West Virginia

How Does The 2013 QB Class Stack Up According To The "Parcells Rules"?

A few months ago, former head coaching great Bill Parcells was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, slated to be inducted this summer. If you're looking for the reasons why, there are obviously plenty -- twice named NFL Coach of the Year, twice a Super Bowl winner, three times a Super Bowl part ... More >>

Randy Moss' And Chris Culliver's Nuclear Trolling Of San Francisco

As an NFL player playing in the biggest football game known to the free world, the last thing you want to do during Super Bowl week is give your opponent any bulletin board material. Trash talk is not highly recommended. This year, perhaps because (more likely, in spite of) the two head coaches are ... More >>

Keep Cool and Caffeinated

Houston's ten best iced coffee crinks

Blood Money

More than 200 soldiers are suing KBR for knowingly exposing them to toxic chemicals in Iraq, whose effects started with nose bleeds and could end with cancer. KBR says that didn't happen. But even if it did, the company isn't responsible. Taxpayers are.

Person of Interest: Lone "Wolf and Cub"

Tension is growing between Reese and Finch, those partners in crimestopping. In the beginning, the ex-CIA operative's needling of his nerdy OCD boss seemed almost good-natured, but as Finch continues to deflect Reese's inquiries about The Machine, the latter has moved into full-scale investigation m ... More >>

Kevin Sumlin Has Been Contacted by Arizona State, No Wait, He Hasn't...

The Internet is awesome. Only on Twitter can you get a reporter (in this case, Doug Haller of The Arizona Republic) to definitively state that University of Houston coach Kevin Sumlin has been offered the Arizona State head coaching job, and then have literally dozens of other journalists line up ... More >>

Invasion of Piracy

Illegal downloading costs the film industry billions of dollars per year. But does the legal strategy designed to recoup this lost bounty amount to extortion?

Connie Smith: Classic Country Queen Returns With New Heartaches

Photos by Russ Harrington/Sugar Hill Records​People often get a bit confrontational with Lonesome Onry and Mean about "country music," like the last time we went to the bank in our father's little ranching town in Central Texas. As soon as we were introduced as a "music writer," one fellow - t ... More >>

Top 5 Musician Novelists

Ted Barron/New West RecordsSteve Earle: What's up, Doc?​Despite what our paychecks and sometimes even our diplomas say, the perception persists that music journalists are not "real" journalists. Similarly, no matter how literate their lyrics, some folks think musicians could not possibly put p ... More >>

Sheet Rocker

Rod Picott's Welding Burns is bursting with hard-bitten blue-collar songs.

Sanctus Bellum: Nothing Certain But Metal And Taxes

Photos courtesy of Sanctus BellumSanctus Bellum at Denton's 35 Conferette in March​What fuels heavy metal music? Some might say the Armageddon that is flirting with our world; others, watching the machinations of craven political and religious leaders. We, however, can testify that some of the ... More >>

Houston "Best Bachelor" City: But Aren't We Also Fattest, Sweatiest, Dumbest, Etc. Etc.?

If you like your bachelors with bad teeth, Houston's your town​Hair Balls was stoked by Houston's ass-kicking turnout in recent national listings, including Fast Company's "city of the year," and Rent.com's ranking of us as the best city for bachelors. The highly scientific Rent.com survey fo ... More >>

Rice Thunders Past Marshall, Sweeps the Herd

John RoyalRice pitcher Austin Kubitza with another dominating performance on Friday.​The Final Four dominated the attention of the sports media this weekend, rightly or wrongly. But while that whole NCAA exercise, especially UConn and Kentucky, was making a mockery of the concept of amateur a ... More >>

"George Riffle": East Texas Man Arrested Near Chicago for 1988 Rape of a Pre-Teen Girl

Allegedly living with a secret for 23 years.​When George Riffle walked out onto the driveway of his modest home in suburban Chicago the morning of March 9, he got a rude surprise: U.S. Marshals and local police were waiting for him. They said they knew his name wasn't really George Riffle, and ... More >>

Mary Sarah Ready For The World At Age 15

Each Wednesday, Rocks Off arbitrarily appoints one lucky local performer or group "Artist of the Week," bestowing upon them all the fame and grandeur such a lofty title implies. Know a band or artist that isn't awful? Email their particulars to sheaserrano@gmail.com. Mary Sarah on Facebook​We ... More >>

Walmart Wants to Be Friends on Facebook

​Although Texas has weathered the economic downturn better than most states, that's small consolation to those residents still unable to feed their families. According to research published by the Food Research and Action Center earlier this year, Texas has the 13th-highest rate of food hardsh ... More >>

Third World

Problems n a First World country

NFL & College Football -- Weekend's Best Bets (Nepotism Edition)

Keeping it in the family​Okay, last week's Best Bets were centered around a random string of stories from around the internet, good enough for a 3-3 record, which means it's still yielding better results than 2009, but still not good enough for me. And damn sure not good enough for you. So ... More >>

