Monday, March 13, 2000

Mmm…free Shiner

This is a cheerful place to be, on balance. As I've disclaimed, I'm more or less treating this whole jaunt to Texas as a vacation, so I'm excused on principle from having to take much of the festival/conference very seriously. But SXSW may become one of those annual journeys for me, one of that select group of ostensibly professional development events that is, for me, instead an opportunity to hang out with cool folks, learn some new things and just generally recharge my creative batteries.

While many of the folks on the Interactive track do web-work and the like for a living, there's an equal if not greater number present who write, design and code for the internet because they love it. How joyous and freeing it is to do something because you want to and because you enjoy it and because you're impelled rather than compelled by it.

The trade show itself proved rather disappointing, as it skewed rather heavily toward the film end of things, but it was nifty to lay hands upon a top of the line PowerBook and fool with the new video editing software. The panel du jour: "Making a Living Producing Non-Mainstream Content" provided no real surprises, but did re-conjour some ghosts of ideas in the back of my mind regarding what to do with that spare domain name I've had lying around.

The Scient party was notable for the rooftop view, the tasty food and — of course — the complimentary Shiner. Still, the highlight of the nighttime diversions was the Frog Design party. From the geek show (featuring actual geeks) to the nifty retro computer buffet to the — wait for it! — free Shiner, it was fun and a half. All that and Jason in an amazing display of courage and balance. But y'all will just have to wait for the pictures on that one.

Today: I'm heading south on a mission. I should be back in time for the various grrl parties. As if you could keep me away.