connecting*the*dots

Well, I made it to Austin in one piece, but since it took me until last week to register, I had to rush to get a hotel and transportation and kinda blew both.

My hotel is about a mile away from the Austin Convention Center (ACC ) — not terrible — but my rental reservation, well, it didn’t quite work. I must’ve missed a submit button in my haste. So I’m walking around town, which is a good thing, as I’ve become Veal over the last six months working out of my home office.

So after walking across the river, I met up with Tish Grier (of Snarkaholic and Corante Media Hub fame). Over lunch, we talked citizen media, self-promotion in the blogging age (do we really need to think about it?), the role of an academic pedigree in the market and… elbow grease (ask Tish about that one)

Following lunch, we headed back to the ACC to check email, met David Beach from Yahoo! while sharing table space, made some temporary party plans and went our separate ways; it was time for me to get catch Thank You For Smoking over at the Alamo Draft House.

The theater is as hip as can be, with wait-staff taking both drink and food orders from our seats. Yes, I ordered a Guinness pint from the middle of the theater. It felt like I was front-row at the Knicks game. Can you say, dope? And then the movie…

So true and so funny. Classic. Jason Reitman — the writer and director — took the time afterwards to answer questions and tell a few behind the scenes tales; one dealing with the Katie Holmes “missing sex scene” at a Toronto festival and the other being Sam Eliott’s pension for carrying his own rifle on set.

And with that, we were rushed out of the theater into the now packed streets of downtown Austin. Excuse me, but it’s time to go hit up a party.

Austin rocks.