Date: 2009-04-02 20:38 Subject: Back in the Lone Star State Security: Public Location: Houston, Texas Mood: excited

This year, Wrestlemania is in Houston. The announcement of this made me very excited. Not because I had much interest in seeing Wrestlemania, but because I wanted to see Ring of Honor. ROH is an independent wrestling organization based largely on the east coast. I was going to say they’re small, but they have pay-per-views and just started a TV show. So they’re easily the #3 wrestling organization in the US, but they still have the ‘independent’ feel which means that, unlike WWE and TNA, the wrestling is good.

I started watching ROH DVDs in 2006 and have been following the PPVs (I don’t get HD-Net, so I can’t watch the TV show) but I’ve always wanted to see them live. They’ve only made one trip out to the west coast so it’s not been possible, but with Wrestlemania in Houston, there was finally a good opportunity. Wrestlemania weekend draws tens of thousands of wrestling fans to whatever city it’s in, and ROH has seen this as a great opportunity. They don’t try to compete with Wrestlemania on Sunday, but on Friday and Saturday they traditionally put on two of their best shows of the year.

So that was a big reason to go to Houston, but there were two other important ones. First of all, my brother lives in Houston with his family. I will not deny that this offered a chance to avoid needing a hotel, but also I am really happy to visit them again. My brother is entertaining, his wife is very nice, and their kids really like me for some reason. I actually could go to Wrestlemania, and for the Shawn Michaels-Undertaker match I’m tempted, but I’d really rather spend the time with my relatives.

The third reason is because Houston is the home of the Antone’s Import Company, which makes the best sandwiches I have ever had in my life. The secret is top quality imported meats, and the chow-chow, which not a dog, but a relish. And not a relish made from dogs. They used to be all over Houston when I lived here, but apparently there’s been a corporate takeover and most of the locations have been turned into franchises where the quality isn’t as good. As far as the Internet could tell me, there’s only three locations left run by the original family, and they’re all around Rice University which is not exactly convenient. But that won’t exactly stop me. It’s been more than six years since I last had one; I am not going to be scared off at this point by bad traffic.