COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: RETAIL CHAIN SLEEP SYNERGY 
“I wonder if Mattress Firm/Pro geographically correlate with CVS/Walgreens stores, i.e. the drug sellers who provide customers with the means (Ambien, Lunesta) to enjoy a full and long-lasting experience on their newly purchased mattresses.” [Larry, commenting on How and Where Mattress Firm Is Conquering Houston, One Sleepy Strip Center Storefront at a Time] Illustration: Lulu
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT YOU’VE EARNED 
“How do you have the time to use all the various leisure areas of a house like this? You gotta be working a lot to afford it so when do you have the free time to ski, play hoops, work out, dine in the dining room, swim in the pools, sit in one of all the outdoor sitting areas, sit in the kitchen or the bar or the living room or the den and so on . . .” [jost, commenting on Katy Home Listing Photo of the Day: Can’t Miss] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MIDTOWN SUPERBLOCK’S NOT SO SUPER FUTURE 
“The site plan for this block, where the apartment complex stands like J.J. Watt blocking the retail from the park for which it should have been the activity generator, stands as a symbol of a city at a pivot point in its urbanization, where all the lessons it has learned the past ten years still can’t make up for the decades it snoozed in urban neglect and public space amnesia. Imagine if you took the George R. Brown and dropped it halfway across Discovery Green, splitting the park’s integral components and killing its interaction with surrounding elements — that is the Superblock in a nutshell. Midtown will still benefit from a central greenspace, and the little pocket park at the north end might turn out to be something nice. But however modestly successful this becomes will only be a painful reminder of what could have been.” [Mike, commenting on Can’t Get Enough Midtown Superblock? New Video Captures Every Puddle, Blade of Grass, Mud Patch] Site diagram: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON’S REALLY GOOD OLD DAYS ARE GONE FOREVER 
“The whole Houston region used to be a beautiful coastal plain where my family and extended family lived harmoniously with nature before 5,000,000 people showed up and paved over the whole damn place and called it Houston. Now I’m sad.
— Sincerely,
Karankawa Nation” [Bernard, commenting on Comment of the Day: What the House Meant] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT THE HOUSE MEANT 
“My great-great grandparents purchased the land mentioned in the above article when there were just a few houses on the street, and the street was not yet paved. They built this house and 3 generations of my family lived together under its roof at one time. My grandparents met working at the movie theater that used to stand in the Village Arcade. My grandfather was an usher and my grandmother was a concession girl. He used to sneak her out of her bedroom window for dates when she was 15 and he was 16, a few years before he joined the Navy to fight in WWII. My great-grandfather planted rose bushes in front of his daughter’s bedroom window to stop her from climbing out. When my grandparents were first married, they lived in the house with her parents and grandparents. My parents lived in the house after they got married, and I lived my whole life on Chaucer until I got married. My grandfather remained in the house long after his wife passed, and himself lived there until he passed away early last year. All of my best memories were set within those walls, all the family meals, holidays and birthdays.
Driving past the muddy, empty lot felt like looking at someone’s usual armchair after they’ve passed away and expecting to see them sitting there, right as rain. Seeing those beautiful bone-colored porcelain bricks trampled under tire tracks . . . It took the air out of me. I hope that by sharing this history, people will understand that sometimes, a house is more than just 4 walls and a roof; this house was more than just a location and a parcel of land. Sometimes, it is the root that anchors us to our past, to our identity, to our origin.” [B Ferguson, commenting on Two Home Demos Mark Rice University’s Continuing March into Rice Village] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: JUST A SUGGESTION FOR NAU 
“There is a solution to this situation and it’s a little ironic.
The sisters of incarnate word want to stay downtown, but they say there’s no room.
John Nau and his group own the block right next door to the campus. They just announced that they were canceling their fund raising efforts and giving all of the money donated back to the donors for a Houston history museum.
It seems to me if John Nau wants to save some of Houston history, he could donate the block adjacent to the school so that that the historically important Nicholas Clayton building could be saved. That way his efforts to preserve history could still be accomplished, the nuns could stay downtown and the Nicholas Clayton building could be saved. Now that’s a lot easier than trying to figure out what to do with the dome!” [Bob R, commenting on Tearing Down Downtown’s Historic Incarnate Word Academy Building; A ‘Central Park’ for the Energy Corridor] Photo of Incarnate Word Academy, 600 Crawford St.: elnina
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SIGHTS ON AND OFF THE MEMORIAL DR. STRIP 
“. . . The whole thing of having this parkside expressway that drops to 35 and morphs into a suburban strip for all of 1/4 mile before resuming high-aesthetics high-speed is wonderfully convenient. Your last chance gas, your breakfast tacos and kolaches, your late-night eats . . . it’s all right there, no mucking about with U-turns or feeder roads required.
