Every year Austin hosts an amazing festival called South by Southwest – SXSW.  Its the best of the industry for music, film, and interactive media.

They just announced the 2009 SXSW Showcase Schedule letting people know where the different musicians will be delighting crowds.

They used to release a torrent of all the sample mp3s they post to allow people to sample the music ahead of time to decide who they want to see live.

Some guy named Ben Stolt went to the effort to download the mp3s and put a torrent together himself.  So, check out the UNofficial SXSW 2009 mp3 torrent.  Just make sure not to leech and run.  These are all legal mp3s here folks – they’re publicly available on the SXSW site if you want to get them 1 by 1 on your own.

And if you’re in or arounf Austin, pop the money to go to the conference, it’ll be the best money you spend all summer.

An amazing video of the power of something as simple as a smile starring the great actor TJ Thyne from Bones.

One of my favorite breweries, Rogue has a “Members Only” club it calls the Rogue Nation.

A portion of it’s Decleration of Independence states:

We, the undersigned Rogues, with tongues firmly planted in our cheeks and with the inherent power derived from within and the Laws of Hops and Barley, declare the intent to form a Micro-Nation — the Rogue Nation — a global alliance without borders, its citizenry possessing an unswerving responsible allegiance to the Rogue within, unfettered by limitations imposed by others, commonly-accepted bullshit, or rules totally lacking in reason.

And you get $0.75 off each pint when you show your card to boot.  Anyway, they recently announced an economic bailout plan.  Every day at each of their ‘embassies’ (breweries) two tables will be randomly selected to have their ‘debt to Rogue’ (bill) relieved.  Hell yeah!

Check out their pressroom for more details or see the press release (PDF).

Go now and be merry at one of their convienient locations.

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