SXSW, here I am!

Arrived in Austin, TX, last night for 4 days of interactive geekery at SXSW.  I planned to get some work done on the plane, but ended up sitting next to Jason of Negro Please and LAist for both legs of my flight (Burbank–>Phoenix–>Austin) and Chris of Webcast In a Box for the latter.  Instead of working on web services documentation for work, I chatted about LA blogging, mobile blogging, podcasting, CSS design, music, open standards, online music, YouTube and race. Yes, the latter might seem off-base for a friendly airplane discussion, but us online types are all about openness right?  Actually the topic came up because Jason is on a panel on the subject here at SXSW.  We specifically talked about Oscar winner Crash — gratuitous on the subject and undeserving of the award in my opinion, a recent article on ESPN.com about the rise of white players in college basketball (also gratuitious), and Forgiven — which I saw at Sundance this year and is hands down the best movie about race I’ve seen in a long time (see my earlier review here).

So, after arriving last night at about 10pm, I went out to a few bars with fellow Yahoo! coworkers…and I tell you what, it doesn’t get more Texas than $2 cans of Lonestar (if you want a laugh, check out Lonestar’s MySpace page.  We hit three spots in Austin, the fringy area near Crown DeVille and Stubbs (I’ll be back there tonight), Maggie Mae’s on 6th Street (was I 19 again?  No…I didn’t even hang out at places like that when I was 19…ok…18 maybe…), and somewhere off the main drag that finally felt a little more normal, where we went once we got a little local guidance.  I forgot my camera, so I’ve got no pics of the first night…

But all that’s in the past.  Now it is Saturday and the festival is starting.  I was supposed to do the work this morning that I didn’t do on the place last night…but instead I’ve been blogging…and now I’m eager to get out to some of the events.  So I’m out!  And I’m taking my camera with me today!

Update:  Looks like Jason beat me to posting about our flight-time conversations.  Cheers!

Technorati Tags: SXSW, SXSW06, SXSWi06, Austin

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