COMMENT OF THE DAY: HIPSTER-YUPPIE CONFUSION “at some point a few years ago, long after the hipster refrain should’ve been dead, all the suburban folks started referring to yuppies as hipsters and i don’t think it’s ever gone back. hipsters don’t own homes and they’re certainly not up to speed on construction/real estate in houston.” [joel, commenting on Comment of the Day: Who Dare Oppose]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO DARE OPPOSE “You have no right to fight it any longer. If they are not asking for a variance then they are within their rights to build it. . . . Because you opposed a reasonable building, I hope they build a 200 unit condo that towers 20 stories, instead of five. Its exactly what you NIMBYS deserve!” [Marksmu, commenting on An End-Around at Emes Place]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PALE IN COMPARISON “Stephen Fox does a real disservice to drag queens, whose mummery and satire are rooted in fascinating questions about gender identity and the plights of powerless human beings. They have nothing to do with shoddily built, ostentatious and vulgar houses. Drag queens are necessary and even essential to a healthy civilization, they parody and mock for the forces of goodness, but shitty architecture benefits nobody.” [Scott Bodenheimer, commenting on Waving the Fronds on Palm Royale Blvd.]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WON’T GET MOVED AGAIN “The move out procedure has been pretty crazy so far. You have to go and schedule your move out date (down to a 4hr window) to qualify for any of the incentives (a month of rent back) if they catch you moving outside of the window they claim they could hold out on the incentive. You have to make the move out appointment soon, i.e. in the next couple days. What we found was that it made for a difficult time finding a new place given the strong rental market right now. My family member is on a fixed income, so we needed cheap with easy bus access. We got her in to Maryland Manor, on Bissonnet, should be a stable community for awhile, and they had lots of space.” [MH005, commenting on 4444 Westheimer Residents To Be Gently Escorted from Their Domiciles]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: POWER WASH THE DOME! “It has been about three years since I was V.P. of the company trying to convince Harris County to let us use the Astrodome as a movie production studio. at that time, my research into costs of sprucing up the building’s exterior revealed that plain old pressure washing could make a huge difference in the outside appearance. The company I consulted, specialists at cleaning large scale commercial buildings – like international airports – said it could be done for $500,000 or under. While that is a lot of money to most of us, it is not much compared to the negative P.R. ‘black eye’ that our dirty and forlorn-looking icon gives Houston. If only the Harris County Commissioners, the true stewards of the Dome, would clean up the exterior and do some landscape refreshing perhaps the grand old building would not appear so neglected to the rest of the world. While the interior still has grand promise, if only temporarily as a storage facility, the county should invest in putting the Astrodome’s best ‘face’ forward until its future use is determined. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read about the Dome in the national media and blogs and it usually includes a negative nod to its appearance. This is something that CAN be done without a referendum!” [Cynthia Neely, commenting on The Astrodome’s New Gig: AstroTurf Storage Warehouse]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YEP, THIS IS AN $8.5 MILLION RIVER OAKS TEARDOWN 
“This house will (sadly) be demolished. It was designed by Harvin Moore in 1940 for Mr. and Mrs. Sydnor Oden. The Odens had returned to Houston from living in Italy, and they wanted a house that reflected Italian architecture. I am thinking that a tear-down trend is on the rise.” [no history remains, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Prologis Is Past Us] Photo of 3640 Willowick Rd.: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: AUDIO VIDEO PLUS CAROL “I’ve had a membership there for almost 30 years. As some have mentioned, many products of the obscure variety have NEVER come out on DVD, and may not for a while for legal reasons. These fine folks never got rid of ANYTHING!! They carry more foreign language and silent movies than most places (when places like this existed everywhere) carry titles. Another blow to the artsy side of Houston, is losing this Mecca for Movies. My last purchase there was a Carol Burnett barbie doll, dressed like her role in “Went With the Wind.†I got it for mom for Christmas.” [Rich, commenting on Audio Video Plus on Waugh is Clearing It Out]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOR WHOM THE BELL TOWER TOLL CALLS 
