SXSW Interactive Community Blog

So, I’ve heard of StubHub from some friends and it seems like a pretty neat service. I also noticed that they have an affiliate program that gives you an 8% kickback (way better than Ticketmaster’s 1%). I think I’m going to try it out on some of my sites, but I was curious if anyone has any type of experience working with them before. Are payments timely? Do you see decent conversion rates? Just curious…

Also worth mentioning, I just found out that there may be such a thing as spelunking in Vegas. The winner of the grand spelunk can win a set of round wedding pineapple pokers.

Any guy that can invent global warming deserves a vote for president. Moreover, any guy that can invent global warming AND the Internet…. just wow. But seriously, maybe this whole thing is bad for the ecosystem, but I’m loving my 65 degree day on November 19th. Can I say it enough? Just awesome. I wish I could take his class in college - bet he’s the smartest professor ever.

I know that being a musician isn’t really a glamorous life (unless you hit rock star status - or as we call it around here, “jus status”), but if I wanted to do it, where do I start? How do you pick good band members? Where do you look for your first gigs? Do you try to record your first album first or do you try to tour (if even locally) first?

Basically, anyone know a site where you can just do a “make your own band” wizard? Maybe I should look into that…

OK, we’ve all been on a page where a flash banner starts telling us “Congratulations, You’ve won a free iPod…” Well, maybe not all of us, but I’m sure some of you out there have seen it before. Regardless, there are lots of these sites giving away “free” stuff for signing up for offers (and subsequently convincing your friends/relatives/other suckers to do the same). It makes sense to me, but it also seems like a system that could easily hurt the honest consumer if any of those companies were shady. The terms and conditions on some basically say that very thing. I paraphrase: “We can revoke our offer at any time at our sole discretion, etc.”

The question, then, is, does anyone have experience first hand with one of these working? I’d be curious to know about it as I see they’re starting to do the iPod Touch as an option. I welcome any feedback.

Just ignore me, trying out some HTML style features. Why are you still reading me? I said move on… thanks.

• This Point is completely irrelevant

1. don’t think too hard about this one

• if you do, don’t concentrate on it until it makes you sick

1. because nobody would like that.
3. Ah, so that’s how that works.

1. Thanks!

:) ;-P

You ever take a moment in your busy life to think about the technologies that affect you daily? It’s actually pretty marvelous - I get in a car and turn a key and have a freedom of comfortable transportation that my grandparents would have never imagined possible. I work on a computer that does things that would blow my old 8086 desktop’s CPU without breaking a proverbial sweat. I don’t even have to worry about long distance any more with calls within the US - I used to have to limit phone time with grammy as a kid because she lived just outside our local calling area.

Anyway, just some things to think about. It really is amazing if you take a moment and appreciate what we’ve got.

I’ve done a few plays in my life time, so it’s kind of hard to pick a favorite. If I had to, I’d probably pick my first play ever, The Outsiders. Not necessarily a stellar play. I definitely wasn’t a great actor - I think I was the only kid who tried out scrawny enough to play Ponyboy. But it’s what introduced me to the thespian world. I made some good friends and got to learn a lot about what all goes into a play. It made me appreciate the theater experience on a whole new level.
I’d be glad to hear more feedback from anyone else who can pinpoint their favorite play.

Well, so far this has been the mildest winter I can remember for some time. Honestly, I’m not complaining - I LOVE that I can still come to work without a coat and I don’t have to scrape off my windshield every morning. So, to all the scientists and academic-brains out there, I say BRING GLOBAL WARMING ON!!! That’s a joke by the way - seriously….

I think I have a hard time taking people’s opinions on films very seriously unless I can relate to what they deem high-quality entertainment. So, this is an open question: What other movies should I consider “must-sees” if my #1 of all time is Tim Burton’s Big Fish? Simple question, but I look forward to any advice I can get.

Here’s a collection of quotes on acting I’m a fan of. These are courtesy jbactors.com (Thanks!):

“The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time. The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.” - Stella Adler

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” - Oscar Wilde

“I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my own just above the others; because in it I recognize the union and culmination of my own. To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal Drama.” - Charlotte Cushman

“Study, find all the good teachers and study with them, get involved in acting to act, not to be famous or for the money. Do plays. It’s not worth it if you are just in it for the money. You have to love it.” - Philip Seymour Hoffman

“Find in yourself those human things which are universal.” - Sanford Meisner

“Acting represents all that human beings experience, and if you want it to be ‘nice,’ you will never be a serious communicator of the human experience.” - Larry Moss

They help remind me what acting’s really all about. Hope that was inspirational.