Black Friday

As Texas's Drought Continues, Opportunities at Conservation Finally Find Discussion

The rain came last week. Finally. It came in droves, surging over the curbs, washing away the oil and grime and refuse into a filthy chemical blend. It came for hours. It was needed, in a state suffering a drought that has covered nearly every city and town and farm Texas knows. And then it let up, ... More >>

10 Reasons to Be Thankful Christmas Is Over

After a full blast Christmas season, most of us are worn out to the point of exhaustion. The time spent with family, the commercialism, the "sounds of the season" and the gluttonous embarrassment of feasting is enough to drive anyone to drink, which you probably also did too much of this year for a ... More >>

Dining Out on Turkey Day

Our guide to restaurants open on Thanksgiving Day

Young Mammals, Mikey & The Drags, Caddywhompus

Black Friday Dining Deals: Everything Tastes Better on Sale

While you're going crazy running from store to store to grab the best deals for Christmas gifts this Black Friday, you're definitely going to be starving for something good to eat. Why not stick with the theme of finding the best deals when it comes to where you'll eat or drink that day? We've comp ... More >>

Mugshot Etiquette 101: Don't Smile Unless You Did Something Cool

Every day here at Hair Balls we get to see great, sad, and dumbfounding mugshots from around the state of Texas. We sure do have a lot of criminals in the Lone Star State. Makes me fearful of seceding in 2025. REWIND: Sean Payne: Humble Man Too Drunk To Pose for His Mugshot REWIND: Michael Jordan ... More >>

White Linen Fight

As event grew, so did promises, expectations and disappointments.

Vinyl Gets Another Spin

Showing it has more lives than a cockroach, vinyl has been reborn, resulting in some beautiful music. But sometimes production values in records and turntables are lacking.

They Were Kings for a Moment

The feds attack online poker, killing livelihoods and a $2.5 billion industry.

Walter Wright & the Feds' Attack on Online Poker: A Tale of a $2.5 Billion Industry

April 15, 2011 is known as Black Friday in the online-poker world, the day the feds seized the assets and shut down the three biggest companies serving the American market -- PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. Among the people affected: Walter Wright, a former Houstonian who was making ... More >>

Bring Back Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day. Okay, maybe not over here. Boxing Day, December 26, is traditionally a British holiday, although it's also now celebrated in countries such as Canada and Australia. Boxing Day in those places now has the same sort of connotation that our own Black Friday does: The day after a m ... More >>

East Texas Grinches Steal $20,000 of Foster Kids' Christmas Presents

Come to think of it, not even this guy would approve of what these losers did​We spend a lot of time here wandering about in the pits of human depravity, but this one is about as depressing as it gets. Simply put, earlier this week, a thief or several thieves broke into the Longview storage f ... More >>

Stephen Hunter: Soft Target

Bad Mugshot Bonanza: Five Longview Crime All-Stars Netted in Single Drug Bust

An expired inspection sticker led to fresh arrests for five of Longview's most frequently busted miscreants Friday. Police say that 48-year-old Howard "Cowboy" Perkins and 47-year-old Clifton Ardry were stopped while riding in a pickup near the home of 54-year-old, Biblically bearded George Cliffor ... More >>

Material World: Music to Rock Your Cyber Monday with Video

In the late '70s, there was a movie spoof on Friday the 13th called Saturday the 14th. It was about as dumb as you imagine it would be. Well, insert punchline here because Black Friday is over, but we are still smack dab in the middle of Cyber Monday, where instead of being stampeded by rampaging sh ... More >>

Top 5 Reasons Cyber Monday Is Better Than Black Friday

To bastardize a line from Groundhog Day, "Well, it's Black Friday...again." It's that oh-so-magical time of year when the strong walk away from predawn shopping trips with armfuls of electronic goodies while the weak get treated by EMS for boot marks left by shoppers stampeding into Best Buy. Since ... More >>

5 Reasons You Should Skip Black Friday for Cyber Monday

Well, it's Black Friday again. I sincerely hope you and your loved ones remain un-trampled and filled with holiday spirit or, if retailers got their wish, with carloads of merchandise. Since 2005, the nerdy cousin to Black Friday has been Cyber Monday. Traditionally, and I hesitate to even use that ... More >>

Free for All: The Post-Thanksgiving Day Edition

Look, it's Black Friday (and dark gray Saturday and Sunday, or whatever they call the rest of the weekend), and if you aren't going shopping or to the movies or fighting with relatives, what else is there to do? We've come up with a few suggestions. And they all have the advantage of being free. F ... More >>

