SXSW – Sunday 8:37pm
This is covering the first part of day 3 of my SXSW visit. I am going to try to retro post the last 2 days worth of happenings, but since no one reads this shit anyway, I don’t care if some of the bits below need the context that would otherwise be set up in the previous days’ posts. I’ll probably come back and revise this too and add links… there is beer to be drank.
I started off the morning having coffee with Alexia Prichard, one of Propellers video personnel. Alexia and I have spoken quite a bit over AIM since the LA trip in November 2006. We spent some time catching up and talking about my new found interest in film. It was a great little chat. It really helped get my day going as I was pretty exhausted, dehydrated, and hung over from last night.
Shortly after, the rest of the dev and anchor team came down for breakfast and Tom decided to take us on a boat trip on the Lady Bird Lake. While we were waiting for the boat to arrive, we saw Stiffler running around again. Also, the 70s porno guy from last night came back over and chilled for a bit with us. While out smoking, that guy hopped into a cab with some girls and rolled out. I asked the valet if he know who it was and he had no idea, but thought that one of the girls was Josh Brolin’s wife. The Frag Dolls came stumbling out of the hotel too to catch a cab and I chatted it up a bit with them. They had some good stories from last night’s adventures that I won’t post for the sake of not being some paparazzi type dude. I’m glossing over most of my adventures too… which mostly involve stupid shit I say and copious amounts of booze.
Anywho, we finally got on our boat trip around 12:30. The guy running the boat was a local kid around my age and totally hilarious. He sorta half narrated. He forgot what landmarks and buildings were called and was very relaxed about the presentation of the details. He told us where to go swimming should we want to do so illegally. It was pretty damn funny, but then again we didn’t go for the historical side of things. Lady Bird Lake is pretty interesting. Look it up on wikipedia.
Once we got back, we all hoofed it over to the convention center for the panels. Mike, Budke, Tom, and I went into the Screen Burn deal and right away we ran into the Frag Dolls. They were playing Rainbow 6 against a bunch of little dorky kids and shouting out all these military commands and such. It was pretty funny. I think the kids just wanted to see the girls shake their boobles when they flinched when their character got shot. As an aside, there was a teen girl standing behind the frag dolls looking in aww. I think she knows what she wants to be when she grows up. To each their own.
Mike and I then went up to one of the interactive ballrooms and checked out a bunch of vendors. I’m going to be reviewing some of sites of card I grabbed later. I don’t want to give any undue publicity for shitty products or services. hint.
I was somewhat appreciative of having twitter today actually. After Mike and I got out of the interactive rooms, I used twitter to ask where people where and caught up with the group for the trail end of the “20 ways to wow a crowd panel”.
On the way to that panel I ran into Leah Culver. It was very awkward. Granted, I had long hair back then and people otherwise claim I am a chameleon, but she barely remembered who I was. We had classes together and worked together at CSOM. We even both got invited to lunch with the DRM speaker and started giving him shit about how traditional channels of marketing in the techworld were ignoring social media. Ironically, her and I both went into social media. Also ironically, we ran into each other at SXSW, which is very social media focused this year. Either way, even after she remembered who I was, she seemed indifferent – so whatever.
After the “20 ways” panel, most everyone on the team went to the LOL Cats panel and learned how stupid ideas can generate a lot of money. Honestly, I think the whole meme is stupid, but once you look past the surface, you see a sort of self evolving success story in the Web 2.0 world. They gave out free hamburgers too.
We then went to Iron Cactus in downtown for food. Nothing too crazy went down save for the fact it started raining on us, the waiter was a douche bag, and some cat on stilts painted like a mime put a flyer under my hat for circ de sole. George told me about his classmate from school that works for the orchestra in St. Paul that he apparently is trying to fix me up with and who reads my blog apparently? So, hey, if you are reading this, I am taken, BUT, I’ll buy you coffee since you know George and he saves my butt on a daily basis at work 
Anywho, I am about to head down now to see what everyone else is up to. We skipped the awards deal since we were at Iron Cactus too long. I wasn’t looking forward to that much anywho. Tonite might be another night of smelling up the hotel lounge area or I might venture off and hit some of the bars on this side of the lake. The hot tub is calling too. We’ll see. Word.
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About Me
Blaine Garrett is a Minneapolis-based web designer, fine artists, and general jack of all trades. When he is not designing next-generation web applications or feverishly painting away, he dabbles in other creative endeavors as well as enjoying the fruits of the luscious Twin Cities.
