If you spot someone we’ve missed be sure to jot something in the comments on this blog post.

Video by Paul Terry Walhus of Texas Coworking and AustinBlogger.

Here are some recaps and reviews of the TedXATX event by some of the attendees/viewers:

N Ducoff

Jon Lebkowsky on “Weblogsky”

Community Matters Blog

Net Impact Austin “Big Ideas”

New Videos from austinblogger

• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -6
• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -5
• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -4
• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -3
• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -2
• AustinBlogger.com – Social Media Breakfast -1

The UT football team and UT Women’s volleyball team showed up for “fan appreciation day” at the University of Texas Greogory Gym, on Sat, Aug 22, 2009. AustinBlogger Paul Terry Walhus meets up with Mack Brown and talks to some nice fans from Waco while waiting in line with 2,000 plus other fans. Part 5 of a 5 part video.

Paul Terry Walhus meets Mack Brown, UT football coach

Door64 had a party at Austin 360 Condos on Thursday, August 20.  It was packed.  It was a $10 cover and 2 drink tickets in a gorgeous setting on the 9th floor where the pool and observation deck are located.  Since it was a hot, steamy Austin night and there was a “no drinks” sign at the entrance to the pool, most people crowded into the long, narrow inside space where it was cool.  It’s quite the luxury condo, with a mini movie theater at one end of the space and a bar at the other end.  Matt Genovese, how did you swing such a cool venue? By the way, you don’t need pronounce the e at the end of Matt’s last name.

We weren’t able to interview much because of the noise level, so it’s mostly just pictures of people at the event.  Maybe you can spot yourself if you were there. It was a great networking event, I ran in to Heather Havenwood, who did my SXSW interviews, and Meg Strout who was acompanied by a power auto seller Aaron Smith with Motorphilia, and Conversion Scientist Brian Massey to name a few.   I told Meg to check out Aardvark, because she asked me what was hot right now and I just had a foray in to this new “ask your social network” app yesterday. 

You can also see this video on Metacafe, Blip.tv and Veoh and I encourage you to rate it up and review it if you like it.  And if you’re in the video, drop me a note and I’ll include you in the blog post, (note at how many minutes in to the video you appear).

Watch Door64.com – Austin, TX (austinblogger.com video) in News Online | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

You can also see this full video on MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv and Veoh

Or you can see shorter episodes at YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Veoh

via Lyn Bender and Facebook:

an evening of Drinks and Drupal

Host:	GeekAustin
Type:	Party – Night of Mayhem
Network:	Global

Date:	Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Time:	6:30pm – 10:30pm
Location:	Union Park Austin
Street:	612 W Sixth St. Austin, Texas 78701
City/Town:	Austin, TX
	View Map Google MapQuest Microsoft Yahoo

Email:

linearb@gmail.com

Description

Ever since GeekAustin announced the “Introduction to Drupal” workshop, we’ve been getting emails asking: “So what’s the big deal with Drupal?” Sounds like an excuse for a party? Yes!

We’ll have drinks out front and panels in back. We’ll be bringing in local experts to discuss and debate topics such as: “Why should I use Drupal instead of Wordpress?”, “Isn’t theming hard with Drupal?”, and “Why would the city use Plone instead of Drupal?”. Ok, well maybe not the last panel.

This should be fun. Hope you can make it.

-Lynn

The Drupal Texas LinkedIn group:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1812268
The Austin Drupal Users facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=92094071680

Water Shortage Worldwide – twestival.com and Dr Faye from Paul Walhus on Vimeo.

RSVP to austin@yelp.com.

Features:  pinata, cigar rolling, and salsa lessons.

8-11pm, Friday Jan. 9

Kimberlie Dykeman interviews Thom Singer at the Austin TechCrunch party, produced by austinlifestyles.com Paul Terry Walhus. Thom has written three books: “Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Grow and Keep Your Business Relationships”, “The ABC’s of Networking”, and “Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women”… which are available at Amazon.com. The books are full of tips to assist business professionals find unique ways to stand out from their competition and to build a network of contacts that will lead to more business.

Thom did a great rundown of the TechCrunch party on his blog.

Kimberlie Dykeman interviews Mark Spilitro, CEO of iKnowWare.com which helps connect you to your business resources anytime, anywhere. Paul Terry Walhus produced this for AustinLifestyles.com. You can get a secure web based view of your business in your language on your mobile device.

