Here it is: The lineup for the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival:
- Pearl Jam
- Dave Matthews Band
- Beastie Boys
Random swine flu notes
- I received an email forward saying that the whole swine flu scare is a conspiracy theory by the Mexican government. This pissed me off: misinformation can be deadly in this case. Readers in Mexico and elsewhere: follow all indications and don’t spread this junk. Bill Gates and AOL paying you millions for forwarding an email is harmless enough, but this isn’t. Use common sense.
- XKCD‘s take on the Swine Flu. Funny, but not their best.
- Swine flu hits Israel, but they want to change its name. Give me a break.
- A Google Map tracking infections world-wide. Nothing in Austin yet.
Eeyore’s 46th Birthday + Where’s Waldo
Update 4/28: Now on The Austinist.
Update 4/27: The Daily Texan has posted an article with video. Try finding Jamie S., Carrie S., Marcos K., Jaramillo, or Tim H. in it. If you see them, post the time in the comments!
Yesterday was Eeyore’s 46th Birthday (previously covered in The MKX®), celebrated every year in Austin, TX. To spice things up, but mostly to give me something to post about in this blog, I joined the people of flash mob austin to take part in their latest prank: The World’s Largest Live Where’s Waldo Search Party.
It’s easy: you dress like the notorious M.I.A. cartoon character and blend in with the wholesome crowd of Austin original hippies, little boys, and topless women. The real Waldo is walking around as well (it’s actually a guy dressed like him, but you get the point) and whoever finds him gets a prize.
More photos and a video after the break.
Continue reading Eeyore’s 46th Birthday + Where’s Waldo
ADL National Leadership Conference
I joined this year’s Glass Leadership Institute class a few months ago. This is a program instituted by the Anti-Defamation League to teach young professionals on the core mission and principles of the ADL. While this is a year-long program, the highlight is right at the middle: A trip to the ADL’s National Leadership Conference in Washington D.C., which includes a visit to the office of Michael McCaul, my State Representative, in order to raise some of the issues that the ADL is concerned about.
Today’s quote: Flemming Rose
It’s like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a revealing shirt for a Friday night out.
Fleming Rose, culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten which published 12 cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in 2005 that led to an outbreak of riots in the Muslim world in which over 50 people were killed. Full article.
Matzo Ballers
The very appropriately named team “Matzo Ballers” participated in the Austin Sports and Social Kickball CO-ED league last Saturday. The 30-team league was divided in a first round of groups followed by the playoffs.
This ad-hoc team was formed with members of YAD. I joined in spite of not having played kickball since elementary school, where we call it fut-beis (pronounced foot-base), I decided to join in. Given that most teams in the league play together year-round and we were randomly thrown together, we didn’t have very high hopes.
But we surpassed our expectations by winning the first game. And the second one. And the third one.
At this point we had been out in the field for five hours on a sunny Saturday morning. This made us be both surprised and thrilled of winning yet sick of being all the way out in a park by the airport in the middle of nowhere. Read more for the rest of the story.
Rudo y Cursi
People seem to love anything that Mexican actors Gael Garcia Bernal or Diego Luna do, especially since the extremely overrated Y tu mamá también. Perhaps everyone finds them too hot.
So I was not surprised to find out during my last trip that the new movie in which they appear together Rudo y cursi is all the rage in Mexico. Fine, it seems like an amusing movie. But I was very surprised to see that a music video of Gael Garcia Bernal singing a norteño version of “I Want You To Want Me” is all the rage even though he’s a terrible singer. To make things more annoying, the ringtone is even more popular.
In any case, the video is funny, because it’s made to look like a really cheaply shot and poorly produced/edited (are there any other kind?) norteño music video, not unlike those Emilio Navaira (R.I.P) videos I grew up laughing at (with! with!) on the Super Estelar Caliente music video channel.
Check it out:
The Ten Plagues
As promised.
To best relive the experience, my aunt Jave (read as in Spanish: Cha-veh) made this year’s Seder even longer but more fun than usual by putting together a small skit that included all plagues. I got to be the Pharaoh and I deserve an Oscar for my performance. See the photos after the break while you play this in the background, viewer discretion advised.
Billy Joel vs Elton John
I went to San Antonio a few weeks ago to see Billy Joel and Elton John, missing the last day of SXSW. Great 3.5+ hour long concert: the sound, the performance, the stage… all except for how far away we were sitting.
The t-shirts were great too. I bought seven, one for each day of the week. They’re expensive because they were knit by the artists’ mothers, Mrs. Joel and Mrs. John themselves. And at $40 a pop, they must be good.
The big takeaway is: for my next mega-concert, I’m going to be close to the stage.
Photo of the day# 24
Still catching up on my post backlog. But it’s still Passover so I can still post this one: President Obama heading up a Passover Seder in the White House last Wednesday night.
But you just wait and see the photo from my seder. A lot less clothing in that one. Oh boy.
Sent in by bobe Raquel.