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The Texas Longhorns are playing the USC Trojans tonight for the national football championship. While I'm inclined to be true to my school, I have the feeling that the steers are gonna get smeared tonight. I imagine both of my readers know that I did my undergrad at Oklahoma, so my loyalties lie with UT's traditional rival. Watching OU choke in the last two national championship games leads me to think that the level of competition in the Big XII conference is not as high as in other power conferences. Of course, my Sooners beat the sixth-ranked Oregon Ducks Thursday night in the Holiday Bowl, so maybe Texas' competition this year has been solid (or USC's has been equally weak.) In addition, OU was a pretty lousy football team for the first half of the season, and considering that OU has spoiled Texas' season for the past five years, I'm not sure Texas is any better than its been in the past few season - it just didn't have Oklahoma to keep it out of championship contention. I'll turn on comments so my UT reader can huff and puff below

Tonight, I bought groceries at my neighborhood Fiesta Mart. At the register, I pulled out my ATM card to pay, and the Latina cashier chuckled and nodded at my duct-tape wallet, saying "Everybody's got those these days. It's like the style."
"Oh, a duct tape wallet. I've been using them for quite a while, but I just made a new one."
"All these people keep coming in here with them." Wondering about who all these Fiesta shoppers are with their duct-tape wallets, I asked, "Is it white kids like me, or it it really everyone?"
I was a little worried that my question would come off as a way of asserting white privilege, but she understood what I was asking.
"It's the white folks," she said, laughing, "Only the white folks."

Nigel mentioned this yesterday, and a story in the campus paper confirms that my coffeehouse of choice, Mojo's Daily Grind, is closing at the end of December.

I'm pretty disappointed about this, since Mojo's has long been a part of my routine. Mojo's has its problems for sure - the bathrooms are filthy and the coffee is sub-par, but I find Mojo's a good place to get work done. Little City, which is across the street from the College of Communications, has excellent coffee, but it often feels like an extension of the RTF department. During the day, I can count on running into a faculty member or fellow grad student. It's a good place to take a break, but not a good place to work. When the weather is nice, I'll often go to Spiderhouse, which has a huge funky garden, but its indoor seating is very limited, so if it's cold or rainy, I can't expect to find a table. Mojo's is the only coffeehouse with enough seating and enough space to be a reliable place to work, and now it is gone.

Nigel remarks that "the Drag really isn't the Drag anymore," and I have to agree. What was once a funky collection of shops is dominated by the University Co-op's clothing shops and corporate chains like Einstein's Bagels. For me, the closing of Sound Exchange marked the end of the Drag as a site of bohemian culture, but Mojo's closing puts the nail in the coffin.

A fellow doctoral student in my department is conducting a survey of bloggers. I thought I'd give them a hand and post the survey here. (If you want, post it on your own blog, so they have a larger informant size.) I don't know who the student is, but some of the questions like, "To what extent do you show your softer, more sensitive side in your blog?" seem out of context considering the kinds of research usually done in the ol' RTF department. (Of course, I marked "always" on that question.) Two informants will be selected for a $25 gift card, which would more than cover the new Black Hole compilation I've been lusting after.

I just got back from voting early in this year's election. Of course I voted against Proposition 2, which would create a constitutional amendment making gay marriage double-plus unlegal, and I voted against the other amendments, which were mostly handouts for various corporate interests in the state. I'm not sure why these belong in the constitution, except that they couldn't pass in the legislature, so big business had to hold a referendum.

As offended as I am by the prospect of codifying bigotry in the state constitution, Prop 2 wasn't what I found shocking at the polls this afternoon. Before you're able to begin voting, voters have to enter a four-digit security code, presumably as a guard against voter fraud. I spun the wheel around, and my numbers came up in 72 point Comic Sans, quite probably the ugliest typeface the world has ever seen. Texas voters should be banning Comic Sans, not gay marriage! A comic-book typeface hardly seems appropriate for a voting machine, unless the interface designers were subtly suggesting the Texas electoral system is a joke.

Jon Lebkowsky has scanned some old black-and-white negatives from the early 70s and uploaded them to Flickr. I took a little time to look at them this afternoon, and it's really quite interesting to see images of an Austin I never knew - I was born in 1975 - and, well, a Jon I never knew. (I tried to add a "jonsoldaustinpix" tag to the appropriate photos, so I could just to all of them at once, but it seems it didn't work.) Some of the photos raise a few questions, like where was Inner Sanctum Records located? Or was $75 a month a lot for rent back in 1971?

I'm pleased to see that Tom Delay has been indicted on conspiracy charges here in Travis County. I do think that corporate money in politics is really detrimental to democracy. Vast amounts enter our political system legally, so when folks like the bugman bend the rules, they should be thrown against the wall. I'm sure a lot of folks in Texas think different.

