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Steve Correa-Franco Gets 20 Years For Talking 9-Year-Old Girl Into Sending Him Nude Photo With Her Nintendo

A Spring man has been sentenced to almost 20 years in prison for talking a nine-year-old girl into sending him a nude picture of herself. Steve Correa-Franco, 33, was sentenced yesterday after entering a guilty plea last December. "U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, took into consideration the seriousn ... More >>

Schadenfreude Alert! 5 Thoughts On JaMarcus Russell's Attempted Comeback

For most football players, when their careers finally end, rarely does it happen on their terms. More often than not (WAY more often, actually), players are either asked to leave, never asked back, or beat up physically to the point of no return. The bravest of football warriors continue to try over ... More >>

Jan Merklin: Smooth Talking Drifter and Ladies Man Swindled Woman Out of $200,000 in House-Flipping Scheme, Lawsuit Claims

A Texas City woman claims in a civil lawsuit to have lost $200,000 to a man she met via email who persuaded her to back him in a house-flipping venture. The suit, filed by attorney Russell Plackemeier of Texas City, states that 55-year-old Jan Merklin met his client -- "Shelly" -- via email on Febr ... More >>

Angela Buchanan: Posing As Gynecologist, She Tricks Woman Into Months of Sex and a Civil Union

We've heard some strange cases of online impersonation, but this one, as the Brits say, takes the biscuit. Last night Jessica Cooley of the Lufkin Daily News broke the story of Angela Buchanan, a 30-year-old woman evidently smitten with a 51-year-old lady. Buchanan and the woman had been messaging ... More >>

"Free Randy Blythe": Lamb of God/Dethklok Tour Canceled; No Houston Sept. 7 Show (UPDATE: Blythe Has Been Released)

(UPDATE: From Adrenaline PR: "After five weeks in a prison in Prague in the Czech Republic, Randy Blythe has been released on bail and is returning to the United States. Although Lamb Of God has cancelled their summer co-headline tour with Dethklok, the band is currently targeting October 26th as t ... More >>

Look Who's Talking On Our New Livefyre Comment System

As you might have noticed, we're making the switch today to a new and improved commenting system, Livefyre. Some of you may have already used this system on sites like Talking Points Memo, MTV.com, The New York Times' Web site and Bravo.com. Why are we making the switch? Well, because we want to cr ... More >>

Make Your Feelings on Anvil, El Real, and Beans and Chili Known With Our New Livefyre Commenting System

As you might have noticed, we're making the switch today to a new and improved commenting system, Livefyre. Some of you may have already used this system on sites like Talking Points Memo, MTV.com, The New York Times' website and Bravo.com. Why are we making the switch? Well, because we want to crea ... More >>

A New Way to Leave Anonymous Comments About How You Hate Obama: Livefyre

As you might have noticed, we're making the switch today to a new and improved commenting system, Livefyre. Some of you may have already used this system on sites like Talking Points Memo, MTV.com, The New York Times' website and Bravo.com. Why are we making the switch? Well, because we want to crea ... More >>

11 Great Apps for Dad This Father's Day

My father loved his computer. I know because he used to call me for tech support almost every day. He was the kind of guy who loved to try out new gadgets. I think a lot of us guys are that way. I know I'm certainly a chip off the ol' block. In that spirit, it makes sense to round up some great app ... More >>

The 5 Worst Musical Careers By Professional Boxers

Rocks Off is waiting for the day that our 52-year-old mother sits us down for a serious talk and says that she's ready to pursue her dream of becoming a rapper. She'll say, "Mi hijo, you know Lil Casper's mom, Brenda, on 4th Street? Her boyfriend set up a home studio for her. She's spitting that ... More >>

Southbound Pachyderm: A Mixtape For An Elephant

Elephants are awesome. Science surely has a more in depth way of expressing mankind's fondness for our giant pachyderm friends, but, "Elephants are awesome" does the trick just fine. I postulate that if you don't like elephants then you must be a terrorist. Scratch that -- even terrorists like elep ... More >>

