<![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @gawkimo: A parking lot where the homeless dudes will spit on your windshields and wipe it off for a dollar!

Fondest college memory: Being too drunk to take the West Campus bus home and calling a dormmate for a ride. She was pissed because she had to park on N. Congress instead of the parking lot at Jester. I remember puking in the grass and looking up and saying "Hey. That's the Capitol! Blargh!"

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Sadly late to this one, but as a Houstonian, I think I'm equipped to say that this video is a much more accurate and flattering representation of our city.

teamodell

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Central Austin is nice - albeit there is definitely an abundance of fraternity/sorority pledges obsessed with jogging. And Sixth Street is filled with puking college cap heads on a Friday night. Don't buy the hype. Austin has exploded and it is surrounded by the typical McMansion cul-de-sac-infected Texas suburbia. Central Austin is a neat place, surrounded in all directions by central Texas's Happy Meandows Suburban Hellscape. Or, as a travel writer from Brooklyn who lives in Austin describes it to me: the entire city is "a parking lot off a highway".

gawkimo

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @avoncobra: Everything I know about NYC I've learned from Gawker!

I am shocked at how much alcohol costs in NYC! I paid $6 for a Jack and Coke tonight and felt ripped off. I pay $750 for 955 sq. ft/2br/2ba apt. with washer/dryer connections and a fireplace and patio which opens out onto a courtyard with a pool and hot tub. I drive a brand new Camry. Our Chinese food restaurants are owned by Chinese people so I don't see how it could be too much different from other places. (I've been to Chinatown in Frisco and it was about the same.) My Mexico experience was Piedras Negras where I paid $30 bucks to have a tooth pulled where in the States they wanted $150. I live 30 minutes from San Antonio (and Neiman Marcus). The Spurs are last years World Champs and I guess everyone has heard of the Cowboys. I can walk for 5 minutes and be at the Guadalupe River. I can drive 3 hrs. and be at the beach. It's some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen and I've traveled around a bit. I could go on....

I would love to VISIT NYC and I would be a total tourist! We do have tourists here too. Here (in the "Kerrpatch") we get to wait at red lights while stupid rich people try to manuever their sparkling new Harleys (most can't), and deal with the rich bitches from Dallas and Houston who drop their kids at camp every summer. Surburbans everywhere, clogging the lines to donut shop drive-thrus.

In other words, we live down in Texas and life is good! (You Texans should get that reference!) I love NYC but let them have their $12 cocktails and bedbugs. Let them worry about "gentrification" as if it's not happening everywhere in our country.

I love Texas and I would love to visit NYC, which is why I read this blog. There is good and bad in both places. Still, the fight between New Yorkers and Texans is classic and eternal. Viva la difference!

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I don't buy this for a minute. Gawker is only being provocative. Juzt generating page views.

probationer

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @plunk: I've lived in Austin for 6 years and I love it. I'm not even a hippie/hipster/queer or any of the other stereotypes I've seen listed so far. It's just a beautiful city with open-minded residents.

fauxkiss

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: At least 1/3 of Kerrville is over the age of 65. There are old people everywhere. I was at Radio Shack yesterday and out of all the clerks and customers I was the only person under 60. I shit you not. People move here to die. It is a really beautiful area and there are a lot of cool things happening though. I live a few miles down the street from Kinky Friedman who I see at Albertson's all the time. Also, Robert Earl Keen and Thomas Hayden Church live here, so that's kinda cool. My friend is a dog breeder and she just sold THC (hey, he has super cool initials!) a chihuahua last month.

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> >> small minded, provincial snot-nosed assholes from all income brackets than i have in my entire time in the northeast. <<

I admit that this is a somewhat factual observation. If the native Noo Yaakers can do something to purge the influx of those people who relocate from places like Texas to act like cast members of "Sex & The City" (and give the city a bad reputation) the city would be a much nicer place.

