Archive for July, 2009

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July 31, 2009

I love Saturdays: CrossFit before Cupcakes, with a side of (512) Beer

Saturdays in Austin are sometimes lazy recovery days, and sometimes jam-packed adventure days. OK, who am I kidding, they’re always adventurous, sometimes I just choose to laze about instead of partaking. But this Saturday I won’t be missing out on any of these awesome events:

9-11:30am: The Movement @ RunTex on Lake Austin Blvd

The Movement is a CrossFit block party celebration post-workout … free UTB (and bring the kiddos, there’ll be a free CrossFit Kids workout too!) from 8-9am, then partay with breakfast tacos from Taco Deli and CrossFit stuff like:

- The NEW Movement Video (Movement from CrossFit Central on Vimeo)
- Fight Gone Bad Demonstration
- Unveiling of the CrossFit Women’s Challenge
- New program information including CrossFit Endurance & CrossFit Kids
- Giveaways & Discounts

Head home for a shower before splitting your time between Beer and Cupcakes… if only everyone’s lives included decisions so difficult.

2-5pm: 1st Anniversary Celebration at (512) Brewery

The beer will be flowing at the baby brewery, which boasts such amazing beers as the (512) Pecan Porter. I cannot wait to taste the 1st Anniversary Ale, (512) ONE, a Belgian-Style Strong Ale with organic base grains, Forbidden Fruit yeast, domestic hops and local Good Flow wildflower honey. Mmmmm. (Homer?)
(512) Brewing, 407 Radam, F200, 78745 (Between South 1st & South Congress, one block south of Ben White)

4-7pm: Cupcake Smackdown at One-2-One Bar

Cupcake Smackdown

Austin’s first Cupcake Smackdown includes a blind tasting contest of all the store front bakeries, an amateur baking contest, a cupcake silent auction, the people’s popular vote, and a cupcake eating contest for both dogs and humans! Live music will be performed by Arielle Nicole.

For the blind tasting, a panel of local chefs and foodies will be chowing down on vanilla, chocolate, and a baker’s choice cupcake from each of the eight store front shops. Each cupcake will be judged on the flavor, texture, and aroma.

Other activities include a bake off in which amateur bakers can enter either the vanilla, chocolate, or freestyle cupcake competition. There will be two categories for the cupcake eating contest: one for human participants and one for canine participants. Canines will be eating pupcakes for speed (not quantity). Ginger carrot pupcakes provided by Grand Dog Bakery. Spectators will also be invited to vote for the People’s Choice award for any of the store front bakeries, vote for the cutest cupcake at the Smackdown, and also participate in a cupcake silent auction. Proceeds to go to Wine and Food Foundation of Texas.

The event is kid and dog friendly. Pre-entries for the cupcake eating contest are being accepted and will be accepted until the day of the event pending space. Each entry for the eating contests costs $10. Entry forms for the eating contests are available at All-In-One Bakeshop on 183. Please bring water and a spray bottle to keep your dog cool. It will be hot. Admission to the event is free. Please tip your bartender.

Email Jennie@misohungrynow.com to participate, enter yourself or your dog, enter your cupcakes, or to sponsor the event.

Schedule:

4:00 – 6:30 – Live Music, People’s Popular Vote, Cutest Cupcake Vote, Silent Auction

4:00 – 5:00 – 1st round blind tasting of cupcake entries

5:30 – 6:00 – Final round of blind cupcake tasting

6:00 – 6:30 – Canine eating cupcake contest – pupcakes provided by Grand Dog Bakery

6:30 – 7:00 – Human eating cupcake contest – cupcakes provided by All-In-One Bakeshop

Sponsors include: Rise and Shine Bakery, Sugar Mama’s, Polka Dots Bakery, Mad Cakes, Luxe Sweets, L’s Cupcakes, The Cupcake Bar, Hill Country Bakery, Wicked Cakes, Danger Cakes, Cupprimo, Grand Dog Bakery, Austin Urban Gardens, All in One Bakeshop, Growing Concerns on KUT, Do512, NosetoTailatHome.com, Bella Cupcake Couture

Posted in Eating, free, Good people/services, One-time event, Sports/Fitness | 1 Comment »

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July 30, 2009

Friday Edition of Choose Your Own Adventure: $40, $2, or $1 dollars

I have been posting like a fool the past few days–forgive me. Lots of interesting events and ideas have come my way, and I can hardly keep up with it all. This is Life in Austin is also co-hosting Ford’s 2010 Taurus TweetUp Sunday night at Opal Divine’s from 5:30-7:30pm, so definitely think about checking that out (invite here) and taking the new ole Taurus for a spin.

