Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Over the last few days I’ve been attending panels at South by Southwest Interactive and covering them for ARGN, the Alternate Reality Gaming Network. Here are the articles I’ve written:

The Wisdom of Crowds
Designing for Global and Local Social Play
Serious Games for Learning
Cluetrain: Seven Years Later
Interview with GMD Studios’ Brian Clark

I had a fantastic time hanging out with Brian Clark and Dan Hon and learning more about the corporate/consumer relationship, marketing, groups, and play.

I’m on a press pass for SXSW Interactive this year, covering it for ARGN. I was also invited to a party hosted in part by GMD Studios on Sunday night.

My problem was that I did not have any suitably hip clothing to wear. So I headed over to my trusty shopping mecca, Stein Mart and grabbed a bunch of fairly business-like but slightly hipster clothing, plus something cocktail-ish with enough cleavage showing to make hubby mutter.

On the way home I had the window of the Prius rolled down and was enjoying the perfect weather. I was silently coasting downhill, the engine not running, when suddenly from the yard I’m passing comes a hellacious booming noise. “Oh crap,” I thought, “I’m shot!”

Turns out it was some guy pounding his canoe. This is not a euphemism. Hope he got it straight. *cough*

The weather man on the local news has stopped combing his hair back. It’s bright red and sticks straight up and he is now a dead freaking ringer for Heat Miser. Every time he comes on TV I start singing it…

I’m Mister Green Christmas
I’m Mister Sun
I’m Mister Heat Blister
I’m Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I’m too much!

EDIT: There is an update to this issue here.

Are you looking for tree service? Considering using Good Mourning Tree Company at 512-420-0733, run by Sid Mourning at 512-657-4349? Are you a glutton for punishment who relishes verbal abuse and inviting cons onto your property? Why then, I’d say you have made the right choice.

Good Mourning Tree Company keeps leaving crap on my front door. This is illegal in the city of Westlake Hills (we’re on the no-solicit list kept by the city). Sid Mourning does not care about legality. He does not care about my requests for him to quit doing it. In fact, he launched into a tirade about my personal life when I told him to stop putting his spam on my door. The best part is that the man is a felon and apparently an addict. That’s just the kind of person I want working around my kids, by golly.

Letters to City Hall:

Greetings,

I have repeatedly tried to get the city to do something about Good Mourning Tree Company leaving advertising on my door to no avail. There was another flyer on my door this morning. Action needs to be taken ASAP. The company shows a complete disregard for city ordinances. Why on earth does he still have a permit? Please get this felon off my property!

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(originally sent September 22, 2005)
Hi there –

I originally sent you the below email on March 1, 2005. Today I noticed yet another flyer from Good Morning Tree Company on my front door. Can you please contact me to let me know what I need to do to keep this man off my property?

Thanks,

——————————————————————————–

(Originally sent March 1, 2005)
This company has left flyers on our doors several times over the past few years, and each time I have left them a message asking them not to do it anymore. Today I was lucky enough to speak with Sid Mourning at 512-657-4349. On the phone he was rude and unconcerned with my requests. He told me I must be very bored to worry about something like this. Last year while we were on vacation, we came home to find their flyers on our front door and on the garage, announcing to anyone who came by that we were out of town. I told him this, and he said, “Nobody is going to rob your house”. I thanked him for his reassurance and hung up, but I’m a little confused as to how he knows this.

We are listed on the No Soliciting list for the city.

I’m concerned about this man coming onto my property. He’s gotten multiple criminal convictions over the years, and is a felon.

