Image from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

In the last few weeks I have made the executive decision to remove a few people from my FB news feed.  Why?  Because life was getting to be a bit like a B movie.  Sure, Web 2.0 has a lot of benefits.  You get to keep in touch with people all over the globe, but at the same time, there are just a few things you don’t need/want to know (or you will go CRAZY).

As we all know, the classic B horror flick contains several scenes where the audience tries to tell the actor/actress not to do something.  “Don’t go in the basement!” or “Don’t open that door!” or “Get the fuck out of there, something is going to kill you!”

My version of that is deleting people from my feed (I don’t “un-friend” them).  If I really want to know, I have to make the effort to go to their profile and read their wall.  But as we all know from experience, that is a bad idea.

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.

So I stumbled on this website today after a friend became a fan of theirs on FB.

We have all done it.  We have sent a slightly incoherant/illogical text message to someone late at night.  This is one of my favorites, “Dammit, I can’t see to text…”

Anyways, a few people with some spare time on there hands have decided to give those messages a home.
Here’s what the creators had to say…

Texts From Last Night (TFLN) was founded in February 2009 by two friends for reasons that may or may not include: the tendency to press send more easily as the night turns to morning, friends social habits, Kwame Kilpatrick, exes, law school, closing down bars and leaving tabs open, general debauchery and/or a common disgust for all the negativity surrounding the “sexting” phenomenon.

There are a couple of options for sharing:

http://textsfromlastnight.com/submit/

Send texts with the area code of the sender as the subject  to text@textsfromlastnight.com

You can also tweet them @TFLN

I don’t know what happened.  All of a sudden the lil computer has a case of pop up ads.  I haven’t been browsing in any unusual places(who needs porn when you have season 2 of the L word).  Maybe it is the Firefox update.  Maybe google did something.  Maybe the Facebook beacon got stronger…

…or maybe my computer is punishing me for stalking again.   Two completely new subjects.  The first was completely intentional.  I was researching for a friend who is “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. I planned to research and make my wager on the flaw.  The second was based on someone I found on “zappos for men “.  I was on today to see if the summer stuff was out. There appear to be a few new editions.  Slightly sportier/geekier than before.

You would think that after an afternoon of trading clothes with the ladies, talking about how some dude did someone wrong whilst hanging out in our underware, I wouldn’t have dared to head back online.  Mmmm, nope.  I did it anyways.  I had to do something while the virus scanner was running.

After some virus scanning and downloading all the possible apps for Firefox,  I think that I have the pop up issue under control.

So there has been alot of buzz around the interwebs about Time Warner Cable capping broadband usage.  They claim that they will be doing people a favor by allowing them to select plans (much like cell phone plans) for usage. Most people I know hate paying for minutes. They pay the extra to have unlimited minutes.

The Jew commented the other day that:

…Time Warner is trying to put a stop to this by capping broadband.  In a few months we will have to pay $10 more a month for only 40 GB with an extra $1 per GB over that.  Those Hulu videos could now easily cost us $1-$2 per viewing.  Twitter  @JeffTWC and  @AlexTWC to let them know how bad of idea this is.

I caught this video on Facebook today.

I had a hunch that Time Warner was evil long ago (If they were as awesome as they think they are, they would allow me to pick my channels a la carte).  I went with SBC (now ATT) DSL since I couldn’t subscribe to Grande.  Small businesses are going to take a hit.  Not just those that are heavy internet users but those who let patrons have access to free wi-fi.   Free wi-fi will be a thing of the past pretty soon if this moves forward.

Who will make the money off of this?  Just Time Warner.  There will be no shared profits.  If I were the curmudgeonly owner of a record company I would go to Time Warner and ask for a portion of the money made while users were downloading songs.

is where it’s at.  I’ve been watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on hulu.com for the last few years.  More recently they have movies.  Granted the movie selection isn’t that big, but hey, it’s just as random as watching what pops up on the cable. The downside about the movies is that they are only up for a limited amount of time.

This past weekend I was feeling kinda crappy, damn allergies.  I caught up on the Office and the Daily Show.  I also watched Super Size Me (so disturbing) and Head Over Heels (No judging,  I was sick.).

RIP!: A Eemix Manifesto movie poster

So SXSW Day 9 was pretty f-ing awesome (and it wasn’t because I started the day with a free beer).  I saw Remix first. Then I watched Flossy remix several of the artists that I heard later in the day (Chairlift and Kid Cudi).  As I’ve mentioned before, the MAN is not to keen on this whole “borrowing” of content for use in bigger and better things.

I went into the movie thinking it was about M’s boyfriend Girl Talk before he became the Unibomber (Sorry Gregg, the mountain man look doesn’t suit you.)  The movie was actually about more than Mr. Gillis.  It started there, then moved on to talk about the MAN.  Then it took a surprising turn.  It went after Disney.  Yes, the creator of happily ever after was a remix artist.  He borrowed the dark and often gruesome tales of Grimms,  Andersen, and a few others.  Then he sugar coated them, tossed in some song and dance numbers, some woodand creatures, etc… and BOOM!  He made millions.  Not only did Disney make millions but the megacorp made sure that there would be no further remixing of those works.  Just try using the likeness of that famous mouse or sing that popular birthday song.  You will pay.