TechCrunch rocked the high style Pangea Lounge in Austin’s trendy 4th Street District on Sept 25, 2008 with a roomful of startups, entrepreneurs and VCs. Kimberlie Dykeman did about 20 interviews, and these are a few of the first to be released. More will be released later.

Interviewees included Troy from PeoplePad.com, Brad from DadLabs.com, Dewey from Mingll.com, Mark Spilotro with iknoware.com, Erick Schonfeld and Heather Harde with TechCrunch.com, Randy Cohen with ticketcity.com, Joshua Baer with otherinbox.com, Jay Hallberg with SpiceWorks.com, Samantha Nebrick with YellowPages.com, Dee Dee Dial with BazaarVoice.com and more.

The video is also appearing at these video sites: MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Stupid Videos and Sclipo. On itunes, subscribe to austinblogger to get the video on your Apple TV, ipod, or Itunes player.

Here’s the DadLabs video from the TechCrunch party:

And here’s our video which is on austinblogger on itunes:

Click To Play

Austin Time Exchange & github
http://austinblogger.com/blog/ video – Open source currency – Solving social problems with Intentional Economics Tom Brown is a co-worker who has deployed OpenID on multiple high profile nonprofit websites. HeresTomWithTheWeather is contributing Ruby on Rails code to projects hosted on github. Tom is the co-founder of SuperBorrowNet. Rich Vazquez is a board member of the Austin Time Exchange Network, longtime editor of LasCulturas.com and currently works in software security and web programming.

Click To Play

Andrew Donoho, Web Theorist with IBM’s Emerging Internet Technology Team, has a long history working with both web standards and implementations. He was an early participant in crafting XHTML v1.0 and v1.1 and SVG v1.0. He has been creating and pushing implementations of the bi-directional web since 1999 and is extending that idea to building a Co-Web with a scalable UI for the last 18 months. He is trained in experimental physics with a degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He still lives in Austin with his wife.

Bill Leake has been involved in driving provable revenues through internet marketing techniques since the early 1990s when, as part of the management team at Power Computing, he built the first company to sell $1 million of product over the internet. Bill has guided Apogee Search from inception to its current position as the largest search engine marketing firm in the Southwest, and one of the 20 largest in North America.

Bill gave this talk to the OneWebDay crowd at Cafe Caffeine on Monday Sept 22, 2008 and has some interesting asides on the economy and the political scene.

Click To Play

The Internet as key enabling technology for the emergence of the new global sustainability economy

David’s Bio: David Armistead has been involved in business and organization development, strategic planning, and future studies projects since the early 1980s, and has worked directly with major culture leaders, multinational firms and state and federal government, and also high tech manufacturing and small business.

Click To Play

The Web – Returning to Its Roots: It isn’t Just for Marketing Anymore

CJ’s Bio: CJ Romberger founded Wildwood Interactive, a premier web development firm, in 2000. Her experience includes systems analysis, website and database development, computer programming and training, quality assurance, and product and application development. She’s worked at companies like Fisher-Rosemont, BMC Software, and Human Code, and has led development teams for large eCommerce sites like RX.com and Leapfrog.com. CJ graduated with a 4.0 GPA from Texas State University and holds a BBA in Computer Information Systems. She writes a column called “Gadget Girl” for Austin Woman Magazine and in her spare time plays music in her recording studio and plays with new technology.

Video by Paul Terry Walhus of austinblogger.com

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Players are Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla, Bonny Pierzina, Leah Culver of Pownce, and Casey Mckinnon of Galacticast.

Mashable put together a list of Austin’s most important technology blogs and AustinCast.com – sister site of AustinLifestyles.com – wound up on that list in some pretty great company.

Here’s the list with a few excerpts from the blog entry at Mashable:

1. Austin 3.0 – A website designed to give the “younger Austin Geek a place to see what is going on in Austin.”
2. Austin Startup – Austin Startup is simply a news site that chronicles the goings ons and creation of new tech sector business in the Austin area.
3. AustinCast – This site is a frequently updated hub for video and audio interviews of local area movers and shakers in the technology scene. He’s published over 100 video interviews with the likes of Veronica Belmont, Pete Cashmore, Zadi Diaz, Cali Lewis, Lindsay Campbell, and Leah Culver as well as a number of local heroes to the Austin scene.
   
