Houston.BloggersPub

LA Times reports on the Disney/ABC TV layoff announcement. Anyone have a job for me if I get pushed out?

Wow! I got a mention on Chief Heller’s weather blog! It’s about my social networking consulting for KTRK.

Even Car and Driver makes mistakes. Remember the Ford Merkur XR4Ti?

SEE THE TOP TEN

Go see new models that could be big flops one day.

(Thanks Brian!)

I just had the pleasure of reading Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ Roses by Stephen Davis. Now here is THE defenitive biography of GNR.

Stephen Davis is also the author of Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga and Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith so you know he is no lightweight when it comes to rock bios.

It’s obvious that Davis culled a lot of archives and did a lot of interviews to gather the early life of Bill Bailey (aka W. Axl Rose) in Lafayette, Indiana. Sadly, that is one messed up life. But the book doesn’t just focus on Axl, although largely it does and that is why it is so interesting.

Once you start reading, you will remember many of the events that Davis writes about, but there is so much more explanation and detail offered.

For example, did you know that Izzy Stradlin appears to be the heart and soul of Guns N’ Roses? In the early days, he was the leader of the band for the most part. Did you know we have those four opening shows for the Rolling Stones to thank for the what the band became during the Use Your Illusion tours? Also, that the tour GNR took in 2006 was done partly to finish Chinese Democracy? And do you know why the album has that title?

More on Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ Roses from Amazon.com.

WFAA Channel 8 in Dallas - Fort Worth has a new Daybreak morning anchor reports David Elbert of the The Des Moines Register:

WOI TV news anchor Chris Flanagan has been hired as a morning anchor at WFAA TV in Dallas, where he will start work Feb. 27.

Flanagan’s last day on the air in Iowa will be Feb. 20, said WOI station manager Ray Cole. READ THE REST

Good luck to WFAA and Chris Flanagan. See Flanagan’s bio .

(Image courtesy of WOI)

Are you new to Twitter or just confused about what the heck it is?

Here is some help from David Pogue.

If you are looking for some fun on Twitter click here.

When I posted about Glenn Beck moving back to Clear Channel Houston at 740 KTRH, I mentioned how he had formerly worked at 104.1 KRBE. Well now he tells David Barron what he thought of  working there:

While Beck espouses an affinity for what he views as the Texas mindset, he has unhappy memories of his stint in Houston at KRBE when it was known as Power 104. He worked morning drive at the station , doing the voiceover for a character he called “Clydie Clyde.”
“It was the worst time in my broadcasting career, and I wish people would stop bringing it up,” he said. “It’s the most embarrassing thing I ever did on radio. If I could make everybody forget about my time in Houston, it would be good.
“I was probably at my most arrogant. I thought I could do no wrong. It was tough to beat my arrogance and lack of intelligence and talent at the time. ‘I’m invincible. Look at me.’ It was garbage.” READ THE REST

This is pretty cool. It is a giant photo of President Obama being sworn in where the user can zoom in and tag people in the photo. Can you find Oprah? What about Obi-Wan Kenobi standing behind Obama?

NASA spinoff technology from the Mars exploration rovers was used to capture a unique panoramic image of President Obama’s inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20.

A photographer at the inauguration, David Bergman, used the Gigapan camera system to generate an image from a press platform. The resulting picture is a combination of 220 images with an overall size of 1,474 megapixels.

The Gigapan system is a NASA spinoff technology that can capture thousands of digital images and weave them into a uniform high-resolution picture of more than a billion pixels. The technology is the product of a two-year collaboration between NASA and Carnegie Mellon. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have used the Gigapan system to explore the Red Planet for more than five years.

To read a 2008 Spinoff story about the Gigapan technology click here.

Seriously…who is behind these numbers?

302-875-8634

651-784-4660

206-462-1796

800-219-7425

Kat Von D of the TLC show LA Ink is coming to Houston:

Since 1998, Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say has changed the way Latino literature is imagined and received. With the start of its 2009 and 11th season, NP continues in that tradition. Tuesday, February 3, 2008, 7 PM, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main @ Alabama, Houston, TX 77002, NP is thrilled to present Kat Von D as she launches her book HIGH VOLTAGE TATTOO. Admission: Attendees must buy a copy of the book that evening.

Not all fans of the TV show LA Ink realize the star of the show is Latina, of Argentine descent, born in Mexico. By the same token, she epitomizes the essential qualities of our culture: family, community, Baroque, and also epitomizes the essential qualities of American culture.

That is why LA INK was an immediate smash, becoming the number-one rated program on Discovery’s TLC. Fans of LA Ink could not get enough of Kat Von D, now one of the world’s most sought-after tattoo artists and owner of the popular Hollywood shop, High Voltage Tattoo. Now, Kat opens the door to today’s global tattoo culture in her book, HIGH VOLTAGE TATTOO.

Does this mean Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue will be coming back too ?