Like the French, New York natives are some of the nicest, most congenial people on earth. The problem is not theirs.

gawkimo

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> This whole thing is absurd. I live in Dallas. I am originally from Georgia. I have lived in Atlanta, New York City, London and Dallas. I have spent a lot of time in Austin. You get the point. Guess what? I like Dallas best. I like being able to go to Target and buy large items for my apartment that I can put in the trunk of my car (a nice little gas saver Honda) to take home. I like that my very nice courtyard apartment in a renovated motor court motel looks out onto a pool and fountain. And that with all bills and everything, I pay just over $600 a month to live in said apartment. My friends and I live relatively low-stress lives which I cannot say was the case when I lived in NYC. I don't know a single person who doesn't LOATHE GW Bush and has for years. We live in a nice liberal part of town.

And as funny as the Dallas/Houston rivalry is (and I have made my share of cracks on Houston before), there's nothing more simple-minded and gravy coated than dismissing the residents of an entire state based upon stale and simplistic stereotypes.

And with that, I will finish off my work so I can go eat some fucking amazing Korean food and go watch the Mavs game while drinking my $2 beers surrounded by my intelligent and fun friends.

amandacobra

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ThaKadinskyPapers: I could parse it that far, but I'm lazy. One thing I did notice is that Dallas is FAR more hatecrimey than Houston.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @downlow: Dude, they did. How did you know. They actually left for Lubbock but that's where they lived orginally.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: that's not really a fair comparison without accounting for the population difference though, wouldn't you agree?

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: Damn. How does California have 700+? We have Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego to your NYC. Must be the black/Mexican gang wars.

Jaguares

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @doubleagame: oh, i beg to differ. 'skrew' is definitely an acquired taste but really there is nothing else like it when you're completely fucking blazed, yo.

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @doubleagame: these are a few of my favorite things.

lollier888

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> [www.fbi.gov]

Latest data for 2006: 277 hate crimes in NY. 996 in TX. Y'all sure are enlightened!

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @rednrowdy: Well, that's funny. I've lived here all my life and while I've heard the very rare racist comment, they were all received like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.

Contrast that with visits - some extended - to Southern cities, where it was a lot more like your NYC block experience - about 50/50.

If your point was not to judge a place by what one sees during short visits, I agree, though that isn't what you wrote. Hate crime statistics - and the punishments meted out when they occur - are a much better indicator. Wanna see some?

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> The rap is that bad, actually. And who doesn't like "obesity, white gravy, and murder?"

doubleagame

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: my point was to not judge a place by only spending a brief time there. i have met the nicest, sweetest, most helpful people in the world and the rudest, nastiest, most racist people in the world all on the same city block in nyc. thank goodness there are juuuust enough people in this city from other places - like the south! go figure - to make it all bearable.

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @rednrowdy: Well, you don't seem to like your coworkers, friends and neighbors here, so if you need help getting into the catapult, give us a jingle.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: *golf claps*

just to make you feel better, i live in new jersey! i have no problem taking the big salaries from manhattan companies.

so quaint! "go home". i have two of them!

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I like Los Angeles. I like my gang war with a side of plastic surgery.

tunamelt

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @rednrowdy: Yay for you.

But there is this:

Re: Gay marriage. Guess what? NY recognizes gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions. So we can have it too!

Texas, not so much. [www.washingtonpost.com]

i've lived in the new york area for 7 years and in the greater northeast for more than 10. gotta say, never in my life have i met more outwardly racist and small minded, provincial snot-nosed assholes from all income brackets than i have in my entire time in the northeast.

So go home.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I grew up in Texas, and there are some definite bad things about it and Houston. Like Harris County executes more people than any other county by far-in the death row capital of the world, it's numero uno. And uh, George H.W. Bush lives there. I have a friend who grew up there and now lives in San Antonio, says Houston is just a very corporate town with a big business influence.