4. Austin360 – This is the official New Media offering from Austin’s reigning Old Media institution, the Austin-American Statesman.
5. GeekAustin – Probably one of Austin’s oldest tech blogs, LinearB’ and Orion have been chronicling the gaming, business and tech communities of Austin since 2000.
6. Michelle’s Blog - . . . she’s a very active leader and figurehead to the new, young Austin Tech community, and has her hands in just about everything.  Her personal blog reflects all the myriad of ventures she’s involved in there.
7. Josh Dilworth – Josh is over at PR group Porter Novelli, based in their Austin office. Amongst all his many work related projects like SXSW, he has quite visible presence amongst those in the online Semantic and AI community as well as an avid participant in a number of widely used social media tools. I was recently a guest on a podcast of his, Falken’s Maze.
8. John Erik Metcalf - John Erik Metcalf is a major figure in the Austin scene as well, as he’s a co-founder in one of the town’s two co-working spaces: Conjunctured
9. Social Media Club Austin – The site describes itself as “part think tank, part curiosity, all new media” and is a repository for all that is going on in the “business networking event” scene for the Austin area.
10. Some Assembly Required – a self-described “business development and networking blog” authored by Thom Singer.
11. The Jeff Beckham Weblog – Jeff is an Austin area blogger who focuses his posts on the evolution of media, specifically in relationship to how the Internet is forcing transformation on not just media industries but “the word itself.”
12. Door64 Blog – The blog for Door64, the forum and community portal for the Austin-area tech community.

If you an Austin area blogger and want to be added to the OPML file email Mark at Mashable to be included in the next version of the list.

Download Now! (OPML) (import this into your favorite feed reader)

 

pingback austincast.com/blog bastropbuilder.com/blog compuslides.com/blog gameslides.com/blog magickpapers.com/blog shopslides.com/blog touroftexas.com/blog spring.net/blog socobuzz.com/blog web2.0slides.com/blog webgirlvillage.com/blog wholetech.com/blog wmeyers.com/blog workontheweb.com/blog

Norman Mailer’s wife speaks at the Texas Book Festival just a few days before his death. His sixth and last wife, married in 1980, was Norris Church (née Barbara Davis), a former model turned writer. They had one son together, John Buffalo Mailer, and Mailer informally adopted Matthew Norris, her son by her first husband, Larry Norris.

Norris Church Mailer is the author of a previous novel, Windchill Summer. She was raised in Arkansas and now lives on Cape Cod. Her husband of thirty-one years, Norman Mailer, died just days after this talk.

Were you at SXSW and want to keep the experience going and stay in touch with others you met there? Here’s how! I put out a tweet to request that anyone in our “network” who has a del.icio.us account and is willing to share their del.icio.us “name,” to please send it my way and I will compile the list. This way, we can add each other to our del.icio.us networks. One of the drawbacks of all these social networking sites, is the separate interfaces, usernames and such. We are all hoping for the ultimate Mashup of social networking one day.

I’m very excited to get this ball rolling and even more excited to explore all the great bookmarks that our friends who are hot on sxsw are sharing. If you would like to be included, just post a comment here with your del.icio.us “name” and I will add you to our network or send a direct message to http://twitter.com/sxswtwit . Then, just follow these easy steps:

1. Go to del.icio.us (sign up for an account if you don’t have one already)
   
2. Click on Your Network (top left)
3. On the right-hand side, in the text box, type in sxswtwit
4. Click ADD
5. Now sxswtwit will appear in your network beneath in blue
6. Click on sxswtwit
7. You are now in sxswtwit’s bookmarks, but there are none… BUT WAIT
8. In the gray box at the top, it reads:
   

   All sxswtwit’s items (0)
   sxswtwit is in your network, view sxswtwit’s network

9. Click on VIEW sxswtwit’s network

That’s where the magic happens. There you see all the bookmarks shared by everyone in the network, which can be a little messy OR you can look over at the right. There you can click on each member’s name and look at his/her individual bookmarks. You can even add each member to your own del.icio.us network. As more members join this sxswtwit del.icio.us network, you’ll see them added.

Right now, the only member is http://del.icio.us/springnet (me) but that will hopefully change soon. Join now!

Great idea you say? Well, all the credit goes to GeekyMomma who thought it up for her edtech network and the above is practically word for word from her blog post.

