There’s been an unfortunate oversight in this week’s Press celebrating all-things Houston. Somehow, we failed to include the category Best Fountain That Appears To Be Bubbling Liquid Poop. The winner: Bob and Vivian Smith Fountain at Polk and Smith.
Did anybody else see this today? Ich. – Todd Spivak
What $13 gets you: The freshest food at the best value in all of midtown.
Figuring out how to drop $13 at Cali is no easy task. After all, the giant sandwiches cost a mere $2 apiece. That’s right, $2. Meaning $13 at Cali can comfortably feed six. Take that, McDonald’s!
I went a different route, ordering takeout for me and my gal. Our favorite entrees are the grilled pork and egg rolls with vermicelli ($4.60) and stir-fried tofu and vegetables with vermicelli ($4.60). But these are best eaten at the restaurant, somehow losing their appeal on the traffic-choked ride home. And, anyway, what’s the point of getting takeout when you have to reheat? So instead I got two grilled pork sandwiches ($2 apiece) an order of spring rolls ($4) and a durian smoothie to split ($2).
Regardless, Miss Pop Rocks has to admit “The Sarah Silverman Program” on Comedy Central is worth catching, and she’s got a sneak preview of the next season, which debuts October 2. Yes, Miss Pop Rocks is so important as to get advance screenings! (Actually, the Press just got a DVD in the mail and sent it to me when no one else claimed it.)
Houstoned: You’re kind of known for being really good at roasting people. What are your thoughts on it? I mean, do they give you the list of people who are going to be there and you sit and contemplate the best way to make fun of them?
Greg Giraldo: I just had that thought this morning. You know, I like doing them in the sense they that they get a lot of exposure, people seem to really love them and they are funny, but on the other hand there are times when I step back and go, “Shouldn’t I maybe be using my gifts for good?” [Laughs.] There are times when I think, if I put this much work into writing my act, wouldn’t I have a joke that was more meaningful than how giant Bridgette Nielsen’s vagina is?
Maybe instead of doing your standup you could play your clips from the roast on a loop …
Yeah, maybe not even do any stand up. That’s also another thing, somebody like Lisa Lampanelli, for example, has created a whole persona based on the roast person. So, her whole act is kind of a roast and that’s not really my act so, in a way, that’s a bit of drag. But, you know, they’re great also because people see them and they become fans and they come out and they like my standup and it kind of brings new people into my stand up.
So it does help? I remember, at the Flava Flav Roast, Jimmy Kimmel said something about how you killed, but once again it would lead to nothing. But on the other hand, you’ve really become sort of a Comedy Central darling.
Well, right. In the context of a roast you could see how I’d be a zero as compared to Jimmy Kimmel, for example, so I certainly don’t take any offense to that.
When you made fun of Carrot Top, I thought of how many comedians would probably love to have that opportunity. But is it harder to make fun of somebody like Dane Cook or Carlos Mencia – somebody who is known for being hated amongst comedians? Would it be harder because it’s hard to think it isn’t personal?
He’s been on a Metro binge lately, and – well, the pickings have been somewhat slim.
Metro execs are overpaid; fine, do a report on them and list the salaries. (Spokeswoman Raequel Roberts? She gets $103,000 a year.)
But – somehow – Wayne has become incensed that Metro employees get to ride the bus for free.
From the report:
Robert Earl Keen? Gatemouth Brown? Lucinda Williams? Guy Clark? Scarface? Willie Nelson? Freddy Fender? Esther Phillips? Archie Bell? Big Moe? Yep, they're all on there.
Blue October and Nickelback? Nope. Sorry. You'll have to check this list to find them. -- Keith Plocek
Good news for folks who, in the late ’90s, got drunk, got sentimental, and, along with their best friend (and much of the population), got tattooed with one of those silly Chinese symbols and really have no idea what said symbol means, but are marked with it – such a sign of the times! – on their lower back forever, or until they come up with the cash for removal. Not that we, um, know anyone in that position.
Let me back up. Maureen McCormick, better known as Teen Queen and all-around popular girl Marcia Brady, has written a soon-to-be-published tell-all entitled “Here’s the Story,” which supposedly reveals her “Brady Bunch” backstage dalliances with Eve Plumb. Eve, as you may recall, played the totally neurotic and painfully insecure Jan Brady. (Guess which Brady girl Miss Pop Rocks identified with?)
If you want more dirty details, you can go here, or just Google 'Marcia Jan gay?!?' like I did. I’m kinda freakin’ out about this, but before you go accusing me of not loving lesbians and gays, shut your mouth. I looooove me some gays and have attended my share of Pride Parades where I once screamed out my never-to-be-returned love to Chad Allen.
Why does this year's Best Of Houston® feature a category for Best Regular Public Speaker at City Council Meetings? Well, do you know of any other city where council members are attacked with eggs?
Listeners have been encouraged to join up, the more the merrier.
So it was with some sheepishness that he had to announce this morning that someone hacked into his system and sent out a message to his “friends.”
At Sushi Jin restaurant on Memorial, they get their hamachi via Air Japan from the Tokyo fish market. It sounds incredible, but as the market for seafood becomes increasingly globalized, Tokyo has become everybody’s Central Market for fish.
Each morning, tens of thousands of tons of seafood from every ocean on the planet converge for a few hours at the Tsukiji, as the Tokyo fish market is known, to be quickly auctioned to the highest bidder and whisked away by jet.
Back in the oil-boom days, the joke used to be that the building crane was the official bird of Houston. (Yeah, it was a shitty joke, but how good do real-estate jokes ever get?)
The crane is making a comeback in the city, thanks in part to outrageous oil-company profits. Our town is littered with empty lots that are being transformed into what developers promise will be hip, trendy places.
Which developer shows the most promise, at least as far as “artist’s renderings” go? What will be the hot new destination for Houstonians when the cranes finish their work?
Check out the Best of Houston™ to find out.
Hanson got the idea after reading the book that inspired the movie Artificial Intelligence:AI. Whereas some people who saw that movie might’ve walked away with the feeling that inventing humanoid robots would be a moral morass, Hanson’s apparent reaction was: Fuck yeah! He named his prototype after his 18-month-old son, Zeno. Because, you know, there’s absolutely nothing creepy about that. If you read nothing else from the article, at least check this: "During a recent demonstration, Zeno could barely stand and had to be tethered to a bank of PCs that told it how to smile, frown, act surprised or wrinkle its nose in anger." A robot that feigns anger? We have been warned. – Craig Malisow
Picking the Best Restaurant in Houston is no easy chore. Just to be fair, we try to consider every single taco truck, hot dog stand and Whataburger within the city limits. And then we start drinking our way through taverns that serve microwave pizzas. In the end, we usually give the honors to the place where we find ourselves when the deadline hits. This year, it was a joint right down the street from our favorite tattoo parlor. (Got ink?)