Now, having said that, it's not Houston that's the problem, it's the shithole surrounding it known as Southeast Texas, home to, among other places, Jasper-yes, that one. Beaumont and Port Arthur are to be avoided, although the latter was the subject of a great joke on 30 Rock. Really, in the wasteland that is SE Texas, Houston is about the only bright spot.

lalaland13

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: Omg. There are probably moving to where I live, "The Retirement Capital of Texas" aka Kerrville!

I knew the Texans would come out in force to defend our great state! It's funny but fruitless to argue about it, especially with New Yorkers. Texans and New Yorkers will always fight about this stuff.

That being said, I live in a very small town and I'm prejudiced against living in ANY city as they are all crime-ridden, traffic-choked cess pools.

This is why I live here: [www.casadelriocottage.com]

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Oh let our New Yorker friends have their fun here -- they may live in one of the most incredible man-made wonders of the world... but not so many of them, I surmise, have enough money to enjoy it? (Which, due to the weather, also requires having extra money to escape frequently!) This makes them frustrated, and at times hostile, leading to dissing on other places and breast-beating about their own.

Not that I would Ever Ever consider visiting Houston --

Regards,

TimeWarnerRhymeAnaheim

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Note to East Coasters..."visiting" Houston does not mean a 2 hour layover at IAH or Hobby before you head to Cancun for your "authentic" Mexican experience...

BelBivDevolkswagen

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I grew up in Boston, went to an Ivy League school, and work as a journalist in NYC. I lived in Houston for one year, and have never been happier (or richer). Don't knock it till you've tried it. The best part is, you can knock it all you want, and Houston won't give a shit...

je0518

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker:

Been to a museum lately that you couldn't finish in an hour? in houston...YES!

Seen any significant architecture that isn't from the 1980s?
in houston...yes, and plenty of it.

Had any Thai food that didn't taste like chicken nuggets with Skippy peanut butter?
it would be called venturing outside the loop down on bellaire to the second chinatown...because you know, houston does have TWO of them.

Is getting gay married even a remote possibility for you?

it's not a remote possibility for folks who live outside of the northeast, and it's not even in all northeastern states anyway. you can't even get gays married in new york city. so what's the issue.

@gawkimo: i grew up in houston. i've lived in the new york area for 7 years and in the greater northeast for more than 10. gotta say, never in my life have i met more outwardly racist and small minded, provincial snot-nosed assholes from all income brackets than i have in my entire time in the northeast.

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @lollier888: ah yes, the magestic money sucking light rail, whose tracks share the same fucking street as CARS.
you can blame fmr. mayor Lee 'Outta Town' Brown for that one.

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: hey now, dry counties are reserved for them bible thumpin' motherfuckers up around DALLAS way. in Houston we prefer to sell our tall boys from the gas station as well as the grocery and liquor stores (you get an extra hour on sat nights - bonus!) and give 'em to you in a little brown baggie so as to help you conceal it from the fuzz.

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> The picture for this article is for the University of Texas which, ironically, is not located in Houston. However much UT sucks, it has nothing to do with Houston. Nice try.

Having lived in different cities all over the country, I can honestly say Houston is the most enjoyable of them all, at least for me. I am from an east coast snob family, and we all love the Houston.

Racist, homophobic asshats are everwhere.

But our light-rail system is shitty. Word.

lollier888

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @gawkimo: your prayers have been answered. teh white man, he is outnumbered.

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: Please tell them that. I'd love to spend my holidays by the ocean instead of at the feed trough of Ruby Tuesdays.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @contradicto: Yeah, Seattle's are kicking my ass.

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: San Diego is also a nice place to be fat and old and lazy, and for skinny, young and active relatives to visit.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I think its fair to say that Houston is the most popular city in the USA, at least among Gawkers.

famousauthor

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Any city in america is going to suck, depending on your attitude. For the record, Deer Park is not a neighborhood, it is a town east of Houston inhabited (mostly) by oilfield workers. Ditto Baytown. Im a NYer who has lived in Houston for 20 years and can tell you for sure that there is NOT a oilwell on every corner, nor a cowboy hat on every head. Yes, Houston has its share of big hair and big egos, tempered with a decent cost of living. We dont spend our entire income to rent a closet-sized apartment. We have a very fine symphony and opera company, beautiful museums, good schools and plenty of free parking. We welcome tourists and dont treat them like bumpkins. I love New York too, but dont miss the weather and the attitude.

soigne

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hesperid: No scorpions or hipsters with an inferiority complex for living in a third rate city.

