2010 SXSW update

Currently I'm caught in a messload of stockinette on a sweater of original design, so I thought instead of knitting content I could provide you with an update on SXSW 2010.

Except I'm like totally sick. I'm pretty sure it's just a cold (if you trust the hack doctor at the clinic this a.m., and yeah, there really are hack doctors), but this has become perhaps my number-one worst cold of all time. I'm not issuing a challenge, mind. If there are worse colds out there, it's fine. I believe you. No need to prove it with me. All I'm saying is, this is a bad cold. It's even spread to my eyeballs, and that's the kind of detail right there that makes you lose readers.

I'm on drugs now - the fancy-schmancy prescription kind - but my SXSW participation level has been lacking. As in, zero. Which apparently raises me to the level of a True Austinite: Complain about the traffic, welcome the sudden and temporary burst of municipal income, tell people not to move here, but above all, do not participate in SXSW if at all possible. (Unless, you know, you're an income-generating business. But don't worry, folks, I'm in no danger of becoming one of those. I'm a writer.)

So instead of standing outside Shangri-La trying to get into the showcase of a new Icelandic jazz/hip hop-fusion label and wondering where the nearest pink Port-o-Potty is in case the last $6 Lone Star (special SXSW prices) I guzzled is going to demand action, or standing outside a movie theater wondering exactly how far into the wristband line they're going to go before declaring capacity and hacking off all the people who didn't want to buy a badge, I'm watching a clip on Discovery channel about a newcomer hippo hoping to defeat the overlord hippo in hopes of having a chance at one of the like 200 hippo chicks in the watering hole. And what I'm wondering is, if he loses, what's the overlord hippo gonna do? Boink all 200 ladies? Come on. He's a hippo, not a rabbit. How is this to the genetic advantage of the species?

I'm also nosing over to Twitter on occasion to see Tweets like this: "Woody Harrelson moving E on 6th St. Watch out." And I'm like, (1) Where did Woody start out? Sixth Street is pretty long, if you're on foot. Did he start out at Buffalo Billiards? If so, then he's really going through some heavy foot traffic. Or did he start at I-35, in which case he'll be dodging tight-pants hipsters and Chevy pickups coming in from the East side and teed off that all these fariners are messin' up their town? Give us a starting place, or we won't be able to "watch out," and before you know it, we'll be nose-to-nose with Woody and boy will he be mad at you for not having been more specific. (2) Leave poor Woody alone. Dude probably just wants to find a blue Port-o-Potty. 'Cause the $6 Lone Star.