Add your name to the comments below and you’ll be good to go or just send a direct message to http://twitter.com/sxswtwit

pingbacks austincast.com/blog bastropbuilder.com/blog compuslides.com/blog gameslides.com/blog magickpapers.com/blog shopslides.com/blog touroftexas.com/blog spring.net/blog socobuzz.com/blog web2.0slides.com/blog webgirlvillage.com/blog wholetech.com/blog wmeyers.com/blog

 Door64

It’s up to the second with information on events and stimulating forums.

Some guy named Matt does it.

I’m on it.

We’re live streaming with a show on justin.tv/austintexas now.

We’re working with Redbud Sports in Austin, Texas and the plans are to bring you many athletes and sports events around Austin. Also, you can see our feed at austincast.com

A holographic Al Gore appears on stage in Tokyo at the opening of Live Earth 7/7/7.

Edwards said, “Here’s an idea. Suppose instead of America spending $500 billion in Iraq, America led an international effort to make primary school education available to 100 million children in the world who have no education whatsoever.” [Applause]

Scholz Garden is a populist playground, a favorite place for liberal politicians like Hightower, like it says in this Austin Chronicle article:

“That’s how Billy Lee Brammer sets the scene in The Gay Place, his true-fiction account of Texas politics and the boozy courtin’ and lawmakin’ that went on under the trees at Scholz Garten (now casually renamed “Garden”) in the Fifties. It was the one place in town where an under-21 Eddie Wilson could score a beer without getting hassled. Scholz was destined for the ever-after indeed. The German-owned gathering place on San Jacinto was the watering hole of choice for every liberal politician, writer, musician, and artist in town.”

I had the chicken fried chicken with a potato double play: German potatoes and fries.  I got close enough to Edwards to get some real good snapshots which you can see here (feel free to reproduce on your blog or website with attribution):

http://austincast.com/album/edwards (click “slide show” to see them all quickly).  While you view them you might want to play the “rough transcription” of the speech done by News 8 Austin.

The Gingerman was the site for the first Austin Wordpress meetup.  About a dozen folks showed up including a local member of the Wordpress team who passed out cool t shirts.

I wasn’t able to stay long so I’m hoping to pick up the details of the last part of the meeting off others blogs.

Lorin Rivers has done a masterful job of stretching wordpress to it’s limit with his current project.  He extended the mysql back end of wordpress to do a much better job at handling large numbers of users, making it more suitable to host a large community.  Keep at it Lorin, you can go places with this if you open source it.

 Andy Skelton, one of the folks at the meetup said on his blog today: “Don’t ask me why I didn’t do it first. Paul Menard is doing a fine job starting an Austin WordPress Meetup. He listed it on Upcoming and Meetup and the crowds are growing.”

 Here are some cell phone pictures I took of the Wordpress meetup at the Gingerman showing the attendees and lots of beer glasses.

Yahoo! BarTab: Monday, March 12, 6:30–9:30 pm at Light Bar. The big ‘hoo! and what seems like every little company they ever acquired are throwing a bash at the fresh newish club at Congress and Fourth, featuring an open bar, munchies and music by The Little Ones. “After we reach capacity,” they say, “admittance will be determined by Feats of Strength.” We’re pretty sure that’s the name of Andy Baio’s band. Why you’ll wanna go: Ask anyone who was at last year’s Yahoo! party that busted the seams of Iron Cactus. This’ll be the talk of Tuesday. Also, if you’ve written something that uses tags, you might leave with a check.

from SXSW Baby!.

Do you want the inside track on parties at SXSW.  “Corky” has the scoop in the following link followed by a brief blurb:

Corcoran in Austin 360

“

WED: Day | Night THU: Day | Night FRI: Day | Night SAT: Day | Night

It used to be the mantra of the first morning at South by Southwest: “Where are all the cool parties?” Everybody would hit town knowing of one or two soirees where the free booze flowed and the gratis chow was spread out on tables, but they’d have to ask around to get a more complete picture.

Nowadays, the party scene is revealed more than a month before the first Shiner Bock is cracked — and then overrated — by an out-of-towner. Internet sites such as showlistaustin.com, donewaiting.com and austinist.com collect party info and spread the news, giving readers weeks to get in good with the party hosts, to get that all-important invite.

Here are some of the things we’ve culled from those sites and brooklynvegan.com. Many are free and open to the public:

SXSW day parties.

