Texas and some other stuff

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Hey there!  I hope you enjoyed the last Mostly True update, because I have yet another computer nerd conference to tell you about.  That’s right y’all!  Last week I went to “South By Southwest” in Austin, Texas- better known as sxsw.  I think South by Southwest started as a music/film festival, but now they invite nerds too to a segment called “interactive.” You might be wondering why I have a picture of “Michael Dory’” above.  I’ll tell you why- it’s because I barely took any pictures at sxsw-- but Mike took like 5 million, so I’m going to steal all of them and use them on this blog.  Thanks Mike!!  PS - you can check out Mike’s flckr here and his bloggie blog here.

So, I’m gonna make this recap quick cause I gotta get back to my thesis- but basically sxsw is a bunch of parties and panels.  Here’s a panel.

Here’s a party.

Here’s Josh Knowles winning this computer-dj competition thing (sorry Josh, I don’t remember what it’s called...but- congrats!) Josh hosted 10 ITP’ers at his family’s house in Austin.  Josh’s parents are pretty much awesome.  They put up with us strolling in anywhere from 3AM-7AM each night.  His mom also made us extravagant breakfasts including but not limited to: breakfast burritos, bagels, fresh fruit, and french toast.  You name it, she made it.

She even made us cookies one night!  Mrs. Knowles-- we love you.

All in all - sxsw was really fun.  Here’s Mike and Rebbecca livin it up at the Good Magazine Party.

Here’s Kate sneaking a photo with Ze Frank. Kate you’re such a Groupie!!! I would never chase some video blogger around.

Right.  Anyway....

We saw a presentation of this thing called Spore.  Spore is awesome.  I don’t care if you don’t like computer games--- this is rad. You’re going to love it.  I was most impressed by how quickly you can model and animate custom 3D characters.  I took a couple 3D classes at ITP and spent hours and hours in the labs making ugly things that walked funny.  This program magically automates everything-- but still gives you a completely unique character.  You can read more about Spore here.

Here’s a pic from a party Yahoo! hosted.  I scavenged this photo off Flickr from some guy named Mil8. Nice to meet you Mil8, thnx for your pic.  Going to this party just reminded me that Yahoo! owns everything.

Like Bix.

And Delicious (another pic from Mil8).

And Flickr If I ever start a company that buys everyone else’s companies-- I will totally project all the logos of the companies I own on the walls.  (Of my HOUSE!) Yes, that would rad - sort of like a logo-trophy case.

Like any good tech-party, they had LED ice cubes too.

I like this picture, also not mine.  This one is from Incanus. Hopefully I won’t get put in blog jail from all these stolen photos.

Here’s a pic from a venue called “Austin City LImits” where we saw a group called Vox Trot. Good music.  Check em’ out on itunes.

Before that we went to the sxsw web awards.  Ze Frank was an entertaining host, but honestly web awards are one of the most boring awards ceremonies you can ever attend.

I did sort of love these post-awards show loser shirts that this company called ”Innertee“ made.

Towards the end of the week ITP represented with a pretty sweet games panel - here’s Kevin Slavin (center) and Dennis Crowley (right).  So, that’s about it for sxsw.  Panels.

Parties.

And podcasting pickles.

Back in NY- er...a week before sxsw - there was the usual TNO which included a little Pecan Jackson...

mixed with some Jenny LC and Ran Ran.

And then before that it was happy birthday to Kate Hartman.  Pecan busted out with homemade mac n’ cheese for this party.  Honestly, it was the best I’ve ever had.

Fast forward to this week- a bunch of us went to a Thai restaurant called ”Room Service.“ Sitting there I realized I haven’t been out to dinner in forever.  It was nice to sit down and eat something that took longer than 3 minutes to prepare.

After that we were off to Sing! Sing! for some karaoke action.

Next time, can someone puh-leeease remove the sweater from Matt’s waist before I take a photo?

Special thanks to this guy for offering to pay for half the East Village to sing and drink.  Dens, that was so generous of you.  We all love the google for hooking you up with that super cush job.

After karaoke we made our way to another bar.  But not before Ran dipped her paw in some free cotton candy.

Yum.

At Stoned Crow I met up with love-birds Monica and Josh.

They will be married later this year and hopefully that will be the end of these obnoxious displays of public affection.

After Stoned Crow, Matt, Ran and I stopped into the Washington Square Diner for a 3AM breakfast.

Finished off the night with crunch, crunch, crunch in the filthy snow home.  That’s it for now.  Expect spotty updates for the next 2 months-- thesis is taking up most of my time these days.  As soon as I get that project up and running, I’ll be doing some shameless plugs here. Hmm......maybe this blog will be good for something after all?

Weird. I have a famous back? (innerTee shirt).

By Eric Carroll on Tue, March 20 - 6:12:pm
http://visualnotion.com