Arlington

And Don't Get Us Started on Junction Jack

Rocket-hater or Realist?

That Hunter Pence Sure Is Dreamy. Too Bad the Game Was a Nightmare.

A Paean to Texas Blues in Arlington?

Slideshow: Baseball Parks Across America

What About the Camera Crew, People?

Chronicle Hops On The Obama Bandwagon

Houston, Thank The Real-Estate Gods That You Don't Live In Florida

You want some good economic news?Hmmm. Well, the best we can do is that the Houston area has officially been declared the third-least-risky real-estate market in the country.The PMI Group annually issues a list of markets that are most at risk of seeing home prices fall, and the 2008 report came out ... More >>

Stadia Watch

You want some good economic news?Hmmm. Well, the best we can do is that the Houston area has officially been declared the third-least-risky real-estate market in the country.The PMI Group annually issues a list of markets that are most at risk of seeing home prices fall, and the 2008 report came out ... More >>

Bush's Big Score

Bank on it: The Rangers sale will haunt the governor's run for president in 2000

Rumors Are Always True: U2 Hits Reliant Stadium October 14

U2.comJust as Rocks Off suspected, U2 and Live Nation announced Tuesday evening that the Irish band's record-smashing 360 tour will stop at Reliant Stadium Wednesday, October 14, with "Supermassive Black Hole" UK space-rock trio Muse opening. Tickets for the Houston show - and, if you must, t ... More >>

Punx-Mas Fest 3

U2.comJust as Rocks Off suspected, U2 and Live Nation announced Tuesday evening that the Irish band's record-smashing 360 tour will stop at Reliant Stadium Wednesday, October 14, with "Supermassive Black Hole" UK space-rock trio Muse opening. Tickets for the Houston show - and, if you must, t ... More >>

Letters to the Editor

U2.comJust as Rocks Off suspected, U2 and Live Nation announced Tuesday evening that the Irish band's record-smashing 360 tour will stop at Reliant Stadium Wednesday, October 14, with "Supermassive Black Hole" UK space-rock trio Muse opening. Tickets for the Houston show - and, if you must, t ... More >>

Funtime Is Over

It's the end of the road for AstroWorld

Swamp Thing

The Skeleton Key unlocks a house that's haunted by camp

Playbill

The Skeleton Key unlocks a house that's haunted by camp

Hell on Earth

Both sides in a Houston fight worship the same god: publicity

The Revelation of Jana

Ex-Matty & Mossy singer Jana Hunter chases elusive obscurity

Tresspassers Will Be Prosecuted

Ranch Rescue's Jack Foote swears he just wants to mend fences. Is pseudomilitary secrecy, right-wing rhetoric and an armed vigilante militia the best way?

Letters

Mono-Poly Wars, Donald's Demise, Holy Hypocrisy

Learning Curves

Charter school scandals are teaching Texas a hard lesson -- one the state should have known fouryears and $77 million ago

George Strait

Charter school scandals are teaching Texas a hard lesson -- one the state should have known fouryears and $77 million ago

Houston Stays Alive In Bid To Host Some World Cup Games

​A few years ago, Houston memorably (and hilariously) pushed hard to host a Summer Olympics. It had as much chance of landing one as it did a Winter Olympics, but the effort persevered nonetheless.We seem to have a better shot, however, at seeing some World Cup (that's soccer, you xenophobes) acti ... More >>

The British Isles: Texas Haggis

Photo by Robb Walsh​In photos, canned haggis looks alarmingly like dog food. It is traditionally eaten as part of a full Scottish breakfast or as an entrée on a bed of mashed rutabagas and potatoes, which go by the cutesy names of "neeps and tatties" in Scotland. I bought a can of Caledonian ... More >>

Lone Star Scorecard: "God Blessed Texas," "Dracula From Houston" and "The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)"

​ You know the drill: every week we sift through several thousand songs (mostly) extolling the virtues of the Great State of Texas to bring you three that still manage to screw it up. And whether written by native sons or godless Yankee heathens, mistakes abound. Little Texas, "God Blessed Texas" ... More >>

Oklahoma Football Gets A Houston Radio Outlet; Aggies Still Out Of Luck

​As you'll remember from our post on 1560 The Game a few weeks ago, it was mentioned that the station was in negotiations with a Big 12 Conference school to air its football games this season. Now there was some speculation (and hope) in the comments that this team would be the Aggies. But just as ... More >>

Obama, No Way. W And Some Dallas Cowboys? You Bet!

