Saturday 2013/04/26 Busiest Day in Austin

I am never bored living in the great city of Austin, TX.  Every day there is something to do.  Music, art, social, exercise, or relaxation anytime you want.  Every weekend there is at least one or two art events, a marathon, and at least one festival.  But, April is a hyperactive month overflowing with events, and April 26, is a day that will require an espresso every hour to keep up with.

Here are the events that I hope to be getting to:

Start off with the downtown Sustainable Food Center's farmers market in Republic Square Park.

Next up, the 15th annual Austin Dragon Boat Festival in Festival Beach Park. This event is put on by the Asian American Cultural Center.  There are dragon boat races on Lake Austin, music, dance, martial arts, and good food.

Next, Eeyore's 50th Birthday Party in Pease Park.  Eeyore's is a great part of Austin's culture.  The festival raises money for many local non-profit organizations.  There are games, music, food, beer, painted people, drum circles, and lots of down to earth fun for the whole family.  

Next, Red Space Gallery for the opening of Glenn Twiggs' Nuclear Fiction show.

Next, Blanton Museum's  Blanton 50 Fest for their 50th anniversary.

Then there are the following events that I will probably not make:

12 Steps (Part of Fusebox Festival) at Austin City Hall.

WEST Austin Studio Tour (1st weekend, I will catch next weekend)

Austin Food and Wine Festival

Buda Wiener Dog Races (out of Austin, but not too far)  The Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile is usually around Austin for this.

Schlotzky's Bun Run (okay, this is on Sunday)

Streamline Online Presence

I love the modern world of technology.  I love being connected to the world at all times.  But, I don't like the feeling of having to participate in all the services that are available at all times.  The social media game tries to get people to feel bad about not seeing every post or updating often.  This ever increasing pressure of losing out or missing important moments is a bit of a stress.  

So, I am cutting back to the services that I enjoy using.  I will interact with only one service daily.  I will look at the other services occasionally, maybe once a week or so.  

For social interaction and status updates, I will use twitter.  I like that twitter is terse and keeps a proper timeline.  I also like how twitter is all about what is going on now, and I don't feel guilty about missing something that happened yesterday.  Facebook is full of game spam, full of advertisements, difficult to use (they change the interface constantly), slow on mobile, and impossible to see as a proper timeline.  Google+ has a nice circle concept, but there are no other clients, and aside from some techie friends, there is nobody there.

For photo sharing I will continue to use Flickr.  I love flickr because of the tagging, multiple high quality sizes, groups, multiple clients, and easy search.  No other sites have all these features.  

I know I will miss the frequent update of some of my good friends from other services, but I hope the time that we do have will have more quality.

One area that I am afraid that I might miss out on are concert, opening, and party invites.  This is because so many of these are on Facebook.  But, I am hoping to mitigate this by checking in about once a week for the invites.

I hope that this simplification will make online / mobile life simpler and more meaningful.

Leave comments for any other suggestions or thoughts.

Don

HONK!TX 2013 IS COMING SOON

HONK!TX 2013 will be heppening March 22 to March 23 here in the great city of Austin, TX.  Check out the HONK!TX schedules for all the great events.  

This is a great event.  The music and performance of the 23 bands that will attend is so good that you will not be able to stop dancing or smiling.  These are not your normal high school marching bands (as much as I love them as well), these are performance art bombs of energy.  The parade on Sunday is a must see and hear.   This is a family event and the children love it!

All events are free, but if you are able please donate and also bring money to tip.  This event is fully funded through the kindness of the community and needs the full participation of the community at whatever level the members of the community are able to contribute.

SXSW 2013 Ends

SXSW 2013 was a long and fun journey.  I started on Friday, March 8th with a few short films and 2 features.  I watched at least 2 and sometimes 5 films every day through to Saturday, March 16th.  This year I really liked the music documentaries. 

Here is the list of feature length films that I watched in the order that I would rank them, with the best ones at the top:

1. Sake-Bomb   (Narrative)
2. Everyone's Going to Die  (Narrative)
3. Brothers Hypnotic  (Music Documentary)
4. And Who Taught You To Drive? (Documentary)
5. Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton  (Documentary)
6. Don Jon  (Narrative)
7. Big Ass Spider!  (Narrative)
8. The East (Narrative)
9. The Fifth Season  (Narrative)
10. We Cause Scenes  (Documentary)
11. TINY: A Story About Living Small  (Documentary)
12. Zero Charisma  (Narrative)
13. euphonia  (Narrative)
14. I Am Divine  (Documentary)
15. Reality Show  (Narrative)
16. Swim Little Fish Swim  (Narrative)
17. Sound City (Music Documentary)
18. Muscle Shoals (Music Documentary)
19. Continental (Documentary)
20. Unhung Hero (Documentary)
21. Born In Chicago (Music Documentary)
22. Finding the Funk (Music Documentary)
23. Rewind This! (Documentary)
24. Pit Stop  (Narrative)

I watched a few short collections as well:

Midnight Shorts

1.     BOY FRIENDS
2.     Two Fingers - 'Vengeance Rhythm'
3.     Hell No
4.     The Apocalypse
5.     Cats
6.     Child Eater
7.     Dance Till You Drop
8.     Follow
9.     Play House
10.     Root
11.     Under the Lion Crotch

Vimeo Presents: Moving Images to Melt Your Mind and Expand Your Heart (This did not have a listing.)

   

Shorts Program 1

1.    Natives
2.    The Audition
3.    Black Metal
4.    Sequin Raze
5.    #PostModem
6.    Top Floor
7.    Boneshaker

Shorts Program 2

1.    Indoor
2.    Necronomica
3.    Social Butterfly
4.    The Slaughter
5.    LaDonna
6.    Si Nos Dejan
7.    Kelly 

Taco Deli for a great lunch

Today is my weekly lunch treat at Taco Deli. Taco Deli has my favorite tacos in Austin. They also have the best sauce anywhere, the doña spicy sauce.