patrick schneider

I was trying to find information about their sotware engineering degrees. And their site is down. Hrm:


Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.
JRun closed connection.


Update: Right after I posted this, their site came back up. Hooray for them!

…I will get to it one of these days, for sure. Be patient.

And go to hell Real World jerks.

I’m currently enjoying the leftover half of a Philly Cheesesteak that I purchased from Barton Hills Market. I thought it worth noting that they make one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had; tops here in Austin. Or, if not tops, definitely in the top 5… I can’t think of anywhere else that I like this much. Their Italian sub is phenomenal as well. But be prepared to wait awhile for either of those sammies — 15 to 20 minutes. Call ahead if you can. I’ve had limited success with doing so, but it’s usually worth a shot.

btw, hamburger != sandwich, at least not in my book.

Thursday night started off with two fun bands, The Like Young and Hockey Night. The Like Young has the Mates of State thing going on… a guy and a girl that are seemingly in love, on stage, making music. They were a bit more “standard rock” than Mates, though. Hockey Night put on a great show and called the crowd “dudes,” as in “Thanks dudes” after a song.

After Hockey Night, we booked it over to Elysium to see the whole reason for buying SXSW wristbands in the first place (or at least my main motivating factor): Ratatat. The line was blocks long. My brother made it in to the venue over two hours before, and from the looks of it, there was absolutely no way many more people were getting in. This set me off; I was utterly pissed. Nothing could cheer me up.

So, we figured the best thing to do would be to head over to La Zona Rosa to catch The Futureheads who started in an hour, and Hot Hot Heat and Doves following. And when we got there, I was crushed. Twice the line of Elysium, and no concievable way that we were getting in before the night was over.

Despondent at this point, I really was not capable of making any more decisions for the evening. Not that decision making was really my strong suit last night anyway. So we stood in line. Cold. Dark. Etc.

After about an hour of being in line, we can hear The Future heads going on inside. Damnit! About that time, we start up a conversation with the guys in front of us. They are in a band called Melee from California (playing tonight, midnight at Redrum). Super nice guys, and fun to chat with.

A cop walks by us around 11:15 with one of those disposable Gladware containers. Robin says, “Aw, he’s got snacks…”, and a conversation is started from there. The APD officers tells us that if we make it inside, he’ll give us some of his snacks (which were cauliflower and celery… hey, anything would be okay at this point, huh?). 30 or 40 minutes later, he walks out with two pieces of cauliflower left… one for me and one for Robin. What a nice guy! We laughed and ate some fresh vegetables as he put his Gladware back in his cruiser.

On his way back into the venue, he asks Robin and I how many are in our party… two, we say… and then he says, “Come with me.” !!!. This was right at midnight. We walk behind him, straight into the venue, skipping hundreds of people still in line, and get stage-center right as Hot Hot Heat starts playing.

What a night. We found our friends inside shortly thereafter, and HHH and The Doves put on amazing shows. Hooray for the Austin Police Department. They saved SXSW for at least two of us. Thank you again to the officer that let us in, wherever you are. You made our evening )

So, two nights ago, for my first night of SXSW ever, I headed out to The Parish right when their doors opened. The Wrens were playing last, and from what the paper said about their show last year, I figured the only way to get to see them would be to show up early. Not sure if that was accurate or not b/c I never got to see the line again once inside.

Here my overly simplified opinion of the evening: The Wrens were incredible. Everyone else ranged from moderately okay to horrific.

The Real World was there. I was on camera, but I didn’t sign their waiver, so I guess I’m going to be one of those blurred faces on TV. It also means that I can say whatever I want about them. (I took a copy of one of their waivers and read it over at a later time. You essentially give the “Producers” the right to do whatever they want with you and your likeness throughout the universe, indefinitely. They actually used that phrase. “Throughout the universe.”)

Anyway, the main crew consisted of 4 or 5 people with varying duties. Lights, cameras, guy with a bunch of wireless equipment, etc. The cast looked like standard Real World folk. From what I was told, the cast of the Real World is given an “assignment”, which is something like a job. They don’t just get to live in the house and do nothing. It looked to me like their assignment is/was to film SXSW, or at least catalog it in some manner.

So there was this weird cascading camera crew thing going on: the crew that was filming the “Real World” show was actually filming cast members that were, in turn, filming the acts performing on stage.

One of the cast members (most likely a cast member, though I suppose she could have been a production-er) tried to steal my girlfriend’s seat. I lean down, got right in her face, and said, “No fucking way.” She seemed completely shocked that anyone would say such things. Well, stop stealing seats, Real World jerk. I understand you have an “assignment” to do. But the rest of the world paid to get in to this venue, and we’re not going to be inconvenienced by your pseudo-fame.

I suppose the Real World deserves no more of my time. On with SXSW.

Saw Mates of State this past Saturday at Emo’s… for the 4th time, at least. I think this was the first show I had been to where I watched the opening bands as well. Aquaduct from Seattle… and some other people… from Austin I think.

They played well… three new songs, and they didn’t end with that ridiculous Nico song.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I drove past the tollway development in Cedar Park yesterday. Wow. You should check it out if you haven’t seen it. The AAS cover story that day happened to be all about it… so you should check that out as well.

Check out Google’s “Suggest” if you haven’t already (http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en). It’s probably the coolest thing in web development I’ve seen in awhile. Actually, I suppose that GMail is littered with this new technology… this is just a higher-visibility usage of it, I think.

Anyway, enjoy.

So… I’ve turned off all Comments and Trackback capabilities for this blog. Looks like I will now be judge and jury, as the spamming community has once again proven themselves to be quite effective at ruining things that are cool.

Anyway, it’s been a long while since my last post. I was quite please to see that my Korea Garden entry made Google’s list (search for “korea garden austin”). Maybe they’ll end up needing that $90 after all ;o)

I decided to go to Korea Garden one last time to try and recoup the $90 they stole from me. No luck. In fact, the waitress who served us doesn’t work there anymore (allegedly). Hopefully she was fired for her theft. The employees who currently work there, however, couldn’t have cared less about my predicament; my judgement on this filthy sushi hell hole still stands. Never go there.

On August 17, 2004 I dined with three friends at Korea Garden on North Lamar Blvd. I had been supporting this restaurant and its lunch specials for many months previous to this visit.

Our dinner went well. When we received the bill, we split it four ways. The total was around $100, and my share came out to $11.17 (one member of our party had a few too many sake bombs and decided to plop down more than his share… the others felt this was agreeable).

I tipped $10, bringing my total to $21.17, and threw my receipt away upon exiting the building.

When my credit card bill for the month arrived, the meal at Korea Garden showed up as $111.17! I’ve been back to the restaurant THREE TIMES to protest, to no avail. A similar thing happened to a reviewer on austin.citysearch.com, whose transaction went through four times for the same meal. Korea Garden has a recurring problem with overcharging its customers.

Now I keep all receipts. And I will never again eat at Korea Garden, regardless of whether I can recoup my money.