My landlord has a sticker on his truck that reads, "I believe in God, President Bush, and Texas Longhorns," which I find a little frightening as a left-leaning Oklahoma Sooners fan. Do UT fans really believe that God is on the side of their football team? According to a post at Sivacracy, this might be a good thing for the Sooner-born; a new study suggests fervent belief in religion can actually have a negative affect on society. Maybe that explains why the folks in Sugar Land can elect a creep like Delay.

I was just at my neighborhood Fiesta Mart, picking up some produce and whatnot. Fiesta rents stalls inside and outside their store to third parties. Most of the stalls sell cheap textile goods, but there's a jeweler, a bank branch, a few lunch counters.

Today, a stall was set up at the front of the store, right by the soy milk. Two guys were standing in front of undersaturated digital prints, selling family portrait services. I made eye contact with one of the guys, and the store was nearly empty, making it difficult for me to politely ignore him. He was about to say something when I said, "What are you selling? Family portraits?"

"Yeah!" He sucked in a deep breath.

I chuckled and "Oh, I'm way to single for that."

He put a pen in my hand and said, "Just put your name down here for a free portrait, and you won't be single for five minutes." I guess his studio does kind of Glamor Shots kind of thing, but judging from the samples, their main specialty is soft focus and low contrasts. Was he suggesting that I put a flattering portrait on Internet dating sites?

I put his pen down, gave him a stupid grin, and laughed at him as I walked away. I don't feel bad about being snide to salespeople. I did find it interesting that he just assumed that I was unhappy with being single. I'm not particularly attractive, but I think a lack of interest in dating, not my looks, keep me single. I'm pretty comfortable as a loner, which must seem abnormal to the sales guy.

When I was checking out the teenage Latina cashier, held up a packet of miso and asked, "What's this?"

"Oh, that's miso, it's a soybean paste you use for making soups and other things. It's supposed to have enzymes that are good for you, but I just like the taste."

She looked at me like she didn't understand what I was saying.

I thought saying "You use it for making a broth," would help clarify."

"What's a broth?" she asked.

At that point, I knew I was in a hole, but I didn't realize how deep. I was sort of surprised she didn't know what a broth was. How do you say "broth" in Spanish and does it mean the same thing? "What's a broth?" I said, "It's like in soup, the liquid part."

She smiled and said, "You're all into it, trying to say it."

"Oh, yeah, I'm a teacher, so..."

"You feel like you have to explain it."

"Yeah."

I had no idea that Austin has a local case modding organization. Austin Modders provides an online forum for sharing pictures and tutorials. I was thinking about the extent the Internet may have spurred the case-modding hobby; despite the physicality of the case-modding, it seems that users would be more apt to show their work to other modders online instead of working for an audience in meatspace. Wikipedia has a short history that was probably written by enthusiastic case modders. I didn't find it so enlightening, but the entry led me to the Austin Modders site. Austin Modders don't seem to have regular face-to-face meetings like Austin Bloggers or a user group, but it looks like they sponsor competitive case mod shows.

I don't have any interest in doing case modding myself, but it would be interesting to check out a case-modding show.

The takeout place El Chilito has finally opened up at Manor and Cherrywood in East Austin. I haven't eaten there yet, but it seems to be doing a brisk business. There's no indoor seating, but at lunchtime there's plenty of folks eating tacos under the awning in 100-degree weather. In addition, a house at Breeze and Manor is being remodeled for "Clementine Coffee Bar," according to the sign. It looks a little upscale for my blood, and I saw a notice today that a beer and wine license is pending. Regardless, it's certainly nice that I'll be able to take a short walk to a coffeeshop and an inexpensive Mexican place.

I've lived in this neighborhood for three years now, and the last year has seen a lot of new restaurants on what used to seem like a desolate strip of road. It seems like Manor is turning into a smaller version of South First street with a row of restaurants and, perhaps, retail. Also El Chilito and Clementine seem more geared to people who actually live around here. In comparison, the John Mueller's Barbecue and Hoover's seem to attract creeps from other parts of the city, clogging the sidewalks with their oversized trucks and ignoring "small car only" parking signs.

Mueller's customers are egregiously odious. Everyday, customers are parking on the sidewalk, forcing me to run in the busy street, and are rude, if not outright hostile to pedestrians. I find it offensive when the drivers don't look like their from the neighborhood and the building itself is an eyesore. Perhaps one upshot of the sudden growth on Manor is higher rent or property taxes will put that place out of business.

Update: I walked over to El Chilito and got a veggie burrito for lunch. The sad, scrawny thing used a "taco-size" tortilla and set me back four bucks. The veggie burrito didn't have any beans, and I'm pretty sure that the menu said it came with beans. Finally, they were cooking the vegetables on the same filthy grill they were cooking meat. Ickie! Compared to what I could get for four bucks at Wheatsville, this place is a ripoff.