Deontay Greenberry: A Texans-Related Grain Of Salt For College Football National Signing Day

There was a time not too long ago when the last-minute defection of wide receiver Deontay Greenberry from my alma mater Notre Dame to the University of Houston would have sent me into a mental funk that would have taken me a week from which to recover. After all, Greenberry is a dynamic "four star ... More >>

Alexander Scriabin Attempted to Cause/Score Armageddon

​We here at Rocks Off are fascinated not only with the end of the world, but with the people who are convinced that they're going to see it. We spend quite a bit of time playfully using the light-hearted headlines from Yahoo! News about the music industry as a springboard into the Book of Reve ... More >>

Bowling for Chumps

How insiders use the college bowl system to loot American universities.

App of the Week: Five Things Google Will Need to Best Facebook

​Google began allowing invites into its allegedly cool social network (simply named Google ) last week to fairly glowing reviews. The site aims to capitalize on the wildly popular Gmail e-mail platform and other integrated services already offered by Google including its cloud music service an ... More >>

The 2011 BET Awards, Or The Vindication Of Chris Brown

​6:58: High-five to the Houston Press for flying us out to Los Angeles to cover the BET Awards. Cool move. Thus far, it's been extra fun. We ran into Kobe and, um, saw some people filming a movie, and... uh... there were some angels or something, and... there... there was... eh, shit. We're n ... More >>

Dear Penis: 20 Songs About The Tube Snake Boogie

prince.orgGuess who turns 53 today?​Good Lord, what would we do if not for Weinergate? It's hot as hell outside, the Astros are terrible and Rick Perry might run for president next year. But as long as there are congressmen tweeting pictures of their junk to women they barely know, Rocks Off h ... More >>

Ally ASL Goes National Via ABC News, Yahoo!

​Rocks Off is a modest sort of music blog. We generally need both of our arms for typing, so we don't want to risk breaking one of them patting ourselves on the back. But once in a while, through hard work, dumb luck or (most often) some combination of the two, we push over the first domino in ... More >>

Before Networking Was Social: Ten Early Social Websites That Are Dead or Dying

Who needs Classmates.com when we have Facebook?​Social networking today is a foregone conclusion. Many of us wake up and check Twitter on our smart phones or pull up Facebook on our laptops. We surf YouTube videos in our spare time, find dates on Match.com and spend hours reading music, politi ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 2: Pat Greer's Raw Vegan Kitchen

Pat Greer and her assistant Ray in the kitchen.​Yesterday we chatted with the lively raw vegan chef Patricia Greer. Today we discuss some of the items she makes - some even carnivores will enjoy. EOW: Here in Houston, you definitely have a niche market, which might be more difficult than oth ... More >>

Why We're Eating at McDonald's

Photo illustrations by Monica Fuentes​Between news that San Francisco has recently banned the sale of fast food meals that contain toys and the glorious return of the McRib, McDonald's is getting both good and bad press this week. Both the McRib and the possible ban on Happy Meals are divisiv ... More >>

Game Time: Trevor Ariza Trade -- Instant Analysis

Good trade for the Rockets​I was not writing for HoustonPress.com when the Trevor Ariza signing went down last year so you'll have to take my word for it -- I was very skeptical and surprised by the signing at the time. (Note: There are megabytes and megabytes of sound from me on the internal arc ... More >>

Game Time: LeBron James -- A Lesson In Sales

Debase yourself, Cleveland​The older you get, the more you realize that ultimately every decision in life has a "sales" element to it. Getting married, getting divorced, having kids, purchasing a house or a car, choosing a movie, picking an appetizer,...whatever decision it is, there's some level ... More >>

Top 5 Rapper "Secret" Identities

Rocks Off wonders what hip-hop would look like if rappers were true to who they really are, or should we say... who they were. Perhaps it would look like the video "Swagger Wagon," by The Sienna Family, the latest Internet phenomenon that has amassed 2.4 million hits in less than a month. Those G's ... More >>