More SXSW

• 2007 artists
• List of performers
• SXSW Source blog
• Full coverage

“

Here are some impressions I jotted down on my craplet sitting in the rocking chair.

The Police are back and they belted out Roxanne, then it was mostly downhill except for the Dixie Chicks and the “who died last year segment”.

The once shameful Chicks have gone from being scorned as unpatriot to singing their anti-war song in prime time on the big show.

What’s with Justin Timberlake and the “Blair Witch” camera that he did a youtube video with during his performance of “What Goes Around Comes Around”?  Nice nose.

Dylan edged out Neil Young for best solo performance in the night’s most tragic snub.

Shakira shook those hips.

“Gnarls Barkley” dresses as an airline pilot during his rendition of “Crazy”

Ludacris gives special thanks to Oprah and Bill O’Reilly?

Natalie Maines quotes the Simpsons bully upon winning best country album “ha ha!”  Maines, “a lot of people just turned their tvs off right now.  Continuing in the tradition of blurting out whatever’s on her mind, good for her!  Good for Austin!

I didn’t like seeing Ray Benson take a back seat to Carrie Underwood in the Bob Wills.  One blogger said she should get the award for “pretend artist doing something classic to try and prove you’re legit . . . this would be a great time for Jesus to take the wheel and steer her out of here.”

Ornette Coleman is still living.

And finally there was James Brown dancing in the folks who died last year montage. 

“After 26 years, you know the drill,” says the Chronicle. “This is your chance to duct-tape the critics’ mouths shut and speak up about Austin music. Not sure who to vote for? Turn on the radio, drop into the local record store, or head to the clubs tonight. Your favorite band is probably playing.”  And give some consideration to our Austin favorite singer/songwriter Amy Cook. 

Vote Here!   Entries must be received by Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

Team Hotel San Jose is a new kind of racing team and sports club, led by athletes who are dedicated to serving the community by working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, developing the skills of beginning and intermediate cyclists, and cultivating the most incredible regional racing team you’ve ever seen. The core team members are a motivated group of professional and ex-professional cyclists, cycling enthusiasts, and triathletes, who ride with respect for all, regardless of experience. We welcome road cyclists and mountain bikers, runners and multi-sport athletes, men and women, and girls and boys.

The Longhorns lost their second game in a row this weekend to the Aggies, so their potential national title has crumbled in to an invite to one of the lesser bowls, maybe they’ll play Arkansas.

podcasts:
Barak Obama podcast 4,629,699 Senator Obama discusses his book The Audacity of Hope Oct 28, 2006 10 – 11:30 am
Chinese economy podcast 742,784 In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship with Reed Hundt Oct 28, 2006 11 – 11:45 am
Evan Smith award podcast 3,092,257 Bookend Award Ceremony honoring Louis Sachar & Texas Monthly Magazine  Oct 28, 2006 10 – 11:30 am
John Burnett NPR podcast 2,551,240 Uncivilized Beasts & Shameless Hellions: Travels with an NPR Correspondent Oct 29, 2006 3 – 4 pm
Matthew Dowd – the lesser known Architect podcast 7,473,022 Raging Moderates: Political Complexity in America with Rod Dreher, Matthew J. Dowd, and Ronald B. Rapoport Oct 29, 2006
Maureen Dowd podcast 9,067,400 State of the Union: Politics in America Matthew J. Dowd, Maureen Dowd, Nicholas Lemann, Victor Navansky Oct 28, 2006 3:30 – 4:30 pm
Maureen Dowd and Gore Vidal podcast 1,643,213 Gore Vidal in Conversation with Maureen Dowd, Moderator: Evan Smith of the Texas Monthly. Oct 29 2 – 3 pm at the Paramount Theater on Congress Ave in Austin, TX
Texas Beat generation podcast 1,894,607 The Ransom Center & TBF present: The Beats. Rob Johnson, Bill Morgan.  Moderator: Lee Moore
Texas Book Fair podcast 2,029,474
Texas Monthly 1 podcast 10,772,897
Texas Monthly 2 podcast 10,763,075
Texas Monthly 4 podcast 2,036,137
The Architect Karl Rove podcast 5,686,857 Advice and Consent: Presidential Advisors Sidney Blumenthal, Clark Kent Ervin, Bill Minutaglio, James Moore, Wayne Slater (Bush’s Brain) Moderator: Paul Stekler.  Oct 28, 2006 3:30 – 4 pm
waiting in line for Barak tickets podcast 8,259,485