I've been playing around with the High-Yield Detonation Simulator featured today on bOINGbOING. I decided to map a nuclear blast at the UT tower, and found this page that lists the GPS coordinates for many UT landmarks. I'm not sure what the point of this page is. At first thought it might be for GPS users, but, if you're wandering around campus and you can't find the tower, I don't think a GPS unit will do you much good.

These Google Maps hacks have been around for a few months, and, in blog time that's like forever, but I do appreciate many of the applications people have developed. The High-Yield Detonation Simulator is much nicer (although more difficult to use) than Map-A-Blast. I'm going to New York in a few weeks, so I poked around for subway maps integrated with Google Maps. This is the best one I've found yet, although it doesn't seem to play nice with Safari and doesn't allowing panning around with the keyboard. I looked around for a hack that maps cool coffeeshops in Dallas, but either there aren't any cool coffeeshops in Dallas or no one has gotten around to making one yet.

Today I pointed my old boss Scott to this column by Neal Pollack from a few weeks back. In the column, Pollack describes how his local 24 Hour Fitness gym has been transmogrified into a Lance Armstrong shrine. Like Scott, I thought this was the most amusing passage in the piece:

While I agree that Willie is probably more apt to inspire a bout of herbal relaxation than a fitness kick, I've apparently internalized Austin culture to the extent that I immediately thought of the cover of his Old Friends record, where the "Crazy" songwriter appears in a New Balance singlet and running shoes. Perhaps a Willie Nelson 24 Hour Fitness isn't as far-fetched as it seems. Of course, Willie is far from silent here in Austin; lately he's been lending his voice as a spokesperson for the Capital Metro bus service,

I got a blast email this morning from UT President Larry Faulkner announcing his plans to resign. I don't know if they sent it out to all students or I got it because employed by UT as a TA and instructor, but blasting an email like this seems to be an effective way to minimize gossip and rumors in offices around campus.

In the three years I've been here, I don't think I've heard anyone say anything positive about Faulkner. My personal beef with him is his master plan that all but eliminated cycling from Speedway and indicates further curtailing of cycling around campus. It seems ridiculous for an inner-city campus like UT with it's attendant parking and traffic problems to discourage the university community from using a form of transportation which can abate those problems.

I don't know if a president at a large university like UT is ever well-liked. The cult of personality around former US Senator David Boren is probably unique to OU. But hopefully, UT's next president will be "greener," pushing a vision of campus where we have a variety of transportation options and greater diversity in its vendors, dumping corporatists like Taco Bell, Starbucks, and Sodexho. In addition I hope we get a president that gives real raises to university employees, rather than the "merit raise pool" they're offering next year.

The New York Times has a story on UT's plans to move all of the books out of the Undergraduate Library and use the remaining space for a big, honkin' computer lab. I've joked before that the UGL has about as many books as my high school library, but the story notes, "experts said it was symbolic for a top educational institution like Texas to empty a library of books." I can't say that I'm sorry to see the UGL collection be dispersed; it's pretty frustrating to go the PCL, and realize that one of the books I want (usually a comic book) is over at the UGL. Hopefully the UGL comics collection will move into PCL, rather than the Fine Arts Library, which an even longer trek from the College of Communications.

On my campus tour in high school, our sorority-girl tour guide, told us, "This is the Undergraduate Library over here. People call it 'the UGLi,' and it is ugly." Now, I completely agree that the UGLi is indeed ugly, but in my three years at UT, I have never heard anyone refer to it as "the UGLi."

I probably should have stopped watching this when I saw the stars-n-bars in the third shot, but Killfloor points to a video segment of a "wiener dog" race in Buda, TX, which is just south of Austin. Although the woman who says "You can kiss the wench for a dollar or you can kiss the wiener dog for a dollar," is pretty frightening, but not nearly as frightening as the fact that they parade the confederate battle flag in parades down in Buda. Also, is the name "Dachshund" not in the vocabulary of Budans?

Of course, I attend graduate school at a university where statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis still stand on the main mall. Yay Texas!

Bicycling magazine is offering Austin folks the opportunity to win a new bicycle as part of its BikeTown USA project to promote urban cycling. I could use a new bicycle, and I'm certainly a proponent of bike commuting, but I wouldn't want to be the subject of a future feature in the magazine. To qualify for one of the fifty bikes, you need to write a fifty word blurb about how cycling could improve your life and submit to a legal release.

In other Austin news, I just saw a great Texas Travesty item lampooning the Young Conservatives of Texas. It's a flow chart to help you determine "What's Your YCT Attention-Whoring Event".

