Our reach exceeds your grasp

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Jul 082005
 

Paul Ferguson pointed me to a story in today’s Statesman about random car searches at ABIA. The gist is that anyone wanting to pull up curbside is subjecting their car to random searches. Refusing the search means you’re sent to park instead of being able to get close to the terminal. I haven’t yet seen this in action, but I can’t see how they’re going to pull this off without causing a mess. I’m interested to know if anyone out there has actually been selected for one of these searches and, if so, did you agree? What happened?

I posted about this last September when I heard it mentioned in a KUT report.
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 Posted by on July 8, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Jul 072005
 

My thoughts and condolences go to those involved in this morning’s London attacks. I’m fairly certain that none of my extended family lives or works in London, but I do have a cousin whose husband does a fair amount of travelling, so I sent an e-mail just to see how things are going. Checking out the London Bomb Blast Flickr Pool, it seems odd to me that so many people are re-posting shots from news agencies, posting screenshots of website or posting shots from the television. First, aren’t there copyright issues? Second, what’s the point? Sure, if you’re near one of the incidents, happen to have a camera, and want to post something that isn’t callous or exploitive, then, by all means, go ahead. I just don’t see the point of copying things from somewhere else and posting them.

Of course, Bush didn’t waste any time coming up with yet another assinine quote. The most representative snippet:

And the contrast couldn’t be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill — those who have got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.

It includes his stock themes, a mention of “evil”, a mention of “folks” and touting the good work that he and the G8 cronies are doing in contrast to the morning’s events.

 Posted by on July 7, 2005 at 8:16 pm

ACL 2005 Schedule

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Jul 072005
 

The Austin City Limits Festival schedule for this year is due to be released today. It’s not linked on the main website yet, but if you’re registered with their newsletter, you got the link last night.

I’d pretty much decided that I wasn’t springing for the 3-Day Pass this year. I was disappointed with the experience last year for various reasons (Austin Metblog didn’t launch until after last year’s fest, so my comments are on my own blog). However, the lineup for Day 3 motivated me to go ahead and buy a one day pass this morning. I think the chance to see Rilo Kiley, Bob Mould, Tortoise, Wilco and, if I’m not worn out by then, Coldplay, in the same day is worth the $45. Any opinions on who to check out between Arcade Fire, Sleater-Kinney and Jason Mraz?

Now that the schedule is public, you’ll probably want to snag your tickets soon. They’re bound to sell out and I suspect there’ll be a price increase coming eventually.

 Posted by on July 7, 2005 at 1:00 pm
Jul 062005
 

We decided on Saturday to have a small July 4th party and invited our new neighbors K. and K. along with H.. We also invited M. and S. & B. who brought the twins along. I ran all over town with The La Sunday buying a grill and other supplies like a chimney starter, which I’ll never charcoal grill without again.

We broke out the wading pool to start things off. I tried out a new beer, which I recommend for the hopheads out there. A water war broke out in the late afternoon between M., armed with a hose, and kids, armed with squirt guns. If victory is gauged by a waterlogged opponent then everyone won (or lost). We ended the day with some legal fireworks at our place, choosing to avoid the crowds downtown. Hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday.

I posted some shots on Flickr, but you’ll have to be registered there and persuade me to mark you as “friends and family” before you can see them.

Besides, I know where we can bought a new baitcasting reel!

 Posted by on July 6, 2005 at 4:05 pm
Jul 052005
 

Gizmondo Austin
If you’ve driven down South Congress in the past 6-12 months you may have noticed the slogans that have been appearing on the marquee at the old Cinema West/Austin Theater. They’ve featured everything from l33t speak to references to the latest Star Wars film to homages to the recently deceased Hunter S. Thompson.

The space is currently occupied by Gizmondo Austin, formerly Warthog Austin. If I’m not mistaken, Future Protocol, an Internet services firm, renovated the theater during the dot-com boom and then promptly went bankrupt in 2001 (surprise, surprise). According to the Austin Chronicle, the Avatar Technology deal fell through shortly after it was publicized.

Wil Wheaton, a member of Metroblogging Los Angeles captured a shot of the sign on a visit back in October of last year, which brought the marquee to the attention of people outside of Austin. You can get the inside scoop on the sign from the blog of one of Gizmondo’s employees.

 Posted by on July 5, 2005 at 5:03 pm

Metroblogging News – New cities and features

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Jul 052005
 

You may have noticed some changes on our site lately. We’ve added three new cities in the past week: Lahore, Berlin and Philadelphia, bringing the grand total up to 30.

There’re also a few new features across the Metroblogging empire:

1. Posts by Author: Click on the name of the author in the “posted by” line and presto! you get a list of all the posts made by that person.

2. Recent photos from flickr: Our site header images are randomly pulled from the 50 most recent images in our flickr pool. Check out the left side of the site under recent comments – those are the 5 most recent images submitted to our flickr group.

3. 50 most active bloggers: See the posting machines in the Metroblogging family with their name, city and number of posts in the last 30 days. Not that we’re competitive or anything.

 Posted by on July 5, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Jul 012005
 

The most kick-ass theater chain in the world will have John K., creator of Ren & Stimpy, in person to screen some episodes of his groundbreaking show on Saturday, August 13.

Since I’ve already got my tickets for the 7pm showing, I feel it’s safe to let the rest of you lot know about it. Sure, it’s a month and a half off, but time flies and tickets just went on sale this afternoon.

We’re not hitchhiking anymore, we’re riding!

 Posted by on July 1, 2005 at 8:26 pm