End of Silence

This is sure to be the first of many posts on the upcoming ACL Festival (aka The-Big-Annual-Austin-Music-Festival -Other-Than-SXSW) from myself and the other Austin Metbloggers. Our little group blog was born just after the festival last year, so this is our first chance to cover it as a group. Stay tuned for plenty more.

With a little more than a week to go until Austin City Limits Festival 2005, the ACL promotors are in full propaganda mode. I just got their latest e-mail which led me to an impressive aerial photo from last year’s festival on the same page as this year’s map. Is that Town Lake Entrance new this year? I don’t recall it being there last year.

You have the option this year of creating a custom schedule or downloading the whole schedule as a pdf or to your ipod. If you’re creating a custom schedule, they give you the option of doing so with or without registering, ostensibly to allow you to retrieve it later or share it with friends, but seeing as they have your e-mail address, I’m sure they won’t be able to resist using it for other purposes. I’d advise skipping the customization altogether though as “customizing” entails being able to check a box and highlight particular boxes on the schedule. The interface looked pretty crappy on both IE and Firefox and didn’t print out any better on my one attempt.

Lastly, the ACL site already does a passable job of this, but the Austinist points out that someone has taken the time to compile bios and mp3 links for every band in this year’s line-up.

Jacob Applebaum is a photographer and techie who does work with non-profits and NGOs. He headed down to the Astrodome and then New Orleans with the idea of helping out where he could and documenting what he could. A lot of his stuff is being cross-posted to BoingBoing. Yesterday, he blogged about the arrival of a delivery of bicycles and other supplies from Austin. I wonder if it’s some of those collected by Bicycle Sport Shop?

Our local paper has a generally well-deserved reputation for being crap. Except for Sundays, I could do with reading the thing online, but The Wife likes getting it to the house. One of the few things that I generally enjoy about the paper is American Digest from the Sunday Insight section. According to the paper, it’s compiled by the Statesman staff, so I’ll give credit where credit is due. Today’s is particularly good, though the sheer number of eligible quotes this past week made their jobs pretty easy..

A couple of quick notes on New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

First, Metroblogging New Orleans has been doing and continues to do an amazing job of posting information despite the conditions.

Metroblogging Houston also has some coverage of the arrival of people from New Orleans. It sounds like Houstonians are going out of their way to help these people out the best they can. Good to hear given some of the reports out of New Orleans.

Local New Orleans transplant, Ray In Austin, is posting some very good information that he’s collecting from various sources. His blog was the first place where I read that Fats Domino was missing.

If you’d rather do something in person, there are people from New Orleans being housed at the Burger Center by the Red Cross. Also, Capital Area Food Bank and H-E-B are collecting donations of diapers, bottled water, peanut butter (plastic containers please), canned meats (ring-pull lids please) and granola/cereal bars tomorrow from 8am-6pm.

I was last in New Orleans for a bachelor party about three years ago and I used to head down there for Mardi Gras during college and crash with old high school friends. Most of the people that I know have moved out of the city since then, but there are couple who still live there: one made it safely to family in Cincinnatti and the other stayed behind and hasn’t been heard from yet. It’s an amazing city and I can’t begin to fathom what it’s like for all of the people who call it home and are now forced to face the very real possibility that they’ve lost everything, have to begin again, and may never return.

Update: Also, the Metroblogging community is selling some schwag and 100% of the profits will go to the displaced New Orleans Metrobloggers and their families.

After work yesterday, the lads and I popped over to the relatively new Billy’s On Burnet for a couple of beers and a burger or two. The Chronicle reviewed the place about a month ago and was more or less on target. The one thing they didn’t mention was the lack of parking. Billy’s is located on the southwest corner of Burnet and Hancock and their parking lot can only accommodate roughly 10 cars. After that, you’re going to have to go hunting because the lots of other businesses around the restaurant apparently tow at all hours. I ended up on a residential street across Burnet and a little bit north of Hancock.

There’s a fair-sized deck with picnic tables on the east side of the buliding. More than half of the tables were full when I arrived at 6:30pm. The tables inside were also mostly full with families and guys just off work taking advantage of the $1.50 Lone Star pints, a Tuesday special. Domestic pints are $1.50 on Mondays and happy hour lasts from 2-7pm. Billy’s is smoke free and encourages a family atmosphere. I got the feeling that at least some of the patrons were from the surrounding neighborhood. There’s no shortage of televisions at Billy’s. One widescreen flat-panel dominates the main room and there were at least three other sets scattered throughout the rest of the bar.

The food was decent. I opted for the Shults burger, which features bacon and jack cheese. I’d place it somewhere in the middle of the burgers that I’ve had around Austin. One of my compatriots ordered the Frito Pie and seemed satisfied with his decision. The beer selection is moderate. In contrast with the Draught House which is roughly ten blocks away, Billy’s has a smaller selection of beer, but better food. The staff was friendly and the food was served in a reasonable amount of time. It wasn’t out immediately, but you won’t wait as long as you would at Casino El Camino. All in all, a welcome addition to the relatively barren reaches of north central Austin when it comes to finding a place to grab a beer and something to eat after work.