My entire family is slowly relocating to Texas--for tax reasons, not the "awesome weather", which is either too fucking hot or gray sleety bullshit. Not for the cheap ugly tract housing that can be bought with pocket change and will have a brown lawn because you're not allowed to water your grass (your garage is infested with fire ants, anyway). Not for the Halliburton jobs or tacky new money cattle ranchers or Baptists with virginity rings and high pregnancy rates. They're moving there because they're fat and old and it's a good place to be fat and old and lazy. I've traveled around the entire state and frankly, it sucks.

If you don't believe me, ponder these two words and cringe: dry county.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> >> i suggest you get off your ass and actually spend time in that city or travel south of the mason dixon for an extended period of time in order to gain a true perspective rather than slag on about something of which you truly know nothing about.<<

There's always one of these people -- that assumes everyone in NYC has never been "south of the Mason Dixon Line". (Note: the Mason Dixon line runs through New Jersey, BTW -- look it up.)

There's nothing cuter than some provincial getting upset at perceived East Coast snobbery. Tex-ass deserves most of what it gets. I pray for the day the Mexicans run over the entire state -- from Laredo to Denton -- and turn it into something more pleasant, like Zacatecas.

gawkimo

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hesperid: Ever try Le Colonial? Lemongrass? Shun Lee? Guess not.

Re: Gay marriage. Guess what? NY recognizes gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions. So we can have it too!

Texas, not so much. [www.washingtonpost.com]

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: The worst Thai and Chinese food I've had, ever, was in New York and Chicago, respectively. Best ever? Thai: Santa Fe and Austin, Chinese: Fort Smith, Arkansas. Seriously. Fort Chaffee = big Asian population. Houston has some great museums, btw. Austin, not so much. Thankfully, we can afford to fly with our cheap cost of living so my personal answers to that question are: last museum was in L.A., before that was in NYC, before that was in Seattle and now later this year will be in London. Now, what states allow gay marriges? Oh yeah, only Massachusetts.

hesperid

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @contradicto: I think I'm allergic to Texas.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @plunk: OMG, my Texas allergies are KILLING me today!

contradicto

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ThaKadinskyPapers:
They're adoreable! I live near the museums I never visit, though, so I only see them as I roll past in my pollen-covered car.

plunk

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hesperid: ah, a Locke-ian at heart?

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @plunk: awww, that's so nice when ya'll yankees say things like that. although i will say that maybe the gulf coast allergies haven't crept up into your sinuses yet, so do watch out for that. also skeeter hawks. ooh, and flying roaches (them's the big fuckers with the wings, yo).
now, i'm guessing you're around montrose area? how are the street urchins these days?

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @safi: oh snap. Jersey village shout out.

@BettyCrocker: no amount of words can make houston suck less, but to be fair it IS a five-star restaurant city with better Vietnamese, Mexican, etc than I have found in the NYC. There are also a lot of very nice museums.

@plunk: I lived in Austin for 6 years and loved it til the very end.

roodles

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @plunk: Pollution, bigotry and gang wars! The bucolic heart of Houston.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @roodles: I used to live in Montrose, and it was awesome. But two years living in that city I never ventured outside the inner loop except to go to the airport.

contradicto

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hesperid:
For the Museums and the Thai Food, apparently.

plunk

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker:
Museums and Thai Food! The cornerstones of Culture.