​Houston, whenever you worry the right-wing loons are making you look bad, take solace in this: There's always Dallas.North Texas was perhaps the country's capital of the awe-inspiring movement that kept schoolkids from hearing a president speak about staying in school. And the Dallas area played ... More >>

Obama Causes Kids To Miss Lifetime Dream Of Meeting Cowboys

Photo courtesy White House Flickr group​Last week we told you about the Arlington school district, which refused to show President Obama's "stay in school" speech but was fine with busing hundreds of students to Cowboys Stadium to hear George W. Bush.It sounded odd to us, but then again we don't l ... More >>

U2 and Muse Set Lists from Cowboys Stadium in Arlington Monday

Pete Freedman/ DC-9 at NightIndependence Day in Arlington? Nah, just U2's ginormous 360 "Claw" stage.​ It's a little less than 36 hours and counting until U2's 360 Tour stops at Reliant Stadium, and Rocks Off is starting to get excited. Really excited. Bono and the boys were in Arlington at Cowboy ... More >>

Five Guys Burgers and Fries: New Location

​Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which started out in Arlington, Va. more than 20 years ago, is opening another restaurant in Houston today.   The latest is at 1150 Fry Road, another one of 50 stores its parent company, TCH Restaurant Group, has planned for Houston. This one will be open 11 ... More >>

Fool Hearted Memory: Music That Chooses You, Not the Other Way Around

​ Someone once observed wryly that the only member of your family you'll ever actually choose is your spouse, and perhaps a whole lot of that observation is equally applicable to the music of our lives. A couple of years back we were sitting at Prince's Hamburgers off the Southwest Freeway in the ... More >>

Trying the Bellaire Broiler Burger

Photo by kaoru-h​After reading a few dozen passionate online reviews about the Bellaire Broiler Burger, a local legend, we decided to swing by Bellaire and Bissonnet, where BBB is tucked away in a time capsule out of the '70s. Smoking was allowed there until not too long ago, but now, only the ... More >>

American Idol: The "Big D" Stands For Dull

​Last night's American Idol took the auditions to Dallas (or, more accurately, Arlington) for the sixth open-call episode of the season to date. The show seemed to be hold Dallas in high regard: It's where Kelly Clarkson was discovered in the first season back in 2002, so there's a sense that ... More >>

Idol Beat: Goin' Through the Big D, and Don't Mean Dallas

​Last night's American Idol took the auditions to Dallas (or, more accurately, Arlington) for the sixth open-call episode of the season to date. The show seemed to be hold Dallas in high regard: It's where Kelly Clarkson was discovered in the first season back in 2002, so there's a sense that ... More >>

Game Time: Kentucky Derby -- Ten "Two Minute Events" More Exciting Than Horses Galloping

Between-race entertainment at the Derby​I love horse racing. Actually, to be clear, I love the act of going to the racetrack -- any racetrack -- and sitting in the bleachers (do they call them "bleachers" at a racetrack?) with three or four of my buddies, drinking about twelve beers, eating roughl ... More >>

Pedicab Drivers Pedal The Lawless Downtown Frontier

Photos by Brittanie Shey Space City Bike Cabs has the largest fleet of pedicabs in the Houston area.​Pedicab driving is a job for shisters. That much became clear to Rocks Off after just a 10-minute conversation with a driver. And during our two-hour ride along with Houston bike cabs workin ... More >>

F**k You Very Much, Austin

• Talk about buzzkill. During All Time Low's Bamboozle Roadshow performance at Six Flags in Arlington last week, amusement park security pepper-sprayed a handful of preteens who rushed the stage in a surge of prepubescent hormonal musical bliss. The band gave the security an earful of Fuck You! a ... More >>

Rockets' Power Dancer Tryouts, Featuring A NASA Engineer

Photo by Paula BeltránRachel Snow, Geneva Gordon, Yvette Nguyen (L-R) at the tryouts​The Rockets Power Dancer final auditions were in full swing Tuesday night: oh the glamour, the perfectly-sculpted legs ... the NASA engineer adjusting her hot shorts?Yup."I'm an engineer at NASA, so when I'm not ... More >>

Texas Rangers vs Yankees: Who The Hell Can You Root For?