I probably should have posted this sooner, since the registration deadline for the School of Journalism's International Symposium on Online Journalism is tomorrow. Dan Gillmor will be speaking at the keynote session Friday, which may draw a mess of blog types to the conference. I'm planning to check out a few of the panels in addtion to the keynote.

And to further clear out my backlog (backblog?) of items to post, here's a thought-provoking article from The San Antonio Current published in anticipation of the conference. On one hand, I'm posting it for sheer ego-stroking; the article asks "with an endowed Knight Chair in Journalism, and a renowned Radio, Television, and Film department, as well, it seems like a good place to look for the answer to the question, Can this profession be saved?"

Its always nice to hear that your program is "renowned," but the article's discussion of "alternative media" or what Clemencia Rodriguez calls "citizen media" gave me some surprises. The article has a pullquote from Bob Jensen, an outspoken activist professor in the J-School, that I didn't expect to see, "A lot of what's called indie media is not journalism. Journalism is an attempt by people who are independent of other institutions to understand and explain the world to people." Since Jensen is such an advocate of radical/progressive movements, this seemed uncharacteristically dismissive of grassroots media projects. One one hand, I would agree with him that "citizen's media" is not journalism, but I would contend that the institutional legitimization of a news organization largely makes journalism journalism. Since most news organizations (at least in the US) are supported by advertising dollars and are influenced by this industrial reality, I'm suspicious of how independent any media-maker can be.

I might conceptualize journalism in the context of the infogeek concept of the "reputation economy," where an earned or instutional reputation can give an individual's voice a degree of credibility in the culture. For example, I.F. Stone is regarded as a hero to many journalists and, today, most would regard him as a journalist. Yet, he self-published his newspaper worked from a particular subjectivity, so he wouldn't have cultural force of a newspaper to make his news "news." It was the reputation he earned (admittedly partially through some reporting for major newspapers) that gave him the credibility to reach an audience and affect their understanding of the world.

To return to Jensen's quote, I do wonder to what extent, the reporter used quotes that reassert the role of conventional journalism in our culture. As Barbie Zelizer points out in Covering the Body, much of the meaning-making journalists engage in is reasserting the cultural role of the journalist as objective expert.

Via Neal Pollack, I learned of Austinist, the Austin version of the Gothamist family of for-profit local blogs. It looks like it launched in time for the start of South By Southwest. Its edited by local media personality Ben Brown.

I'm not entire sure why we need Austinist when we already have AustinBloggers.org; it seems like communities like Norman, which don't already have a promotion machine, would be better served by a blog that lists interesting events around town. I can check AustinBloggers or the Chronicle for cool stuff, but there's nothing like Normanist for tips on what's going on.

A while back, I watched a special on VH1 that proclaimed Starship's "We Built This City" the worst song ever recorded. You'll get no argument from me, but apparently the news didn't make it to Starbucks upper management. Jefferson Starbucks recorded "We Built This Starbucks [on Heart and Soul]" for its Starbucks Licensed Stores Awards ceremony. I learned about this from the Stay Free! blog, and, like them, I exhort you to download and listen to this crime against music immediately.

In related news, all of the coffee kiosks on the UT campus have been converted to Seattle's Best outlets, which itself was purchased by Starbucks last year. Of, I would prefer a locally owned business operate the campus kiosks, so I hereby call on The University to require the kiosks to play "We Built This Starbucks" as customers wait for their mochas.

It looks like the rumors about the Young Conservatives of Texas plans for an "immigrant hunt" were a hoax. I was forwarded an email from the president of the chapter who said they were simply planning a celebration of Texas' independence from Mexico. Despite the racial overtones of that celebration, it doesn't quite match the sheer shamefulness of the "immigrant hunt" held by the YCT chapter at the University of North Texas. Regardless, I decided to email the chairman of the UT-Austin YCT after her email suggested people should do their research before forwarding emails about their events. I've pasted my message to her below. Hi Lauren,

I understand that your chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas is holding a celebration of Texas’s independence from Mexico tomorrow and not, as widely reported, an “immigrant hunt” in the style of the action produced by the YCT chapter in Denton. According to a widely distributed email, you are unhappy with the suggestion that your group would be putting on one of these events, and asked senders “to research their information before they sent it ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES!!!” Because of your angry and somewhat condescending tone, I’ll ask you precisely how one would research this information, particularly if the email is coming from a reputable source. (In my case, I received it from another doctoral student in my department.) A Google search – which is the way most people casually begin research – for “Young Conservatives of Texas results in this page (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~yct/) for the Austin chapter. A search from the utexas.edu home page gives the same results. This page has nothing but dead links for your upcoming events and contact information, so a casual searcher would be unable to see what events you have planned or find an email address for your officers. Casual fact checking would be pretty difficult for someone with relatively little knowledge about your organization.