plunk

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I'll never get why people can stand to live in huge, freezing cold metros like NY where a goddamn bus card cost $75 a month as of 7 years ago... and actually think it's worth it, just for the cool factor, to carry home bags of groceries in the sleet, taking 2 buses and having to stand on the bench to be close to the heat lamp and then trek through a neighborhood that has police cars stopped nearly every night to get to a shit-hole $1300 apartment up 4 flights of stairs only to repeat the whole ordeal the next day. After the initial fun of seeing celebrities here and there, going to museums, shopping H&M, and lying to old friends about how awesome it is you should consider coming to Austin. We know you are lying and that living there sucks because most of us have been there too and wisely got the hell out. I'll save you a seat on my deck by the pool, but hurry the frozen ritas don't last long.

hesperid

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @valarmorghulis: Cheap housing? I wonder why? Could it be that few people want to live there?

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @plunk: Yawn, indeed.

Been to a museum lately that you couldn't finish in an hour? Seen any significant architecture that isn't from the 1980s? Had any Thai food that didn't taste like chicken nuggets with Skippy peanut butter? Is getting gay married even a remote possibility for you?

Been to Austin - stayed 4 days, liked it very much.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @CashMoneyHoney: actually i did. spent a month in DFW doing work last year, and when my company offered me a perminant location there for a 25% raise i told them politly that i enjoyed geographical topography, non-destructive precipitation, and the ocean.

on the other hand, housing is WICKED CHEAP. so...they got that going for them.

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker:
Yawn. That's everyone who's never been to Texas' perception of every city in the state that's not Austin. As part of a dying breed (the "Native New Yorker"), I moved to Houston a year ago. My life has been improved as follows:
-Seasonal Affective Disorder? Never heard of it! What's a "season"?
-I encounter far less people from the midwest than I did in New York.
-I live in the gay/"artsy" nabe, which would be impossible in New York unless I were an heiress/banker/CW star.
-I make a quarter of the salary I made in NY and I stil have my own apartment which overlooks a giant-ass pool that I could go swim in right now; and lastly,
-I no longer read Gawker for 10 hours a day.

And just to save you some time before you book your ACL tickets for September, the only people I know who think Austin is awesome are people who've never been there. Hamilton, could you hook me up with these "My Houston" kids? They sound like they could use some help.

plunk

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @safi: Thanks for the warning. I haven't been there since a business trip in 1997 and thought things might have improved in the interim. Bucktoothed cretins telling "faggit" jokes in the bar near the office was pretty much the nadir of that particular trip.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: A simmering undercurrent of homophobia and racism? Nope, it's pretty much right out in the open - especially if it's somebody from Jersey Village or anyone who ever voted for Tom DeLay.

safi

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @SuperBien: By the toilets? HA!

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @CashMoneyHoney: Ignorant?

Not so much: [money.cnn.com]

[money.cnn.com]

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @CashMoneyHoney: *high fives you*

houston gets a bad rap, but y'know people can actually afford to live there...and can even have a swimming pool!.. and don't have to move every couple of years because their rent is going up.

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: Alas, there is only one photograph of Space Cadet Lisa "Whack Job" Nowak on their wall. It's a small portrait within this fraternity/sorority-composite-like photograph of all the shuttle astronauts that flew missions the same year she did. You'll find it in this obscure spot to the right of the jukebox and just around the corner from the makeshift "Challenger" memorial they've set up outside the toilets. And no, it's not autographed I'm afraid -- at least not by her . . .

SuperBien

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @applebama: parts of houston suck, just as parts of ALL CITIES suck. having lived in more than one city in my lifetime (and more than two years in each city, too), i can vouch for that.

new, trashy money makes the world go round. old, moth-ball money keeps paris hilton in the news.

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> UGH! You people are just as ignorant about Houston as other people are about New York and LA. SHUT UP! There's a lot going on in Houston and we don't just have murder, big hair (which is Dallas), long horns on the grills of our cars, and rappers.

I'm sorry, I wouldn't feel the need to defend Houston so much if I hadn't had to do it for the last 4 years of living in Brooklyn!