The Week In TV: The Walking Dead (The New Series, Not Charlie Sheen)

​I'm slightly sunburned, spoiled by three-day weekends, and trying to figure out whether I want an iPad. This was the week in TV Land: • So, the iPad came out, as you have heard about from every news outlet imaginable, and several TV apps have already been announced. Yahoo's entertainment ... More >>

Lunchwalla Makes Planning a Group Meal Far Less Painful

​No, it doesn't cook all the food for you and transport your friends and family to the same place instantaneously. But what Lunchwalla does do -- and do well -- is offer a platform for you, the constant and intrepid planner, to invite a group to lunch (or dinner) with much less hassle than oth ... More >>

Sugar Land Gets Ready To Abase Itself To Google

​Google, which is a company that is web-related (we think), is asking communities around the nation to abase themselves in a competition to get an experimental ultra-high-speed fiber system that can deliver the net at more than one gigabyte a second.That is about twice as fast as a system that del ... More >>

Thirteenth Floor Elevators' Tommy Hall May Be Hospitalized... Or Worse

Earlier this afternoon, Rocks Off's friend, former colleague and Dirty Honey DJ Brett Koshkin forwarded us a post from the Texas '60s Music Refuge Yahoo! message board that former Thirteenth Floor Elevators member Tommy Hall, whose warped electric-jug stylings defined the Elevators' sound as much a ... More >>

ISO A Femme Fatale? Jail Babes Has The Hook-Up

​Can't find a match on Match.com? Can't get it in tune on eHarmony? Desperate for a young hottie, but not exactly a catch yourself and unable to fly to Russia for a mail order bride? We've got a dating sight for you: Jailbabes.Jailbabes is just like any other dating site, except all of the women ... More >>

The Forgotten Festival

The 1969 Texas International Pop Festival

From Homelessness to Wine Snobbery

Weighing In Across the Board

Yes, They're Still Selling Vacuums Door To Door. And Not Exactly Answering Any Complaints About It, Either

So it's 2009, and apparently some people are still buying vacuum cleaners from door-to-door salesmen. And some of those folks aren't happy, based on Better Business Bureau complaints against a Houston-based Kirby Vacuum dealer called Dyro Productions.Frankly, Hair Balls was surprised that these cus ... More >>

Barry Bonds Might Not Go to Jail

As far as I'm concerned, the big news is that Barry Bonds might be getting off. Yep, that's right. Barry Bonds might not be going to jail. For those who don't know all of the details, but do know that Bonds is going on trial in March, know this. He's not going on trial for using steroids. He's ... More >>

Barry Bonds Might Not Go to Jail

As far as I'm concerned, the big news is that Barry Bonds might be getting off. Yep, that's right. Barry Bonds might not be going to jail. For those who don't know all of the details, but do know that Bonds is going on trial in March, know this. He's not going on trial for using steroids. He's ... More >>

The Horror, The Horror In Katy

R.I.P. Benny Thurman, Original Thirteenth Floor Elevators Bassist

The Last Word from the Press on SXSW 2008

We swear, we're done now

A Grassroots Effort

A Grassroots Effort

The Orange Show

Spain Colored Orange takes home four Press Music Awards

Cyber Sunday

It's not just for geeks anymore. Fantasy football's gone mainstream.

Roadie Royalty

Houstonian author and Webmaster Karl Kuenning is a prince among road dogs

Electric Avenue

Is MySpace.com the future of the music business, or just another Web site?

Flight of Angels

How immigration law screwed up what looked like a good marriage

Three Stooges?

Plus: Aid for AIDS, No Dogfight, Boys of Brazil

Napster's Spawn

File-sharing copycats keep free music alive on the Net. The Big Five labels still call it theft.

Toothless Croc

Paul Hogan aims for the family crowd with this tame installment

Dumb and Dumbest

Saving Silverman takes Hollywood's juvenile craze to a new low

A Boy and His Toys

Surrounded by machine guns, grenades and troop carriers, Earl Tucker makes his peace with the world.

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