Kind of like the opposite of what people say about NYC.

Houston has a lot of choices. If you want to live in a big but relatively inexpensive house with a nice lawn and all that, the suburbs beckon. The price is serious traffic getting into town if that's where you work, but not as bad as East Coast cities.

In town (or inside the loop, a relatively close in beltway around the city), very little traffic and lots of nice housing. And much for a few hundred thousand for 1500 square feet rather than a million.

One of the country's best opera companies.a superb chamber music group; a good symphony and ballet company; a very strong regional theater company and lots of other theater around town. Great reasonably priced restaurants with exciting regional cuisine. Great BBQ, great Tex Mex, strong echoes of NOLA cooking, a big a vibrant Asian scene, lots of seafood and great Italian. All the major league sports except hockey.

I live in a 5000 sq. ft townhouse I paid $550k for 8 years ago and probably hasn't gone up a whole lot in value. I'm a mile and a half from the center of town and have my choice of parkways, or surface streets to get there: no traffic. If I want to push it, I can leave the house 15 or 20 mine before curtain, and make it fine.

The summer is hot and its a sustained and humid heat: 95 or more for three months most summers (most of Sept, Aug, July and part of June). But AC is almost a birthright in Houston. And winter is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't like to live there. No winter, most years without any snow, and maybe a few days below freezing.

I can't blame people for not liking Houston. The heat, virtually no topography. I don't like LA, what I've experienced of it and I know people who love the place.

Well, wonders never cease! And here I thought the only music that Texans listened to was, oh, Garth Brooks, Slim Whitman, and Dolly Parton. You know, both kinds of music: country and western!

Perhaps it is a bit unfair that most of us get our impressions of Texas by watching George W. Bush.

'Perhaps it is a bit unfair that most of us get our impressions of Texas by watching George W. Bush.'

the only thing that is unfair is that your are a narrow minded bigot.

would you want everyone and everything in new york city judged by the 'impression' i get from rosie o'donnel? bleh!!!

My impressions of New York City all come from watching Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld. What, all New Yorkers aren't like that?!?

You are sufficiently narrow-minded that you are incapable of recognizing when a post is written with tongue firmly planted halfway in cheek.

I do have friends in Texas who are nothing like George W. Bush.

Heck, they don't even like him.

Like the Dixie Chicks, they think he is an embarrassment to the state.

Well, he is, isn't he?

What is your utility bill like in summer? Is it more than your mortgage?

How is the air pollution? I read that GW Bush had made it worse than LA.

no he isn't. i don't have an unnatural loathing for the man like you left wing lunatics. i think he has failed the conservatives by doing deals like NCLB with that drunken fuck tedward, and that abomination of a drug thing which is another dependence pushing ponzi scheme, the failure of getting the SS private accounts as well as some things i would have done differently in iraq.

of course i'm a rational human being and you sound like a nutjob.

IrvingChang: i don't have an unnatural loathing for the man [Irving is talking about George W. Bush] like you left wing lunatics.

LeRoy: One must assume that Irving has not been reading the latest polls. George W. Bush has the highest disapproval numbers of any President since such polling began. If one is willing to go by those numbers, he is the most unpopular President, ever. If Irving thinks that only 'left wing lunatics' have developed a dislike of the man, he must also perforce think that about three-fourths of his fellow countrymen have turned into howling-at-the-moon crazies.

Some of those who post here will remember that I predicted back in November of 2004 that George W. Bush would leave office as the most unpopular President in history.

Pretty good prediction, for a nutjob.

To Breaker: I saw that quote on HIWI a few months ago. It's such a perfect description.

And to LeRoy: I'm actually quite partial to our local rap artists. UGK (RIP Pimp C), Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Trae, anyone from the SUC... it might surprise you the sheer variety of musical pleasures which can be enjoyed from what is essentially 200 remakes of the same song about Chevys on blades and shakin ass in the club.

'Some of those who post here will remember that I predicted back in November of 2004 that George W. Bush would leave office as the most unpopular President in history.'

see. you think like a 14 year old girl and think in terms of a persons 'popularity'.

that's what makes you a nutjob.

Irving: you think like a 14 year old girl and think in terms of a persons 'popularity'.

LeRoy: If I were a girl, I'd be a lesbian. [I certainly wouldn't want to be 'popular' with you!!]

All non-kidding aside, I always had the strange notion that popularity counted for something in a democracy.

Maybe that's what you don't like.

Democracy.

Well, I have never developed a taste for rap music, but I do know that Texas has produced a lot of great electric blues guitarists: T-Bone Walker, Albert Collins, Freddy King, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Winters, and, of course, Stevie Ray Vaughn. Probably some others that I've missed...

'All non-kidding aside, I always had the strange notion that popularity counted for something in a democracy.'

for emotional dimwits such as yourself, i'm sure it does.

Your views seem to be more Latin American than American.

Elections are such a bother, aren't they?

Readers are beginning to wonder if you're a fan of Robert Mugabe and His Zimbabwean Paradise.

Houston is terrible. No one else should come here.

Bands should come in the glorious 9 month "fall/spring" and NOT during the summer.

Dude, I understand the notion of trying to keep the unwanteds out, but don't worry! All the newcomers are going to move to Cinco Ranch or the Woodlands. Only those who care to know will find out about the *good* places...