Heads Will Roll: A Brief History Of Beheading In Song

Sir Walter Raleigh: "Watch the neck!"​"Find another victim for my machine/ Put 'em in a homemade guillotine/ Blade falls, gonna need a casket / Watch your head plop in a wicker basket." Offspring singer Dexter Holland flexed his oddly sinister sense of humor in the band's aptly-titled 1995 so ... More >>

Best Sporting Event I Ever Attended -- 10/15/88

ND-Miami: No love lost​"This game was won by the Notre Dame spirit." -- Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz after Notre Dame's 31-30 win over Miami, October 15, 1988 Fact. Those eight words uttered by Lou Holtz encapsulate so much. In specific terms, it pays homage to the tradition and magic that wa ... More >>

Terry Grier's AP Tests Could Also Stand for Auto Power

Photo by Margaret DowningTerry Grier has a chart for success​In Greensboro, North Carolina, Terry Grier was known as that (crazy) guy who gave a car away every year.Grier, now slightly more than one year into his superintendency in Houston, used that dramatic, crowd-pleasing technique to up the nu ... More >>

A "National" Tour Is Not L.A. To San Francisco Or A Few Festival Dates

Pavement? Nope, not here.​Tuesday, Rocks Off was a busy beaver keeping up with all the concert announcements coming over the wire. Along with the Fitzgerald's news, it was hard to keep up with everything going on. Interpol, Stone Temple Pilots, Drake, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros all ... More >>

Rice Coach Wayne Graham: He Reads The Message Boards

Take THAT, internet commenters!!​Here's a little note for you Rice Owl baseball fans who like to post on the message boards. Coach Wayne Graham likes to read your little postings. But here's the thing, he doesn't always agree with what you write. And he's hoping that, after last night's 16-9 win o ... More >>

A Cooler Coke: Guaraná Antarctica

​Each Tuesday and Thursday for the next five weeks, we'll be taking a look at alternatives to cokes for the sticky Houston summer that lays ahead. The first beverage we're examining in this series isn't exactly a hidden treasure. Guaraná Antarctica, produced in Brazil since 1921, is not only ... More >>

Worst St. Patrick's Day Ever: Getting Punctured By Hidden Hypodermic Needles

It was St. Patrick's Day two years ago and traveling businessman Douglas Hodge of West Virginia decided to stop for the night at a Super 8 motel in Baytown. (Because if anything screams "luxury" it's the phrase "Super 8 in Baytown.") After getting ready for a good night's sleep, he leaned back into ... More >>

College Bowl Preview: Picks By A Real Expert, The Finale

The college football bowl season is here, and it's become such a confusing mess of odd-sounding games played in smallish towns with mediocre teams that you need an expert to figure it out. And nothing says "expert" more than a teen-aged kid, whether the subject is football, driving, or how inutterab ... More >>

College Bowl Preview: Picks By A Real Expert, The Finale

The college football bowl season is here, and it's become such a confusing mess of odd-sounding games played in smallish towns with mediocre teams that you need an expert to figure it out. And nothing says "expert" more than a teen-aged kid, whether the subject is football, driving, or how inutterab ... More >>

The Case of Patrick Edwards

The Top Five Ballsiest Actors From Texas

Live Free or Die Hard

Even with the Mac kid at his side, John McClane is just...old

Medicine Show No Mo

Breaking the seventh seal at the Sideshow Tramps' CD release party

Punk'd!

Graffiti artists get their moment to shine on camera

Houston Band Cartography

The launch of our blog brings forth a quixotic attempt toward a local music atlas

Music to Cover Your Eyes To

Houstonian Nick DiFonzo has one of the world's finest collections of bad album covers

Sugar Coated

This Baylor medical "expert" cashed in on infomercials. Now he's showing how things go better with Coke.

Let the Eagle Soar

Alt-country hero Fred Eaglesmith dumps guitars and makes a pre-Beatles pop record

The Sex Life of Cynthia Hunt

Between the sheets with KPRC's ace reporter

Party Time, Excellent

The Masquerade Theatre lets it all hang out at The Wild Party

Docket Rockers

Five lawyers and a homicide detective want to give you Death By Injection

Book 'Em

Among musicians, everyone wants to become an author

Moth-Eaten

In this tricked-up ghost story, the truth is way out there

Top Ten of 2001

The top-ranked -- and stanked -- Chronicle stories of the year!

Scott Miller & The Commonwealth

Thus Always to Tyrants (Sugar Hill)

Caveat Vendor

A converted cigarette machine peddles a new addiction: Miniature art

Arena Wars

"Environmental Darth Vader" pushed as campaign consultant

Limbo Shtick

Alaskan survival story suffers from Sayles's moralizing

News of the Weird

News of the Weird

News of the Weird

Getting a Grip