This was year 6 of volunteering my way to platinum. I have been on vacation for the past 2 weeks and living at M’s house.

(You should go back and read the daily recaps. I put this stuff out on the internet for you, little readers)

Total # of bands: ~24  ( City Riots, Best Coast, the DJs from the Hood Internet, Le Loup,  Typefighter, Sondre Lerche, Vivian Girls, Death Set,  :papercutz,  Oh Snap!, Rogue Wave, Miike Snow, Fucked Up, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings,  Hole,  Frightened Rabbit, Minor Mishap Marching Band , Mayer Hawthorn & the Country, Passion Pit (DJ set) , The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,  Broken Bells, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons ,Everybody was in the French Resistance…Now!, and  Diplo.)

Total # of movies: 6 (The Runaways, Tiny Furniture, Canal Street Madam, Barry Munday, the Freebie, Kick Ass)

Total $ spent: ~$115 In comparison to last year, I spent more money and came home with less loot (Recessioned!).

Things that vastly improved this year’s SXSW experience:

• Being a Crewchief: (Thanks to the Real Jew) I worked a ton of pre-conference hours and was done by Sunday afternoon of SXSWi
• New sidekicks
• Nap time

In the last 3 days, M have burned through the SXSW torrent in 2 sittings.

Without the help of an intern or outsourcing the task to India, we have managed to RSVP for EVERYTHING (We have a google calendar of it all.  If you are nice, maybe we will share it with you). The only way to manage this was to check the internet a lot.

Sched.org is live now.  M and I are adding the chosen bands to sched so we can make sure that we don’t miss anything.  Since music doesn’t start to Wednesday, we may table the band selection and start on films/SXSWi parties.

Things have been a wee bit stressful with the SXSW volunteer thing but I promise to recap my days at SXSW as soon as possible.  The netbook fits nicely in my new backpack.

I posted some of this in my Fun^3 Fest 2008 wrap up.  I cannot stress the importance of having the right gear during SXSW.

Useful Festival Gear (for the whole Fest):
So I noticed that very few people are prepared for an all day outdoor festival. Granted, the door people search your bags for weapons, booze, and food. But still, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pack a few things. This is what was in my bag (FYI: This year I am testing out the KEEN skyline.  It’s a kid’s bag but I looks like the right size for the job):

• Tissues - also useful when the port-o-potty is out of TP
• Hand Sanitizer or Moist Towlettes, wet wipes and/or face wipes.
• Visine/Eyedrops
• Extra Sunglasses
• Earplugs - I prefer the reusable swimmers earplugs. I bring disposable ones too, it is a good way to make friends.
• Camera - with extra memory (note that cameras are not always allowed at festivals but you can check ahead of time).
• A descent size bag to carry all your stuff and free swag (your friend may or not be willing to be your sherpa). I carry a messenger bag. M usually has her cycling backpack.
• Cash - not all events take credit or have an onsite ATM (It’s also nice to tip the bartender for those free drinks).
• Empty water bottle - staff might prevent you from taking in water, but they can’t stop you from bringing an empty bottle. You can usually find a water fountain or restroom to fill it up.
• Coozie- Most of the time the beer chicks are somewhere in proximity distributing them. Never when you need them though.
• Chapstick
• Sweater/Sweatshirt- It’s good to dress in layers. By the end of the night you will be glad you packed it. I usually stick a hat in my bag for that reason.
• Bicycle- It is the best way to get around town. Driving is not really an option.  Public transit isn’t reliable.
• Walking Shoes- Go practical before cute.  You will be standing long hours on concrete most likely.

Useful Festival Gear (for SXSWi):

• Laptop- Ever so important for blogging on the go.  You can attempt it on your smart phone, but really, a keyboard is your friend.

like order…

I like schedules…

I like to do lists…

I had the afternoon off from work so I got started on my SXSW 2010 Game plan.

Where do we start?

1)Bands -  M has pasted the list of SXSW Showcasing Artists to a Google docs spreadsheet.  From there we download the torrent and begin rating the bands (somewhere along the lines of “sucks balls” to “I would give an organ to see that band”).  If there are too many in the “I want to see this so bad”  we make an attempt to check out more songs by the band to determine the new ranking.

From there I have been using the wretched my.SXSW feature to save the list of bands I am interested in checking out.  The only perk is that it exports to Google Calendar.  I can make sure that all this gets added to sched when the time comes.

2) Schedules- Now there are a few scheduling tools out there. The best one available so far is Sched.org.  Unfortunately they don’t have the 2010 schedule up right now.  In the interim there are a few tools/sites M and I are using to get a head start on RSVP’s and such.

(edited 2/27)I built a Google calendar to share which has all of the day parties that have been listed on Donewaiting.com/sxsw, Do512.com’s SXSW Edition,  and Austinist’s SXSW guide (M has also been cruising the Twitter).  If it is on the calendar, it means that M and I are RSVP’d and ready to go.  Right now the plan is to RSVP for everything and sort it all out later when sched is back.

So, I have started a letter writing campaign (on-line dating again).   This time, it is in the name of science.  A friend sent me a link to this blog entry by the super nerds that run the dating site (yes, they run stats on everything).  They were looking at how race effects reply rate (they have looked at a whole host of reasons why people may or may not respond to your message). The numbers generated this nicely colored chart.

The chart shows that:

Men don’t write black women back. Or rather, they write them back far less often than they should. Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder.

