Blogs

You’ve probably heard by now of the Ebonics dictionary put out by an HISD police officer last May.

The school district wasn’t exactly lightning-quick in moving to take any action, but now they’re saying all the proper things, how this will not be tolerated, wrongdoers will be published, blah, blah, blah.

But you may not have seen the actual pamphlet, except for some quick glimpses on TV.

So here it is. Improve your street cred! Learn that “befo” means “before"! – Richard Connelly

If you’ve never had the “gingery” tofu vermicelli at Jenni’s Noodle House, then it’s unlikely life holds much meaning for ya.

This is a dish I regularly crave and regularly purchase from cute-as-hell Jenni and her equally cute hubby. There’s something about the combo of ginger, jalapeño, peanuts, fried tofu, greenage and noodles that’s more addictive than the damn Internet. You can order it either at their old location on Jefferson and Hutchins, or at their brand spanking new one (!) at the corner of West Alabama and Shepherd.

While you’re at it, say something outrageous and see if you can make it onto Jenni’s Web site’s “gossip page,” which features quotes from customers such as, “Are you sure your husband Scott is straight?” and “I’m NEVER going to Mai’s again!” – Cathy Matusow

Where: Potbelly Sandwich Works, 3800 Southwest Freeway, 832-675-0500

What $13 gets you: A filling lunch for two.

Standing in line at Potbelly, waiting to place an order, you may find yourself toe-tapping to what appears to be a good, high-quality bootleg of some crooning cover singer doing everything from Petty to Cobain to early Joe Jackson. Then, looking up, you see the musician seated in the balcony with a guitar and mike.

The live music is just one of the things that separates Potbelly from Subway, Quizno’s, Jimmy John’s and all the rest of the corporate, you-choose-the-fixings sandwich shops. The privately owned and operated Chicago-based franchise – which has three Houston locations and a fourth planned to open next year in Sugar Land – offers tasty sammiches, hand-dipped ice cream and a relaxed, hip décor that would make it a draw on any college campus.

It’s time again to fraternize with our enemies. Okay, so maybe the folks at Houstonist.com aren’t arch rivals – in fact they’re more like people who just also do what we do and try to capture the same readers we do – but it’s not like we’re competing or anything, right?

Hmm… All this confusion is making us thirsty. Well, it’s a good thing Houstonist is sponsoring another pub crawl. (Yes, that’s what we were trying to get at with all of this.) The crawl is to celebrate Houston’s 171st Birthday – but, wait wasn’t that yesterday?

“We didn’t think it would be a good idea to have pub crawl on a Thursday,” says Houstonist editor Jim Parsons.

“We’re focusing on bars in historic buildings in the Market Square area because that was really the original downtown Houston,” says Parsonist. “So, we’re going to hit some historic bars that also serve drinks, starting at the State Bar, which is in the Rice Hotel, which is located on the site of the first capitol of the Republic of Texas."

This post is going to be very simple and to the point.

Do you know who I hate? The Olly Girls.

I HATE THEM.

In case you are living a blissful existence and don’t know about these two terrors, let me enlighten you. They are resident dunces on E!’s latest reality show, “Sunset Tan.” Now if we were to rank reality shows like we rank universities, in my opinion “Project Runway” would be Harvard University and “Sunset Tan” would be Fresno State. And that’s actually an insult to Fresno State.

At any rate, “Sunset Tan” follows the goings-on at a (guess what?) tanning salon, and each time I’ve watched even five minutes of it, I’ve had to run to the bathroom for a Silkwood shower. It is that low brow, boring, and duuuuuuumb.

But despite my limited watching of said show, The Olly Girls – two women who work at the tanning salon named Molly and Holly – seem to poison my soul even when I catch only a second of them.

Here is why I hate them:

“Under no circumstances will you be required to open a can of Cream of Mushroom soup.” - Pableaux Johnson

Pableaux Johnson clearly is having fun in this cookbook as a sample of some of his recipe titles --“Keg of Nails Beer Batter Bread,” “Goal-Line Mash-Up Guacamole” and “Laura’s old Mountain Jug London Broil” -- shows.

The New Orleans-based food writer for The New York Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Texas Monthly (and occasionally the Houston Press) has assembled more than 80 recipes suitable for tailgating, directed at men with little cooking experience who want to bring something more complex than a six-pack to the pre-game warm-up party.

You all are no doubt working hard on the Texans crossword puzzle included in this week’s Hair Balls column, so a mistake must be corrected.

There should be a “34 Down” clue in the lower-right corner of the column. It’s two letters.

The clue: “Sinecure for aging or clumsy baseball players.”

Now you’ll be able to crack that sucker. – Richard Connelly

You can check out ongoing coverage of Burning Man here.

As you can see from the first post by Randall Roberts, this year promises fire, fire and, if there's time, probably a little fire. -- Keith Plocek

Where: Ocean Palace, 11215 Bellaire Blvd, 281-988-8898

What $13 gets you: A feast of chicken feet in a Vegas-like atmosphere

Part of the beauty of dim sum is picking and choosing from the constant flow of metal carts by your table. It’s nice to see your food before you eat it, but you don’t always have that luxury at Ocean Palace. You can get dim sum here any day of the week, but the place is packed to the gills on Sundays and the carts don’t move fast enough to provide a steady flow of steamed dishes to the table. To cope with this frustration, there’s a buffet line where you can order noodles, turnip cakes and shrimp, as well as some more obscure delicacies that I was too chicken-shit to try. The buffet can be a daunting experience. Customers are ushered along by pushy servers, sometimes before they even have a chance to order. And for every item that looks appealing (the bright green stems of Chinese broccoli looked like fresh and healthy), there’s another that looks intimidating: a woman in front of me ordered a big bowl of beige tripe and chicken feet. I stuck with the turnip cakes and mushy dumplings of indeterminate fillings. For $13, you’ll be able to afford about four dishes, since they average $3 a dish. There are some extra-special dishes that cost over $5, but I’m still not sure what they are.