And no, this stripmall won’t be a huge visual contribution . . . but who cares? The views just 100 yards to the south are about as aesthetically pleasing as one can find in our fair city, and after all, isn’t that what matters? So much discussion of the urban form boils down to complaining about what we see from our car windows. But if the view from home and office is nice, isn’t that really what matters?” [Purple City, commenting on How a Stretch of the Memorial Dr. Strip Earned Its Newest Strip Center] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE NEXT HIGHRISE SKY THRONE 
“It’s probably a bit daunting to have to go bathroom on a sunny day, especially if you’re trying to respond to the comment of the day on swamplot on your phone, but the glare is just making it impossible.
But imagine at night, especially on Independence Day. You can catch the fireworks, even if that greasy pizza you had for dinner just ran right through you.
Maybe on their next iteration they’ll build out a little glass box that the toilet faces outwards from. So as you are sitting with feet firmly planted on the glass floor, it looks like you’re sitting in the air staring out at the cityscape. How peaceful that would be.” [toasty, commenting on Comment of the Day Runner-Up: The Best Views in Every Skyhouse] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOLLOW THE SMOG 
“You do not escape smog in Houston by moving to the burbs. In the summer, Houston has a circular wind pattern that takes ship channel pollutants for a ride out to the suburbs. Go to the Houston Clean Air Network website and set the animation for Aug. 6, 2012. You will see a big area of ozone form over the ship channel that gets blown out to Pearland, then Sugar Land and spends the late afternoon in Cinco Ranch and just east of Katy before starting to drift back east. The worst of the smog slides south of the City and never really gets north of I-10 inside the loop. Ship channel industries account for about 2/3rds of the smog. The rest is motor vehicle emissions. Ship channel industries have made significant progress in reducing and controlling emissions. But more sprawl and more traffic threaten to offset the progress made on the ship channel. Thus, the smog issue is a very real consequence of sprawl that is not escaped by sprawl either.” [Old School, commenting on Holding Back on That Downtown Hotel Push; The Beer Garden, Greenhouse, and Food Court Growing in Prohibition’s Basement] Image: Houston Clean Air Network
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: THE BEST VIEWS IN EVERY SKYHOUSE 
“I love how the big picture windows in some of the units allow residents to actually sit on the toilet and look out onto the street. I can’t say I want to SEE a resident doing this but it does make this tower unique.” [Daphne Graham, commenting on Have a Look Where Crews Have Begun Digging for the Second Downtown SkyHouse] Plan detail: SkyHouse Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE CORNER OF HOUSTON WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE 
“In the late 1980s and early 1990s I lived a few blocks west of this intersection. Since then I visit the area about once a week, usually to eat at one of the restaurants. I’ve often thought someone should fix up that strip center, but I’ve never thought it reflected poorly on Houston’s ‘cityscape.’ This is, after all, the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. This is the place to be for homeless teens. This used to be the place to be to get designer drugs when they were cheaper and safer. This used to be the place to start looking for some sweet ink or other body mod. This is where I was asked to help a gentleman determine the gender of a potential ‘date’ for the evening. The neighborhood didn’t deteriorate around Uchi; the owners of Uchi picked this spot.” [Memebag, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Sights of Montrose] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SIGHTS OF MONTROSE 
“Look at those pictures! The cityscape in Houston is so beautiful that I sometimes want to cry. I love the setbacks, the crumbling streets, the large signs, the little bit of grass, and oh man oh man those two lonely palm trees. This is the part the Houston that I want to show off to my friends. After a nice dinner at Uchi, I love to take everyone on a stroll around my beautiful city!” [Duston, commenting on What’s Arriving Now at the Sleepy Corner of Westheimer and Montrose]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BEFORE WE EVEN GET AROUND TO A BULLET TRAIN 
“This train is needed and do-able, and I bet there are federal funds all up in it . . . However, shouldn’t Houston be moved to higher ground first — before making the long-term commitment?” [movocelot, commenting on Possible Station Locations for Houston-to-Dallas High-Speed Rail: Jersey Village, Mangum Manor, Downtown?] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW ABOUT A NEIGHBORHOOD PARKING POOL? 
“If businesses want to lessen their on-site parking requirements (once you get inside the Loop, they ALL do), my vote is that we should let them pool parking. Organizations could be set up that are similar to a MUDs but that build and maintain central parking garages instead of utilities. Businesses in the GD (Garage District) have their parking requirements taken care of by the central parking garage — they just need to confirm that there’s capacity through a letter of availability. This would allow for the car-less density that we’re after Inside the Loop; it would make it a lot easier to develop there, but it would also prevent parking from being a problem.” [ZAW, commenting on Coltivare’s Patio Wrap Draws Attention from the City] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW YOUR PHOTOS TOO CAN OOZE THAT SLICK BUT OTHER-WORLD-Y REAL ESTATE LOOK 
“1.) Get a wide lens
2.) Shoot with a 7 stop bracket
3.) Comp exposures and tone in 8 bit
4.) Crank up to 32 floating point because you read somewhere that was good
5.) Boost your shadows as far as the dial will take you
6.) Compress, no, demolish your highlights
7.) Huff on nails and polish on thy hairy chest. . . . You’re now a big time real estate photographer.” [Toby, commenting on Catch All the Angles on a $1.1 Million House on a St. George Place Corner]