“The bell tower was already there. It was the result of the neighborhood going ballistic over a cell tower going in, and is the disguise for said tower, making it the Ma Bell Tower. And the only ringing for which it is responsible is in your purse or pocket.” [mollusk, commenting on Union Kitchen Expanding to 1111 Studewood Place]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON DREW ME TO THE SEA “When I lived near the Spur, the traffic sounded like ocean breakers and lulled me to sleep at night. Now I live on the coast and the breakers remind me of 59, but with a better view.” [miss_msry, commenting on Comment of the Day: A Difference in Freeway Sound Quality]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A DIFFERENCE IN FREEWAY SOUND QUALITY “I used to live upstairs in a 4 plex on the other side of the Spur on 59. I never found the freeway noise bothersome even though I could practically see the whites of the drivers’ eyes from my bedroom window. It was a constant whooshing that I just pretended was the sound of the ocean . On the other hand I later lived blocks and blocks away from I-10 but the sound of 18 wheelers shifting gears used to annoy me when I was trying to sleep. It depends more on the traffic patterns than distance.” [Tangyjoe, commenting on Porch-Sitting on the Edge in Woodland Heights]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SPRINGWOODS VILLAGE WAS A LONG TIME COMING “So Exxon’s development of Kingwood lacked the office space and subsequent development of Greenspoint lacked the neighborhood? Finally combining the two? Houston: Stamped out by Exxon, one experiment at a time.” [iMidget, commenting on Comment of the Day: Big Oil Town]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BIG OIL TOWN Has anyone dubbed ‘Exxonville’ for Springwoods Village yet? If not, I want to take credit . . . Sounds like Utopia . . . I hope Oil and Gas continues to be strong in the near future . . . policy in current and future government administrations can play a big part in that. On that note, I would be hesitant to move in to a community that has the potential for government to have such a large and direct influence on. Imagine massive layoffs due to changes in policy . . . Not saying that all households will be linked to ExxonMobil . . . but I am sure it will be packaged to be the ideal choice to work at the new campus . . .” [J.R., commenting on Headlines: Christian Louboutin Boutique for Houston; Illegal Dumpers Caught on Camera]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE CASE FOR TAKING DOWN TIMBERGROVE “. . . The Timbergrove houses East of TC Jester are not particularly well built, and they don’t really lend themselves to expansion. The slabs are undersized as well, so building up is very difficult. I would love to update and add to our house, but by the time everything is done, we could almost build a modern house with more room, better infrastructure, and lower operating costs. And that’s after adding something that will really be just a tacked on space that’s not well integrated. Tear downs make a lot of sense under those conditions.” [Ross, commenting on New Timbergrove Manor Cottage Puts Some Skin in the Real Estate Game]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE APARTMENT PAMPHLETEER “Everyone who is a renter or is a landlord should know and read this.” (PDF) [denise, commenting on How Quick To Kick ’Em Out and Tear It Down?]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD AT THE UPPER END “You are right that you can build a very nice house for $150/sq. ft., but when you are in this stratospheric range, $150 is your starting point and you jump off from there. . . . Your roof will be slate and not composition. Goodness knows how much that costs, and how it impacts your structural engineering. Your floors will be stone and/or wide plank salvaged wood and not 2 1/2″ plain sawn oak. Your facade will be brick, not hardi plank, and bricks will cost $2-$3 each and not 50 cents. And on an 8,000 sq. ft. structure you may get 50,000, 100,000 bricks. Then you pay the mason. Your trim and doors will be custom manufactured and not stock. Your window package will be custom manufactured and not stock. Saw one house where custom fabricated metal windows cost $250,000. For the windows. Your light cans will cost 10x the cost of the cans you get in a builder spec house. You will have paid a lighting designer a fortune to tell you how to position those lights. Your HVAC, security, A/V systems will be state of the art, each of which will run tens and tens of thousands, if not more. You will insulate your house to an extreme level. And so on and so on. It all adds up . . . But yes, you can build a nice house for $150/sq. ft., but if you are building on a 50,000 sq. ft. lot on the corner of Kirby and Inwood, you just won’t.” [KG, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Out of the Closet]