For Savvy Shoppers, Black Friday Started Last Tuesday

If you missed out on a great deal for a humongous flat-screen television at Best Buy today, you can only blame yourself. Some folks, like Becky H., put a lot of effort into making sure they got door buster prices for televisions, computers and other big-ticket electronics. "Tuesday night we were l ... More >>

The Great Escape: 8 Ways to Ditch Your Family This Thanksgiving

The holiday of plenty is finally here. The house smells of cranberries and fried delights. Your home is a bustle of relatives, cousins, aunts... neighbors? All of a sudden a severe panic envelops your body: it's only 8 a.m. You have an entire day to spend with these people - and they just keep comin ... More >>

Musicians Can Wait: Black Friday More About Flat Screens Than Instruments

Back in college -- yes, in the stone age -- I worked for a musical instrument store on the north side of Houston. Over the years, there were busy days where I just stood behind the counter while a line of people handed me guitars to buy without the hint of a sales push and there were days we sat in ... More >>

Buxton, Allen Oldies Band at Cactus Music Record Store Black Friday Event

Most of us wince when we think about Black Friday. Sure, you can get that limited edition, glow in the dark Blu Ray Player/Coffee Maker that heals your broken dreams and cleans your toilet, but is it really worth the midnight (or 10 p.m. on Thursday depending on your location) wake up call? We think ... More >>

10 Things You Need To Grab At Black Friday Record Store Day

While your other shopping contemporaries are slashing each others' throats at Walmart and Best Buy for $20 plasma televisions and six Blu-Ray players for $5 on Black Friday next week, why not sleep in and head up to your favorite local record store and fight other music nerds for limited edition vin ... More >>

Record Store Day Contest Coming This Afternoon

​When so many Americans will be camping out at Best Buys and fighting over big screen televisions at Walmart, music fans will be sleeping soundly in anticipation of Record Store Day's Black Friday events. The now annual day celebrating the stores that once carried the weight of music sales is ... More >>

Upcoming Events: Lend a Helping Hand on Thanksgiving

"Serving" can take on many meanings at Thanksgiving.​Thanksgiving is what? It's next week? Wait, are you serious? If you, like me, are terrible at planning (or knowing what week of the month it currently is), turn to Lauren Marmaduke's excellent guide to dining out on Thanksgiving Day or orde ... More >>

Thursday And Other Musical Days Of The Week

​Today is Thursday, and Thursday is playing tonight at Warehouse Live. The few times Craig's Hlist has said this to co-workers and friends in passing, at least the ones who don't live with their heads shoved up a concert calendar's ass, they have looked at us like we are insane. The band Thu ... More >>

Openings & Closings

Still one of my favorite photos. Welcome back, Leon's.​More great news for the Heights this week as it was announced that D'Amico's Italian Market has set its sights on White Oak Boulevard for its second location. The popular restaurant has been operating at 5510 Morningside in Rice Village si ... More >>

Nicki Minaj Has Lil Kim On The Defensive... For Now

David LaChappelle/ beyondurbanbranding.blogspot.com​Lil Kim lost the battle before she ever said a word to Nicki Minaj. She lost for reasons beyond her control, and some within her control. She lost the same way the VHS lost when DVDs came out. She lost the way the CD player lost when the iPod ... More >>

Lamar's eLibrary

Goodbye paper books, hello Facebook.

Worst Hanukkah Ever: Gifts From Anti-Semitic Hate Websites

America X might be on the gift list​If you spent Black Friday fighting for Hanukkah gifts for your Jewish friends, chances are you completely forgot about the people who feel especially left out during the Festival of Lights: anti-Semites.While Jews everywhere spin the dreidel and light the menora ... More >>

Compulsory Calorie Counting

loop_ohOh, shut up.​Thanksgiving in New York: After gorging myself at my aunt's Long Island Thanksgiving feast, my family and I went into the city to troll around the Public Library, admire the window displays at Macy's, eat a juicy buffalo burger at Ted's Montana Grill, and go see "Time Stand ... More >>

Willie Nelson's "Green Friday" Leads To Teapot Party

​If you are a cop in Texas - OK, a cop anywhere in the world - when you pull over a tour bus and out pops a gnomish man with grayish-red hair and you smell pot smoke, you smile and nod, get an autograph and go on your way. It's 2010, and we live in a world where Willie Nelson can still get a ... More >>

