NBA cities I'd rather visit/live in than Houston (visit/live) Boston (y/y) New York (y/y) New Jersey (ehh, it's not really a city, but I'd live in northern NJ over Houston) Toronto (y/n) Philadelphia (y/unsure) Washington DC (y/y) Charlotte (n/n) Atlanta (n/n) Orlando (y/n) Miami (y/y) Cleveland (y/n) Detroit (n/n) Indianapolis (n/n) Chicago (y/y) Minneapolis/St Paul (y/n) Milwaukee (n/n) Oklahoma City (n/n) Memphis (n/n) Dallas (n/n) San Antonio (n/n) Salt Lake City (n/n) (screw you jazz) Denver (y/y) Phoenix (n/n) LA (y/y) Sacramento (unsure) G-State (y/y depends if you're talking oakland or SF) Portland (y/y) Seattle (y/y) So .... things could have been worse for Simmons.
Yeah, he could have not been lucky enough to attend the 2004 Super Bowl, the 2004 MLB All-Star game, and the 2006 NBA All-Star game. God, I feel so sorry for him.
he could have gone shopping at the galleria and eaten some food with snoop dogg and ludacrius at chillis.
Philly: try being there in a blizzard. see that crappy 35degree weather we had last week? try making it twice as cold and put your face in the snow cone maker. I stayed near the Berkley part of Oakland, that was good. Didnt stay in the Easy E or Spice 1 part of Oakland.
Okay, I'll fess up.... I'm one of the bad guys. One of the yankee snobs. I grew up in Houston. Cheered for the Rockets like crazy my whole life. Then I left Houston: first moved to San Francisco, now I live in New York. What do I miss? I sorely miss the Rockets. And nothing else. Loved every sentence of the Simmons article. He's the only sports journalist I consistently look forward to reading.
Next time Bill has to come to Houston for some event we should just kick his ass so he will really never want to come back.
I shoveled 19 inches of snow for 3 hours 2 weekends ago, and I lived to tell about it. There are two storms like that per year; it's really not a huge deal. It's called "seasons." It's something I didn't know existed while growing up in Houston, and I love having them now.
i really didn't like the blizzard. when you have to cover your face, then its too freaking cold. oh, also using the ice scrapper from the rental car was a new experience. snow is cool when its not a blizzard, blizzard was not cool.
Hopefully Billy has avoided the latest freakish catastrophe (hollywood, smog, hair metal, pauly shore...) to strike Lalaland: MYSTERY BLOB EATING DOWNTOWN By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer, 2/21/06 http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3529716 Los Angeles officials were still scratching their heads today over what caused a mysterious black goo to burble from streets downtown, forcing the evacuation hundreds of apartment dwellers. ... While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said. ... Firefighters were alerted at 3 a.m. by complaints of a sewer-like smell at an apartment house at 1220 S. Olive St. near Pico Boulevard, but found nothing. They returned at 1 p.m. to find a Slimer-like ooze lurking beneath central Los Angeles. "We were called back because there was a gooey substance, a tarry-type substance, coming out the underground electrical vaults, out of manhole covers in the street, through the sidewalks and possibly in one older apartment building," Myers said. A 120-foot stretch of Olive buckled 1 1/2 feet, he said. The pre-1933 unreinforced masonry apartment building shifted one foot from its foundation. Sidewalks were as hot as Jacuzzis. And a pressurized liquid shot from every street orifice located above what used to be a historic oil field downtown.
The weird part to me, is that NYC seems to have all of the bad things that Houston has. Bad traffic, bad weather, un-ending concrete, similar crime rates...maybe healthier, but who knows really. They just have a lot more people, which translates into more good stuff to do to cancel out the bad stuff, I guess....??
new york is off the hook. $2000/month gets a crap 500sq ft appt in manhattan. but u live there for the night life / culture. not a place for married people.
Two words: Man. Up. Just kidding, dude. Blizzards aren't fun, but luckily they don't come around that often in the northeast unless you're in Boston. Personally, I can live with one or two per year.
it totally is - I don't understand what the hype is about. I think Atlanta sucks, personally, and hate having to visit.
Don't get so bent out of shape everyone! I actually love Simmons and read him often, despite taking offense to his comments about Houston. You've got to realize, if you live in and love the city of Houston, you just happen to be one of the "enlightened ones" and it's obvious Simmons is not. It take a different kind of cat to live in and tolerate the negative aspects of this city. It also takes a different kind of cat to go beyond tolerating the city and get to actually loving it, cherishing the fact you live here and being proud to be a Houstonian. Don't hate on Bill cause he's got an opinion. Just be happy that you "get it."
I disagree. I'm married, tons of my friends are married, and we all live in Manhattan and take advantage of the night life / day life (weekends) / culture / etc. Just because the losers on "Friends" moved away when they got married doesn't mean everyone else does. NYC Demographics: There are 3,021,588 households with a median income of $38,293; 29.7% contain children under the age of 18 and 37.2% are married couples living together. 19.1% have a single female householder, and 38.7% are non-families. 31.9% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.9% are single residents 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.59 and the average family size is 3.32.
I read the guy all the time too, and really liked him at his local book signing. Problem is, he went overboard panning the city over two basic things: -Traffic -Crime Which, right off the bat is incredibly hipocritical coming from an LA resident. Second, his traffic issues stemmed mostly from ESPN putting him in a Galleria hotel when all of the events were downtown. Finally, the Katrina related crime thing is new, he didn't explain it and made it sound like we were another Richmond/Detroit/DC crime-plagued city, and you know he didn't come within 4 miles of any bad spots in the city. I'm sure he was frightened for his life at the Four Seasons. The big thing is, he's got a huge reader base around the nation that got sent the message that Houston is a hellhole. Was it justified? Remotely? If you want to say that Houston's no Vegas, go for it. But the only reason to go to Houston is if you want to get shot? That's uncalled for. The saddest thing is, he's slide over the last year or two to the point that he relies on ripping people to be funny, which he doesn't need to do (the Jordan story at the end). SGReaderRants@gmail.com is the address if any of you would like to write him. Try not to simply piss all over him - be cool and point out where he was unfair. Evan