Feb 11 2002 – Driving While License Suspended Enh — 6687b-(34)(a) VCS – CONVICTED – 2 days in jail
May 29 1986 – Cocaine-Possess — NA – CONVICTED – 12 months probation
Sep 28 1977 – Driving Under Influence Liquor  – CONVICTED – 1 year probation
Feb 20 1983 – Driving Under Influence Liquor – CONVICTED – 2 years probation
Oct 18 1973 – Marijuana – CONVICTED – 1 year probation
Mar 28 2003 – Poss Cs Pg 1 >=1g<4g — 481.115(c) HSC (Opioids, felony) – CONVICTED – 6 years probation

As you’re probably aware from speaking with him on the phone, he doesn’t appear to be the most stable person in the world. I would be quite relieved if the City of Westlake Hills rescinds his solicitation permit and refuses him again in the future.

Sincerely,

I can hear the Austin City Limits festival from my bathroom window. Coldplay is on. They’re playing “In My Place”.

That is all.

We’ve had coyotes behind our house every night for a couple of weeks. I called City Hall and they were blissfully unaware of there being dangerous consequences to this – just mentioned that some neighborhood cats had gone missing, but they couldn’t find any coyotes. Hell, I’ve got a coyote call and an AR-15. I’ll go out and help ’em find the damn things.

Hi there,

I called a little while ago and spoke to the guy who is in charge of animal control for the city about the coyotes we’ve been hearing at night. He said that Travis County hadn’t had a rabies case in a couple of years – unfortunately this isn’t the case.

http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/zoonosis/diseases/rabies/maps/county.jpg

As you can see, Travis County has had 20+ cases of rabies in 2005 alone.

I’ve got a call into the Travis County Sheriff’s department animal control as suggested, but wanted to let you know that the problem might be more severe than you think!

Also, title 25, section 169.34 is the rabies quarantine law I was speaking of. It is indeed still in effect.

With there being no leash law in Westlake Hills, we see dogs and cats roaming around the neighborhood all the time. It’s concerning to me that one of these animals might get into a scrap with a coyote, become infected with rabies, and then continue to roam free. My dogs and kids play in our yard, and several times we have had other dogs come onto our property – at times, we’ve been attacked by neighbor dogs while we’ve been in our own yard. Perhaps it’s time to consider a leash law?

Thanks for your consideration

I’ve owned two houses in Austin, both next to very big hills. At the last house, kids used to daredevil down the hill on their bikes. One time a boy lost control and I heard his tortured “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” as he flew into the neighbor’s yard.

The house we’re in now is on a much busier street, so we have seen 2 or three car accidents in the last four years. Relatively mundane, no real injuries.

The strangest thing I’ve seen on the street just happened half an hour ago. There was a prolonged squealing noise of tires on rubber. I glanced out the dining room windows in time to see a white VW Rabbit slowly promenading down the hill, like a grande dame making an entrance into a party. It came to a stop just beyond our driveway. The car was locked, not running, nobody inside of it. Not in gear, handbrake set. Just ooched down the hill all by itself. Surreal.

Update: The car in question. Click picture for larger version.

There were just now 8 blue jays sitting in my fig tree outside, screaming at each other over the fruit. They were also fending off some cardinals and what sounded like some large finches. It is summer now, and the locusts sing in the afternoons, a staccato rise and fall outside like breathing. In the evenings the crickets chirp. Did you know that if you count the number of cricket chirps in 15 seconds and add 39, that will tell you the temperature in Fahrenheit?

At night a little solo tree frog pips from around the front porch. Sometimes an owl hoots in the back yard, although he’s not been around much this year. The deer are thick in the yards, the males still in velvet, the does with babies.

The elm tree in the back has started the slow inexorable process of losing its leaves. It seems early to me this year, and I wonder if we will have an early winter. In the meantime the dogs romp around in the yard and scatter the yellowed leaves on the ground hither and fro, making meaningless canine patterns which I will try to read like tea leaves from a cup.

New York City is the diametrical opposite of this laid-back existence, but in some ways it parallels. Instead of locusts wailing in the evening, the fire engines do. Instead of blue jays screaming, the horns do. The swirling elm leaves become the mass of people swirling around you as you walk. There are so many that you become part of the leaves and are swept up in the same gust of wind that carries all the rest.

It’s a nice place to visit, but I am so glad to be home.