My first instinct was to delete my profile and end my Don Quixote type search.  But then I figured that I should keep on in the name of science.  It’s a lot like casting bottled messages out to sea.

I sent the dudes and email not to long ago asking if they have looked at the numbers by location.

Stay tuned.

SXSW dropped a big bag o’ Xmas cheer.  The 2010 Showcasing Band List.  Which means I get to start my research early this year (last year I barely scratched the surface).

Stay tuned little readers.  This weekend I will start the google docs spreadsheet.

Bands I look forward to so far…

Apostle of Hustle (Toronto ON)
Bomani Armah & Project Mayhem (Washington DC) - Read a Book!!
*Breakestra (Los Angeles CA)
*The Dollyrots (Los Angeles CA)
*The Ettes (Nashville TN)
*Fool’s Gold (Los Angeles CA)
Frightened Rabbit (Selkirk UK-SCOTLAND)
*HEARTSREVOLUTION (New York NY)
*The Hood Internet (Chicago IL)
We Are Scientists (New York NY)

DISCLAIMER: I would like to apologize for the use of “e-mon” on many of the the adjectives used in this post.  I am blaming M and 10hdg.  One word. Viral.  I am also skipping the spell and grammar checking.  Not enough time right now.  Maybe after SXSWi

So today we managed to have a nice sunshiney day to ride to the convention center on the bikes.  After the usual welcome to tech crew meeting, I headed back to the third floor.  For the most part things went ok.  Room 10 is still possessed by demons.    Room 8 has some mild visual problems but we were able to get by.

The afternoon sounded promising.  There was supposed to be a fake riot staged by the ARG panel in room 6.  We were also promised that the AVW guys would replace all of the sound equipment in 10.  Bad news: RIot was LAME!  Good news: NEW SOUND BOARD.  M and I took a break from the insanity to play with “rockets” in the hall (They were promotional darts by capstrat.  I may have to order some.)

At the end of the day, we cleared out the panel rooms.  I had a little trouble getting rid of the Brits in room 6.  I had to resort to an old stand by to get them out.  I told them that there was FREE BEER in the park accross the street and at several other venues.  They were a little confused so I had to spell it out.  There are companies that throw parties and they want people to have fun so they make the alcohol free.  If no one comes to drink the free beer it will go to waste.

After the Brits leave I meet up with M and the crew in the hall.  I explain the Brit thing and end up starting a new dance craze at the same time.  We head off to the Rails party to learn more about otherinbox (BTW. beer facilitates learning).   We hung out there and have not acquired enough food credits to offset the beer credits. You might say that we were dunk-e-mon. <social networking experiment> (more…)

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Originally uploaded by Limorama

M and I dorked out in the SXSW Trade Show today. We met the guys behind lostzombies.com. They had their very own, rented, not stolen, road sign in their booth.

We dropped a few nuggets of wisdom while we hung out. Places to rock climb. Good restaurants to check out in town (DO NOT go to the bbq joint closest to the Convention Center. Drive towards campus instead.)

In exchange for text twittering a pic of the sign they gave us t-shirts. We offered something better. M took out the BAC and got a few shots. I took the media card and made use of the card reader on the mini note (I know, we are dorks). Since then we have uploaded the photos to flickr, tweet pic’d, tweeted and re-tweeted in addition to this blog entry.

Go viral media.

So today the internet gave us this lovely present…

The song originally started as a joke but now the creator has offered up an iphone to the person that creates the best music video.  The contest deadline is well after the conference so you have time to capture and assemble your footage.

So I have listened to the song a few times now and read the lyrics.  Here is my advice to you nerd boys who are fortunate enough to stumble on my blog in time…

You gonna need it if ya wanna get some hot ass
Fuck the panels, there ain’t one girl ta talk to…

…So hold up, wait, let me tell ya dudes
For every one girl here, they be a hundred yous…

There are a few girls to chat with in the panels (depending on the panels) .  Most of the girls in the convention center are actually volunteers.  The perk to making friends with them is because they are locals and they know their way around town (and they have cars). The best way to find a large assemblage of women is to hang out near the restrooms at one of the parties.  Even though SXSWi is as sausage fest, there is ALWAYS a line for the ladies room.  If you really want to meet chicks, you should upgrade that badge that work paid for and stay for the music festival.  The weather is usually perfect for tank tops and showin’ some leg.

…back to that video.  I would like to see what The Lonely Island would do with this song.  My guess is there would be cross dressing involved.  Why you ask?  Do to the lack of girls involved with the conference it would be much easier to have a boy dress up as a girl.

I think there should be extra bonus points if the video involves a montage.

… makin’ lists and checkin’ them twice as much as we can in the next month

SXSW list making has begun.   M and I are trying to figure out which bands we want to see.  The spreadsheet plan worked well for F^3 Fest so we decided to do it again.  There are google documents with rating systems and an assortment of resource links (you knew that we were geeky).  Since the list is pretty big, we have enlisted the help of 10HDG and Super Kleen (send me an email if you would like to join in).

The plan right now is to give the bands a first rating. I’ve decided to treat this like online dating.  First impression means that they don’t seem like a complete douche and you would email or im them.  After that we will check where they fall in the  master schedule and figure out what we will actually see.  There are other things that factor into what shows we go to.  Venue and sound (can M see the stage and does the sound guy hate us?), crowds (usually at the headliner shows), genre and time (no nappy time music after 10pm, sorry Beach House).

Stay tuned kids.  I will post the highlights as I sift through the 1000+ plus bands.