Last night’s ATX Bleet-Up was a blog-tastic time at the ever-fabulous Four Seasons’ TRIO. Tolly of Austin Eavesdropper fame played hostess with mostess, connecting bloggers young and old, hip and un, together for mingling and putting faces onto previously anonymous cyberspace pals. Then Austin Monthly hosted their Bachelor Issue Party with a Cold Stone-style guacamole mashup bar, which was much better than the regular bar, which was packed because free Grey Goose cocktails (like the cucumber ‘ritajito or something) were flowing. Good times had by all, always, because if there’s one thing AM knows it’s how to throw a party and pack the house.

Now for upcoming events, the Choose Your Own Adventure portion of this program:

I’ve resisted posting on the Miracle Berry Flavor Tripping parties because frankly, it just doesn’t sound that interesting to me. They say this miracle berry makes:

- citrus fruits like lemons and limes taste sweet
- oranges and grapefruits tasted dipped in sugar
- goat cheese tastes like frosting
- vinegar is smooth enough to drink
- cheap tequila tastes like top shelf
- bologna sandwiches taste like cheesecake
- stout beers taste like chocolate milkshakes

But I like citrus fruits and goat cheese and stout beers, thankyouverymuch, and I’m not interested in eating vinegar, cheap tequila, or bologna sandwiches anyway.

Nonetheless, I see the allure. And Jenny, the Berry Fairy herself, is a persistent lady. After Wednesday’s event, James writes about it here and the Austin Examiner writes about it here, I’m slightly more intrigued. Both had a good time. Miracle berries are a fruit indigenous to West Africa. Scientists say a protein in the fruit works by binding to taste buds and altering the tongue’s so-called sweet receptors to activate when sour foods are eaten. Miracle berries are only good for 2-3 days after they are picked and so they are very rare, expensive, and hard to obtain.  Likewise, it is difficult to get a large volume of them. So in this party there’s the whisper of something new and forbidden and the exclusivity of time. And an open Tito’s vodka bar.

Of course, exclusivity never comes cheap. Tickets for Friday’s affair are $40, but include food and booze. 6-8pm, Belmont.

If you’re looking for cheap, try a $2 $1 event:

The All Austin All handmade Bash at the Beauty Bar July 31st 7-11pm

Entry is $2, but half off with online sign-up or by bringing in the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) event flyer. I signed up online and didn’t think twice about it, but thanks to a friend for pointing out: I don’t know much about the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, but I really wonder how well an event flyer (presumably on paper?) helps them achieve their goals?

Touche’, O’Dea, touche’.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (PARTY) CHRISTINE!! (birthday isn’t til Monday … cheater)

Because I’m a responsible blogger: I was contacted by Ogilvy Public Relations on behalf of Ford Motor Company to arrange a blogger meet up for Ford‘s Summer of Taurus 100 City Tour.  I was compensated for my time in arranging this meet up, including inviting other bloggers and helping to select a venue.  I have not been paid for any product review of the Taurus and any opinion about the Ford Taurus or Ford Motor Company expressed on this blog is my own.

Posted in free, Going Out, Shopping | 1 Comment »

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July 30, 2009

Blogger Accountability: An Update from the Responsiblity Project

Last weekend, the SXSW-meets-Bonnaroo-meets-a-Sample-Sale of the female blogosphere happened: BlogHer ’09. BlogHer, simply stated in their tagline, is a “Community for Women Who Blog.” More thoroughly explained, BlogHer is:

“Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by three bloggers, BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. Today BlogHer is the leading participatory news, entertainment and information network for women online, reaching more than 14 million women each month via annual conferences, a Web hub (http://www.blogher.com), and an publishing network of more than 2,500 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates (http://blogherads.com). BlogHer Inc. is run by its three co-founders and has backing from Venrock, the Peacock Fund and Azure Capital Partners.