In researching this week's story on telemarketing scams, I applied for a business grant from My National Grants. About a week after I turned my story in, I got a call from a guy who called himself Josh – he said that I qualified for a grant! Originally, it was $32,000, but at some point, it became $10,000. But that’s still enough to fulfill my dream of opening my own frozen yogurt shop – a frozen yogurt shop with a twist. And by “twist,” I mean “real chunks of meat in every bite.”

You didn’t mention the business grant, okay?...What kind of business it is.

I thought you said…I was already approved.

Yes, yes, you are, but you didn’t put the [description] of the business yet.

Well, it’s pretty cool, and I think…it’s going to do to great business. It’s a frozen yogurt stand, but the thing that’s different about mine –

Yes –

is that I put real chunks of meat--

Yo, leadfoot! Listen up, if you’re one of the 111,000 numbskulls who got nailed in the last year by Houston’s increasingly ubiquitous red-light cameras. You can go on paying those $75 tickets, or you can make an investment.

Next month, Best Buy and Circuit City are slated to begin stocking the Cobra XRS R9G, a standard wireless radar detector that also uses GPS to track intersections with red-light cameras. Chicago-based Cobra Electronics currently hocks the popular system exclusively on its Web site for $449.

You may have heard about the brouhaha over the detector back in June when a Chicago alderman unsuccessfully tried to ban it from the marketplace. His tortured reasoning: sure, it might save lives, but more significantly, it threatens to kill what has become an enormous cash cow.

In Chicago, infractions involving red-light cameras have poured some $35 million into city coffers since they were first installed back in late 2003. Houston, like always, boarded the bandwagon late (think decent public transit, a revitalized downtown and the proximity of sex clubs to schools).

To listen to our interview with author Chris Rose and a short reading from 1 Dead in Attic, After Katrina click the LISTEN button below.

A crime reporter and columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Chris Rose had been covering politics, pop culture and NOLA nightlife. All that changed on August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina blew into town. On that day, Rose became a self-pronounced war correspondent. Two years later, Rose says the war is still being fought.

Rose will stop off in Houston later this week to discuss his latest book, 1 Dead in Attic, After Katrina. Today, the second anniversary of the storm, we present our conversation with him about life in post-flood New Orleans.

Rose reads at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 30. Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet. For information, call 713-524-8597 or visit www.murderbooks.com. He also reads at 7 p.m. Friday, August 31. Barnes & Noble, 7626 Westheimer. For information, call 713-783-6016 or visit www.barnesandnoble.com. Both readings are free. — Olivia Flores Alvarez

I just don’t think this would be a pop culture blog without the required Britney Spears post. So in light of all that’s happened to her recently, here goes.

First, let me say Britney has served her purpose well. For reasons not fully known to us, she tarted herself up and allowed us, America, to ogle her teenage sexuality in a slightly icky yet still technically legal way. She grew up a bit and continued to titillate and shock us, kissing Madonna, getting married in Vegas, dancing with a giant python. Then she dutifully went through the necessary steps of “growing up” – marrying K-Fed, spawning two babies. And then, when all the stars were perfectly aligned, Britney obediently complied with the traditional next act in the life of an American Celebrity. She fell totally and completely apart. The rehab, the shaved head, the attack on the paparazzi with an umbrella. Can you say schadenfreude? (Me neither, but you know what I mean.)

The Rise to Fame, the Name in Lights, the Demise of America’s Sweetheart…we as citizens of the USA need this pattern to play out every so often, and so, before I go any further, I want to thank Britney for her sacrifice.

Good old Jason Kerr. An ordinary night out for our former Stirred & Shaken drinks columnist includes passing out in the bushes and snoring at the dinner table. You have to love this man!

Besides being a fan of fermented beverages, Kerr is into food (in fact, he’s a chef), which is why we asked him to fill in for Robb Walsh by reviewing Genji Restaurant and Karaoke Bar for this week’s paper. Of course, Kerr-style antics ensued. In service of Houston Press readers, the intrepid Kerr tried “Genji’s Special Drink for Men,” made of whiskey and pineapple juice. He also assessed the karaoke machine, which, um, resulted in Mr. Genji himself physically taking away the microphone halfway through his first song. Hey, at least he didn’t get barred!

By the way, Kerr thought the Japanese food served at Genji was phenomenal (when he could remember what he had). To read the full review, pick up the Press this week. – Cathy Matusow

Where: Tony’s Mexican Restaurant and Cantina, 2222 Ella Blvd., 713-862-6516

What $13 gets you: We spent our $13 on the Molé Poblano Dinner ($10.95, a chicken breast smothered in molé sauce, rice, beans, guacamole, tortillas) and the complimentary chips and hot sauce.

Unlike the other Tony’s restaurant in town, this Tony’s isn’t all that fancy -- or expensive -- but it still manages to serve up good Tex-Mex. Our dinner was a bargain at $10.95. The molé was spicy without having much of a burn factor, everything was hot and fresh, and the serving sizes were large without being embarrassingly huge.