Partied out.
The B-Side Lounge, which hosted the Deepleap gathering of 24 or so moons ago, was filled with revelers who had actually trucked out early enough to make the very first night of parties. We saw cameras, but no names even slightly worthy of being in bold type—what gives? Was there some sort of invite-only gathering that we weren't cool enough to be on the list for happening? Hmph.
Friday, March 8, 2002 | 10:00 p.m.
We're Back!!
The spy has returned! The first noticeable change between this year's SXSW and that of years previous: The bags are a lot smaller, and filled with more paper than toys. Where's my Yahoo! mousepad, my yo-yo, my sock pup ... oh, well. At least we got a CD shell and a pretty Powazek Productions sticker out of the deal, hm?
Friday, March 8, 2002 | 12:02 a.m.
A Week Later
Yes, The Mission™ is completed, but the updates are not. No matter how hard you try, we know you'll come back for more, so here's a wrap-up of the evening activities.
Saturday
Witness to the Andy & Dakota show. Oh - and how could we forget? The Special Ben Brown Appearance! Ben told us stories of how he's in love, he's living in New Zealand, he's writing a book, he's in love, he's in love with animollerdotcom, he's in love, etc., etc.
Spotted Nancy sitting right up front singing along to "Squirrel Fight!"; Kiehl and Kylie were gossiping all night sitting on the fence railing while Aaron took lomos; Heather and Derek giggled during a specially dedicated version of "Canadian Girlfriend." Was that Joanna with the video camera? She looks different with short hair. Noticed Nick ended up being lighterman all night - he was lighting everyone's cigarettes left and right. Overheard Zeldman say to a suprised Christine: "I recognized you from your site..." (A favorite phrase - along with "What is your URL?" - of the weekend.)
Apres Le Rock Show the mission moved onto Lane & Courtney's house. A late-night kegger for the geek set. Abi pointed out Jason, but he didn't seem to notice...he was too focused on finding Meg who was seen chatting with Zeldman. Bryan Boyer was continuing his poll from earlier in the day - this time with video camera rolling: "Monkey or Robot?"
It's not a party until something gets broken but in this case we'd like to say it's not a party until the Gin runs dry and all the geeks are hungry from a long day of pressing flesh (well some were! ha!) and schmoozing. The hunger pains leads to locals to all cry "Magnolia!" and a semi-mass exodus ensued. We heard rumors of Brian, Alison & Ryan, Jared and countless others chowing down large orders of nachos at 1am. Dana, Meg and Justin were no where to be found this evening but rumours would start flying the next day about Dana's jacuzzi-based webcast with Stacey from Atom Cam...
Sunday
We're sure you know by now who won the awards. We were wholly displeased with some of those results. No further comment.
Fray Café. The biggest assembly of Internet Rockstars ever on record. Who, if all the iRockstars were @ the Café, was providing content for the masses?!
Stories were abound: Patrick spoke about drug use, Shauna about fucking (literally) roommates, Lance read from his Palm Pilot (it was too hot at this point, we ventured outside), Courtney told a story and then popped the question to Lane who promptly lept towards her and started to play tonsil hockey, The Dakota Smith told the tale of his shotgun Vegas wedding, we learned about how anil was a one-time pumpkin worshiper and then show was rounded out by the fabulously ultra-sexy makin' the scene Joey The Monkey. Joey was also pressing the flesh with the ladies outside. A small crowd started to form and soon everyone wanted to have their picture taken with the monkey. jish snapped this picture of Brad feelin' the monkey love, John Styn and his girlfriend seemed particularly taken with the little semian.
We ducked out and headed up the street for the Frog Design Party ... was that really a long-horn cow you could have your picture taken with outside?! The party was not as good as years' past - little to no food (cups of peanuts don't cut it) but there was plenty of opportunity for great FOJM shots in their company elevator...davezilla got this mirror shot of Joey.
Monday
We took the day off, threw our notebooks and digital cameras in our canvas cartoon network bags and went shopping! We scored bigtime at <SoundExchange and got a few goodies at Toy Joy for the kiddies back home.
There were no good parties - or at least we didn't think so - so we took the night off, too.
It's not easy being a spy!
Tuesday
Although many of the rockstars had already gone home, the Adaptive Path Party was by far one of the best-run shindigs of the weekend, with the likes of Peter, Jeff and Janice running the show. We were wholly impressed.
Joey got more action - way more than some of us, to our totally embarrassing dismay - and the booze kept on flowin'.
It was a perfect grand finale to a rockin' and rollin' weekend. Those SXSW Music folks may say that they did the real rock n' rollin', but we still disagree!
'Til next year...or the next mission.
Wednesday, March 21, 2001 | 05:04 p.m.
Mission Complete
There was a minor incident with The Woman Of Orange Pants who would not stop being crazy, and by crazy we mean really loud and obnoxious. There was also the Yellow Shirt Guy who wouldn't shut up about his products in one of the panels, but other than that the conference went well. As most conferences tend to do.
The locals have a tendency to cry out, "momoko!" However, we have not deciphered this strange language yet.
Some of us have nothing to say.
Tuesday, March 13, 2001 | 04:35 p.m.
Saturday Morning
Seen: Christine and Aaron at the film party Friday night. She's a lot shorter than I'd expected. Or maybe he is just tall, over 6 feet tall, I think.
Saturday, March 10, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.
The Eagle Has Landed
It's 4:30 p.m., and I'm standing on the escalator at the Austin airport. I see out of the corner of my eye a man who looks a lot like Matt. "That can't be him," I think, because it looks like he's on his knees, talking to a child. I get closer and realize he's not talking to a child; he's talking to an adult who is sitting on the floor. I see Judith and realize that it must be Matt. I quickly walk the opposite direction and exit the other door, where I see Shauna smoking a cigarette.
Friday, March 9, 2001 | 09:36 p.m.