Reason the power was out in East Austin Wednesday afternoon: a copper theft gone seriously wrong. The Cowboy Breakfast this morning kicked off the rodeo in town by providing a free breakfast to everyone there at 6am. Slightly reminiscent of "Daisy": Obama campaign unhappy with Hillary's new "Children" campaign ad. Clinton attends funeral of Dallas cop who died while serving in her motorcade. Huckabee makes campaign stop in Waco today. Show your voter registration card and ride the bus for free on election day....

Another interview with our governor: he tells the Washington Post, "just because you're a liberal doesn't mean that you can't be loyal, trustworthy and kind and obedient." Good to know. Federal judge decides to suspend the law preventing groups from raising funds to lobby for the ouster of the Texas Speaker. Is Craddick soon to be outta here? Dukes campaign manager complains about Thompson's big donors; Dukes herself has received a chunk of change from GOP donor Bob Perry. Double homicide on East Sixth Street early this morning. Firefighters fighting garage fire in Northwest Austin this morning find a body inside....

Local author Sarah Bird (The Yokota Officers Club, Virgin of the Rodeo, The Mommy Club, The Boyfriend School, and Alamo House) doesn't know how to just sit down and write a book. For her, research for a novel—say, one about flamenco music and dance—means picking up and moving to New Mexico for a summer to take flamenco dance lessons at The University of New Mexico. This may sound a little extreme when she could've hacked......

While lounging amongst hundreds of lesbians at HRC’s Dinah Lakeshore event two weekends ago, we noticed a few people emerge from the mass of tank tops in full-on Western-wear: they were there to spread the word about the Texas Gay Rodeo Association’s Capitol City Rodeo. Hopelessly hypnotized by the man’s Southern drawl and his ability to delve into the most fascinating details concerning the art of calf roping, we were already sold on the event......

ME Television is looking for someone who can be themselves—they want someone who is confident, likes music, has a strong knowledge of Austin, and isn’t afraid to smile. At least that’s what the judges for The Next VeeJay told hundreds of hopefuls who turned out for yesterday's first round of open call auditions at Midnight Rodeo. "This is a cheap knockoff of American Idol,” said Kevin Connor, Vice President of Music and Artist Relations......

ME Television (Time Warner cable channel 15), Austin's local music video station, is gearing up for their own reality show which will be based on their nationwide search for two new VeeJays. The first set of open auditions takes place Thursday, August 30 in Austin. These auditions will be filmed for the reality series, which will start showing on ME in October. Duties of ME VeeJays include artist interviews, as well as coverage of......

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents Michael Mabbott's 2005 country rock mockumentary The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico. The films stars Matt Murphy, best known for his Canadian indie-rock bands The Superfriendz and The Flashing Lights. The film features appearances by country music superstars like Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson, as well as Canadian country favorites like Ronnie Hawkins and Blue Rodeo (and CBC TV personality George Stroumboulopoulos). The film had its Austin premiere......

Believe it or not, there's a bunch of activities going on around town this week other than SXSW. This week's IST List won't include our usual bevy of music and film events; for those, we recommend that you check out our Interactive Guide to SXSW Parties and the Other Side Guide, respectively. We'd also like to welcome LAist editor Tony Pierce and Gothamist arts editor Jen Carlson, both of whom will be joining us......

Hot on the heels of Emo's being listed as one of Playboy.com's top rock clubs, Nightclub & Bar magazine today published their annual Editors' Choice Top 100 rankings of bars and clubs in the country. VICCI and Stubb's BBQ both made the list. The two venues couldn't be more different: the former is a ritzy, bleached-blonde dance club in the swanky Warehouse District, while the latter serves up Texas-sized helpings of rock and roll......

The Austin Museum of Digital Art (AMODA) returns to The Mohawk tonight to host Digital Showcase 40. We'll let them tell you about tonight's show: The headliner for this month's Digital Showcase is DAT Politics from France. Over the last six years, this trio has released six albums packed with distorted bleeps, 8-bit video game melodies, cute pet recordings, and other sonic oddities. Their latest album, ‘Wow Twist’, was recently released on Chicks On Speed......

The Star of Texas Rodeo starts its two week run today at the Exposition Center. A propane truck overturned in Lockhart yesterday. The weather is to blame for the faulty SAT scores scanned here in town. Now we have a 10,000 Maniacs song stuck in our head. Did we need another reason not to visit Oklahoma? Their House has approved the Academic Freedom Act, which leaves it up to the teacher to decide which......

The running season, that is. Remember how we told you about all those races last weekend? Well there are more this weekend. And next weekend. And every weekend. Sweet Jesus! We can't keep up! Those guys from the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo are really looking out for us. Friday morning, they're offering a fat bomb of a Cowboy Breakfast, but then they're giving us the chance to work it off in the......

Time to saddle up the Vespa and git on down to Auditorium Shores to grab some free grub at the annual Brokeback Cowboy Breakfast this Friday morning from 6-9. This event has become the traditional kick-off to the Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo, which will be in our fair town from March 11 – 25th. Start saving your appetite now because there will be quite a heart-attack-on-a-plate spread including, “cowboy coffee, sausage, donuts,......

Tuesday night marked the halfway point of the NBA season, and our (nearly) local team marked the occasion by absolutely obliterating the Charlotte Bobcats 104-76. It doesn't look so bad on paper, but the Spurs were winning so handily that they played their bench for nearly the entire second half. Even Spurs 12th man (and Napoleon Dynamite lookalike) Sean Marks had 9 points. It looked like a bad high school game. With this and......