Results tagged “standup”

Houston is very under-rated compared to a lot of cities, however when it comes to live stand-up comedy we get some of the best acts around. In this new Houstonist feature we hope to provide some insight to great live comedy (and 2 drink minimums) around town. This week’s acts include: Stand Up for Peace at Fitzgeralds [9/21]. Local Houston comedians take the stage for a ‘Comic Relief’ about the situation in Iraq. Comedy...

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. I'm a 32 year-old man, and I've never been in a fight. A real fist fight, with bloody noses and all that. Have I missed out on something, some necessary, primal step in my adolescent development that would have turned me into a he-man? Should I go pick a fight (preferably with a teenage girl or an elderly person)? Would it do any...

Good morning, Houston. You might want to grab a drink before you get started on this morning's news: According to KHOU, a shift toward growing corn in Mexico could lead to a spike in the price of tequila. It seems a lot of Mexican farmers are getting rid of their blue agave fields to make way for corn, which is in demand thanks to the growing popularity of ethanol — and as the amount...

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...

Something we missed over the weekend in the story of the city vs. The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation: On Sunday, the Chronicle published a letter from former City Attorney John Wildenthal about agreements the city had made with social service agencies like The Center. You may remember that the Chron talked with Wildenthal, who served as city attorney from 1964 to 1966 under Mayor Louie Welch, about the situation last week, and...

The drive-by shooting that killed a 13-year-old Houston middle school student early Saturday morning was likely a case of mistaken identity stemming from a pair of gang fights, police said yesterday. HPD Sgt. Brian Harris said there had been two large gang-related fights at the Butler Skating Rink, 14083 Main St., where Cornisha McCowan and friends attended a dance Friday night. At around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, McCowan's brother-in-law, Sam Monroe, picked McCowan and his stepdaughter...

Ubiquitous Richmond Avenue rail opponent Daphne Scarborough has pulled out a new weapon in her fight against the light rail expansion that she says would destroy her livelihood and her street: Scarborough has sued Metro, claiming that the transit agency has broken a "contract with the voters" established by the 2003 passage of the Metro Solutions referendum. Scarborough's focus in the suit isn't solely the contentious Richmond light rail alignment, but that's certainly a part of it: The suit claims that Metro has isn't complying with the terms of the referendum because the western section of the proposed University light rail line won't run totally on Westpark. Scarborough said she's filing suit because she has tried to talk with Metro for three years and has gotten nowhere: "I can't seem to get any straight answers," she said.

What's Governor Perry doing in the Middle East? Lone Star Times has the scoop. His first order of business was to help dedicate a new Texas A&M University campus in Qatar. The campus takes up a sprawling 2,500 acres and is part of a deal between the Qatar Foundation and A&M to provide a full, four-year degree program in mechanical, electrical, chemical and petroleum engineering. We wonder if it'll make Qatar's top party schools list....

We all have certain words that offend us, right? So we go through life not using those words and hoping other people will extend us the same courtesy — but that's not enough for Ken Corley, the mayor of Brazoria, who is leading a charge to outlaw use of the word "nigger" in his city. If Corley's proposal becomes a city ordinance, certain uses of the word within Brazoria's city limits would be punishable by a fine of up to $500.

On Sundays, Houstonist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in Houston. The opinions expressed below are entirely those of the author. Happy December 31st! Since our resolutions pretty much stay the same from one year to the next (lose weight, get a better job, spend more time with the kids, get the drinking under control, stand up to that troll under the bridge), we need another way to note the passage of time. People in...

Before we begin, we'd like to extend our deepest sympathies to the family of James Kim. We are not, by any means, trying to discount that tragedy by juxtaposing posts about the Kims with more light-hearted posts. It's the nature of doing a compilation such as this one: we're trying to give a full slice of the goings-on in the Ist-a-Verse: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Londonist wants you to know where to...

So, just short of a month after a group of local janitors went on strike to demand higher wages and health benefits, the strike seems to be over: The striking janitors and the city's five major cleaning companies reaches a tentative agreement yesterday. Which means the strike was a success, right? Well, yes. And no.

Those striking janitors sure have been busy lately: Earlier this week some of them hit the road to take their crusade for higher wages to other cities, and today some others hit the road — literally — blocking a busy Uptown intersection for a couple of hours. It happened at Westheimer and Post Oak at about 1:30 p.m., when protesters dragged a bunch of garbage cans and trash bags into the intersection, formed a circle around them and handcuffed themselves to each other and the cans. According to KPRC, police showed up and directed traffic for a while; at 2:30, they closed the intersection and started breaking the crowd up. Twelve people were arrested and may face Class B misdemeanor charges for obstructing a pathway. The roads re-opened by 3 p.m.

So here's a novel idea: building homes that are hurricane-resistant. Houstonist thought — hoped, really — that out house was built to resist hurricanes, but according to KTRK, a new group of houses going up at Port Bolivar are the first in Texas specifically designed to stand up to the storms. Which means:

There's been no peace of mind for our friends in Texas City lately: First they had to deal with exploding apartments, then Jesse Jackson came back, and now there's word that the city's levee system might not stand up to a powerful hurricane, which could affect nearly 5 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity and thousands of homes. And we thought the Jesse Jackson thing was bad! The Chronicle looked at the Texas...

A group is trying to get the city charter changed to allow HPD officers to get more involved in immigration enforcement by removing a policy that prevents officers from asking people about their immigration status and giving them access to federal databases. The group, Protect Our Citizens, kicked off a petition drive yesterday at City Hall to try to get the 20,000 signatures required to put the measure on the November ballot. Under HPD's current...

So here's one of the more interesting news stories from the weekend: the one about Sgt. Jack Oliver, the HPD officer who's undergoing a sex change. Oliver, who works out of the Fondren Division, has been with the force for almost 25 years; four months ago, he began taking hormone treatments, and that's what started getting him attention from his fellow cops. As KHOU reports, "he's soft-spoken, his hair is longer and his face appears smooth."

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the...

The Texas Southern University regents voted Monday to fire President Priscilla Slade on grounds that she spent nearly $650,000 in the past seven years on expenses not allowed under her contract. The regents had planned to meet May 5 to decide what to do about Slade, but the meeting was moved to yesterday after Slade defied the board's instructions and started her own carefully controlled media campaign.

Torontoist throws down the gauntlet and challenges all comers: pillow fight, bitch. They also stand up for a fellow blogger taking heat from the TTC and welcome city-wide WiFi. SFist can finally admit it: It's possible that Bary Bonds juiced. Is Bay Area artist (tempted to put quotes around that) Thomas Kinkaid "kinda crappy" or "explosively crappy" or does he just like marking territory? SFist wonders. Technology comes in the form of new Mac goodness...

After Wired ran a story documenting the GoogleCenter of the United States a bunch of ists jumped on the opportunity to figure out their own middle. Gothamist, Chicagoist, Bostonist and Seattlest all zoomed in on their creamy GoogleCenters. A crack cartography team is hard at work determining the GoogleCenter of the Ist-a-verse as you read this... Austinist read a book about Olympian Bode Miller and liked it. They also took a few pictures of the...

Add Ken Lay to your list of things to be thankful for this holiday season. Remember how he put Houston on the corporate scandal map? How he dutifully sacrificed some of his homes and cars to show that he's just like you and me? And yesterday, Lay saved us from the horrors of a potentially Enron-free holiday season with a highly entertaining luncheon speech.