There was some filler about Napster, illegal downloading, etc.. (It merely reminded me that I was supposed to hate Metallica.  I know first hand that artists make the real money on gigs and merch.  Not on record sales).  Blah, blah, blah…

The most informative section of the film for me was the part on Brazil.  The ultimate remix nation.   It’s not just about the music.  It was about intellectual property.  It was their renegade effort to offer cheaper medications to prevent the spread of HIV that impressed me.  What is more important to the MAN?  Making a buck or saving lives?  Sadly, it’s making a buck. Watch the clip… (if you are low on time skip to 5:50).

I am still researching bits and pieces of the ever morphing film. (more…)

In my stalking of JGL yesterday I discovered another hidden gem on the interwebs (or tubes as we call them).  hitRECord.org is a little project that JGL has been working on for a few years.  Here’s the description of what can be done on the site

What does it mean, hit record?
Different things… It can be an object, a musical recording that sold a lot of copies. But it can also be an action, to hit record, to start recording, to make a record, be it musical, visual, textual, or anything else. That moment when you hit the REC button, when the tape starts rolling, or the camera clicks, or even when somebody writes something down, it always makes my heart beat a bit harder.

Hit record. A complete sentence in the imperative tense, it’s something I’ve been telling myself a lot lately. When I was younger, my life’s work was to be recorded, but not to hit record. That’s changing.

What do you suppose could change if we all started to hit RECord?

In other words it is a place for collaborations (or mashups, if you prefer).  Everything that the MAN doesn’t want us to do.  But, if enough of us out there are regenerating content, and hopefully breathing new life and perspectives into it on the way,  maybe we can defeat the man one day.

If you haven’t already checked it out, take a peek at the site for RIP: A Remix Manifesto (a documentary created to expose the MANs efforts at stifling the creatives, and perhaps to flip him off.).  The film is undergoing a series of remixes as we speak.  Since day one the filmmaker, Brett Gaylor, has shared his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix.

As always, little readers, stay tuned for a full review of the movie.  Until then I give you the definition of hitRECord. If you’ve got time, go make a little something that will move us a step closer to defeating the MAN.

This was year 5 of volunteering my way to platinum. I have been on vacation for the past week and a half.  I didn’t even think about the day job until today when I was trying to figure out if I had to go back tomorrow (sadly, I do.  It keeps the lights on.).

This year I blogged my way through the event, thanks to my MSI Wind Netbook (full review later), so I am just going to write up a quick summary (You should go back and read the daily recaps.  I put this stuff out on the internet for you, little readers)

Total # of bands: ~35 (Flosstradamus, Asobi Seksu, Titus Andronicus, Chairlift, the DJs from the Hood Internet, Kanye West, Big Sean, GLC Consequence, Really Do, Tony Williams, Mr. Hudson, Kid Cudi, Common, Erykah Badu, Buck65, B.Dolan, Sleep, Sage Francis, the Obits, Handsome Furs, American Analog Set, the Rosebuds, Bishop Allen, Au Revoir Simone, These Arms are Snakes, Cursive,  Passion Pit,  the Soft Pack, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Matt and Kim, Amplive, Franki Chan and Curt from Flosstradamus, and Echo and the Bunnymen.)

Total # of movies: 7 (RIP: A Remix Manifesto,  500 days of Summer,  Died Young, Stayed Pretty, The Time of Their Lives, Yes Men Fix the World,  Alexander the Last, and  I Love You, Man.)

Total $ spent: ~$21.25. In comparison to last year, I spent less money but came home with less loot.

Things that vastly improved the SXSW experience:

• Being a shiftleader: (Thanks to the Real Jew) You get time and a half for a little added responsibility.  I only had to volunteer from Thursday night - Tuesday evening. The downside was that I didn’t get to see as many panels as I had in the past.  I had many rooms to look after.
• Living in Mexico-  I could save on gas and cabs by riding my bike or walking.  M and I bought groceries to save $$.
• New bike- super light.  I didn’t have to walk any hills this year.  Everything is bolt on so I didn’t have to pop off a tire to lock it up. Thanks once again to the dudes at The Peddler.
• MSI Wind Netbook: just a good thing to have around as a blogger and it helps to stay on top of all the social networking business.  Mexico has wireless internet now so there were more reasons to have a computer.
• sched.org-  for all of my sxsw scheduling needs (and Showlist Austin for making the .pdf version of the day party schedule.)

The day started off with a bike ride from “Mexico.”  It was the last day of volunteering on the third floor.  It was also the last day of sxswi  I finally got around to checking my twitter to see what the Canadian dude from last night had written.  The message was actually from someone else.

DailyMarauder@spinsta We have your arrow. Ransom to follow #sxsw

@DailyMarauder Your associate was unaware of the fact that he was supposed to hold the arrow for ransom. You should have words with him.

Nothing else after that. I skipped that core conversation.  I had plenty of work to be done.  10hdg and M thought that I should have scammed free food off of the dudes since they planned on checking out places to eat on Wednesday.

The day went by without a hitch (no more demons in room 10).  We managed to have everyone out of the panel rooms and have the laptops upstairs by 6:30.  I really wanted beer by then.  Unfortunately all the shift leaders had to hang back and have tribal counsel.  It was our turn to decide who would be coming back next year.

I headed back to my house to deal with the angry kitty and bring home some dirty clothes.  When I got back to Mexico I was starving and needed a nap.  I made dinner and passed out watching The Daily Show.  I woke up in time to get my FREE BEER and see Franki Chan spin twice (SXSWi closing party and PureVolume).

Cost of today: $1 for tip (FREE BEER)

Beer credits : 2