Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Happy Independence Day!

Texas Independence Day, that is. I moved to Austin in 1986 from a small town south of Lubbock called Lamesa to attend the University of Texas. One of the big draws was the live music scene, as I've blogged about before. About the time I moved here, the Austin Chronicle began a little experiment called the South by Southwest Music Conference (SXSW). SXSW is now a huge deal, and it's about to begin.

SXSW has exploded to include three conferences: interactive, film, and music. Over 1300 acts will play the music festival, the film festival has over 170 films, and the interactive trade show has over 100 exhibitors. Some of the bigwigs speaking at this year's events include ultra-liberal Al Franken, Robert Plant, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Sterling, and the lovely Wonkette. The best example I can give of how big a deal this is: Elvis Costello is playing a club gig on a Wednesday night!!! In other words, it's a great event in a great city.

There - as a true capitalist, I've done my bit to promote the local economy. Be sure to check back later today for the Weekly Jackass...

UPDATE 8:45 am central: Today is also Wictory Wednesday. Read PoliPundit's post here, and if you can at all, donate here to help the Republicans pick up a seat in Fritz Mondale's stomping grounds in 2006. As always, I ask that you click a random link or two from the blogroll at bottom right; we bloggers live for traffic, folks! Have a good one...

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