video podcasts:
Barak crowd 1 video 209,698,816
Barak crowd 2 video 111,747,072
Barak crowd 3 video 8,026,112
Barak crowd 4 video 25,217,024
Barak crowd 5 video 9,746,432
Barak crowd 6 video 80,220,160
Barak crowd 7 video 27,512,832
Barak crowd 8 video 26,361,856
Barak crowd 9 video 12,605,440
Barak Obama intro video 245,194,752
Barak Obama speaks video 12,611,584
CSPAN video 64,761,856 – Paul Terry Walhus gets interviewed by CSPANN. 
Matthew Dowd video 94,126,080
Texas Book Awards video 50,999,296
Texas Book Awards crowd video 10,323,968
Texas Book Awards crowd video 19,486,720
Texas Book Awards crowd video 25,800,704
Texas Book Awards crowd video 5,736,448
Texas Book Awards crowd video 29,224,960
Texas Monthly Awards video 144,375,808

Jim Ellinger podcast from Amman, Jordan AMARC conference

Here’s from the KLRU site cited above.

If LizLambert’s snappy hotel do-over and its resulting documentary film confirms that not all of old Austin should be considered sacred ground, then Nancy Higgins’ elegiac, heartfelt Viva Les Amis is the flipside of that particularly well-thumbed coinage.

Using footage filmed at and interviews with former employees, regulars, and assorted hangers-on of the late, lamented Les Amis Cafe (now, cruel irony, a Starbucks), Higgins’ film both mourns the passing of the UT area’s artistic and intellectual (and drunken) nexus and celebrates the plainly odd notion that a Parisian-style sidewalk cafe-cum-lifestyle could blossom so deep in the heart of Texas in the first place.

As for this third season of SXSW Presents, festival producer Matt Dentler notes, “The big difference is that we are expanding the episodes to include not just the films themselves but related conversations and panels with the filmakers and figures in the local film and arts community who will be hanging out, talking, and just kind of sharing their thoughts on the films.
The idea of this whole show in the first place was to try and bottle what an experience at a film festival – particularly South by Southwest – would be like. But on your television.”

The Last Days of the San Jose

Dir: Liz Lambert

October 10, 2006 · 9:00pm – 10:30pm

A loving portrait of the residents in an Austin motel, as it undergoes changes reflecting an American trend.

See the next project of the San Jose Hotel

“Some of you who are new to Austin may not know of SoCo’s previous life as a drug and crime infested sector of the city. The Last Days of the San Jose chronicles the transformation of the little motel from prostitute and junkie hangout to chic and trendy boutique hotel. The renovation of the San Jose helped spark the revival of South Congress into the fashionable neighborhood it has become today.

The movie will be showing tonight at the Alamo downtown. Afterwards we recommend heading over to the San Jose and having some drinks in their enjoyable outdoor patio.”

From the Original Alamo website:

LAST DAYS OF THE SAN JOSE
Theater: Alamo Downtown

Read the full Celluloid Eyes review here.

Start your tivos . . .

SXSW Presents

‘Last Days of the San José’

KLRU, The Austin Chronicle, and South by Southwest have teamed up for SXSW Presents, an independent film series airing Tuesdays at 9pm on Channel 18 (Time Warner Cable Channel 9). Hosted and co-produced by SXSW Film Producer Matt Dentler, the third season of the series runs through January. This week’s installment is Liz Lambert’s Last Days of the San José. For more information, see the Austin Chronicle Screens, and www.klru.org or www.sxsw.com.

The Austin City Limits Festival had near perfect weather for the 3 days of concerts by over 150 bands in Zilker Park.  Watch my pictures and even some mini-movies of Tom Petty’s closing act on day 3. I think you’ll enjoy these slide shows of the event.

ACL Festival photo album 9/15/2006
ACL Festival day 2 – 9/16 – coming
ACL Festival day 3 9/17/2006

The “Flaming Lips” were pretty outrageous and rolled a band member out to the audience in a giant balloon. 

Here’s an excerpt, and I highly recommend you click on the link at the end to read the rest of the story, the comments especially.

Why Don’t Americans Suck at the Tour de France?

Yesterday, Floyd had what may be called the best peformance in Tour de France history.