Sick of Turkey? Order a Pizza: Our Top 5 Pizza Places

Photo courtesy of luna715Look at you, eating your Star Pizza off a real dinner plate. Oh, you fancy, huh?​Not all of us are like the Old Man in A Christmas Story; we aren't all turkey fiends. Some of us are happy to have it once a year and then forget the bland white meat even exists. So while ... More >>

Infographic: The Black Friday Experience

See the whole thing after the jump​Today is "Black Friday", so named because of the hellish throng of shoppers and cars choking the streets, sidewalks, and retail outlets all over the country. Believe it or not, up until a few years ago, "Black Friday" was an urban legend; the shopping crowd w ... More >>

This Week in Deliciousness

That's a chewing gum turkey someone made, just in case you hadn't lost your faith in God yet.​Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where we're still trying to gather the courage to look up what a "giblet" is. In case you were abroad for this past week, or else belong to ... More >>

NFL & College Football - Weekend's Best Bets (SEC Guy Podcast Gold)

Who doesn't love college football? Right?​I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, and got to spend some quality time with their families. Me, my family is scattered all over the country, so when it came time to find some Thanksgiving dinner after my show yesterday, fortunately ... More >>

In Case You Missed It...

Marco TorresIt's a bird... it's a plane... it's... Usher!​Rocks Off knows you have had a busy week. So have we. But, we figured, what with Thanksgiving and Black Friday and traveling to and from your various other holiday ports of call, you may not have had as much time in front a computer as ... More >>

Venomous Maximus

Wrap It Up: Houstonian a Finalist in Wrapping Contest

When in doubt, slap a giant bow on it​When we at Hairballs were just wee tots, we had relatives who liked to do everything early for the holidays. They would have all their Christmas cards mailed before Thanksgiving and their gifts wrapped the day after Black Friday. We were less efficient pre ... More >>

Sampler Plate: This Week in Food Blogs

Each week, we put together a sampler plate of the most interesting links from both local and national food blogs. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. Great Food Houston: Support Houston-based businesses and avoid Black Friday alt ... More >>

$2.99 Grand Slams at Denny's on Black Friday

We prefer the Moons Over My Hammy​Let's say for the moment you plan on being out early on Black Friday. Let's also say your four hours of sitting in line followed by the frenzied trampling of other humans to buy the hundred-dollar laptop and three-hundred-dollar flat screen television you are ... More >>

Denny's Grand Slams $2.99 on Black Friday

Mmm...Moons Over My Hammy​There's nothing getting an early start running errands or getting some exercise followed by a good, hearty breakfast. It's the perfect start to a great day. This Friday will likely not be one of those days. Instead of errands or exercise, there will be sleep deprivati ... More >>

Music We're Thankful For This Year

​After the turkey comas subside and Black Friday opens the holiday retail floodgates, this year in music will be all but over. Yes, there's another month until the calendar flips over, but from here until early January, the only "new" music coming out will be the tide of reissues, box sets and ... More >>

Flying Fur: PETA Members to Protest on Black Friday

Don't expect hot, naked protesters on Friday. Think about it if you like, but don't expect it.​When you are out picking up some toys for the tikes at the Galleria this Friday, you might see something besides chubby Santas and frustrated holiday shoppers. You might catch anti-fur protesters. A ... More >>

Top Five Black Friday Fight Videos

Give it or I'll punch you in the jugular​When you are in a battle for your life, you often resort to scratching and clawing, screaming and yelling. When you are in a fight for a plasma television on Black Friday, well, you'll probably do the same thing. Welcome to Black Friday, America's cele ... More >>

Sad Yao Ming Is Sad

Photo by Groovehouse. Photo illustrations by Monica Fuentes and Brittanie SheyYao Ming, contemplating his retirement and the existential quandries of life.​Like manna from the Meme Gods, we give you Sad Yao. This picture, taken during last night's fourth-straight Rockets loss, conveys all the ... More >>

What Time Is Thanksgiving Dinner?

Photo by photineThanksgiving dinner is ready and waiting...​That's the question for you, readers. Are you the family who eats your meal at 11 a.m., leaving plenty of time for napping and football game watching afterward? Or are you the family who has a traditional dinner at 6 p.m., after a day ... More >>

Five Reasons Not to Shop on Black Friday

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Shopping Free-For-All!​Every year around this time in the United States, we celebrate a day so important, so American that it brings people together like no other day can. Around 3 a.m. this Friday, bleary-eyed shopaholics will power into retail outlets all over the country in ... More >>