I did see this URL (http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/yct/) in your email, but this is not among Google’s top results. Additionally, there is no mention of either your planned picnic or an “immigrant hunt” on the events page. If someone was able to find this page, they would still not have information debunking the “immigrant hunt” claim. If you are going to make flip remarks about research, your organization needs to make information about their activities as accessible as possible.

If you are angry about the widespread negative response to a YCT-sponsored “immigrant hunt,” you and your chapter should publicly denounce the actions by the Denton chapter, so the campus and Austin community knows that your group does not condone these events.

-Chris

Last Thursday as I was headed into the RTF grad student "lounge," I had to step around some folks staring into to tiny, wireless video monitors. I wondered what was going on. When I got inside the office, another student immediately said, "Did you see the Real World people next door?"
"Oh, is that's what's going on?"
Indeed, the cast of "The Real World Austin" were watching Dig!, a documentary about The Brian Jonestown Massacre, in preparation for their mission, to make a documentary about a SXSW band of their choice. As left the office, a middle-aged man was directing, saying "get a reaction shot" into his headset, while a woman logged the footage in real time. I worried that the RTF department would be represented by an establishing shot of UA9, an old motel that has been converted into office space for the College of Communications.

Apparently, the cast has a weekly meeting each Thursday afternoon in UA9, cause the director and crew were again blocking my path into the office. I surreptitiously shot a picture of them through the door of our office. It's backlight, but I was reluctant to use a flash, in case they didn't want me taking a picture.

Hooded Puppet
Originally uploaded by m4dd4wg.

Today was a lovely day for an anti-inaugural rally and march. We gathered at the State Capitol and marched down Congress with a few stops along the way. The sun was shining, a cool breeze was blowing. I had a good time, and snapped a few pictures, which I've posted on Flickr.

I left a little early, around 6pm and caught the 20 bus back to my house. Traffic was gridlocked and a few of my fellow bus riders looked at the cops blocking traffic on the South Congress bridge with bewilderment. One guy said, "I don't understand why they get so angry about Bush; he'd make a good boss."
Another rider agreed, saying, "Yeah, he'd make a good boss."

Um, that's exactly the point. I don't want the president to be my boss; I want him to represent me.

I'm here at the Austin Bloggers meetup, and we're planning where we will hold our monthly get-togethers in 2005. Looking at Josh's list of wireless venues in Austin, I learned that RPM Indoor Speedway offers wireless to its customers. Needless to say, this town is saturated with free wireless.

Update: We came up with a list of venues for next year, and I've pasted them down below. I sent this list to the Austin Bloggers listserv, and one dude emailed me off list to complain about parking at a couple of the venues. Come on - its Austin - parking is a pain unless you're going to a strip mall or a big box. Take the bus or ride your bike if you don't like to find parking. Jan: Green Muse
Feb: Little City on Congress
Mar: Central Market South
April: Opal Devine’s
May; Café Mundi
Jun: Bouldin Creek
Jul: Metro (on drag)
Aug: Mangia on Far West
Sep. Dog & Duck
Oct: Mozarts
Nov: Flightpath
Dec: Triumph Cafe

bOINGbOING has another post on the spate of Army recruiting spam UT students have been receiving. A recruiter also left a call on my answering machine last night, and, although, I didn't give Sgt. Chuck a call, as I thought I might, but I am ready to take some kind of action on this issue. A UT law student, Mark Miller, says that anti-spam and anti-telemarketing litigation against the Army would probably be useless because of a legal doctrine called "sovereign immunity," but he is planning to file a Freedom-of-Information-Act request in order to learn how the Army is getting our contact information and who is giving the orders to call our phones. He tells bOINGbOING readers to contact him at mirell@gmail.com with your phone number and the information you get from the Army.

The "Backhoe Ballet" event this Saturday at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems looks sweet, and - dare I say - weird. It features two backhoes choreographed by Kate Scherer, plus music, and, presumably, lots of dirt. It looks like CMPBS is way the heck out on the East side of town, but I suspect it will be worth the trip.

Friday's Oscilate Night #6 looks to be rad, and not just because my boys from Numbers on the Mast will be playing. Its gonna be a laid back party-party, and we'll be dronin' on and on almost to the break of dawn (10pm-2am) at Ruta Maya. Most exciting is Tim Hecker, whom Josh is flying in from Ottawa, and makes, according to Pitchfork, "crackly digital static, mournful swoons of drone, and rumbling bottom." It may not be a genetically engineered army of Trans Am fans, but it'll be the next best thing.

...and since this post borders on nonsensical, I'll add that, I just wrote "I was Joey Lawrence all over the place" on a comment here. I think "Joey Lawrence all over the place" should be a phrase that gains some cultural currency. I know I'm Joey Lawrence all over the place about the next Oscillate night.

