03/25/11 3:13pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HUMMUS AND BRIE DESERT IN EAST DOWNTOWN “. . . The census records just came out, and EaDo’s population gained 3500 people (of course in 2000 EaDo didn’t exist… it was just a warehouse district). If EaDo wants to actually KEEP these new residents, it’s gonna have to build us a damn grocery store that has stuff we actually eat!! That means Hummus, Brie, F-R-E-S-H produce and a deli that offers some actual prepared foods. . . . I should NOT have to drive to West Gray or Montrose just to get fresh Cilantro!!” [wayne2k33, commenting on Here’s Your Montrose Kroger, All Dressed Up]

03/22/11 4:08pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEARD IT HERE FIRST “Keep up the interesting news on the ExxonMobil property. I work for XOM and they’re telling us NOTHING!” [Insider, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]

03/21/11 12:42pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVIDE “So what’s the deal with the ‘Conroe’ vs. ‘The Woodlands’ location name ambiguity? Seems to me that a lot of people living up that way have a Conroe mailing address but claim the name “The Woodlands” when saying where they live. The address of this listing is 0 Darby Loop Conroe, TX 77385, and in the first sentence of the listing description, the realtor claims it is ‘…in The Woodlands!’ (emphasis unaltered). Recently I tried to mail something to my uncle who lives in the ‘The Woodlands,’ but I had his mailing address listed as ‘Conroe.’ So I called him to verify, and he gave me a really long explanation that explained nothing and only confused me more. In the end, he instructed me to write ‘The Woodlands’ on the envelope, even though he mentioned that the name ‘Conroe’ is actually on the sign at his local Post Office.” [Superdave, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: House Chopper]

03/18/11 1:41pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXIT STRATEGY FOR EXXONMOBIL’S NEW NORTH HOUSTON CAMPUS “Exxon has sufficiently resurrected the 1980s suburban mall layout. Congratulations. Now, when they decide to move even farther from the educational core of their hometown (read: Willis HQ 2025), they can create “Spring Creek Mall” and populate the landscape with a sampling of deep-discounted soft goods clothing, closeout electronics, and heavily salted/large portion family dining. Everybody wins here.” [jg, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]

03/15/11 4:44pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, SEZ ‘POOP’ HACK PERP “I BROKE NOTHING!!!! THERE WAS NO LOCK!!!! THEY’RE TRYIN TO COVER THEIR A$$3$!!!! THAT’S CRAP!!!! But seriously, let them try to find me. I guarantee they won’t. I’ll give you a hint. I bounce around the world 9 times before I actually connect to the internet. If they wanna try to track my IP, they’ll be in for a long and hard journey. Also, as for cameras, I’d love to see the video! Bring it on! When you do things that can get you in trouble, you can’t be afraid of the consequences.” [theguythatdidit, commenting on What Dirty Little Secret Was This Downtown Sign Hiding?]

03/14/11 10:04pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MOST OBVIOUS SIGN OF SUCCESS IN HOUSTON “To this day, I still remember looking out from my downtown office over a lush carpet of green trees and seeing ‘SUCCESS RICE’ emblazoned in bright red on white on the side of a large grain silo close to downtown –– maybe on Center street. It really was a neat, giant piece of history and an everyday reminder of time and place. As I moved jobs, I could always find one part of the floor downtown where I could peek out the window and see SUCCESS RICE. And daydream: ‘Hey, [I’m] successful!’ This . . . was in the innocent pre-Enron days. . . .” [jpsivco, commenting on Goodbye, Uncle Ben: East Side Silos Are Coming Down] Photo: Daniel Pagan

03/10/11 4:42pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT’S WHAT THE SURF SOUNDS LIKE IN HOUSTON “. . . I almost bought a home in Woodside (610) but skipped it due to the noise though. I told my wife if you try you could pretend it’s the ocean. It actually sounds JUST like the Gulf does about 12 blocks back in Jamaica Beach in Galveston.” [Craig, commenting on The Sound of the 290 Expansion]

03/08/11 5:05pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SO WE CAN LIVE MORE COMFORTABLY IN SMALLER HOMES “The self-storage industry in this country is worth over $20 Billion a year in revenues . . . there are over 46,500 facilities in existence with a total combined area of 2.21 Billion sq.ft. Self-storage is almost entirely a US phenomenon. There are only 12,000 facilities elsewhere in the world and 3,000 of those are in Canada. This all begs the question, ‘Why on earth do we store so much more crap than anyone else?'” [Jimbo, commenting on Comment of the Day: Follow the Mini Storage]

03/07/11 2:08pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: FOLLOW THE MINI STORAGE “Mini Storage facilities are almost always limited partnerships designed to last 7-10 years and put on strategically poised land the developers/LLP’s have determined will increase in value. The facilities are generally inexpensive to build and maintain and are easy to demo once the property has gained enough value to where it is sold for development. The area all along 34th street is just not ready for redevelopment yet. It’s currently a dump. Additional years of creeping development from the Northern Heights will be required to eventually turn the 34th St. blight into the redevelopment gem many hope for.” [CK, commenting on What They’re Doing to Food Land on Ella]

03/04/11 12:18pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: PUSHING DAISIES “The Greenbriar house is on a 11,500 sq ft lot just a stones throw from the Med Center. I bet the new construction will be something modest, leaving most of the grounds for a beautiful garden.” [Old school, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: All Together Now]

03/02/11 7:07pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: IN THE CLEAR WATERS OF THE GULF “I take my kids there every couple of weeks all summer and we are in and out of the water all day. I don’t know what it used to be like in the 80s but when we go to Stewart beach now the water is clear, we see dolphins almost every visit and fish literally swim between your toes periodically. I didn’t go down there for a couple of years after moving out here because of the horror stories I heard. They were nonsense then and they’re still nonsense now.” [Jimbo, commenting on Galveston’s Flagship Hotel Fades into the Sunset, Leaves a Few Big Chunks in the Gulf]

03/01/11 5:05pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOK WHO’S READING SWAMPLOT NOW! “But for Swamplot’s prestigious Neighborhood of the Year award, Idylwood would have maintained its quiet anonymity and escaped the notice of these blood thirsty parasites.” [Mel, commenting on Shocking Documentary Photos from the Idylwood Bedbug Invasion]

02/28/11 6:40pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SLICE OF HOUSTON WHERE NOBODY’S HOME “I did NRFU (Non Response Followup) surveys for the census in the wedge between 45 and the Ship Channel and this doesn’t suprise me at all. LOTS of people don’t answer the door. Lots more told me of one, two, or three residents when in fact an evening visit’s observations yielded six or eight.” [Some d00d, commenting on Houston to Census Bureau: Count Again]