21 posts tagged “texas”
Forbes (through Austin Business Journal) has an article about Austin, saying that Austin will experience the fastest economic recovery when the economy rebounds ...
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/07/20/daily35.html?ana=from_rss
That sounds great, but Austin is running out of water. Here are some articles on the drought in Austin ...
Article 1 from Austin American-Statesman
Article 2 from Austin American-Statesman
Video about drought in Austin ...
Animation that shows how drought has developed over time.
It reminds me of something out of Mad Max (The Road Warrior or Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). I would hate to see Austin turn into a desert.
It rained last night (it was a great sound to hear), and I have a video of another time it rained ...
but the number of times it rains in Austin each month can be counted on one hand now. That is pretty scary.
Wolfram Alpha is a new search engine that is not so much a competitor to Google as it is a complement to all search engines. What it does is take a subject and try to give you mathematical data based on the subject. It's actually kind of cool, and I am sure Google will absorb it one day. Here is an example ...
I typed in "Austin Portland", and here are the results I got ...
In other news, here is another photo of M.I.A. at the TIME 100 party. This time she is with the Twitter guys ...
Here is M.I.A.'s Twiiter if want to follow it ...
Here are the results for M.I.A. on Wolfram Alpha ...
I love it when I meet people at my job or just when I am out and about who have websites. I think it is cool to be able to go on their website, instead of their MySpace or Facebook profile. Anyway, I talked to 2 people today that have websites that advertise their business or band.
The first website is Cake Bite Delights ...
http://www.cakebitedelights.com
These little cake bites are actually really good. I have had the pleasure of eating them a couple of times, and they are very addictive. I don't know where this business is heading (local, national, international), but I do know that once you try the little cake bites, you will want more. If you live in Central Texas, it should not be hard for you to get an order or shipment of them.
Contact: carey@cakebitedelights.com
The next website is for this band called Fossils Rock ...
This is a band of older guys (hence, the name) that play benefits for organizations like Smooches for Pooches and Cause for Paws. I think they play a lot in Lockhart, TX (a small town near Austin) so check them out if you have a benefit, where you need a cover band to play.
OK, that's all the promoting I am doing for now. I really should get paid for this. ;)
Summer Moon is a cool coffee shop on South 1st and South Park in Austin. It used to not be open on Sundays, but it is now, and that is really cool because I am usually wanting to go there with a friend on Sunday. They have really cool ice chai lattes, which are my favorite drinks. I think they are much cheaper than Starbucks, too. Here is their website ...
http://www.woodfiredcoffee.com
Anyway, my friend recently told me that there is a publication that he would get at Summer Moon called "Coffee News". Coffee News has little trivia and facts in it, and it also has horoscopes. However, the best part of Coffee News is that you can find a little man hiding in the ads or somewhere else in the publication (it's just one page, back and front). If you find this little man, you can go on Coffee News' website and tell them where he is. You will then win or be eligible to win a $50 VISA gift card. This reminds me of "Classified Critters" (I think that is what it was called), which my hometown newspaper, The Marshall News Messenger, always had in the classifieds section. The distribution for Coffee News in the South Austin and Central Austin region has been suspended for some reason, but you can get Coffee News all over the nation, I think. I think it is Canadian. Here is their website ... http://www.coffeenewscentraltexas.com
Here is the old October issue of Coffee News that we found in Summer Moon yesterday (I don't know why they had such an old issue, but it was the only one they had since the distribution has apparently stopped in that area) ...
My friend, Travis, and I drove around central Austin yesterday looking at all of the condos and houses for sale or rent. Austin is amazing in how there will be a decrepit, old shack next to a brand spanking new "McMansion" (this may not be the right term to use, but it's fun to say) in an old neighborhood. The neighborhood will not even be that great, but because it is located so closely to downtown Austin, its houses are considered very high in property value. I always say that all of the old stuff is going to be eventually torn down, and all new stuff will be built. Then, the property values will be even more expensive. It's kind of ridiculous since Austin is not Manhattan, but I guess people still really want to live in Austin for various reasons. The current economy may straighten out a few overpriced properties, though.
The mixture of old houses that need to be remodeled or torn down with the new, modern houses that are worth half a million dollars or more reminds me of a song by Fatboy Slim called "Build It Up - Tear It Down" ...
We went to a group of condos called 41 Waller that were pretty neat looking. The structure reminds me of a ship. Here is my favorite picture of them ...
There is a condo project going up called The Austonian that is supposed to be 50 stories when it is all done, I think. It looks really cool so far. Here is a picture of it going up ...
A friend of mine and I went out last night for dinner for my birthday and for election night. We were excited that Barack Obama would actually win the presidency. I was still very cautious. I am glad he won. I am glad the Democrats have the majority in the House and Senate. However, they may not get their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but they still did well. I am glad a lot of red states went to Obama.