I wanted to blog this a few days ago when Salon.com published an excessively snarky item about the Harry Ransom Center's acquisition of Don Dillo's papers. Not mentioning the papers would be housed at HRC, or the University of Texas, or even Austin, Scott Thill wrote:

I personally know the person responsible for cataloging DeLillo's papers at HRC, and wondered how Kati would react to this portrayal. I understand the coastal humor, but not acknowledging that the papers would be housed at one of the largest and more prestigious campuses in the country was disingenuous and misleading to readers unaware of the archive's acquisition.

Today, I was happy to see Salon published a letter from Kati, taking issue with the story's portrayal of Texas. So you don't have to go through Salon's Clockwork Orange-style ad system, I've pasted in her letter below. (Kati, I know you read this site from time to time, so let me know if you have a problem with this.) Hooray for Kati!

Today I learned through the Austin bike listserv that guided Segway tours of Austin are now available. The tours cost $65 and guarantee that you will look goofy.

Austinites interested in independent media should come out Thursday night for a benefit for IndyConference, a conference in February for IndyMedia makers and supporters. Here's the scoop:

I've heard good things about Echo Base Soundsystem, so I'm excited to see them for the first time.

This graffito above the Wheatsville Co-op parking lot pretty much sums up my feelings about the election.

I see these shameful anti-immigration stickers plastered all around my Eastside neighborhood. Environmentalist arguments against immigration are not new to me, but I wonder who's printing them up, and, more specifically, who in the neighborhood is slapping them up at bus stations, on telephones, and, in this case, over Rick Perry's head.

HoneyNo.com is a site that occasionally pops up on Austin Bloggers, and I'm not sure if I find it offensive because of its crass consumerism or because it seems designed to make women even more self-concious about their bodies. A standard HoneyNo post features a photo of a younger woman wearing revealing, but mildly unflattering, clothes and suggestions for future apparel purchases. When I read it, I wonder if the writers work for Gap Inc., considering how often it plugs items from Old Navy. Granted, I'm 29 years old and I dress like a skater, so I have little credibility in fashion matters when my wardrobe is largely limited to black t-shirts and baggy jeans. But this woman, from the picture, looks just fine in her hot pants; its not as if she's unaware her cheeks are hanging out. Let her have her fun and feel good about her body. Its also suspicious that the site doesn't feature any full body shots of its contributors

Today, bOINGbOING features a site from perhaps the other end of the sartorial spectrum. Jen Magazine offers "modest fashion fixes" for young Mormon women, addressing situations like a cute, but immodest, tank top or jeans that are cut too low. One of its suggestions is overalls, which seem to make even slender women look bottom-heavy. My advice to young Mormon readers: you can't go wrong with black t-shirts and baggy jeans.

I should probably blog something, so I'll post about what's eating me at the moment. I just ordered a black cup of coffee for here and gave the barista two bucks for the $1.46 coffee. She put the money in the register and moseyed away to talk to a coworker. I was a little embarrassed to ask for my fifty-four cents, and then she was all, "Did you see that?" Was she trying to drop a hint about tipping? I tip from time to time when I just get coffee, but it seems ludicrous to tip a dollar for each plain cup of coffee when it takes all of ten seconds for her to grab a cup. If I was ordering an ornate espresso drink, I would feel obliged to tip, but come on! When I've talked to coffeeshop workers in the past, they agreed with me that espresso drinks merit a tip, but tipping on plain coffee is optional. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Hoooo-doggie, I am excited! My friend George is coming down from Norman to play the Flamingo Cantina with his band, The Ills tomorrow night Wednesday, October 13. I like them a lot; they describe their sound as "Live Drum-and-Bass," which is probably overstating things a bit, but they make nifty danceable improvisational music. They do do a cover of Amon Tobin's "Sordid." Its their first show in Austin, so I hope there's a good weeknight crowd. You should come out and check them out; I'll be there.

I'm not sure this is an experience shared by all UT folks, but my classmates and I often get a kick out of discussing how the Longhorn logo resembles a diagram of a uterus. I suggested that the logo should be called "Bevovaries." Someone pointed out that the logo omits the ovaries, so the name isn't al that apt. I think that's a valid criticism. Regardless, I still laugh when I seem some guy being all macho in an oversized truck with a burnt orange uterus slapped on the back.

Apparently, if you're a Dodge owner, your vehicle comes standard with a uterus symbol, requiring no other aftermarket parts to bring out your truck's feminine side.

The New York Times is running a story on Burnt Orange Productions, the new in-house studio part of UT's Department of Radio-TV-Film, where I'm a doctoral student. Burnt Orange is a commercial project to bring Hollywood films to campus and employ students in productions. The University and the department get a cut of the proceeds and students get experience working on big-budget films.