Now, with that said, there's a lot of cool shit. But I don't want all this promotion if there's going to be a backlash by dumbass people that have no idea what they're talking about. Stay out of Texas if you don't like it.

CashMoneyHoney

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @DrJimmy: I've never voted for a Bush for any office ever and I grew up in Midland! The only people who still think Bush is doing a good job are in employed in the oil industry. Everyone else down here has finally realized he sucks. (I tried to tell 'em eight years ago!)

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> if your opinions of certain cities are shaped by that city's airport during a layover, or furthermore if your opinion of all southern states are informed by 'deliverance' or 'urban cowboy', i suggest you get off your ass and actually spend time in that city or travel south of the mason dixon for an extended period of time in order to gain a true perspective rather than slag on about something of which you truly know nothing about.

to sum up: assholes are everywhere.

rednrowdy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Feh, Houston! All they've got there is steers and schmeers of liver paste on $2 Bahn Mi. A bunch of freakin' degenerates.

If they'd lay of the szzyrup they could finally embrace a proper Bush family aesthetic instead of the bastard unamerican stuff they throw our way in the form of Indian Jewelry and Rua Minx.

[www.swarmofangels.com]
[www.swarmofangels.com]

MyrtleWilloughby

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @SuperBien: If you had pulled that off, this comments thread would become a standing ovation for you.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @applebama: "God, you guys sound like a bunch of Irvingesque frigid New Englanders, looking down your nose at the "new, trashy money."

Thank you! Grandmother would be ever so proud.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ThaKadinskyPapers: All good, but Dr Pepper doesn't have a period after Dr -- for real. Also, somewhere in here it should probably say something about openin' up a can'o whoop-ass on a buncha condescending New Yorkers...

foolinthepool

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Having visited Houston for work last January, I was -- on the drive into town from Bush International -- taken aback by how the massive oil refineries outside Houston's center seemed to completely dwarf the city skyline. You'll also always find at least one oil pump on virtually every patch of land that isn't a road or parking lot. Despite this and because I find NASA kinda interesting, I was looking forward to visiting this city that figures so prominently in the history of manned space flight. It was such a let down though to find Johnson Space Center surrounded by cheesey hotels, touristy chain restaurants, and trashy strip malls.

Oh yeah -- there's this dive bar called the "Outpost Tavern" where all the astronauts since the 1960's supposedly hung out. You'll find autographed pictures of them all on the walls. I think this bar should be a historic site, but it's been compromised by all the touristy cheese + strip mall dreck infesting the area. I did have fun there though. Shiner Bock beer is really good and then trying to find + steal an autographed picture of the crazy diaper-wearing lady astronaut was an exercise in futility that came about after drinking lots of it.

SuperBien

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @applebama: Sucking exactly the same as something that sucks still sucks.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @fuzzymuffins: I think you mean "sippin on sizzzurp" with the locals.

roodles

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @foolinthepool: actually, a Texan would say, "Yew wawnt summa me fuucker?", just before drawing down on you with the Desert Eagle they are licensed to conceal carry as they speed through the Beverage Barn for Everclear and Dr. Pepper while running down cheatin' husbands from Austin in the Mursaydeez 'cuz they ain't real Texans no way.

*sigh* I miss home.

ThaKadinskyPapers

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> God, you guys sound like a bunch of Irvingesque frigid New Englanders, looking down your nose at the "new, trashy money." Congrats, you have all listed every tired stereotype about Texas. Hilarious !

Houston does suck, but it sucks exactly the same as Atlanta. And yes, I'm pretty sure there are more Aggies in Houston than Longhorns. The Bushes were Aggies. Only hippies and queers go to UT.

applebama

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @GirlFriday: Detroit. At least they have soul.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> There's lots worse places to be in Texas than Houston. Personally, I'm 0-4 in voting against GWB. Not everyone here loves him.

