Mattsapundit

Everyone’s been talking about the “20 cool things about Houston” phenomenon, and Rob has jumped in with a post about cool things in his neighborhood. Now it’s my turn.
For purposes of this list, I’m going to define the neighborhood pretty tightly. It’s roughly a 2-mile square bound by the Katy Freeway to the north, Kirkwood to the east, Briar Forest to the south and Eldridge to the west.

Here goes:

1. Sandy’s Produce Market: It’s a health food store, salad bar and antique shop in a former K-Mart. It’s got a reat salad bar, scores and scores of different teas, and friendly people. (South side of the Katy Freeway, just east of Tully)
2. Tully Stadium: It’s pretty impressive for a high school stadium. On fall Friday nights, you can hear the bands and see the lights for quite a while around. (East side of Dairy Ashford, 1/2 mile south of the Katy Freeway)
3. Hebert’s Specialty Meats: It’s a Cajun butcher shop. You can get just about any kind of critter jammed with any kind of stuffing you can imagine. Rabbit & broccoli-cheese? No problem. Quail and eggplant? You got it. (West side of Dairy Ashford, 1/2 mile south of the Katy Freeway)
4. Spec’s Liquors: One hell of a good liquor store. It has a walk-in humidor, a very nice selection of cheeses, and of course lots and lots of booze. (South side of Memorial, just west of Dairy Ashford)
5. Glazed Over Ceramic Studio: Rob and Michelle’s business. You paint pre-made ceramic stuff, like plates, cups, figurines, etc., and the staff glazes and fires the pieces in a kiln. It’s also BYOB, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice. (Same strip center as Spec’s)
6. Taco Bell: I don’t know how they do it, but the staff there is unfailingly friendly and remarkably speedy, even at 2:00 in the morning. (Southwest corner of Memorial and Dairy Ashford)
7. Houston Shoe Hospital: In an age where nearly everything is disposable or easily replaceable, these guys fix shoes. The fact that they’ve been in business forever is a testament to how well they do it. They can make a shoe last forever, like an axe that’s gone through four handles and two heads. (West side of Dairy Ashford, just south of Memorial)
8. Memorial Athletic Club and Aquatic Center: This is a damn fine gym, with lots of everything — free weights, weight machines, cardio equipment, classes, racquetball, basketball, and two swimming pools, one of which is indoors. BONUS COOLNESS: Individual TVs at every elliptical machine, treadmill and bike. (North side of Memorial, just west of Dairy Ashford)
9. La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant: This place is an absolute insitution. It’s been serving up the same decent Tex-Mex for well over 30 years. They’ve got a hilarious lounge singer, too.
10. Leibman’s Food & Wine: An excellent gourmet food store. They’ve got beer and wine, too. The whole place is full of stuff you can’t get anywhere else, including several pre-made dishes daily. (South side of Memorial, about 3/10 mile east of Dairy Ashford)
11. Los Tios Mexican Restaurant: Another institution, though this one doesn’t show its age as much as LaHa. It has a cool cantina off to the side. BONUS COOLNESS: My mom used to be a waitress in that cantina. (West side of Kirkwood, just north of Memorial)
12. Moscow: A little Russian grocery store with a deli counter, strong Baltika beer and matryoska nesting dolls that look like Nikita Khrushchev. You can get Penthouse in Russian, too. (Southwest corner of Memorial and Kirkwood)
13. Ace Hardware City: It had a better hometown feel in its old location, but now this hardware store has a bigger selection in a nicer building. This is where I get all my Christmas-lighting needs.
14. Memorial Citgo: This place has been filling and fixing Bramanti cars since I was in Huggies. Sandy Theocharidis runs a real service station. It used to be Thornhill Texaco, but was recently renovated and rebranded. Sandy and his guys are honest and they charge a fair price. (North side of Memorial, 1/4 mile west of Dairy Ashford)
15. Ashford Arms: This is my bar. The crowd is mostly regulars, though the occasional British or Irish expatriate comes in. They have free food most nights (hot dogs, stew or pizza) until it runs out, which it always does. Ask for Filly. (Southwest corner of Dairy Ashford and Perthshire)
16. Cafe Rita: A little hole-in-the-wall Lebanese place. George and Rita are friendly as can be, and the dude could sell ice to an eskimo. (”Just try a little bit…”) Great beef shawarma and baba gahnouj. (Same strip center as the Ashford Arms)
17. Randalls: I love grocery stores, and this is the best one in the neighborhood. Clean, huge, upscale. True, H-E-B is cheaper, but it’s a big pile of crap. Yeah, Kroger is a one-minute walk from my living room, but the Kroger Co. thinks I should ring up my own groceries. Randalls forever. (Wraps the northwest corner of Memorial and Dairy Ashford)
18. St. John Vianney Catholic Church: This has been my parish since I was maybe 3. I don’t go to Mass much there anymore (Diane and I go to the Chapel of St. Basil at the University of St. Thomas), but it’s still my home parish, and I’m there pretty frequently for Knights of Columbus events. (Nottingham Oaks, just south of Memorial)
19. Becks Prime. They make a damn good hamburger and the richest shakes you’ve ever had. The location is nice, too — tucked away in some trees. Swordfish sandwiches, too. (East side of Dairy Ashford, just south of the Katy Freeway)
20. The Katy Freeway: Studded with every form of development imaginable, this ribbon of concrete streches from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Fla. When the current expansion is done, it’ll be 18 lanes wide.

