holy moly, there's so much going on and so many people and things and events, it's wonderfully overwhelming. went to a slew of panels yesterday, great things to share, i'll post more when i have a chance to breathe. (i'm choosing not to take my laptop to the convention center because i have enough stuff to lug around from morning til wee, wee night.) anyway, i'm sure you can find hundreds of bloggers feverishly dissecting each interactive panel to bits in real-time... (trust me, i saw them)

there are probably like six parties going on at any given time. last night i felt like a true old fogey pretty much exhausted at 2am (granted the day before i also went to bed at 2am, and this pattern will probably continue ad nauseum) while i'm sure everyone else feted until 5ish or so. chalk it up to my amazingly sleep-hungry brain. snooze snooze snooze. oh yeah, i'm also a dork who loves catching those early morning talks. but i had a great time and met some amazing people last night. somehow ze frank fit in the picture. not sure.

here are a random slew of photos, in no particular order, because i'm lazy.



the building on the right is the tallest in the city and has a super cool crystalline design. viewed from the angle, it totally looks like totoro. (see it?)



i'm so glad i was familiarized with guitar hero because i came to sxsw because admitting that here would be terribly embarrassing! at the hi-lo lounge, there are a ton of artisan guitar hero guitars mounted all over the place. i kinda get it now. kinda.



a midnight snack at katz ("never klozes!"), an enormous cobb salad. and infinite amount of pickles. trust me, the waiter saw how quickly i was chowing those down and was like, 'want more? seriously, they're just free-flowing from the kitchen.' but i think five pickles made a pretty good dent in my pickle quota. this restaurant itself was super-strange... not sure i'd go back. but it probably does wonders when nothing else is open at strange hours.



lis sylvan and hubby misha. she's happy, eating beans, and pregnant! yay!



waiting in the queue on friday night for the film festival opening party. this is where those excellent chips and salsa were hiding out. the fox and hound is totally gone, but at least you can clamor around the space like stealthy hyenas.



the dig! the dig! the dig!!!!! i was so excited to see boston amid the austin. seeing this gives me some semblance of credibility when i tell people what i do. i just shove this paper right into their skeptical face.



the 'under 18: blogs, wikis' panel. lis from the lifelong kindergarten group at the mit media lab and smg-alum danah boyd (in the awesome fluffy animal-eared cap) helped lead the discussion. i've never heard danah speak before, but i'll just say: SHE. IS. AWESOME. i cant describe it, but she's terribly on target and she argues with a super-convincing blend of academic, personal, and pop-cultural backing. go danah!



lunch as las manitas. this place was packed for lunch! also, i loved the tshirts worn by the servers... it had a faux academic shield and 'university of rice and beans'



i dont think anyone can eat a tortilla chip more gracefully than nicole (fellow chowhound). the salsa in austin in general is so freakin' good.



dorkbot in the haus. lots of blinky lights, random robotics, and generally silly hijinks. loved it! also, met the MAKE / CRAFT zine peeps and rocked out to 'stringless' capacitive-sensor guitars and a dj inexplicably dressed as a star trek shipmember.

until next time, i will be your faithful blogger who basically tells you how ridiculously good beans with lard are. trust the others for picking apart keynote speakers kathy sierra's words of wisdom. i'll be catching a film screening later tonight, a documentary ("does your soul have a cold?") about mental illness and medicating depression in japan. should be fascinating.

over and out.