Colloquially defined, super-blogger (and, coincidentally, frequent giveaway-er) MizFit describes the conference as: “The blogger mayhem that was Chicago.” What’s the big deal about all this, you potentially-non-blogger types ask?

Well, the Responsibility Project, created by Liberty Mutual, did a survey at BlogHer of many of today’s top-ranked bloggers that focused on accountability and responsibility in blogging. (The Responsibility Project aims to be a catalyst for examining the decisions that confront people trying to “do the right thing.”)

175 bloggers were surveyed. They said:

98% of surveyed bloggers believe it is acceptable to receive a free product

87% of surveyed bloggers believe it is okay to write company-sponsored posts

A majority of bloggers mentioned transparency, disclosure and honesty as key caveats to receiving free product and writing sponsored posts

84 percent said honesty is a key trait of a responsible blogger, followed by transparency (66 percent) and reliable sources (56 percent)

And here is a link to more information, including video interviews of bloggers who participated in the survey: http://www.responsibilityproject.com/blogher_mmr/

As a part of the overall discourse about what on earth to do with blogger ethics (first addressed by me here, remember me scoffing at the FTC trying to regulate bloggers?), this survey is interesting and important.

But as a part of the overall picture of bloggers, I’m not sure that this survey really even matters. I think the numbers are misleading. They surveyed all women, all at a conference about blogging. These aren’t the armchair quarterbacks of the blogging field, these are the marquee names, the involved and active bloggers who were either invited to present a panel or chose to pay $400 for a pass to the conference. As an example, one of the featured videos is from a General Motors blogger. Of course she believes in responsibility and accountability–her company has TRAINED her, as one of their bloggers, to do so–to mind her manners, so to speak. That isn’t to say that she wouldn’t have an internal sense of ethics, but it is to say that she couldn’t have used manners she never learned. And that she isn’t really a fair survey respondent.

The FTC proposed guidelines to address the people that aren’t getting trained, that don’t have a clue about journalistic ethics let alone blogging ethics, that are just writing because they want to and writing about something they got for free because they got it for free. It’s not even necessarily that they’re irresponsible as much as that they’re ignorant–literally, uneducated. So surveying the trained, the Brett Farves (finally retiring for good?) of blogging, is like asking Farve is passing is easy. Of course it is. He’s been doing it all his life.

So I’m back to my original stance: proposed guidelines make sense as a model for education but make absolutely no sense as a vehicle for enforcement. So whatever money is to be spent “enforcing” is much better spent educating. That is, creating a sense of responsibility in people who don’t even know that they’re supposed to have one about this particular topic.

Disclaimer: Liberty Mutual sent me the information about their survey.

Posted in Thoughts | Leave a Comment »

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July 30, 2009

Lights. Camera. Action this weekend!

For more films-for-a-cause action, check out Lights. Camera. Help. this weekend, the three-day non-profit festival I wrote about here.

It brings attention to the films-for-a-cause genre by showcasing the best PSAs, shorts and feature-length films that nonprofits use to help them spread the word about their cause. The top 20 films and videos out 140 will be screened Friday, July 31, at Southwest Key East Austin Community Center, and Saturday, Aug. 1, at Calhoun Hall at the University of Texas at Austin. The Judge’s Prize winner will receive all the proceeds and donations from the event.

Films include well-known groups like the Lance Armstrong Foundation United Way and Urban League. But film submissions were also selected from smaller organizations like Art from the Streets, an Austin nonprofit which provides resources for homeless artists and platforms for showing and selling their work, and the We Are Family Foundation in NYC, who promote the vision of a global family by creating and supporting programs that inspire and educate the next generation about respect, understanding and cultural diversity.

David Neff, co-founder of the festival and buddy of mine calls the range of videos “surprising” and expects the films to shock, inspire, and motivate viewers.