Although its a good opportunity for undergraduates - who often aspire to editing and D.P. jobs - and screenwriting grad students, many people in the department are skeptical about the project. Media Studies folks like me are worried about the growing commercialization of the school - we're here to critique the media, rather than endorse it - and the production division has earned a reputation for fostering independent films that operate aesthetically, discursively, and industrially outside the established coastal industries. It will be interesting to see how Burnt Orange pans (sorry about the pun) out.

Prentiss calls Slacker "the essential Austin movie," and I've got to say that the film left quite an impression on me when I watched as a young teen. Just recently, I emailed a friend of mine at Chapel Hill some thoughts about the movie and my life. Here's the relevant passage:

As an addendum, I also remember going to a Need New Body show in Philadelphia and being blown away, thinking back to the scene in the film where some experimental performers are banging together large water bottles in front of a projection. I thought, "I always hoped I would go to shows like this."

Tower Records' location on the Drag is closing next month. I'm a little happy to see one corporate outlet leave the campus area, but I'm even happier about the 20% off everything sale that started today. Unlike 33 Degrees' clearance sale, I was able to pick up one of those CDs that are too expensive to buy at full price, and never turned up used. It's a little embarrassing to admit that I don't have this already, but I picked up Can's Tago Mago at a steep discount this afternoon. I also grabbed Boards of Canada's Music has the Right to Children, plus Cath Carroll's True Crime Motel. I only know her from the Unrest song, but it was only $.99, so its not too much of a risk. I almost grabbed The Flaming Lips box set Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid, but I decided against it, since I haven't listen to them in some time.

I still feel a little bad about spending my money at a corporate store, but, I think of it the same way I think about buying designer jeans at Ross; the big ugly corporation is losing money anyway, so I might as well take advantage. Is there any reason I wouldn't want to participate in corporate culture like this?

As an addendum, Tower is the fourth record store to close in the time I've lived in Austin. (I've lived here since August, 2002) It's really starting to get weird. Has Austin seen a record retailing slump like this before? Are record stores closing across the country? I hope my favorite record store in the whole wide world, Philadelphia's AKA Music stays open. This article from Philadelphia Weekly says AKA has moved out of its location in an old pantyhose warehouse into another space a few doors down.

I mentioned the Texas state comptroller's office's decision to deny Unitarian-Universalist congregation church tax status at the recent Austin Blogger Meetup and Adina blogged it as well. Well, it seems that Carole Keeton Rylander Strayhorn has, um, seen the light and reversed the decision, giving the North Texas congregation the same rights and privileges as other churches in the state.

If I can be a little more obscure for a moment, does anyone know a better way to put a word "under inscription" than using the strike tag. In theory books, words are covered by an "X" to say "not-meetup" or "not-text," but something like a Meetup or a text. Since the Austin Bloggers posse has left the Meetup fold, we still hold gatherings on Meetup night but don't use their system. I suppose I could come up with some wacky style sheet for putting a word under inscription, or I could start calling it "not-Meetup." Perhaps this is the W3C's way of saying "deconstruction isn't funny."

Austin's 33 Degrees, a record store specializing in experimental, industrial, and otherwise underground music, is closing at the end of the month. I'm not as disapointed about this development as the closure of the Drag's Sound Exchange, but this leaves Waterloo the only independent record store in Austin that caters to my taste. Well, and Waterloo doesn't really cater to my taste - its just comprehensive. There, I have to climb over yuppies digging for Diana Krall's latest to grab CDs that cost two dollars more than they did in Philadelphia. Ive pasted the full text of the 33 Degrees announcement below.

The New York Times is running a story today on Austin Wireless City, a project that provides the infrastructure for free wireless Internet at local businesses.

Free wireless is all well and good, but I find their insistence on requiring a login account a little frustrating. A while back the Austin Bloggers crew had their monthly get-together at Opal Divines, an Austin Wireless City venue, and I tried to log on, but I had forgotten my account name and password. I had used the service months before, but the places around campus where I usually use wireless are not part of the system, so I had long forgotten my account. The logon page allowed me to have a new password emailed to me, but, since I couldn't get on the 'net, I couldn't check my email and reset my password. At that point, I was like, "This is stupid," and gave up.

No Pants Day, which originated in Austin, takes place May 7th, a week from today.

Today on the 21 bus home, I spied a big, maroon bus parked in front of the Day's Inn by my place. It had "Trojans" written in white, and I thought, "No, it couldn't be," but as the 21 went past, the front of the bus read "Jenks Schools Activity Bus." It was a bus groups from my alma mater Jenks High School take on long trips. I thought to myself, "What could they possibly be driving down from Tulsa for?" Then I thought to myself, "Hey maybe you should blog this. You haven't blogged in a while. But then again, this is the kind of stuff you think to blog, but never get around to typing up."

