End of Silence

We had family in town this weekend and were deciding on lunch options. In the end, we picked Zen because their food is healthier than the average fast food, they’re conveniently located and, more importantly, kids eat free there on Wednesday evenings and all day Sunday. Since I can’t find a decent listing elsewhere, I thought I’d do a quick list of kids eat free offers around town that I’m aware of and let people comment on ones that I miss.

Monday

• Hangtown (360 just south of Bee Caves)

Tuesday

• Zuzu (Mopac & 2222)

Wednesday

• Zen (All locations)
• EZ’s (40th & Lamar and Bee Caves just west of Mopac)
• Texadelphia (15th and San Antonio location only)

Sunday

• Zen (All locations)

For those of us that have managed to decide the larger contest facing us this November 2nd, I thought I’d turn our attention to what’s shaping up to be a big local issue, Capital Metro’s All Systems Go rail plan.

The Austin Chronicle has posted some of their take on it already. I’m guessing that the next couple of Chronicles before the election will have more information. The chief opponent of the current plan is Mike Dahmus. He’s got several posts on his blog over the past couple of months about why he thinks this is not the plan that should be approved. There’s some great discussion there and I think he presents a compelling case.

Those of you who have been in town a few years will remember that, despite some vocal support, a light rail plan was narrowly defeated in November of 2000. If you’ve made up your mind already, early voting started this week. Get out there and do your thing.

In searching for a few links for this post, I also found some people who advocate a Monorail for Austin. The idea may have merit, but all I can think of is the classic Simpsons episode.

Welcome to the Austin edition of Metblogs! I’m psyched to be able to give my viewpoint on a city that I fell in love with 15 years ago.

Our local public radio station, KUT, has a project called Sonic IDs which it plays between programs. I heard one last week that I think pretty well sums up Austin and those who live here.

Some of you have already noticed that you can’t access any of the The Boy stuff anymore. I’ve moved it all to another area of the site that will require user registration and my approval to view. I’m doing this because there’s a good chance that the site will be getting a lot more traffic in the near future and I don’t want a bunch of strangers going through The Boy (and in the not too distant future, the new baby) pictures, etc. I’m not letting on what it is until I’m sure it’s going to happen. If you need to get access, email me and I’ll tell you how.

I’m still working on the DID feature. I’m having to check the size of the image that Amazon is sending me and that seems to have slowed the queries down a little too much. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. The Paul Tatara Movie Database is also delayed a little since the reviews on GoodAuthority.org are no longer available. I’m going to try to link into the Internet Archive for now. I’m hoping it may be possible to do something better than that, but we’ll have to wait and see.

On a personal note, my first wedding anniversary is this Sunday and tomorrow is the anniversary of the first layoffs at @hand, but we won’t dwell on that one. This year has gone by so quickly…

Don’t forget to call your mom or send her a card as Sunday is also Mother’s Day.