Schedule listing the films and nonprofits selected and the nights they will be screened:

Showing Friday, July 31 – 7pm at the Southwest Key East Austin Community Center.

“Aid to Artisans” – Aid to Artisans
“Survivors of Dating Abuse” – Break the Cycle
“Manifesto” – Lance Armstrong Foundation
“Family Portraits” – Jewish Family Service of Seattle
“Give 5″ – United Way Capital Area
“Reality, Mobility, Independence” – Wheelchair Foundation
“Think Pink Lemonade” – Women Playing For T.I.M.E.
“Think B4YouSpeak” – Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
“Fowl Play” – Mercy For Animals
“From the Mills to Manhattan” – Best Friends Animal Society
“In A Place Like This” – Mobile Film School

Showing Saturday, Aug. 1 – 7pm at Calhoun Hall Room 100 at the University of Texas at Austin.

“Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars” – Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition
“Red Ink” – We Are Family Foundation
“Perfect Match” – Michigan Humane Society
“Time Bomb” – charity: water
“Impacting the Future” – National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
“Tale of Two Brothers” – Los Angeles Urban League
“Thoughts in a Hijab” – Reel Grrls
“The Perfect Parent PSAs” – AdoptUSKids
“Art From The Streets” – Art From The Streets

Sunday’s wrap party and award announcement will be held at The New Movement Theatre at 8pm.

For more information about the festival and films, visit the Web site www.lightscamerahelp.org

Posted in film, Good people/services | 1 Comment »

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July 29, 2009

Homelessness, Happiness Is, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, and Free Beer

This is (mostly) a re-post from the MLF blog. Support Mobile Loaves and Fishes if you want and feel free to re-post this to your blog as well. I added the Free Beer to the headline–though it’s true–to get more attention…

Mark Horvarth (@HardlyNormal) for those of us on Twitter, has been garnering national attention for his efforts to bring voices to the homeless. His blog and his website have given him a place to explore unexplored stories, and call attention to some of our most overlooked citizens—the homeless among us. Alan Graham, President of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, (@MLFNOW) invited him to come see Austin and go on a truck run, attend the screening of Happiness Is, and serve the homeless. So, Mark decided to make Austin a stop on his nation-wide tour! He’ll be here from the 29th of July through the 1st of August.

Mark, who is, as he puts it “not a solutions guy,” is embarking on his road trip to “see homelessness” and to “help people” by calling attention to their stories. According to Mark, he has two main strengths going for him: he’s “pushy,” and he’s “loud”—not to mention compassionate. During our conversation he was particularly upset about the stories he has heard of families “downsizing” by kicking out their eldest children.

So why is he doing this now? Good question. As Mark puts it, we are entering into a “perfect storm of homelessness,” with the economy in the place it is, with government out of money. (In fact, some of his sponsors haven’t even been able to commit because of financial difficulties!) So, what better time to call attention to this immense need?

Mark will be arriving in town just in time to take part in our social media extravaganza around the movie “Happiness Is.” You’ll likely be able to have your OWN conversation with Mark at any of the events below:

Happiness Is DVD Signing:

  • Waterloo Records Downtown from 5-7 PM on Thursday, July 30th.
  • free BBQ from Stubbs and free beer from Shiner
  • MLF catering truck and Stubb’s BBQ World Tour trailer

Tweetup (you don’t have to go to both the movie and the tweetup–stop by for a few!)

  • Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar from 7-9 PM on Thursday, July 30th
  • cash bar + free popcorn
  • Here’s a link to the twtvite (#nosuffering), spread the word and RSVP: http://twtvite.com/bn6p48/2

Happiness Is Screening (Documentary, MLF is prominently featured in the movie. Preview here.]

  • Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar (directions) at 9:30 PM and 9:50 PM
  • Two theaters–one for the movie, and one for social media! You can tweet to your heart’s content :)
  • Reserve tickets by visiting their site at www.HappinessIsTheMovie.com and clicking on the email link for “tickets” on the front page.

For more information on the events visit: www.mlfnow.org/happiness

We would love your help in spreading the compassion and awareness, please help!

