Copy
View this email in your browser
BY LISA GRAY • MONDAY, NOV. 1, 2021
Martín Maldonado hits an RBI single in the seventh inning. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
🎆THE ASTROS' THRILLING RALLY
The Atlanta Braves were ahead by 4 in the first inning, and it could have been the Astros' last shot at the World Series. But the team rallied big-time. Five Houston relief pitchers had amazing nights, and Martín Maldonado led an offensive onslaught. The 'Stros won 9-5. Next game is tomorrow night at Minute Maid. (Sports Illustrated)
NEWS-TON

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  H-E-B shrugs at the Meta-verse: Last week, after Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta, the rechristened behemoth flirted with a handful of brands – including Texas’ most beloved grocery store. “​​Wonder what ordering groceries in the metaverse will look like @HEB 🤔,” @Meta tweeted. H-E-B declined to respond. (Via Texas Monthly)

💰 3D-printed kidneys? In 2018 a Rice professor and grad student founded a company, Volumetric Biotechnologies, that capitalizes on their breakthrough method of 3D-printing human organs, complete with blood vessels. Last week they sold the company in a deal that could be worth up to $400 million – and whose buyer, 3D Systems, says it intends to create “a world-class research capability in Houston.” (Rice News

🍩 Drive-thru doughnuts and a show: Houston’s Shipley’s Do-Nuts chain has taken over the enormous Fingers Furniture warehouse on I-45, southeast of downtown, as its new world headquarters and “doughnut development center." Workers will make the yeast dough to be delivered to the 330 Shipley's stores across the Southeast – and somehow, you’ll be able to drive through the cavernous building and watch, like one of those drive-thru safaris. (Houston Chronicle)

⚾️ Altuve vs. the Braves’ organist: In Friday night’s World Series game, as the Astros’ 5’6” homerun king José Altuve walked to the plate, the Atlanta Braves organist played “I’m a Little Teapot.” For Saturday’s game, it was “It’s a Small World.” Altuve responded by blasting the ball 434 feet into center field. Next time Altuve was at bat? The organist played Brenda Lee’s “I’m sorry.”  (ESPN and organist Matthew Kaminski’s Twitter.)

🐐 Greatest Of All Tests: At a two-acre-detention pond on Northline Drive, Houston’s public works department is experimenting to find the best way to control weeds on steep slopes. Will it be the current mowing and pesticides? Or a rented herd of 150 goats? (Click2Houston)

Photo by Lisa Gray


URBAN ALMANAC: BALL MOSS

After last week’s heavy winds, and you’ll see these funny plants on the ground everywhere. Ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata) grows on tree branches here in the hot South. It’s an epiphyte or "air plant" -- meaning that it gathers nutrition not from its roots, but from the air.

Pick those windfalls up and take them home. Ball moss makes a great free houseplant – just like the tillandsias you see in expensive plant shops, dangling from stylish displays or tucked into plant walls. The only real difference is that ball moss is a clump of little plants, not a single bigger plant.

Perch clumps of ball moss atop candle holders, hang them from strings, or tuck them around the bases of your potted plants. If they’re inside, mist them or dunk them in water occasionally. If they’re outside, leave them alone: Houston’s humidity will take care of them for you.

And hey! They also make great gifts – especially for houseplant nerds who live north of Georgia or west of Arizona, outside their native range. You can be sure that they don’t have one already. 

Follow us on social. 👇 We're more fun than a 3D-printed kidney.
Twitter
Website
Copyright © 2021 City Cast. All rights reserved.
All Meta tweets ignored.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.