Ha – I know, I know. You look at me and see a whirlwind frenzy of globetrotting and peanut serving, ocean-hopping and lavatory monitoring. I can't imagine how glamorous this game of intercontinental hopscotch must appear. Left foot, Belize; right foot, Miami. Left foot, Shanghai; right foot, New York. Well, with a layover in Chicago. And we generally switch posts at that airport because it's a hub. You get the picture. ...

Admit it: sometimes you have those random Tuesday nights when you might be perfectly happy knocking back a few rounds with Mister 6'3" 18-to-89-year-old White/Asian/Hispanic Full-Figured Agnostic Non-Smoker. With a high school diploma.One of the internet's biggest dating sites is taking its free matchmaking services somewhere you wouldn't expect: offline. The creators of OkCupid, which published those surprising survey results about Austin singles back in August, today unveiled a new website called CrazyBlindDate.com. The idea's......

City officials have turned away FOX's crapfest viewer-favorite Cops, which was supposed to start filming here very soon. A couple years ago, Travis County Sheriffs were featured on the ultimate reality show (and plan to be on the show again), but Austin officials aren't allowing APD to get involved with it. While some in the Austin Police Association are disappointed, it may be best that America is spared seeing another half-naked drunk person being......

This Memorial Day holiday, we dusted off the Austinist company van for our annual trip down to the Kerrville Folk Festival for a beer-drenched, music-filled, puddle-hopping four-day weekend just two hours outside of Austin. Situated within the meadows and hills of the Quiet Valley Ranch, the folk festival—which started in 1972 as a gathering of a few friends/musicians who decided to camp out and play music for a few days—is now well into its......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

The Austin Film Festival kicked off its 13th year last night with several film screenings, the conference, and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) cocktail party at Rio Grande. And yes, for those who didn't know, the former Real World space is now a restaurant. Check out these pics of the hot happenings and stay tuned for further bulletins about Austin's very own celebration of all things cinematic.......

As you may have heard, Schlitterbahn Waterpark – the massive expanse of water rides, germ-infested tube-streams and jaundiced kiddie pools in New Braunfels, Texas – may be the focus of a new MTV reality show, Waterpark, in which the park’s employees – mostly adolescents from 16 to 22 – will be put under the lens. The show represents an effort by MTV to attract a younger demographic of viewers. Schlitterbahn has reportedly agreed to filming,......

The Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest? Brilliant. Here’s a contest where the point is to show the world that not only can a single human eat and vomit a whole gallon of material within fifteen minutes, but that the “material” need not even be food, let alone nutritious. It helps the entire Sub-Saharan region to understand that what might currently be seen as inedible or even deadly to ingest, is actually perfectly fine to eat if done in a highly competitive format and dipped in a cup of tepid water first. Anything can be seen as food if you’d just stop nay-saying. Stuff like sand, your own hand, or an overwhelming sense of disappointment in your fellow man. ...

On the menu today: Sizzling underwater action! Hot Art School brats! Delicious football soccer stars! Scrumptious teen empires! Delectable California Jews! Tasty foreign brides! Bon appetit! Poseidon We’ve said it before, and now we’re saying it again: Josh Lucas is the new Kevin Costner. Careful, Josh. Remember what happened after Kevin’s big “water” movie? Yeah. Nothing good. *Art School Confidential We didn’t go to Art School. We imagine it’s just like the stories say:......

Those of you who still aren't over last season's Real World: Austin can now finally hang out inside the warehouse space used to house the over-sexed, under-medicated twenty-somethings: Colorado-based Mexican restaurant chain Rio Grande is taking up residency at 301 San Jacinto starting this Saturday, alongside various and sundry props that appeared on the show. Like a purported 17-foot neon sign screaming "BIG TEX." Good gaud! Oddly enough, this makes it the first of......

The highlight of SXSW Interactive Day Two, apart from a confounding mock cosplay battle outside the front entrance to the Convention Center (promotion for a documentary screening at SXSW Film), was the morning's Tagging 2.0 discussion. With all this buzz surrounding the so-called Web 2.0 -- which, we're loath to admit, we still don't actually understand -- moderator Don Turnbull thought it prudent to use a similar catch-phrase, as both emerging technologies (or concepts)......

So, like, you guys, guess WHAT? Tara Reid is totally in Austin right now! OMG! She’s like, BFF with Paris Hilton! No shit! Like, she got into town yesterday, and she’s just chillin’ with some of her girlfriends for a while. Yeah, like, she was hanging out at Six last night. Seriously! Our friend Aimee’s ex-boyfriend Brad like, TOTALLY tried to hit on her. He is such a tool. OMG y’all, maybe she’ll like,......

-Keeping your cell phone on in London can get you kicked out of the theatre -Google aims to ease your holiday shopping ordeals -MTV's Real World: Austin ends tonight. Yawn. -The iTunes music store has become one of the top ten song sellers in the States -The hotly anticipated Xbox 360 hit stores today - and promptly sold out -Gary Glitter faces the death sentence in Vietnam after [allegedly] having sex with a 12-year......

The Frost Building in downtown Austin. In case you haven't seen it enough on The Real World.......

