Aaron Stanush

photo / Daniel Nicolas Doubleplusungoood :( 

Austin will be rolling out its much anticipated automated camera program aimed at catching motorists who run red lights. The unveiling has been appropriately scheduled to coincide with Memorial Day Weekend — a time when citizens honor fallen military servants by getting blitzed on Icehouse and then driving their cars.

Starting this Friday, May 23, the first camera system will become operational at the intersection of 11th St and the I-35 northbound access road.

Top left: Key Lime Pie (2007), top right: Usavich (2006), bottom left: Untitled Opener by Joel Trussell (2008), bottom right: Psychotown (2008) 

Animation Show 4 is a showcase of the best independent animated short films from around the world. And tonight they are kicking of their 4th world tour with two screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz.

From the Alamo Drafthouse:

The Animation Show is back with an all new collection of incredible independent animation. This year, Austin’s own Mike Judge has gathered together over two dozen of his favorite funny short films from around the world. It’s a groundbreaking program of eye-popping adult animation from tomorrow’s next great animators!

If you can’t make it out tonight don’t worry — Animation Show 4 will be playing at the Drafthouse every day until Thursday, May 1st.

Read more about the films at the official Animation Show website.

Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz (Downtown)
April 25 through May 1, 2008
$8.25

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Ooh, just like Grand Theft Auto. Except without all the bazooka-wielding criminals. At least for now.

Some 3D modelers have been some busy bees lately — most of Austin’s downtown landscape has been converted into 3D photo-realistic models and placed inside Google Earth. But it doesn’t stop there, buildings from the UT Campus, South Congress, and even the East side have been built as well. We’re starting to have a nice little virtual tour of the city on our hands — thanks Google.

If you’re not familiar with Google Earth, it will totally blow your mind. Think Google Maps but with higher detail and extra features such as the photo-realistic buildings, 3D terrain, advanced camera controls, places of interest, and lots of community-generated markers (like secret places). You can view a nice tour of all these features here.

Now that you’re convinced. Here’s how to start exploring Austin or anyplace else in the world on Google Earth.

graphic / yellowpagesgoesgreen.org 

Personally, I’d like to see phone books stop being printed altogether. I realize most of our grandparents still require the paper behemoth to remind themselves how early Luby’s opens. But for most of us phone books are effectively obsolete. Now’s your chance; go to yellowpagesgoesgreen.org and click the “sign up” button. You’ll need to give them your name, address, and an email address for verification. Think of it like donotcall.gov for phone books.

The folks over at Austin Sound have just released a free download of Sound Advice Vol II: The Latest Toughs (An Austin Sound Compilation)

photo / Jimmy Prescott  

From austinsound.net:

The past year has been an impressive one for Austin music. Both Okkervil River and Spoon cemented their place among the cream of the indie crop with excellent releases, Bill Callahan emerged impressively from his smoggy haze, and Octopus Project brought an avalanche of national attention. Ghostland Observatory rode a wave lasers across nearly every major festival to carry them beyond their allotted 15 minutes and Billy Joe Shaver shot some guy in the face outside a bar the week of a Greatest Hits release – that’s how to drum up press, Texas style. So in anticipation of the beloved onslaught of SXSW and to welcome everyone back to Austin, we present our second digital compilation, Sound Advice Vol. II: The Latest Toughs.

Get the MP3s and read about the featured bands.

Oh, and in case you missed Volume One, get it here.

The URL

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thatotherpaper

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Here’s a video to help you wrap your brain around this exciting (and frightening) new technology.

OK, I get it, how do I use it?

Many web browsers have built-in RSS support

• Firefox
• Internet Explorer 7/8
• Safari
• Opera

Web-based RSS readers

Desktop RSS readers

• Vienna (Mac OS X)
• RSSOwl (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux)

Relax…in style? 

If you’ve ever wanted to sit in true style Austin, now is your chance. For only $70 you can enjoy this once in a lifetime opportunity to own part of home furnishing history. Throw in an extra 5 bucks and you get a matching hairy elephant lamp.

Act now! This lovely pair won’t last.

photo / Aaron Stanush  

Last night the ever-hip auto manufacturer Scion hosted yet another cultural event in Austin. Installation 4: It’s A Beautiful World kicked off the 4th year of the month-long tour where contemporary artists’ works are hauled all over the nation for mass appreciation.

