The poor Dome. The former Eighth Wonder of the World has to sit there helplessly and watch as, right across the parking lot, construction crews build the new NFL stadium that has a contract out to kill it. The humiliation is compounded by the endless speculation and discussions about what to do with the white elephant. In July the Houston Chronicle wrote a piece (headline: "Dome Business Picking Up") trumpeting that the old warhorse will host 18 high school football games this season(!). The tone of the article was optimistic, almost enthusiastic: Look, there's still life in the old fart. It was like we're supposed to be proud that a school district tossed a couple of crumbs its way. For a stadium that once hosted Nolan Ryan, Earl Campbell, the Rolling Stones and Elvis, it's an embarrassment beyond words for the Dome to cater to a bunch of drippy teenagers, half of whom couldn't spell Evel Knievel, let alone know that he once broke the world indoor motorcycle-jump record in 1971 at the venue. We have far grander plans for the place that put Houston on the map: mock naval battles. Seal the Dome up tight, invite competing corporations to build small fleets, and let the bloodsport begin! Think it's too unsophisticated for us? Consider this: The Romans did the very same thing with the Coliseum. And look how well that venue has stood the test of time.

Some folks think they're creepy, but we like the various foods that have taken on the personae of animals in the company's billboard campaign around the city. They have a banana that looks like an octopus, cherries made to resemble an ant, a watermelon as a turtle, and several other charming characters. If only the groceries and produce they delivered looked as charming.

Most of the animals at the zoo don't seem to care too much about visitors. They eat or pee or groom themselves or loll about, oblivious to the prying eyes and children's cries. But the orangutan knows what's going on. When a crowd gathers on the other side of her glass wall, she'll wander over to say hello, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glare so she can get a better look at you. She'll work her audience from left to right, and then, when she tires of you (which inevitably happens before you tire of her), she'll twirl her chewing gum -- yes, chewing gum -- like a bored teenager and head back over to the grassy knoll to finish her nap. You'll walk away, too, feeling a bit more like an animal yourself after gaping at a confined creature with 97 percent of the same DNA as a human.

Producer Huey Meaux was a perfect fit for Houston. Something of a wildcatter of Texas music, Meaux never showed any interest in history. His focus was always on the new thing: the next single, the latest thrill, the youngest girl. The past was only a tool to acquire something in the present, or the future. It wasn't surprising, then, that in 1996 when Meaux was sentenced to 15 years for, among other things, sexual assault of a child, he had allowed his massive catalog to gather a thick layer of dust at Sugar Hill Recording Studios. Decades' worth of recordings, historical works covering important Texan artists ranging from Freddy Fender to Johnny Copeland, were this close to being lost to history. Enter David Thompson, a former general manager at Sugar Hill. He made a pitch to Meaux's ex-wife, who owned the recordings, and proceeded to catalog and preserve those delicate tapes. It was a painstaking process; some tapes had suffered from poor storage, absorbing tiny but nearly fatal amounts of humidity. Thompson had to cook them in an oven to dry them out enough so he could get one good DAT recording. Once finished, Thompson began marketing the catalog to labels, eventually finding suitable homes at Edsel and Westside, imprints of the UK-based Demon Records. Back in the States, you can find them on the shelves at Cactus Music & Records.

It's not hidden if you live there, of course, but for plenty of us who've arrived at thinking-about-home-buying age in the last few years, it's all about -- in words lifted from the housewarming invitation of one recent arrival -- "East side, baby!" East side means different things to different people, and the rising Heights-like affluence of close-in neighborhoods like Eastwood is way too well established to qualify as hidden, but as usual, drive a little farther out (though still inside the Loop, natch), and you can pretty much have your pick of hideaways still largely absent -- though not likely for long -- from the real estate pages. Our current favorite is Forest Hill, a nugget roughly bound by Brays Bayou, 75th Street, the bucolic Forest Park cemetery and Lawndale. What you've got is homes primarily from the 1930s through '50s, some fixer-uppers and some showpieces, set on quiet streets, shaded with canopied hardwoods and planted on anachronistically deep lots. What you get is easy access to I-45, the Gus Wortham golf course (hey, as a landscape neighbor, it beats the hell out of a mall), big parks, that pretty cemetery and a stable population that, according to local realtors, doesn't move much. What you can get it for, if you're willing to wait for the opportunity, is often in the exceedingly un-Heights-like range of 70 to 80K. What's not to like?