Austin, TX and Travis County always go to Democrats, and it definitely went easily to Obama this time around. However, it kills me that Texas, as a state, has to be so backwards and go for McCain. If you look at an electoral map, you will see that the large urban areas (where most of the people live) all went to Obama.
Prop 8, which bans homosexual marriages, will probably get passed in California if the current results are correct. That is disappointing, but I guess that will just take time for people to get over their hangups about same-sex couples. I still believe that time heals all wounds, but that's not true if you run out of time.
The positive perspectives from around the world about Obama as the new president are very nice. I like the idea that the rest of the world may like America again. I always think globally. If I had enough money, I would live in a different country every month.
In other news, there is a lot of good music out there right now. Here is a mixtape that became available on the M.I.A. Fans message board today (http://miafans.co.uk) ...
http://fairtilizer.com/radioclit/the_very_best.zip
The music definitely has a "world music" sound to it. Esau Mwamwaya is featured heavily on the mixtape. He has done his own versions of "Paper Planes" and "Get It Up". I have posted his songs on here before. M.I.A. also put some vocals on a demo of his song, "Rain Dance". I think I have all of that right. The mixtape is also available on MySpace here ...
I think Radioclit is the main force behind the mixtape.
M.I.A. has a new song (download it) and video with Blaqstarr that is very good. It is called S.U.S. (Way Down The Hole) ...
As you can see the song has appeared under many different names. "Save Ur Soul" is probably the correct name.
One of the clubs/bars my friend and I went to last night was RAIN on 4th, and I was very happy that they played the song and video of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes". Everyone seemed to really like the song, and they all seemed to know the lyrics to it already, which they should since it has been out forever now. I just wish they would play songs like "Bamboo Banga". That would be more fun for a club.
The restaurant we went to was a great Italian restaurant called Primizie Osteria. It is located on East 11th St. in Austin, and it is probably one of those restaurants that is not getting as much business as it should because people do not know about it. I am probably going to do a Yelp review for it, but it already has a ton of positive Yelp reviews. Here is the website for it ...
http://www.primizieaustin.com
I got this Rigatoni with Italian Sausage dish that was really good, but I think the best part of the meal was the torta di limon dessert ...
My favorite mixtape to listen to right now is "Top Ranking" from Diplo and Santogold. I have posted some of the songs from the mixtape here already. You can download the entire mixtape by doing a Google search for it. Here are two of my favorite songs from the mixtape ...
My parents and I went to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens this past Friday (October 10, 2008), and they were really cool. They are much larger than the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin. We almost went to the Japanese Tea Gardens, which are also known as the Japanese Sunken Gardens (I think a scene from the 1984 movie, "Cloak and Dagger" was filmed there), but we didn't have that much time, and I thought the Botanical Gardens would offer more.
My expectations at the Botanical Gardens were far exceeded. My parents got a new Canon camera that is like my Canon SD750 camera, but theirs is a newer version.
Here are some of the photos we took ...
Here are a bunch of photos I took yesterday with my friend, Travis, as we walked around downtown Austin. I thought the pictures came out a little better than usual, and I think it is because it was so bright outside. As pale as I am, I can't believe I did not get sunburn or sunburned or sunburnt (however you are supposed to say it ... probably the first one).
OK, here are the dazzling photos (well, a couple of them) ...
I went to the Dallas World Aquarium this past Saturday with a friend, and I took a lot of video with my Canon PowerShot SD 750 because I am a nerd like that. I decided to try to make a long video with all of the short videos combined. I used Smashing Pumpkins, Tori Amos, and Enya as the background music. Here is the final result ...
You can watch it on Google Video, too, but the quality is not any better (I was hoping it would be). I wish I could share a video online, and it would look as good as it does when I watch the original version on my computer.
I watched something on TV about various beneficial effects trees have on a city, and it was really fascinating how much trees can do to help a city. Here are some of the things they do ...
http://www.americanforests.org/graytogreen/energy
I think the above link just talks mainly about how trees can lower a city's electric bill, but the special I watched on TV that time showed a lot of other ways trees can help and improve a city (well, they are nice to look at for one).
Anyway, I looked up tree-planting programs in Austin to see if there were any programs in place, and of course there are (Austin is pretty nature-friendly). One that caught my eye was Tree Folks.
Tree Folks helps plant trees in Austin and the surrounding area. They do other stuff besides that, but that was enough to make me want to donate some money to them. If you live in Austin, and you want to keep seeing signs of nature downtown and throughout the area, you may want to donate some money to them.
http://www.treefolks.org/store_donate.asp
I don't have that much money to donate, but I try to give a little here and there. I also donate to the Alzheimer's Association and Barack Obama's campaign.
Here is a Tori Amos song that I was listening to today. It's pretty cool (and old). The ending of it is the beginning of the song, "Horses", from her album, Boys For Pele (which was the first Tori Amos album I ever bought).
Tori Amos - Fire-Eater's Wife/Beauty Queen (demo)