  • Make a micro-donation to Mobile Loaves & Fishes (www.mlfnow.org/NoSuffering)
  • Tweet and Blog the events and the movie–what did you think?
  • Follow @MLFNOW
  • Follow Happiness Is the movie @HappinessIs_tm
  • Help @MLFNOW start a conversation around homelessness and palliative care by interacting on Twitter and the MLF blog
  • Help MLF win a $25,000 social media makeover! Retweet the following: RT to help Mobile Loaves & Fishes win a 25K social media makeover http://ow.ly/4pcs @CommuniCause #cause3324
  • Hand out water to the homeless

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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July 28, 2009

How to Open a Banana

I’m not a video poster. And not a huge banana-eater. But I am in love with this banana man. He says so earnestly at the end of this under-a-minute video, “My whole adult life, I never knew the right way to open a banana. And now you do too,” that I cannot HELP but post this video:

Thanks to Choosing Raw for this incredible nightcap.

Posted in Eating | 4 Comments »

July 28, 2009

Do you need a man? Austin Monthly announces their 10 Most Eligible Bachelors

I just learned about the “Schedule” feature in wordpress, so I can now write posts ahead of time. I know, I’m late to the party, but it’s a pretty awesome discovery. Speaking of parties, Wednesday is full of RSVP-only shindigs, from the Bleet-Up to Austin Monthly’s Bachelor issue release party … so some of you might have gotten what I didn’t realize was a super-secret RSVP link if you read this post when it auto-posted, before I could catch it. If you did, you’ll score free margaritas, apps, and single men at Rio Grande Wednesday from 7-10pm. If you didn’t, leave me a comment with your own personal choice for Most Eligible Bachelor (must live in Austin, can be a celebrity if you must but keep in mind that neither Andy nor Lance is a bachelor, and yes, I will probably go google and/or facebook them) and I’ll see if we can’t work something out …

Posted in Going Out | 1 Comment »

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July 27, 2009

Making Friends in Austin

The other day I’m sitting at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (on S Lamar, but I cannot wait for the 38th & Lamar location to open–rumor has it August 8 is the day!!) with Alexandra from Alexandra’s Cookie Dreams and before we know it, our casual conversation turns into girl talk with 2 other random girls also hanging out at the coffee shop. It’s an odd experience, but cool.

We get on the topic of making friends in Austin. Both of the strangers (not me and Alexandra) say it’s hard to make friends in Austin. For the record, Alexandra and I met randomly at an event and have forged a friendship out of that, emailing regularly and meeting up every so often. She’s GREAT at keeping in touch. I don’t think she finds it hard to make friends, and I’ve often said Austin makes it easy to make friends. More on that in a minute.

So we started talking about HOW you make friends, and Alexandra declares that there are three groups of people who find it easy to make friends: people who are into live music, people who are into sports, and people who are hippie-ish or granola-y. I think this over. When I moved back to Austin (I’m a native but was away for school), I immediately sought out sports leagues, not only because I love sports, but also because I figured it’d be a great way to make friends (thank you, Austin Sports & Social Club, and I discuss this more here). I also went out quite a bit, but not to listen live music. And while I shop at Wheatsville, only eat free-range meat, recycle, and have a very active compost at the house, I don’t really consider myself a hippie. Nonetheless, I apparently had 1/3 of the advantages for making friends.

But I don’t think it’s just about what activities you do. It’s about the intention you approach anything in your life with. I moved home and said, “I have to make new friends now.” I didn’t hang out with my high school friends, and I looked at every event where there’d be new people as a chance to make friends. Always open-minded and open-hearted. It certainly wasn’t an immediate process, but I’m picky and I still found an amazing group of friends that continues to grow and expand to this day. I always credited my ability to find awesome new friends to Austin itself, for having a young, intelligent, diverse population of laid-back people. But if this isn’t true for 2/4 girls in the coffeeshop, where’s the disconnect?

So I’m curious … how did you make friends in Austin? If you’re from somewhere else or lived somewhere else, was it easier or harder to make friends? Where do you think we fall on the Easiness-of-Making-Friends Scale?

