Yesterday was the second of the Super Tuesdays for this Presidential Election year and included primary elections in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont. Houstonist could careless about who wins. We're just excited to see the record turnout at the polls. We all win when that happens. Congratulations, Houston, and all you Texans that don't live in our kickass town. According to Wikipedia - stop laughing - Super Tuesday...refers to the Tuesday in February......

>> 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 2008 NBA All Star team starting lineups were announced yesterday, and Houston’s very own Yao Ming proved to be a fan favorite. The Rockets’ big man was voted in as the starting center for the Western Conference squad, ahead of such luminaries as Amare Stoudemire (2nd leading vote-getter amongst Western Conference centers), reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year - Marcus Camby (3rd), and Pau Gasol (6th). Yao was selected to start in the......

• Whooping Cough is at its highest levels since the 1950's and local hospitals are inoculating parents and family members in an attempt to help stop the spread of this infection. • Three thieves stole $16,000 during a northwest Houston robbery at a Food Fair grocery store. • A man and a woman are both dead after an apparent murder-suicide last night. The incident occurred on Chewe Street near Hershe Street around 12:30 a.m.......

Houston, Rockets, basketball, McGrady, NBA, All Star...

She's back Houstonist! Taucha Hogue has advanced to the championship round for College Cheerleader of the Year and she needs your vote! Taucha squares of against Arkansas' Laura Cole and she currently trails 54% to 46% as of Monday night. Ok, Taucha, here we are in championship round. Are you starting to feel the pressure of being in the BIG game? There is pressure out there for the fact there are so many people......

Houstonist interviewed the darling of the Bayou City last week, Taucha Hogue, as she was in the quarterfinals for the College Cheerleader of Year Award. Now, after a convincing win over Mississippi St., Taucha has advanced into the Final Four against Kansas. Houstonist will continue to follow Taucha as she looks to capture the coveted crown as Cheerleader of the Year. Congrats on moving on to the Final Four. Do you find yourself doing......

CBSSports.com hand-picked 16 cheerleaders around the nation and decided to hold a College Cheerleader of the Week Playoff system with the winner being crowned College Cheerleader of the Year on January 21. UH's Taucha Hogue defeated what Southern Cal had to offer in the first round and now she's in the quarterfinals. Hogue took time out of her busy schedule to chat with Houstonist. First off, please give us some information about your high......

While you're sitting around nursing your hangovers watching football today, how about taking a minute to give some love to our friends over at Austinist? Our sister-ist is in the running for austin360.com's "A-List," in which people vote for the best stuff in the city — and oddly enough, austin360 itself is on the list, which we think is just a little tacky. All the more reason to vote -ist! So here's what you do:......

Good morning, Houston. We admit that we have a thing for interview shows, so we thought we'd take a second to note that NBC's Meet the Press, the king of Sunday morning TV news, made its television debut 60 years ago today. Meet the Press began life as a radio show in 1945 and moved to TV a couple of years later, and it hasn't stopped since. Now, MtP is the longest-running show on......

Good morning, Houston. Time to flex your democratic muscle again: Early voting begins today for the Nov. 6 election. You can check out a map of early voting locations here and get more information on where and how to vote from the Harris County elections website — so now, you can't say you haven't been informed. See you at the polls! >> For some, a flood of bad news: If you're a property owner......

As part of HBO’s The Comedy Festival, a contest known as The Lucky 21 was created. The premise of the contest is to spotlight the upcoming comedians from around the country. Tomorrow night the Southwest Regional finals will take place for The Lucky 21 at the Houston Improv, after which you can vote for your favorite comedian. Think of it as seeing a reality TV show in person. Voting for the comedians begins on October......

What did you do this weekend? A little yard work? Catch up on TIVO shows? Maybe threw a couple of steaks on the grill while watching the pigskin being thrown around? Even if you accomplished ALL of that in the last two days, you still pale in comparasion to a group of entrepreneurial Houstonians who, by the end of today, will have conceived, created, and organized a new company, all in the span of this......