Matt Bramanti | August 1, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Posted to Out and About, Houston, Personal, Home

8 comments

(UPDATED with new pictures, 11:22 a.m. on 5/15/06)

Please join me in welcoming the newest member to the Mattsapundit team.

Barry Tapwater, Mattsapundit Fishbowl Bureau Chief

The Mattsapundit Fishbowl Bureau: One gallon of top-notch content.

His name is Barry Tapwater, and he’s a Betta fish. Barry was hired at Petco after a brief interview process. His areas of expertise include kicking the shit out of other fish, and bubbles.

For now, Barry will be retained in a purely advisory role in the Mattsapundit Fishbowl Bureau; he will not be blogging, as his species has neither thumbs nor higher brain function.

Welcome aboard, Barry!

Matt Bramanti | May 11, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Posted to Friends, Blogging, Personal, Home

7 comments

I replaced my busted water heater over the weekend. That’s got to be one of the easiest home improvement projects around. From start to finish, it was about two hours, and that includes the trips to Lowe’s and the time it took for the new heater to fill up. And the whole thing cost me about a quarter of what the jackals at Blackmon Mooring wanted for the job. Here’s how it went:

Shut the water off.

Shut the power off.

Drained the old heater and moved it off to the side.

Marshalled my forces.

Removed the old leaky hoses.

Moved the new heater into place.

Teflon-taped the hot and cold water connections.

Connected the hot and cold water hoses.

Connected a drain line to the pressure-relief valve.

Turned the water back on and waited for the heater to fill up.

Turned the power back on.

Voila! Plenty of hot water for cleaning up my filthy hovel.

Piece of cake.

Matt Bramanti | March 28, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Posted to Personal, Home, Photos

11 comments

My water heater crapped out yesterday, and leaked water all over the floor of my garage. Apparently, the thing was 12 years old, and was therefore living on borrowed time.

This was confirmed by the friendly people at Blackmon Mooring, who charged me $99 to tell me, “You need a new water heater,” which they would be glad to install for the low, low price of ELEVEN HUNDRED SON-OF-A-BITCHING DOLLARS. When I delicately asked “Why so much, you thieving vulture scumbags?” the guy said, “Because it’s a weekend.” The weekday price is only $800 and change.

Screw that.

I can roll down to Lowe’s and pick up a brand-new 50-gallon Whirlpool electric water heater for $239 and install that bad boy myself. It looks like a pretty easy job. As best I can figure out, it goes like this:

1. Shut off the water and power
2. Drain and remove the old water heater
3. Position the new one
4. Attach the water lines (this will be easy, since they’re threaded, not soldered in)
5. Attach the power wires
6. Wait
7. Bathe

So that’s today’s project. I will take pictures and post them tomorrow.

Matt Bramanti | March 27, 2006 at 9:12 am
Posted to Personal, Home

7 comments