Hordes of attendees packed themselves into the moderately-sized Gallery Lombardi. Despite being slightly uncomfortable inside, the size of the crowd did take its toll as one of Andrew Pommier’s sculptures was bumped off its pedestal and broken into several pieces. Besides this, the event went off without a hitch, including a tapped keg of Live Oak and DJ Mel spinning in the background.

Even if you think Scion builds ugly vehicles, you have to give them credit for their dead-on success at targeting Generation Y. Scion has also hosted several events at the Alamo Drafthouse screening cutting-edge documentaries, often with the director present. Keep an eye out for more of these events at scion.com/route.

Courtesy of Scion Live Metro: Austin 

Attention headz, Ghostface (of the infamous Wu-Tang Clan) is descending upon Sixth Street this Saturday. The best part, it’s F-R-E-E. All you have to do is go to scion.com/livemetro and RSVP.

Spots are limited, and the RSVP system closes on Saturday at 5pm, so hurry! Don’t miss this chance to see a legend.

photo / ColdTowne 

The folks over at Coldtowne Theater are ready to christen the new Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz with their award-winning production 3, 2, 1-KILL!.

From ColdTowne

Let’s just get it out there: Fun Fun Fun Fest was pretty much what its name implied.

Strap your socks on, because what I’m about to reveal to you will blow them right through your shoes.

Google Translate can only glean as to the true meaning of this remarkable retelling of the Super Mario and Luigi brothers’ epic tale. Here is a glimpse.

Designed by Aaron Stanush 

One year ago, a momentous event occurred: Austin’s Only Paper was born. Since that day, Austin has seen a revolution in the way the news and culture are spread. Instead of homing pigeons and grapevines, people can now use That Other Paper to get their important news and information on events in town.

Friday, November 9th, 10pm to 2am

This event is FREE! FREE! FREE!

@ Scoot Inn 1308 E 4th St, Austin, TX 78702

Bring everyone you know! But they’ve gotta be 21 or older

Performing at the party

The Jolly Garogers, pirate rock from Austin!

Fishboy, the cutest indie band in the galaxy

DJ Manny of DJ Dojo will be emceeing and spinning all night

The comedy and musical stylings of The Fred and Joel Show

Bryan Gutmann, Funniest Person in Austin

But wait, there’s more!

Three Xbox 360 stations with Halo 3 provided by Microsoft

Giveaways from Freebirds, Microsoft, Creative Commons, Birds Barbershop, That Other Paper, ColdTowne Theater, and more

Brought to you by

Four Kitchen Studios

Gamecock Media Group

ColdTowne Theater

Austin Tidbits

Creative Commons

Birds Barbershop

Freebirds World Burrito

The internet has declared that today is Blog Action Day, a day for all bloggers to unite under one banner and make readers around the world aware that our planet is spiraling towards ultimate doom.

The event’s message:

photo / Berbercarpet 

If you want to buying something and don’t care about getting it new, chances are Craigslist is the first place you turn. Most of us are familiar scouring the sea of posts looking for the best deal. But what about when your own crap stacks too high and you need unload the weight?

photo / Kristin Hillery 

Sad news yesterday, my friends. Austin’s beloved Sound Team are giving up their glamorous rock star lifestyles. Bassist Bill Baird summed up the reason in his blog as “Nothing too dramatic. Just time to move on, that’s all.”

photo / gustav* — illustration / Aaron Stanush 

Social networking site Facebook.com has begun automatically opting in its users search engine indexing. This makes the content of user profiles available to popular search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live.

photo / michale 

Computer scientists in Canada have spent the last two decades trying to perfect a computer program that cannot lose at a game of checkers. Today they’ve done it.

In order to achieve this, the team at the University of Alberta used an average of 50 concurrently running computers to compute all 500 billion billion possible combinations of moves.

photo / tomask 

According to the Statesman, Apple is expanding its already massive 275,000 sq ft campus by constructing another 80,000 sq ft building in Northwest Austin.

Of course, Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA, dwarfs Austin’s effort with its six buildings totaling a mammoth 850,000 sq ft.