March? So does Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who filed suit against CVS yesterday, accusing the company of failing to protect its customers' personal information. About 1,000 records — with information including credit card and Social Security numbers — were found March 19, and though Abbott said his office hasn't......