Obama takes South Carolina by storm in the Democratic Primary contest with 55% of the vote. Hillary came in second with 27% and Edwards landed in third position with 18%. The Vineland Festival - originally scheduled for its debut in August 2008 - has been temporarily canceled by its promoter, Austin's C3 Presents. New study claims that isolation's not only bad for human beings, but that it "breeds belief in the supernatural." English doctors......

I don’t believe I’m properly equipped to "welcome" myself after yet another year of meeting with you on Tuesdays (sometimes Wednesdays, Thursdays, Whateverdays). And it’s not easy to express my gratitude to people I’ve never met. People who have so many different reasons for being here, for something so irreverently personal. So I’ll defer my copy to the illustrious Mr. Samuel Clemens, as he handed thanks to the Lotus Club in 1908....

2008 has yet to reveal its true heavy hitters release-wise, and it's just as well: I haven't even had time to absorb a thousand or so top ten lists, my own personal reflections on 2007, and my expectations for the new year. Even so, there is a handful of intriguing things this week, provided you like Various Artists. Typically, I'm into Various Artists only when the compilation features new, unreleased and / or collaborative......

Year end lists can be exasperating and tedious, yet we find ourselves addicted to them anyway. Something about the structured format for opinions inspires discussion, frustration and elation in all of us, regardless of our own sympathy or disdain for the list-maker. ...

SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others. Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list. Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island. LAist received a Christmas present in the form of a drunk Santa Claus in a g-string. Bostonist launched......

Doctors plugged an Italian tourist into a drip-feed of vodka to save him at a hospital in Australia that ran out of the medicinal alcohol it would normally have used for treatment. Plants chatter amongst themselves to spread information, a lot like humans and other animals, new research suggests. Actor Nick Nolte is a father again at age 66 after his British girlfriend of several years, Clytie Lane, gave birth to the couple's first......

Remember how Beyonce fell on her ass at a concert and said she didn't want anyone posting videos of it? The folks at Shout Mouth have compiled their Top Ten Most Embarrassing Stage Falls (with video accompaniment, of course). Do you remember the last State of the Union when Bush honored Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of Baby Einstein (a series of infant educational programs)? Yeah...those programs don't actually work. Scary: Shitload of Germans pile on......

Attention local bands: SXSW 2008 is accepting your applications to be showcase performers during the week long festival come March. The deadline is November 9, 2007 for stateside applicants. If your band has a Sonicbid membership, you can register using that account. Otherwise, register online. Future SXSW attendees can register online to attend, too: music badges are a mere $500 through September 28. Paper Thin Walls feature Austin's Best Fwends: "It's a very mixed......

THURSDAY [14] dance • Constellation, a site-specific dance work from Sally Jacques at Pickle & Thornberry Federal Courthouses (9pm) art • Guest Tour with Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa at Blanton Museum of Art, MLK at Congress (Thursdays are always free at the Blanton,12:30-1:30pm) art • Opening reception for "Just Been Fired," the mostly at Gallery Lombardi (7-10pm) art and books • Blanton Book Club at Blanton Museum of Art, MLK at Congress 6-7:30pm) books • Reginald......

Well, the title of this story pretty much says it all. Or, at least most of it. Men's Health magazine recently published a ranking of the top 50 dog-friendly cities in the country. Dear old Austin made the top ten, coming in at 7th place nationwide. Among the criteria that Men's Health considered were animal cruelty laws, the number of veterinarian clinics and the number of dog parks. This seems like a good ranking spot......

We all know that Austin is a great city for kids looking to date around or have a drink, but according to a new study, it's also among the top ten job markets for college grads. Bizjournals, the national publisher of metropolitan business newspapers with branches in over forty cities, reports that current economic conditions couldn't be better for the million-plus college seniors entering the workforce this year. "The outlook this year is very good,"......

For the sixth year in a row, MovieMaker Magazine has ranked Austin in the top 3 of its “Top Ten U.S. Cities to Live and Make Movies” list. And though we’ve slipped a little this year (we sat at number two for the last two years, just behind New York City), we still beat the crap out of Shreveport, which feels pretty good. Moviemaker cited the “unique education and support that the [Austin] community fosters......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

The magazine Natural Home has put South Congress second on its list of America's Best Eco-Neighborhoods. The list appears to be arranged alphabetically by city name, so being second doesn't really matter, but at least it's in the top ten. The area's walkability, integration of residential and commercial space, and access to public transportation helped put it on the list. Great local stores like Farm to Market and Ecowise probably also helped. SoCo is......

Or so the people at HappyNews.com like to think. Today they released their Top Ten Happy Stories of 2006. Some of these items are genuine "news" items, such as NBA player Dikembe Mutombo donating millions of dollars to start a hospital in his native Congo, Warren Buffett's ginormous donation to the Gates foundation, and Google allowing free book downloads. The website also includes some random human interest stories on the list, such as "Boy......

