I apologize for my crappy screenshot skillz but it reads “Start at the market at 6th & Lamar. Find the Amtrak sign by the tracks. Walk west along the tracks to the second light pole and peer through the trees until you see red.”

The market in question is obviously Whole Foods but the rest of it is still pretty cryptic….hrm….

There is also a clue for Austin that says “Near Riverside & Barton Springs is a car wash with a mural. Go there, then find a nearby manhole that says SEWAR, stand on it and scan the skyline. I’d like to buy a vowel.”

That would be the Chevron Station.

And another that says “At Congress & 6th is the Littlefield Building Clock. Go east on 6th, past a compass rose in the sidewalk. You’ll come to a street corner with a set of stairs, and there, above a stained glass door, you’ll find a gold gilt goodie.”

Austin’s the only city in Texas picked for this little adventure and it joins cities like LA, New York, Raleigh, Cleveland, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago and others. Batman has always been my favorite and it will be SO fun to see the clues come together tomorrow (and see what reward comes our way- could it be a full length trailer?) and you should definitely go check out whatever they’ve got going on! If you see it, let me know!

One of Austin’s hottest hometown bands, Ghostland Observatory, will be the musical guest tonight on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which comes on NBC around 11:30-11:40ish. (Also, some guy named Jake Gyllenhaal. Wonder if he’s in anything I’ve seen?)

This is such great news for them and not-so-great news for those of us who miss getting our toes stepped on at their early Emo’s shows. Way to go, guys!

Bad news though. My wife drove out there today and a sign on Ba Le’s door said “closed until December 2006.” No explaination given.

With a craving for Vietnamese sandwiches, she stopped off at nearby Tam’s Deli. We’ve been to Tam’s before on a recommendation from a Vietnamese friend, but didn’t like the sandwiches as much. Today was no different. We both agreed the sandwiches were just not as good.

So where else can I get good Vietnamese sandwiches in town?

It topped the overall list – its first time atop the Princeton Review chart – by ranking second in the use of hard liquor, third in beer drinking and 13th in marijuana smoking.

I doubt if we’ll be seeing the tower lit in orange tonight after this big win. Well done.

That’s great, we are still creating lots of jobs. Excellent. But there does not appear to be a lot of start up activity. That is the area of the economy that I am most interested in. That’s what brought me to Austin in the first place. I can remember driving down Mopac and seeing Dr. Koop on one side, Garden.com on the other and feeling like I was at the center of something.

There is another dot.com boom going on. Some might call it a bubble. Some might call it rational exuberance. Whatever you call it, it does not seem like Austin is one of the major hubs like it was back in 1.0. Sure there are Austin start ups being formed, raising money, and being bought, but it seems like much more activity is in other cities.

If I look down the industry job board at 37 Signals – one of the de factor poster children of Web 2.0 – I don’t see any Austin companies on the list. O’Reilly ranked Austin number 7 for online startup jobs, behind San Diego, Seattle, and Washington DC, all cities I thought we would be ahead of.

So what’s the deal? Have we slipped? Moved on? Is it a good thing? What can we do about it?

Blue Star is the new restaurant on Burnett by Eddie Bernal. My wife really likes his 34th Street Cafe, but I’m not crazy about his take on tex-mex at Santa Rita. Blue Star hit all the right notes for us. My parents loved the meat loaf, saying the brown gravy was the best they have ever had. That’s saying a lot since brown gravy is a staple of their Southeast Texas fixins. My spinach lasagne was big and tasty. My wife had a vegatable bowl she thought was excellent. We shared an appetizer of fried artichoke, that everybody liked, including my 16 month old. I heard one couple next to us commenting on how good the food was as well.

I thought the pricing was reasonable. Our bill came to just over sixty bucks for 4 people, including two classes of wine and a beer. Most of the entrees were $9.95 or so.

I think my parents have forgotten all about the macaroni and cheese and square fish patties at Luby’s after last night.

At yesterday’s city council meeting, the council approved a $317,500 proposal to pay a Virginia outfit called GTSI Corp. (Nasdaq: GTSI) to do a technical trial to design, build, and operate a system to provide broadband Internet service over the city’s power grid.

What concerns me is the company GTSI. Did the council see this Washington Post article entitled “GTSI’s Struggles Lead Ernst & Young to Doubt Firm’s Ability to Survive“?

The article states:

In financial results for 2005 that had been delayed, the company also disclosed that its independent accounting firm, Ernst & Young LLP, had informed executives that there was “substantial doubt” that GTSI could continue as a going concern. GTSI had $22,000 in cash at the end of 2005, down from $397,000 last year.

On the plus side, the Post article indicates GTSI recently received a $125 million revolving credit line. Although, usually these lines of credits have enough convenants and provisions where if something slips, the line of credit dries up.

And it sounds like this company was until recently a computer reseller without a long track record in deploying broadband over power lines (BPL). I don’t know the technical challenges involved, but I am assuming there are some significant hurdles. With GTCI employees jumping ship, are the best engineers still around. It’s doubtful.

BPL is sort of the Sasquatch of broadband. We’ve heard about it for years, but has anyone actually seen it? By going with GTCI, will Austin see anything out of this $327,000 investment?

Tagging is something I just don’t get. Is it considered an art form? I guess maybe the art could be in the sheer volume of tags, but that is being generous. Is it competition to see who can tag the most things? I’ve never thought of it as gang-related as the News 8 article suggested. I found this article that provides background on it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop it?

In my neigborhood, our green Grande service boxes became covered with tags. I called Grande up, told them we were having a neighborhood cleanup, and they in turn provided a group of about 8 volunteers, spray paint, and graffitti removal solvent. With their help, we cleaned up the neighborhood in a couple of hours. Grande was very generous with their time.

Since then I read where in NYC, they found the best measure is to have a 24 hour clean-up policy. If graffitti is reported in NYC, the graffitti will be removed in less than a day. They found that it became not worth it to many of the more casual taggers if it is taken down as quickly as it goes up.

Last night I checked out my good friend Douglas Greer at Jovita’s. Doug is kind of a late bloomer musically, but has assembled a great set of musicians behind him (Chip Dolan, Robert McEntee) and written some great songs. I’ve been humming “Black Train” all morning. You should give it a listen.

Tonight, my wife and I are planning to go see Buttercup at Hole in the Wall. My wife fell in love with them at SXSW.

I thought Patrice put in one of the stronger performances last week, but there is some strong competition. That crazy South African girl, Dilana, seems to fit well with Tommy Lee and gang. If I was Patrice, I’m not sure I’d want to win. That would involve touring with Supernova and probably signing an indentured servant-type contract with the producers. I’d just want to stick around long enough to develop some national name recognition. She has an excellent chance of going far into the competition.