Yea yea, so there are plenty of websites out there that offer reviews, rankings and information on Houston restaurants. But the problem for Houstonist is that we have to go to more than one to get the information we want. We've finally discovered a website that we actually like. Check out Urbanspoon, a new website covering Houston area restaurants. Like the –ists, Urbanspoon covers many cities around the world. As one of the best food......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. [All of today's questions are from "JB" of Houston. Thanks for writing in, JB! As for the other eleven Houstonist readers - I'm still waiting to hear from you.] Who should have control of what we watch on TV at home - my roommate, whose TV it is, or me since I own the house? Assuming your roommate is paying rent and thus......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness – we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

No, it's not by driving as fast as we can around loop 610, but it does include city-wide celebrations, all hoping for the same thing: No rain. Here are a few of the events we'll be checking out tomorrow. Where will you be? Tell us, maybe we'll ditch our plans and join you. But probably not. >>Freedom Over Texas Festival Houston's Official 4th of July Celebration. Chevy presents a concert and Independence Day celebration at......

If there's one thing we love, it's an election. And the city has been obliging lately. Melissa Noriega and Roy Morales, the two candidates left standing after last month's special election to fill a vacant at-large city council seat, traded remarks on immigration as early voting began yesterday. Noriega, the clear favorite after garnering 47% of the vote in May, accused Morales of using "fear as a tactic to try to get people worked up."......

Good morning, Houston. We hope you got your fill of the Texas Legislature, because the 80th session is officially over. Your Senators and Representatives have been hard at work since January, passing lots of bills and making even more news, and now they'll be taking a break. The Houston contingent did us proud, from strip club taxes to baby-selling to overcoming liver transplants. We hope all the Texas political blogs can survive until 2009.......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

If there's one thing we love, it's a good political faux pas. Houston Rep. Ted Poe delivered for us when he quoted a KKK leader on the House floor, and the entire blogosphere threw up a little bit in its mouth. You can view the video of Poe's comments here. According to Wikipedia, Nathan Bedford Forrest, whom Poe quoted, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, but he is remembered largely for......

Due to a number of problems that have already been reported with early voting, several counties are ready to get rid of the voting records system used in Texas because it is too flawed. The system, TEAM, began operating in January in order to comply with federal regulations on centralizing voting information across the state. Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said that the new database is "causing statewide voting problems" and that "it's a......

The emergency meeting of the remaining Texas Southern University regents Monday morning ended up not panning out after all when only three of nine voting regents attended, meaning the group didn't make quorum — perhaps because Board of Regents Chairwoman Belinda Griffin had submitted the regents' resignations to Gov. Rick Perry on Friday. But if the regents have already resigned, why were they planning to meet yesterday? Add that to the ever-growing list of questions......

Good morning, Houston. So here's something cool to look forward to for the next two years: In mid-2009, 20 of the famed terra cotta warriors of Xi'an will be on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The exhibition will run from May 18 to Sept. 25; until then, you can visit the local knockoff, which is quite impressive in its own right. >> Early voting begins today: Harris County voters will be......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

In case you couldn’t tell, Houstonist is a big fan of our local soccer club, the Dynamo. This past Saturday the Dynamo got their first MLS win of the season by defeating Chivas USA 1-0 in a rematch of the 2006 Western Conference Semi-finals. Although it was a cold evening of soccer, the players seemed to be fired up with 4 yellow cards issued in the game. The match really heated up in the......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ists? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

As expected, transportation consultant and former state representative Ed Emmett took over as Harris County judge yesterday, replacing outgoing judge Robert Eckels. Emmett won the post on a 4-1 vote of the county Commssioners Court: The only "no" vote came from Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, who said she was voting against Emmett because she preferred to appoint someone who wouldn't seek to be elected to the office next year. Garcia later changed her vote to make......