I remember my first South by Southwest experience pretty well, considering the whole kid in a candy store / free music, free booze thing that happens in Austin TX every March. But the one thing I remember most was how much my feet hurt after the second day, and how happy I was when I visited the Riot Act Media party and found out that they were giving away free shoes. Saucony Jazz sneakers. I had brought nice-looking, but ill-fitting kicks with me, and once slipping into a pair of comfy shoes I was good to go for the rest of the week. It was like walking on the wings of sponge-angels. I podcasted something to that effect on the Synthesis radio site. In fact, since 2006, I’ve bought nothing but Sauconies (How’s that for good marketing, yo? You’re welcome for the free plug, thanks for the free shoes). Having saved my feet in 2006, David Lewis will forever be a saint to me.

This year, however, I failed to make it to a party featuring free shoes, and right now my brown Saucony Jazz sneakers, going on 6 months old, are in flattened shambles. It’s true, as outlined in my astute friend’s blog, musicismyboyfriend, there’s pretty much nowhere to sit at SXSW for more than a minute. You’re on the go from venue to venue to venue the entire time because, honestly, there’s just too much to see and so little time to see it. Sure, there are rickshaws (known in these parts as pedicabs), and I did use one after Chiodos‘ set on Friday night since La Zona Rosa is kind of a long walk from the main drag on 6th street. Otherwise I was on foot, and as of Sunday I’ve been developing the gnarliest athletes’ foot you’ve ever seen. If it gets any more personality I may have to give it a name. Updates as they come. In the meantime, Check out Video Matt being a drunk ass on a rickshaw. Hilarity! Snoochy Boochies!

Montana Meth Project
(It’s worth watching)

The Montana Meth Project is a large-scale exercise in prevention, aimed at significantly reducing Meth use in Montana. The integrated program consists of an ongoing, research-based marketing campaign—supported by community outreach and public policy initiatives—that realistically and graphically communicate the risks of methamphetamine to the youth of Montana.

The Meth Project was conceived and founded by businessman and Montana rancher, Thomas Siebel. The purpose is to inform potential Meth consumers about the product attributes and actual risks associated with methamphetamine. The goal is to substantially reduce methamphetamine use.
-montanameth.org

Icy…cold…refreshing…Aquafina…is TAP WATER. Anybody else surprised?

Here’s how it goes: We pay taxes, some of which go to creating clean water. Pepsi co then uses that clean water that we’ve already paid for (Public Water Source), has plastic bottles manufactured (just what we need to be using our petroleum resources on…), slaps a picture of crystal blue mountains on it, and sells it back to us at $1.50 a pop. Brilliant!

And guess what? Most of that other bottled water you buy on the daily (Dasani, anything by Nestle)? It’s tap water! You fools! Of course it’s always been this way, Pepsi’s just now changing the labels so they can’t get called out hard on misleading their consumers. (Now’s a good time to look up Bill Hicks’ rant on marketing.)

The CNN story.

I kinda feel like Charlton Heston’s character in Soylent Green…