South by Soutwest film and interactive festivals kick off today. Music gets started next Wednesday. I’m sad to say I barely even know what’s on the schedule this year; either I’m working too hard or my hipness quotient took a sudden, steep dive when I hit thirty.
I’m also, for the first time since we moved to Austin, unsure about whether I’ll get to see any of this year’s Old Settler’s Music Festival. That’s especially sad considering the the festival has Tim O’Brien doing a solo set and playing with his old band Hot Rize (with the amazing Bryan Sutton in tow), plus the David Grisman Quintet. An incredible lineup.
We’ll just see what happens…
- posted 2004.03.12 in music
Here’s how I’ve spent (some of) my time this evening:
- 8:49 pm
- Going through a pile of stuff on my desk, notice a note that I jotted down in the Portland airport last Monday. It was the title and author of a book I spotted in the airport bookstore that I knew I had to read someday: Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. Wonder to myself if they have it at the Austin public library.
- 8:51 pm
- The Austin Public Library website confirms that they do indeed have the book, and it’s available at the branch a quarter-mile from my house — yes! thanks, Tim! — but the branch closes at 9 o’clock.
- 8:52 pm
- Heavy contemplation.
- 8:53 pm
- Into the car and down the street…
- 8:55 pm
- Walk into library.
- 8:55 pm and 18 seconds
- Book in hand — thanks, Melvil!
- 8:57 pm
- Through the checkout line; walking out of library to head back home.
OK, now that I have a commenting system, throngs of readers, tell me how YOU spent 8 minutes of today:
I’ve contributed a guest post on Bunker Mulligan. It’s a book report. [update: link removed; destination has vanished]
OK, I have awful insomnia, so I decided to at least be productive. I’ve been messing around under the hood of this site and now we’re testing out a commenting system: a nice-looking, somewhat customizable, and (best of all) free option called BlogBack. Let’s see how it goes.
- posted 2004.03.05 in site
In today’s political news: Schwarzenegger: I’ll get what I want in D.C. because I’m ‘like a tick’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Hmmmm… I never noticed that before; the resemblance IS there…
Nice pectorals, gentlemen. Still, I know which one of you I’d rather have governing MY state, and I salute you right back.
Crazy mad thanks to Adam Hastings for use of the Tick pic.
I’m about to go to bed, and just realized it’s Friday the 13th. All through my adolescence, I used to eagerly anticipate these days when they rolled around. There’s just something fun in trying to sell yourself on completely illogical superstitions: I would imagine what kind of weird things might happen, or try to interpret the day’s occurrences in bizarre ways to validate the “curse” of Friday the 13th.
And then it would all be promptly forgotten the next day.
But this time, though, it was forgotten entirely. I must be getting old. Well, I have turned 30 since my last post almost two weeks ago…
But seriously, the real reason I didn’t even see Friday the 13th coming (or post here for two weeks) is because of this conference next week. Been working like a whole colony of carpenter ants on amphetamines for the last two weeks. Next Tuesday it all goes down.
And then I can chill.