DrJimmy

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @downlow: Unfortunately, I live near Dallas and have visited Houston, and I can vouch for your statement. They are gross cities with little redeeming value. Houston in particular is a sweaty, sprawling armpit of a city. And certain of its neighborhoods - like, say, Deer Park - have a permanent smoggy haze of sewage clinging to them, thanks to the convenient centrally-located treatment plants.

SybilDisobedience

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> But don't they have a Galleria?

dado

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I was born there and have family there and I DREAD going there due to the humidity. Dallas and Houston both are awful places I avoid at all costs.

I have to disagree about the gravy though! YUMmmmm...Chicken fried steak and gravy is one of the best parts of living in Texas.

downlow

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Challenge: Houston or Detroit?

GirlFriday

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> anyplace i can blast pantera and sip on syrup with the locals is worth a plane trip.

fuzzymuffins

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: Fair enough.

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ragepotato: If forced into direct conflict, you always have psychological warfare. "Did you know that if you cut Alaska into two, even states that Texas would be the 3rd largest?" Note: If they are not immediatly wracked by confusion it would be wise to run.

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @valarmorghulis: I sorry. Ok, not really.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Houston is the tire tread in the nation's underwear.

gawkimo

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I was thinking more like - Houston: We swear it was better before NOLA invaded. Really.

WaltzingMatilda...same McCain, less filling!

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: "smell White Diamonds perfume" ...you hate us all don't you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to breathe when laughing *THAT* hard? HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION?!? I now have one less mouthfull of coffee, and a very wet desk.

valarmorghulis

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> One of the attractions of Houston is that it had no zoning, so you can see how the unregulated free enterprise system came out.

famousauthor

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ragepotato: And Molotovs - don't forget those. Hairspray and polyester can burn for days.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BalknChain: Don't you love the one where the broad has a big bald spot, but what's left has been delicately teased and drawn over it like spun sugar over a dessert, so that from the side it looks like the buildings in Logan's Run?

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: Do not drag the Longhorns into this. There are probably more Aggies in houston. Stupid jarhead assholes.

BaconCat

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: I'll be undercover. In Texas, if you have the Holy Trinity of stickers on your Tahoe, you are protected: UT Longhorn, Bush/Cheney, and something Megachurch-y. Failing that, I have a rocket launcher.

ragepotato

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: Don't forget Sizzurpae Screwdata, noted by purple stained tongue and extreme lethargy. Most noted by booming bass and 66 Buick with a chandelier in the backseat. Just add "Big" before your first name if your fat, or "Lil'" before your first name if your not fat (yet) and you'll fit in just fine.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hallsoats: Hey! We went to the same school! Good to see ya HallsOats. I'm a fan too.

roodles

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @FitnessMadeSimple: Yeah, NYC is so civilized, with no fat people, no murder, and no asshats. This is when a Texan would say "F--k all y'all."

foolinthepool

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @ragepotato: Don't eat the gravy. We need all our scouts in the field. Watch out for the deadly Evangelicus Big Hairus, which can be avoided by running whenever you smell White Diamonds perfume, or the menacing BushVoting Bigotus, whose distinctive cry of "Beaners n' faggits!" will provide your warning to flee.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> The higher the hair, the closer to God.

blix

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @roodles: We must have been in the same physics class.

hallsoats

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: or beehived!

BalknChain

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Driving through today. I will give an on the scene report, unless of course I am gut-shot or die from gravy poisoning.

ragepotato

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: Jesus, i hate Eva Longoria, I knew there was a reason I haven't visited San Antonio.

I'll say this about Austin, when I left it was slowly becoming overcrowded by the same peeps from Houston and Dallas that I so desperately fled, but it's liberal, overwhelmingly white hippie hipster demographic can also be a tad grating. It took me years to like NYC but now that I do, I'm staying.

roodles

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @FitnessMadeSimple: I am actually nostalgic for Mayor Lindsay...

NinaHagen

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BalknChain: Dyed, Dried & Three Feet Wide!

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @Hamilton Nolan: You do have quite a bit on Houston actually. Sufjan Stevens hasn't written a song about them yet.