Posted in Thoughts | 31 Comments »

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July 24, 2009

Saturday: A Time for CrossFitting, Pub Running, and Watching

Athletes and spectators, lace up your sneakers or warm up your clapping (drinking?) hands: this Saturday has events for the whole spectrum.

10-11:30am: Free CrossFit Austin workout at Town Lake. Meet at the dog park by S First street bridge between 10 and 10:30am for a workout that starts at 10:30.
 This will be an instructor-led one hour CrossFit session. The perfect opportunity for those curious about CrossFit to finally try it out, the beginner to build on their skills, or the Fire-breather to destroy another WOD.

Bodacious Bar Run6:30-11:45pm: CrossFit Austin Bodacious ’80s Bar Run. Facebook invite here.

The Essentials:

1. We will start and end the PubRun @ Auditorium Shores
2. 80s Gear is greatly encouraged, and obnoxious amounts of sweat bands required.
3. Bring your running shoes and drinking hats!
4. Route:
Start: Under South 1st bridge (where we host the free WOD in the park)
Bars: GingerMan
Cedar Door
Tap Six
Key Bar
Tiniest Bar In TX
Finish: Barton Creek Saloon

An excuse to be out downtown in 80s athletic clothes? Yes please. I’m there.

If bar running isn’t your style and you love Lance, grab a friend to hang out at Jack and Adam’s Bicycles for the deciding Stage 20 of the Tour de France. Watch the final ascent of “The Bald Mountain” on a 10 foot screen while enjoying free food from J&A’s and beer courtesy of Twin Liquors. News 8′s Ricky Doyle and Veronica Castelo will give away prizes like an 80GB Video iPod, Toshiba portable DVD player and more. There will also be prizes from Team Slipstream / Garmin / Felt. Find out more at News8Austin.com or just show up (with a chair or blanket) at 7pm. If you plan on attending, please RSVP total attending to newsletter@jackandadams.com

Posted in film, free, Sports/Fitness | Leave a Comment »

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July 23, 2009

Cheese: a preview, and why you should host a party

I love cheese. I love cheese and wine. And now, I even love cheese and beer.

Let me explain: I popped by Whole Foods for a preview of some of the cheeses they’re having at the American Cheese Society’s Festival of Cheese here on August 8–Marshall wrote about it here. Long story short, the main event is August 8 and there are cheesemaker events leading up to the big day starting on Wednesday. If foodies are called foodies, is this event for Cheesies? Anyway, the actual Festival is from 5:30-9pm on August 8, and the next morning features a bargain sale of all the cheeses from 10am-1pm.

But lucky me, I got to taste some of the cheeses ahead of time. I tasted the world’s best cheese from a year or two ago, a Cabot Clothbound Cheddar aged at Jasper Hill Cellars in Greensboro, VT (that Vermonster boy would be so proud). This cheddar comes from a Holstein cow and has hints of toasted nut, toffee, and cooked fruits. Let’s be honest, I have no idea what that really means or tastes like, but this cheese was GOOD. Very mild, but strong enough that I wouldn’t want to waste it melted over a nacho or something, I’d want it all by itself.

At this preview, they also interestingly paired beer with some of the cheeses, like a Le Merle Saison Belgium style farmhouse ale from Borth Coast Brewery with the Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam–my second-favorite cheese. The beer was hefeweizen-y but creamy too. With that triple creme cheese produced with single-herd organic milk, mellow with an earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms, the beer was pretty great.

Can you tell I took notes?

Other impressive cheeses included the Pure Luck chevre, which we all already know is good because it’s from Dripping Springs and the goats are happy and the cheese bright and fresh. The Roth Kase Gruyere Surchoix was also awesome–but Gruyere is my new favorite cheese, mainly because I think it sounds fancy. This one also tasted fancy, so of course I loved it.

Bottom line: Cheesie or no, cheese, wine, and beer are three things that make most people happy, and make for a very fun, social atmosphere. Two of the favorite parties I’ve ever thrown for friends (and I’ve thrown my fair share) were cheese-and-wine parties, because it just lets people sip, nibble, and relax. My advice? Go to the sale, buy some fancy cheese, and host a cheese-and-wine party.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

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