The 30-year-old Landis, who said two weeks ago that he would soon need a full hip replacement, rebounded to ride alone to victory by almost six minutes in yesterday’s mountain stage.

The effort jumped Landis, who rides for the Swiss Phonak team, from 8 minutes, 8 seconds behind race leader Oscar Pereiro of Spain’s Caisse d’Epargne to third place, 30 seconds behind Pereiro and 18 seconds behind Carlos Sastre of CSC.

Landis performance was legendary, but he’s not satisfied. 

If you want to read a great cycling bloggers rundown, check out Martin Dugard’s blog, here’s a tidbit from that blog entry:

“That he did. Per his style, Landis didn’t explode away from the peloton in the manner of most breakaways. Rather, he gradually left a yellow jersey group containing Oscar Pereiro, Cadel Evans, Andreas Kloden, and Denis Menchov. He tiptoes away like a cat burglar, as if afraid of drawing attention to himself. Landis then began an 80-mile individual time trial, constantly dousing himself with water on this humid mountain afternoon, at one point pulling so far ahead that he was the virtual leader of the race.” . . .

Ah… but when Floyd crossed the line today, fist thrust into the air and a scowl on his face, Amber Landis jumped up and down. “Oh, baby!” she screamed, fighting back tears. Only this time they were tears of joy. And, if I am to be honest here, I was a little misty, too…

So tomorrow the stage is a little on the downhill side, a 120-mile run from Morzine down into Macon. Teams might try to take a little bite out of Landis, hoping to gain a few seconds on him before Saturday’s time trial. With Pereiro (with whom Landis ate breakfast this morning, just the two of them) 30 seconds in front and Sastre 18 seconds up, Landis is close enough that a powerful time-trial Saturday will likely win him the Tour.”

Like I said, it’s a great blog entry from a guy who was sitting watching the race with Amber Landis.  http://blogs.active.com/dugard/ 

This race, can you believe it, could go right down to the Champs Elysees on Sunday.

At yesterdays mountain stage, Landis lost 10 minutes to Perreiro for an overall deficit of 8 minutes.

Coming into the final mountain stage today, no one expected Landis to be in the top 5 fnish let alone the maillot jaune (yellow jersey), but after todays incredible breakaway from the peloton, Landis managed to build up a 7 minute lead which he held on till the finish of the 200.5 km mountain stage with steep ascents amounting to upto 10 degrees in the final 20 kms.

Today’s stage was an awesome comeback by Landis, who had been written off by the Frech Press sometime back, when he held the yellow jersey, as some one who wasnt really worthy of it.

Like the OLN announcers said, Landis seemed like a man possessed. He didn’t know what went wrong yesterday having cracked in the final 20 kms losing a huge 10 minutes. He made no excuses and today he was the man to reckon. 

As of today Perreiro leads in the general classification, with Sastre 12 seconds behind and Landis 30 seconds back. So who’s it going to be? Saturday’s time trial should tell the tale of this year’s Tour de France.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video of Lance at the Espy’s

Alp d’Huez – the first major climbs of the Tour de France

So today is Alp D’Huez and I’m watching on OLN.  This is Floyd Landis chance to put his stamp on the Tour de France.  But there are many challengers.  Usually, the Tour the winner of today’s stage goes on to win the Tour de France.

Lance Amstrong News on our Blog – The “docureality” show produced by the Discovery Networks Travel Channel will air on Thursday night, Dec 22 on channel 58 (Grande Communications) and channel 33 (Time Warner).

Many local Austin media outlets carried coverage of this event. On the last day of the Tour de France several thousand people showed up to cheer Lance on and sign several giant yellow cards that the Outdoor Life Network brought to the event.

Here’s the email from producer Bill Delano about the event

Hey Ya´ll~ Tune in tomorrow night for my first film, “Chasing Lance: a Fans Story”!!! Its a great show, was a thrilling adventure and will forever stand as testament to what two friends can do with a camcorder, computer, and a dream.

Here’s the TV Guide sum up: Join five Americans on an emotion packed thrill ride as they chase the Tour all around France supporting their hero in his seventh and final ride. These are true fanatics who do far more than vacation, they redefine what it means to be a true Fan.

Let everyone know and check it out on the Travel Channel on Thursday, December 22 at 8 and 11pm EST (7 and 10 pm CST).