In Money Magazine's annual Top Ten Best Big Cities list, published online yesterday, Austin came out in second place. Oddly enough, we weren't anywhere near the top for their separate rankings of metrics like Job Growth, Skinniest, Youngest, Safest, and Most Singles. According to the magazine's survey, our population of nearly 700,000 (over half of whom are college educated) has a healthy median age of just under 31 and spends almost $7000 a year......

If you've ever signed a lease on an apartment or purchased older property here in Austin, you're probably all too familiar with our raging mold problem. We always assumed it was the relative humidity coupled with the heat, but a recent study published by the Greenguard Environmental Institute (GEI) seems to indicate otherwise. GEI's Top 10 States at Risk for Mold calls Texas, not surprisingly, the moldiest state in the country. Computed by analyzing "mold......

Elizabeth Cobbe, our esteemed colleague over at the Austin Chronicle, has put together a great article profiling the top ten up-and-comers in Austin's "rebel" theatre scene. As you may have noticed, Austinist has a weak spot for rebellious types, so we were excited to find the new punks on the block listed in one handy, helpful spot. (And to give full disclosure we were indeed pleased the company co-helmed by Austinist's own Jonathon Morgan......

A few weeks ago, we told you about the Sustainable Shopper's Ball, a local pro-green organization that holds occasional outdoor market festivals at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market, one of Audobon Magazine's top ten FMs in the country. Their next event, on Saturday, May 20th, promises to be bigger and better than the last, with even more vendors, lectures on green-living, activities for the kids, and local businesses attending. SSB #3 also coincides with the......

Last year, we had a great time at the Bolm Studio's 'Will There Ever be a Rainbow' unicorn art show which Ian Shults and Michael Schliefke produced and which the Austin Chronicle put on their top ten best list of group shows. And now we're looking forward to seeing the latest display of new paintings by Michael Schliefke at Bolm Studios. Schliefke's site gives more detail about the opening:In addition to roughly twenty new paintings......

We got beat out by Eugene, Oregon in The Green Guide's list of the top ten green cities for 2006. That's cool; we'll take it. The Guide's criteria for the list include: air quality, electricity usage/production, green design, recycling, public health and other factors. What they think about Austin [from their article]:Austin . . . stands out for its commitment to solar power and green building. Offering its customers one of the highest solar......

For the second year in a row, Austin has been named the #2 American city in the annual rankings of the "best places to live, work and make movies," according to industry magazine MovieMaker. It's also the sixth consecutive year that our town has been in the top ten. Praising the powerhouse Austin Film Commission for its dedication to "bringing exciting new programs and initiatives, ... from the smallest detail to the biggest," MovieMaker......

-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......

Never ones to turn down an awesome spanakopita, mezze or shish-kebob, we're eagerly anticipating this weekend's Mediterranean Festival over at the Saint Elias Orthodox Church grounds. For over seven decades, the church has held this annual festival on its grounds to celebrate Middle Eastern cuisines and culture - last year they were among the Chronicle's top ten "food events" in Austin. Today and tomorrow, feast until your innards explode on delicious Mediterranean appetizers and......

-Yesterday the Senate almost unanimously approved John McCain's bill to set official standards for the military's treatment of detainees. The White House countered that this would "limit the president's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism." We won't bother commenting on that statement. -Spies from the Philippines may have infiltrated the White House! TomKat are expecting, Kate Moss might be arrested on charges of supplying cocaine upon return to Britain,......

While visiting the d berman gallery this weekend to check out their current black and white photography exhibits - George Krause's Sfumato Nudes and Sean Perry's Transitory Series - we got ahold of a copy of Mr. Perry's limited-edition book of the same works being shown, "Transitory". In "Transitory", Sean Perry - who last year was among the Austin Chronicle's Top Ten Artists of 2004, and rightfully so - explores the geometrical subtleties inherent......

A new campaign geared to a healthier lifestyle was kicked off this week by the Austin/Travis Country Health and Human Services department. The campaign, called i thrive is a "community initiative to motivate people to make healthy lifestyle choices so they can live longer, more fulfilling lives." A survey done by the CDC reveals that obesity is a heavy issue in Texas. More than one out of four adults in Texas is considered clinically......

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......

Ever present on the constantly changing mental roster of our Top Ten Favorite Films is A Bout de Souffle ("Breathless"), the visually stunning and morally ambiguous first effort by French New Wave director Jean Luc Godard. While its plot verges on the overly simplistic (Man Steals Car; Man Murders Cop; Man Falls In Love With Beautiful Girl While On the Run; Someone Dies!), Breathless is arguably one of the finest manifestations of existentialist thought:......