(And I hope you know I'm playing. My hometown pulls plenty of ridicule.)

fiveinchtaint

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Then there's this: Houston has basically no zoning laws. One could build his dream McMansion and then be unable to stop a cattle rendering plant/paper mill from opening next door.

Nard

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> "See our hair", hahaha
Everything is bigger in Texas.

BalknChain

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @roodles: I agree with this. Austin is okay but tends to house a lot of wimpy ex New Yorkers with a chip on their shoulder. San Antonio has a fake Venetian canal and I saw Eva Longoria bitching out a chef at Benihana. Everywhere else, don't bother.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Can you still drink beer in your car & carry a missile? If so, I am so there...

NinaHagen

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I can't help but feel that it's a bit hypocritical of New Yorkers to talk shit about another city's efforts to dispel stereotypes and attract new visitors. We're not that far removed from Dinkins' New York.

FitnessMadeSimple

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: I would love to go there once and a'la Borat, walk around with a longhorn skull as a hat and ask random men if they want to go Brokeback.

I can run really fast.

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Having grown up in the suburban wasteland that is called "Houston" I can attest that it indeed, sucks. Unless you live in Rice Village or on Montrose with the fab gays, it's boring, conservative and tacky. I remember having an argument with classmates in SENIOR physics class about whether the tower of babel really existed. They said yes obviously.

Austin and San Antonio are pretty awesome though, y'all should visit y'hear?

roodles

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> construction workers downtown are polishing a new $122-million emerald gem, Discovery Green, a 12-acre park with lake and restaurants...

They're putting restaurants in the park? Haha. Fatties.

Botswana Meat Commission FC

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> "Houston - We Have A Problem" as a tag-line would be both accurate, funny and highly counter-productive.

@TheHonJudgeSmails: Ha!

VirusWithShoes

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I'll be there next Tuesday. I'll tell them not to bother.

KarenUhOh

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @BettyCrocker: It's actually considered gauche to not have at least one item displaying the Longhorns emblem upon your person or vehicle at all times.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @fiveinchtaint: And how!

Hamilton Nolan

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @flyoverstate: Don't forget condescending sneers from people with a sixth grade education, three inches of blue eyeshadow, ugly fringed jackets with turquoise bedazzling, and more money than you'll make in your lifetime.

hamburgerhotdog

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: I picture lots of chain BBQ restuarants with steer skulls featured prominently in the decor, residents dressed in stained polyester and lacquered with hairspray, and a simmering undercurrent of racism and homophobia.

When's the next plane to Austin, the only civilized spot in Texas?

BettyCrocker

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Mmmmm. Codeine and cough syrup.

Botswana Meat Commission FC

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> I think the ridiculous sequence of events on "Planet Houston" (pronounced hoo-ston) in Superman 2 pretty much speak for themselves.

TheHonJudgeSmails

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> True Story:
Flying from L.A. back to Houston one day, sitting next to a movie producer's teenage son. His dad was sending him to live in Houston, because it was so much safer there.
I didn't have the heart to tell him that Houston was currently in the middle of a gang war, and had more murders in the past 72 hours than they had experienced in the entire previous year to date.

flyoverstate

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> Houston: You's A Long Way From New York, Pretty Boy.

cockfightbarmitzvah

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> With the incredibly high incidence of accidents Houstonians have had with the light-rail system the money might be better spent on a "don't stand in front of a moving train" awareness campaign.

Chief Wahoo

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> It's no Jacksonville!

fiveinchtaint

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> @hamburgerhotdog: Great. Now I'm hungry and enraged.

Good taggery, Hamilton, btw. "See Our Hair" especially.

VirusWithShoes

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> And Traffic, Intolerable heat and humidity from April through October, and Murder.

flyoverstate

]]> <![CDATA[Texas Oddly Expects You To Visit]]> It's a great city if you like obesity, white gravy, and murder.

hamburgerhotdog

]]>