I'm demonstrating Austinbloggers.org for my English class E 387M, Literacy in the Digital Era. They're having a hard time getting their heads around TrackBack.

Congrats to austinbloggers.org for winning The Austin Chronicle's coveted "Best Local Weblog" award. Looking at other localized blogs, it seems to be a singular project.

In the same feature, the paper deems Mojo's Daily Grind the "best place to scope sexy TAs." I find this a little flattering, since I spend a fair amount of time working at that coffeeshop, but I suppose it flawed logic to assume that since I'm a TA and I hang out at the "best place to scope sexy TAs," that I am a sexy TA. This designation strikes me as a little strange, because I go to Mojo's to since I'm less likely to run into other grad students there than at their competition down the street, Little City. Little City seems to be where the other RTF grad students congregate, but maybe this is peculiar to my department.

I've gotten out of the blogging habit, and hopefully this post will prime the pump. At lunch today I was sitting outside Wheatsville Co-op finishing my vegan Frito pie. I took a sip of my Blue Sky Root Beer, felt something weird in my mouth, then a shot of pain in my lip. I spat out my drink, and a soggy dead bee flew out of my mouth. Needless, to say, I was a little excited, so I kept spitting. The paint kept getting worse, so I felt for the stinger with my tongue, found it, and pulled it out with my teeth. I spat some more to get rid of the stinger.

A woman eating nearby noticed my spitting and looked at me disapprovingly. "I drank a bee, and it stung the inside of my mouth!" I exclamed.

She feigned concern and told me to go inside and ask for some baking soda. The guys at the deli counter gave me some, which I promptly applied to my swelling lip.

The pain has largely subsided, but my lip is pretty swollen.

At a party last night, a fellow reveler noticed my T-shirt with Ben Franklin dribbling a basketball and asked me if I got it in Philly. I told him yes and that I had moved here last summer from Philadelphia. He was all, "Oh, that must be a change. How do you like Austin?"

"Oh, I like it allright. I grew up in Tulsa, so it seems pretty normal to me."

This created a bit of a stir on the front porch, as I had unintentionally uttered a heresy in a town where seemingly every third car bears a sticker exhorting us to "Keep Austin Weird."

Austin has an abundance of what I call "bohemian infrastructure" - record stores, coffeehouses, comic book shops, and the like - but living here just doesn't seem that weird, at least coming here from West Philly. In my neighborhood there, I would go get coffee and bagels at a dingy grocery store run by anarcho-syndicalists and sit outiside on a motley assortment of park benches and plastic lawn chairs while older granola types watched their kids play on the sidewalk as they passed around a bowl. My corner featured two Ethiopian restaurants, a Senegalese cafe that sold the spiciest falafel you'll ever try, a storefront Industrial Workers of the World office and the W.E.B. DuBois bookstore. At my gym, I would lift weights while huge African men shouted at each other in French and the laundromat provided free copies of The People's Weekly World. Living there, I was constantly exposed to new ideas, cultures, and lifestyles.

In contrast, Austin seems crazy stoopid whitebread. I keep wondering what's so weird about Austin. Granted, I've got my head down most of the time, preoccupied with grad school, so I may have missed out on the weird part of Austin. I have run across some lovably weird stuff here, like the "hipster stripmall" on North Loop or the Rhizome Collective, but weirdness doesn't seem to be as woven into the fabric of daily life here as in other places.

A few months back, the Austin blog community held "Austin Blog Day," where participants all blogged about the same Austin-related topic and shared their responses. Perhaps a great topic for the next event would be, "What makes Austin so weird, anyway?" so newcomers like me can have a tip sheet for finding Austin's weirdness.

The Rhizome Collective is hosting a benefit for The Austin Zine Library Saturday night. At one meetup, we discussed similarities between 'zines and Weblogs, so this project may be of interest to persons of blog throughout the Central Texas Austin area. Here's some information I pulled off the Library's Website:

I might add that I saw the Lost Film Festival tour at Rhizome this year, and I was quite impressed with their urban sustainability project out on the East side. If you have a passing interest in anarchy and voluntary simplicity, you should definitely check out the Rhizome space.

Finally, I ran across a 'zine library operating out of my former stomping grounds, Norman, OK. The Okie Dokie Zine Lending Library is perhaps the Netflix of 'zine culture, allowing users to check out 'zine by mail for one-month terms. I published a little 'zine called Au Jus when I lived in Norman, and it seemed to be greeted with bewilderment, so I'm glad to see someone in the Norm keeping the 'zine flame alive.

Most observers expected Gov. Perry to call a special session of the legislature to deal with public school finances, but he's planning a special session to re-introduce the redistricting legislation that would split Austin into wonky, Gerrymandered districts.