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Today my MacBook is officially 1 month old. All I can say is that I love it!

Just Hilarious

Photos here

Yesterday, (Yes, I’m late with this for x or y reason) I went out with Phobos, fobos, or Babieca, whatever he calls himself this morning, to The Alternative Press Showcase at Emo’s Austin. The show was free and had a pretty good lineup, so we were really excited about it. Since it was free, our plan was to get there early, and deal with the fact that we would probably get really hungry during the 6 hours of not going out of the venue, which we would’ve remedied with beer. Probably not the best idea with our sobriety.

He drove over to my place at around 9:30ish and scouted out the venue on his way over. He didn’t see an outrageous line forming around the venue (the show started promptly at noon) so we chilled out at my place, I had a quick breakfast and we left to downtown.

We got there at around 10:30, we walked by one of the venues entrance and did not notice a line, we walked in and saw that the venue was still empty, just a bunch of people working on the preparations and some other guys just standing around. We were kinda shocked, since it was a free show, one would expect a line forming pretty heavily. It was only an hour and a half away from start time, and Free demands promptness.

Since we didn’t feel like being bored inside the venue, especially considering how there was NO line, we decided to go and walk around downtown for a bit. We walked out of the venue, started walking towards sixth street, and all of the sudden we see a HUGE line of middle and high school kids. We walked around it, and noticed the line started at the other entrance. We looked at each other, looked at the line, and noticed we effectively snook in to the venue earlier. We thought for a second, talked a bit, and decided to sneak back in. Screw this line!

We walked back into the venue without any problem at all. We decided to keep it low key, so we just sat at a set of bleachers for a while. Little by little, more people started walking in, so it was getting harder to notice that we did not belong. The people walking in, seemed more related to the bands that were playing, record labels and other VIP type stuff.

After a while, we noticed that some people had food. Phobos, Fobos, Babieca, (lets call him PhFB from now on) decided to scout out the venue and see how the food system works. As mentioned earlier, we did not have an optimal solution for our food issue, if we could stuff ourselves well enough before the show started, we could easily last the full 6 hours without either passing out because of hunger or passing out because we were drunk with beers on an empty stomach. When PhFB left to check out the food situation, some dude came by with Alternative Press gift bags for everyone who was sitting on the bleachers. The bags had shirts, headphones, laptop speakers, a watch, etc. It was awesome, I was given a gift, I am one of them, there was no way I did not belong, so I proceeded to the food area. I notice PhFB getting his breakfast from the buffet style line. He sees I too have a bag, and understands what just happened. I go get my food, some OJ and sat back and happily ate it.

A little later, we see the guys next to us getting free Bloody Mary’s, which was obviously a brilliant drink to give out, considering how most SXSWsters are probably hung over this time in the morning. We look at each other and start discussing the risks of getting free Bloody Mary’s for ourselves. We were given gifts, which means we belong, but maybe the bartender would notice we did not belong. Maybe he would ask for our IDs and notice we were local and find that strange. Maybe we would get kicked out of the venue and would have to go join the even longer line of middle and high-school kids who are currently getting wet at this point because it was pouring outside. This would really suck, we would get wet and loose our privileged status, was a drink worth the risk, the answer is usually, yes.

PhFB went scouting around to see how this free drink mechanism works. He was planning on checking out the line, doing some risk assessment, seeing how the bartender gave drinks out and deciding what the odds are. In the end he just went balls out and got us two bloody mary’s. There was nothing else that could go wrong, so we were just chilling out until the show started and enjoyed it a lot.

Yesterday was an awesome day, I wish there were more free shows like this one. It’s probably the best 0 dollars I’ve spent on a show ever.

I just got back from seeing V For Vendetta. I really enjoyed the movie and I’m quite surprised it’s not getting picketed and banned from all over the place. It’s probably just considered a comic book movie. With a tag line saying “People should not be afraid of their government, The government should be afraid of their people” you can’t go wrong.

p.s. I just ordered the graphic novel.

1. NetNewsWire2.1b16 is Blazing fast on my Macbook. It feels like a whole different app.
2. Megaman Powerup Rocks!!! (so did Megaman Maverick Hunter X).

I’m currently sitting in the keynote room waiting for the Jason Kottke and Heather Armstrong. Until now, the day has been pretty good. The first panel was really good. The panelists were very knowledgeable and entertaining. They discussed the traditional Startup Processes and how they did it.

The most interesting part was the fact that not all of the panelists where “web 2.0″ people. Joel comes from a more classic SW Engineering point of view, Cabel writes awesome Mac software and Evan and Joshua come from the current Web 2.0 landscape. This gave a good balance of different perspectives on running your own show.

After the Sink or Swim panel. I followed on to a Female Blogging panel, out of curiosity. They seemed to touch the more classical sexist issues you would expect in such a panel. It was interesting seeing their point of view of what is going on. I learned there was this whole genre of blogs called mommyblogs, which really surprised me.

Then I went to lunch, and now I’m sitting waiting for todays keynote.

Technorati Tags: sxsw2006, sxsw

I will probably post various times during the day today, hence the .0 in the title. I’m currently waiting for the Sink or Swim panel to start. This panel includes Cabel, Evan, Joel, and Joshua. The panelists just walked in, I’ll post some more later.

Technorati Tags: sxsw2006, sxsw

Bush hit by new blow as aide is charged with shoplifting - Sunday Times - Times Online: “Yesterday it emerged that Allen had been interviewed by police in early January after he allegedly left a Maryland shop with goods he had not paid for. He was arrested last week and charged with two counts of theft that carry maximum sentences of 15 years in jail.”

::sigh::

I wonder if he wasn’t getting paid enough.

I just got back home from another exhausting day of good ol’ SXSW action. I walked over to Thistle Cafe at around 10 to see what was going on with BarCamp Austin. I chatted for a while with a lot of people, had breakfast, voted on some presentations and walked over to 4th and Trinity to attend an official SXSW panel. I listened in to the Convergent Media panel. They mostly talked about how things are converging in some aspects yet diverging in others, they discussed information overload and various other things.

After the panel, I walked back to 6th and Lavaca to BarCamp. I talked some more, listened to some presentations, etc. At around 1:40, I headed back to the convention center (someone drove us this time), Where I listened to Fried of 37 Signals and Coudal of Coudal Partners Keynote. It was pretty informative overall. They talked about creativity, keeping current, stopping the bullshit and just plain working on things instead of focussing on the abstract.

Following the keynote, I was on the verge of starvation. Being toward the eastern end of downtown, I decided to go to Casino el Camino for their delicious Amarillo Burger and a rum and coke (I would feel weird asking for a Soda, and didn’t feel like a beer). When my food ended, I decided to walk back to Thistle to enjoy some more nerdery in BarCamp.

Technorati Tags: sxsw2006, sxsw, barcamp, barcampaustin

I just got home from the Barcamp Austin meet and greet. I meet some awesome people at Thistle today and I’m psyched about tomorrow. My SXSW adventures started with me walking downtown to the convention center. I got my badge, goody bag and played with some Legos for a while. After that, I went to Halcyon, where they had some awesome salsa music playing, checked my e-mail, read my feeds and then proceeded to Thistle to the barcamp shindig. It was an awesome time.

Technorati Tags: sxsw2006, sxsw, barcamp, barcampaustin