W vs. Rudy? That's no help​The American League Championship Series, also known as the Reminder That Some Texas MLB Teams Are Still Playing, continues on.We've tried, but we can't figure out who to root for in this thing. We know who to root against -- the Rangers, and the Yankees -- but that seems ... More >>

Texas Rangers: World Series Tips From A Town That's Been There

Let a veteran city help you out, Metroplex​Tonight begins what -- to fans of the Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared -- will always be known as the "so-called World Series."It (the Series, not the movie) features the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants. If you wanted a Red State/Blue ... More >>

Believe It Or Not, It's Time For College Basketball

John Royal Cougars prepare to play basketball​They were just exhibition games, and they tell us that exhibition games are meaningless. They don't count in the standings. They're a chance to test game conditioning. To see how well everyone understands the offense. To see what improvements ne ... More >>

Four Loko No Mo'

Drink faces Texas ban.

Black Eyed Pleeease!: Fergie & The Gang At The Super Bowl Halftime Show

Earlier this week we chronicled for you our favorite Super Bowl halftime shows, from Petty and the Who, to the Boss and the Stones. Tonight we will be live-blogging all the musical attractions from Super Bowl XLV from Dallas, er, Arlington. ​ Lined up in the next few minutes we will see Christina ... More >>

College Baseball: Rice Sweeps the Trojans While UH Struggles Against the Rebs

John RoyalRice's Michael Ratterree tags out USC's Matt Foat trying to advance on a sac fly​In the first weekend of the college baseball season, it was the Houston Cougars pulling off the home sweep of UT-Arlington while the Rice Owls were losing two of three to visiting Stanford. The competit ... More >>

State Rep Introduces Antidiscrimination Legislation for Intelligent Design Proponents

The glowing state rep Bill Zedler​A Dallas-area state representative has introduced legislation aimed at preventing anyone from discriminating against those who want to research intelligent design in Texas. Rep. Bill Zedler of Arlington sponsored House Bill HB2454 because he believes that coll ... More >>

Texas High School Hockey Fight: Cheap Shots, Bloodthirsty Parents and a Broken Jaw

The Hansen Brothers, Texas high school version​See it while you still can -- video of the incredible ending of the Texas high school hockey championship up in Dallas. (Yes, they have high school hockey here. It's a club sport, not part of the UIL.) Keller beat a team from Arlington 9-3, and ... More >>

Nolan Ryan Out of Hospital

Nolan Ryan is a free man again.​Baseball great Nolan Ryan has been released from the hospital after a health scare, the Texas Rangers have announced. Ryan, 64, entered a Houston hospital yesterday after experiencing discomfort in areas that a man who has had heart bypass surgery doesn't want ... More >>

WarBeast: Oh Fuck, They Have a Time Machine

It's a well-known fact that most band names are essentially gobbledygook, but here at Rocks Off we're trying hard to find meaning in the oddest monikers. Beth Burton​We try real hard to avoid metal bands here in the old What's in a Name? column. We still haven't forgiven Owl Witch for the abs ... More >>

Seven People Nearly Killed by Runaway Cart at Cowboys Stadium (w/ CRAZY Video)

Rise of the machine.​There are certain buildings in sports that are seemingly jinxed. Since the Red Sox finally got off the World Series schneid a few years back, Wrigley Field immediately comes to mind as the current titleholder for "bad luck mecca" as the Cubs haven't made a World Series in ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 1: Roberto Castre of Latin Bites Cafe

Photo by Mai PhamExecutive Chef Roberto Castre of Latin Bites Cafe​Today, Latin Bites Cafe, the tiny seven-table Peruvian restaurant that received critical acclaim during its one year, five month reign in the Houston's warehouse district, is having its grand re-opening to the public in its bra ... More >>