On a Thursday morning last December, two automobiles collided at the T intersection of Hillcroft and Skyline. One car, traveling south on Hillcroft, was attempting a left turn onto Skyline when it slammed into a northbound vehicle. It's impossible to tell, by virtue of the police report, which driver was to blame. The woman driving the southbound car gave a statement that read, in part: "There was plenty of room for me to turn. I started to turn, and suddenly, they were there." A witness said the southbound traveler was driving recklessly, having "gunned" the vehicle to "where the front wheel came off the ground" to cross in front of the northbound car in time. The driver of the northbound car said plainly, "she pulled out in front of me." But of all the players, the passenger of the northbound car provided the most poetic insight into the ordeal. "I don't know what happened," she told police. "I had a hold of his cock, and then we were flying." Good thing there was only one accident.

For a year, Vijay Grrala called his dry cleaners, located in a strip mall at Westheimer and Kirkwood, The Kirkwood Dry Clean. Situated down the mall sidewalk from an H-E-B and Half Price Books, it seemed a boring little name for a boring little dry cleaners, with cheap, plastic-framed decorations of sunny landscapes on the wall. So two years ago, Vijay renamed it, putting a funny-looking question mark in its name. "He thought that would be neat," says Pamela at $1.39?, of her father. Vijay also owns Flamingo Cleaners at Westpark and Gessner, where the clothes are taken for treatment. What's funny now, though, is that sometimes people forget the question mark exists and assume that any article of clothing costs a mere $1.39. Most things do cost $1.39 at $1.39? Dry Clean. Shirts? $1.39. Pants? $1.39. Two-piece suit? $1.39 per piece. Silk? An extra 50 cents. But some customers get a bit carried away. "People bring in huge comforters. That's not $1.39. It's $10.99. Wedding dresses are $150 to dry-clean," Pamela says. Sometimes people even bring in a whole load of laundry. But don't forget, Pamela warns, that $1.39 times 20 pieces of clothing still adds up to a lot of money.

Three years ago, the square block of land surrounded by Shepherd, Durham, Blossom and Floyd was a debris-filled mess that did little more than depress the few drivers who bothered to notice it. Richard Roederer, owner of the Blossom Street Gallery, cleaned the place up and used it to display work from regional artists such as Herbert Long, Michelle O'Michael and Daryl Colburn (the piece most beloved by kids, an impressionistic statue of two larger-than-life basketball players, is by Gery Wyche). The block, between Washington Avenue and Memorial Drive, is now an attractive and fun place to stop or drive by. Roederer's cleanup job has increased the value of the land, so there's always a chance someone will come in and cover it all with town homes, but for now the place is safe.

Yes, there are other cruising routes -- out on Airline or Irvington, say -- but this western stretch of Richmond club land is the oldest and biggest and most reliable. If the weather's good and the cops aren't swarming, car-watchers will be rewarded with a combination parade and dance competition. All along the strip, you'll see gorgeous paint jobs and custom interiors, but for action, watch carefully at stoplights: If one low-rider pulls up next to another and begins to buck and bounce, it's a challenge. May the best hydraulic system win.

A bus stop is pretty much a bus stop here in Houston. But there is one location that offers a little variety, not to mention style. Outside the Sears in the Garden Oaks neighborhood, north of the Heights, is a 1950s gem, with a space-age roof featuring the curves of an artist's palette and long benches that put to shame the torture devices used in more modern installations as a way to discourage loitering. The vaguely art deco neon sign of the Sears store, framed by shade trees, fits nicely in the tableau. The No. 50 bus, which will take you from Garden Oaks though the Heights to downtown (or vice versa), stops here.