We'll probably get some threatening letters from the folks at Doomsday Wrestling for calling them a "Comedy Show," but rest assured, it's in good fun. It's hard to believe either the wrestlers or producers don't see the humor in their events. Especially considering Doomsday's roster, which includes Precious Jewels, a guy who wears a silver spandex S&M costume and gets fouled for humping the referee; a masked woman in a wedding dress who spits blood and goes by "The Plague"; a tag team known as The Stormin' Mormons whose signature move includes running over opponents with a bicycle; and Dirty Sanchez, a manager from south of the border (he's actually contributing Press writer Erik A. T. Dieckman), who at a recent match challenged announcer Tex Lonestar to a "stare-down." It may not be the most well-choreographed brawling you've ever seen, but chances are you'll be too busy booing, hissing and throwing cheese balls at the least-popular wrestler (read: bad guy) to notice.

Kim Davenport has made Rice Gallery a treasure trove of installation art in the middle of the Rice University campus, an institution far better known for engineering than for visual art. This past year, Davenport brought in two particularly outstanding installations. The first, "Rip Curl Canyon" by the young collaborative team of Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, completely transformed the space into a roiling landscape made of cardboard. Davenport is always on the lookout for new artists, and Ball-Nogues were two young architects whose work had just come on the scene. But she isn't just spotting and bagging young talent — she's showcasing legends like Judy Pfaff. Pfaff, the doyenne of installation art, took over the gallery and created "....all of the above." The phenomenal installation looked like a three-dimensional drawing made with assistance from Dr. Seuss and provided a rare opportunity for Houstonians to see Pfaff's work.

Graceful and strong at the same time, with a style that masks the difficulty of the dance, Houston Ballet principal dancer Randy Herrera glides effortlessly from role to role (his favorite is Basilio in Don Quixote). Herrera is both smooth and explosive in his performances, with effortless jumps and pirouettes. The Acapulco-born Herrera was with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago before he joined the Houston Ballet as a soloist in 2001. He was promoted to first soloist in 2006, and then became a principal dancer earlier this year. Herrera, who has won several international awards and most recently represented the Houston Ballet in the 2006 International Ballet Competition, sparkled during Houston Ballet's last season, playing the lead in the company's performances of Velocity and Wild Life.

Stepping into this dark, friendly cavern of a tatterdemalion strip mall bar near the ruins of Westbury Square is like entering a portal back to 1980, with a difference. Yes, it's got the requisite low ceiling, cheap drinks, smoky ambience, early opening time (11 a.m.) and friendly, take-no-shit service you expect from any old-school dive worth its salty peanuts. And yep, there's not much on the jukebox to thrill the ears of trendoid Hot Chip and Lightning Bolt fans — we're talking stuff like Wet Willie, Hank Sr. and .38 Special. But this isn't your average suburban strip mall dive by a long shot, as any trip to the Cozy's Friday and Saturday night karaoke extravaganzas will prove. Let's just say Westbury more than lives up to its "Little Montrose" nickname during Cozy Corner karaoke night.

A veteran who's been down in the trenches of the music scene for years now, Ceeplus (aka Eric Castillo) has a love for music of all genres that shines through his DJ sets. Any given night, the man behind the black-framed glasses will take you from Baltimore club sounds to Italo disco to punk rock to Houston hip-hop and then back again. With his motley crew, known as Reprogram Music, he rocks the airwaves weekly on KPFT and is also the one to thank for curating the sounds at the Starbucks Mixed Media Music Series at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Previous Readers' Choice Best Drag Queen winner Kofi is originally from Louisiana, but she's been in Houston for so long, she calls herself a local girl. Regulars at JR's Bar and Grill and South Beach know her well — she hosts the Tuesday- and Sunday-night shows (a mix of drag queens and male strippers). Kofi's own act regularly includes Patti LaBelle's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," Nell Carter's "Gimme a Break" and Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" (an audience favorite). And then there's the "Request It" challenge, in which audience members shout out the names of obscure tunes and Kofi does her best to sing them (sometimes she knows the songs, sometimes she's completely faking). Patterned after the Patti LaBelle "down-to-earth diva" model, Kofi is a former Miss USA-at-Large (a plus-size title). She just celebrated her silver anniversary as a female impersonator last month.

Artful, surprising and truly fine in so many ways, the Alley Theatre's Spring production of Sarah Ruhl's Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Clean House was thrilling. Houston's inventive cast turned each and every character into a creative joy. Josie de Guzman's Matilde, the Brazilian maid who didn't like to clean, was a gift of sweet sadness who found a perfect foil in Elizabeth Heflin's obsessively tidy Lane, the boss from hell for any maid. Add Annalee Jeffries's amazing performance as Lane's goofy sister, Virginia, and Paul Hope and Karmín Murcelo's supporting roles as two different couples in love, and the chemistry onstage all but caught the place on fire. If only all plays could be blessed with an ensemble of performers as perfectly right as these five were.

Houston was once home to AstroWorld, amusement park extraordinaire. Sadly, AstroWorld is gone, but we still have a world-class family entertainment facility – the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Wait, wait, yes, it's a museum, but it's not the kind where you have to whisper and the exhibits are safely tucked behind velvet ropes. Here, kids are encouraged to talk and touch, even to squeal with delight, if they are so moved. Blending education with entertainment, the museum presents a variety of permanent shows and a year-round schedule of touring exhibitions. Previous shows have included "Imperial Rome," "Frogs! A Chorus of Colors" and the internationally touted (and controversial) "Body Works 3."

The Houston 48 Hour Film Project is for both your viewing and participating pleasure. Houstonians get the chance not only to watch films created in the titular time frame, but also create one themselves. Teams are given a list of guidelines, including a genre and a prop, a line and a character that must be used to create their own seven-minute masterpiece. Winners selected by the judges go on to the national competition in Phoenix. This year's contest attracted so much attention that the number of entries was capped, and the screening of the locally made films nearly sold out the River Oaks Theatre in March. Sure, most of the entries wouldn't stand up to the offerings at other local festivals, but how many others feature a drug cartel that actually runs meat, a fridge that opens up to the Hobby Center stage or a radio show featuring a sexy chef, who was actually a Houston Press staff writer? (Hey, how do you think we knew it was so fun?)

Set in the golden gay triangle next to JR's Bar and Grill and the Mining Company, South Beach is the pretty boy of the bunch. And here, it's all about the dancing. Regularly importing DJs from Miami, San Francisco and New York, South Beach offers some of the best and newest dance music anywhere in Houston. The club boasts a custom made "EAW Avalon series sound system" (whatever that is), a "full color water cooled matrix laser light show (translation: a light show), and, wait for it, "liquid ice jets" (cold water misters) that cool the dance floor down. There are also floor shows and celebrity appearances, so the action is never the same two nights in a row.