We watched episode twelve from a bed in the Hilton Hotel in mid-town Manhattan. We were on a business trip that we didn't particularly want to go on. We've been watching a lot of episodes on the road lately, and it's making us home sick. (We're actually writing this recap at Chicago's Midway airport.) And here's the thing -- seeing those silly shots of the Frost Bank building, the montages of Congress Ave and......

Monday night, pop culture nerds swarmed Book People to see Chuck Klosterman, author of "Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story." As we are pop culture nerds, we were sitting on the front row. Klosterman is a senior writer for Spin and a contributor for Esquire. "Killing Yourself to Live" is his third book, and it follows Klosterman on a trip across the country in the summer of 2003, visiting several sites......

OMG, we are so late writing our weekly recap of The Real World that for a while we were considering not even doing one. I mean, how relevant is a recap once the episode has been aired three hundred and fifty times? But then we realized that this episode has another few thousand runs in it's lifetime, which means that our grandchildren will probably be watching it on their Lazer Vision 8000-X Holographic Brain......

George W. Bush: aka Dubya, President of the United States, dumbass Owen Wilson: aka The Butterscotch Stallion, screenwriter, asslicker, and Movie Star Wes Anderson: writer/director of the best films ever(Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, etc), wears cool glasses Sandra Bullock: aka Mrs. Jesse James, producer, movie star, nice gal Matthew McConaughey: bongo player, weed smoker, movie star, hunk Marcia Gay Harden: character actress, Oscar winner Benjamin McKenzie: stud, lead actor of the O.C. Molly Ivins: whip-smart......

So, we’re a little late in posting about this, but that’s just because we’re so damn cool we couldn’t be bothered. Forbes magazine has once again released their Official Rankings of the best cities in the U.S. for singles, as calculated by Really Smart People using Highly Scientific Methodology. Overall, Austin was ranked #11, right behind our buddies in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Seattle, respectively. Most impressively, Austin ranked Numero Uno in......

More minds than Mencia'sRich white adults are likely protesting, claiming "who will cut our grass and watch our kids?!" as the projected increases in the Hispanic population has the state's higher education people planning for an increase in Hispanic enrollment in college. [Statesman] London police buddies with APD?London police have shot and killed a suspicious guy wearing a trench coat in a subway station. Little more details than that as of now. [KXAN] "Celebrities"......

Before we begin, we'd like to point out the interesting comments left by reader Sgt. Anonymous, who gave us some insight into Rachel's actual experiences in the military with quotes from a magazine called Air Force Times, which clearly isn't getting enough real news from the military about the wars we are fighting, and has to fill its pages with nonsense about The Real World. Oh, we are so political! How about that Supreme......

As is our tradition around here, the first order of business before we get into the dirty details of this week's episode is to list off the errors and errata that have been submitted since last week. In our previous recap, we accidentally said that Danny and Melinda were in front of the "Driscoll" hotel, when we meant to say "Driskill." Also, we were totally wrong, it wasn't either of these hotels. In other......

Because we never turn down a chance to dither on about something we know nothing about on television, this Austinist contributor was just filmed for tonight's 10 o'clock news on KXAN about the underage drinking portrayed in recent episodes of The Real World: Austin, about which we write a very funny recap. We think the reporter's line of questioning will convey the general idea of what this report will be about. It went something......

We begin this week's recap with a few small corrections to the last one, which have been requested by umpteenzillion readers. First off, the person who appears in episode 2 in the big directors chair is John Pierson, not Paul Stekler. Stekler appears later on in the episode, and is the guy who is going to actually be helping the housemates film their documentary. Pierson is the guy who had to defend his relationship......

Due to retardation problems on the part of the editor of this site, and an errant button press on the TiVo remote while we were buffering the show so that we wouldn't have to watch commericials -- there may have been weed involved -- we screwed up big time and didn't get to watch the third episode of The Real World last night when it aired. BUT DON'T WORRY! We've got our TiVo set......

We were surprised the other day when, on our regular "Can We Get Ourselves On TV" drive by the Real World house, we noticed that not only has the large, glowing AUSTIN sign been taken down, but so has all the nice landscaping that surrounded the building. We don't know what the plans are for that space now that our newest neighbors have fled the city, but we thought they'd at least leave a......

As you watch the next episode of The Real World, eyes glued to the television like a loyal member of the Viacom Special Forces, you may notice, if you are incredibly detail oriented, that one of the items of furniture in the Real World house is a gigantic beanbag chair. This chair was made by a company called Sumo Lounge whose core business is the making of gigantic beanbag chairs. The beanbag chairs are......

Make sure to swing over to Tambaleo (302 Bowie St.) tonight to help DJ Mel celebrate Krunkaoke's First Anniversary. Show up promptly at 11pm to enjoy beats getting dropped quicker than a Real World cast member. To celebrate the occasion, Mel and JahMighty have hand selected a few of their favorite Krunkaoke regulars to make special appearances. If this is in fact true, tonight is the perfect night to get loose widdit. Yeah, we......

If the visions of debauchery seen in the season premiere of The Real World: Austin is any indicator of what is to come, we may have on our hands a pop culture episodic that carefully documents the total disintegration of all things good and wholesome, like a giant Nothing rolling across the land, destroying everything in its path. This is like the decadence of Ancient Rome - orgies, gladiator combat, drunken celebrations of Bacchus......