Tag Archives: festival

SXSW 2010 Music Day 1

SXSW is upon us. Last night the Music Festival got started (the Interactive and Film parts start earlier). On the first night I went dowtown with Eli to see the shows at Antone’s. The line was really long and we barely made it in. We only got to see the last two shows of the night. I apologize for the crappier-than-usual photos: I brought my pocket digital camera but not its memory card. I guess the camera wasn’t the only thing in need for better memory. So it’s all crappy iPhone photos/video.

Read more for photos, videos, some words about the bands I saw, and to be automatically entered into a random drawing for $1,000.000USD sponsored by Microsoft and AOL once you have forward this link to all your friends!…

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Texas Renaissance Festival

Texas Renaissance Festival
Texas Renaissance Festival

It is the dream of every free man and woman in the world to re-live that glorious time period that woke humanity up from the Dark Age and propelled it towards modernity: The Renaissance. Or at least that’s what the organizers of the Texas Renaissance Festival in Platersville, Texas would want you to believe.

I attended for the first time ever a couple of weeks ago. First let me get this out of the way: As far as this thing is concerned, there is no effort whatsoever to portray things in a historically manner. Sort of how Taco Bell doesn’t try to accurately portray Mexican food.

Now that we got this out of the way and you are comfortable being surrounded by people dressed up as Romans, Greeks, Middle Age peasants, Star Wars stormtroopers, etc. you can get to the fun part. The festival is much bigger and interesting than I’d have suspected, but granted, my expectations were low. They have built this really large village, with actual permanent buildings. The thing is very large. And they filled it with people dressed in ridiculous costumes who speak with a funny English accent and eat turkey legs with their hands. And that’s all good because I like dressing with ridiculous costumes, I speak with a funny English accent, and I like eating turkey legs.

Read more to see more photographic evidence.

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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!

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Eeyore's 46th birthday

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.

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Most of the Waldo's lookalikes. Don't bother finding the real Waldo, he's not in the picture.

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.
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East Austin Studio Tour

Embarrassingly, for the first time since I moved to Austin, I attended the East Austin Studio Tour (I didn’t even know about it!).

Last weekend, artists who live or have a studio, in the huge area between I-35, Town Lake (a few just south of it), Highway 183, and E. Martin Luther King; opened up their studios for people to visit, check out their work, and purchase whatever they like. This is a lot of terrain to cover in just two days! Check out the map if you don’t beleive me. I had no idea there were over 150 art studios in town, much less just in the East Austin area. Amazing.

Read more for more, including some photos.

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Eeyore’s 44th Birthday

Keep Austin Weird, my frieds. Among many other activities I was engaged in today I went to Eeyore’s annual birthday party (Wikipedia) (a.k.a. Igor el Burrito) at Pease Park.First time I’ve been to this festival, which is embarrasing since I’ve lived in Austin for so long. It’s full of hippies, people in costumes, drums, egg-tossing contests, music, beer, and topless women. What’s not to like?Unfortunately I did not bring my camera, so I leave you with a few photos I found in Flickr:

This one is from last year but so what?

Hot Sauce Festival

Bad blogger, bad blogger. Here I am, posting about something that happened almost a month ago. Shame on me.On the 27th of October, Maya mentioned to me that there was a hot sauce festival the next day.As a man who grew up eating tostadas prepared by that artisan who diligently stood by the Campo Halcones (now Troyanos); that man who mysteriously dissappeared on a faithful day of 1995; that man simply known as “El Maestro de las Tostadas” I could not resist the lure of the fire in my mouth, the runny nose, the tearfull eyes; the ringing ears; the happiness. I had to go. (of interest, I think “El Maestro de las Tostadas” may have crossed over to this side of the pond to become Don Filemon… judge for yourself).So I searched and indeed, The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006 was the next day, on a Sunday. Since we were in between seasons on the City League, the day was completely open to see what this whole thing was about.It was about standing in line for 20 minutes in 40 degrees heat just to taste a tortilla chip with hot sauce on it. Repeat for each of the tens of stands. I did it three times and it was pretty good but not worth the wait under the scorching sun. However something worth telling about happened. I will do that on Part II of this story. In the meantime, satisfy your vouyeurism and look at a few photos I took (and notice how many links I put throughout the text of this post. Good blogger. Good blogger):

Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival 2006