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CMIvfx has some project based tutorials in more "general" ares as well, like shading mantra, procedural modeling, caustics, assets, etc... http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/203/Houdini+Shading+and+Rendering http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/501/Houdini+Python+Weather+Widget http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/213/Houdini+Procedural+Road+Creation http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/504/Houdini+3D+Galaxy+Creation+Effects To name a few... It's hard to know what you mean with day to day work since pretty much everything is a day-to-day work of a houdini user (generally speaking). But I agree that in most cases you'll have to connect the dots from different houdini tutorials. Cheers PS: 3DBuzz also has a technical effects title that's quite project oriented from beginning to end, as well as CGMasters.

Well you probably won't benefit, it's a sharp learning curve and generalists usually find the transition harder than more technical artists. If I was a generalist working by myself I'd probably be using blender as its open source and have some great features. Houdini's great for pushing shots past the barrier you hit with other software, but it's a labour of love. Saying that, you might get on with it so the only way to find out is to have a go. Do a Vimeo search for Houdini and sort by date to see what people are up too.

You're asking for tutorials that show the best of the best but you say "average 3D work" at the same time. So which do you want? If you just want to model and render product packages and create shiny logos you don't need the capabilities of Houdini to do that. Also you won't find super high level tutorials very often if ever because they are so specific nobody can use anything from them in any other situation. If you haven't yet check out the videos directly from Side Effects and the videos on cmiVFX. Demo reels from Houdini users are another good place to get the idea of the capabilities.