The Metblogs network has added a new…um….country? Say hello to The People’s Republic of Unterzoegersdorf . Ambassador Nikita Chrusov, who made an appearance at eTech last week, is appearing at the Plutopia EFF party at Scholz’s as I post this. I hope that diplomacy will prevail.

We had a SXSW meetup of Metbloggers from Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin today at Rio Rita. The main topic of conversation was the trainwreck Mark Zuckerberg interview that had just taken place. In fact, a website to commemorate the occasion was conceived and implemented during the meetup. I just took pictures.

 

Don’t forget about the Metblog meetup in 30 minutes at Rio Rita. It’s at 1308 East Sixth near Attayac (that’s 4 blocks east of I-35).

I’m Richard Ault, from San Francisco and the SF Metblog. I’m in town with Sean Bonner and Jason Defillippo, collectively the guys responsible for Metblogs. I’ll be guest posting bits of my experience here in Austin over the next couple of days. To get a sense of what I’m interested in, you can check out my previous posts, or my photoblog.

We’ll all be at the Austin Metblogs Meetup tomorrow also, looking forward to meeting the community who read and write this blog!

All of the Metroblogging cities have moved to an entirely new system as of yesterday. We’re still working out the kinks, so bear with us if you encounter any strangeness. In addition to the new look & feel and a new platform, we’ve got new features. More on those later. Until then, please let us know if you encounter any problems.

And don’t forget about the meetup this coming Sunday at 5pm at Rio Rita.

Metroblogging will have a meetup during SXSWi this year.

Here’s the details:

Where: Rio Rita - 1308 East Sixth Street 

When: Sunday, March 9th at 5pm

Authors from Austin and several of the other Metroblogging cities will be in attendance including Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Hope to see you there.

The release of Amazon’s new e-book reader, Kindle, is creating quite a buzz in the tech industry. Any time a large player steps into a market that has had trouble in the past, it’s big news.

The Kindle includes a wireless capability and can download blog content in addition to books. You can see where I’m going with this…the Metroblogging family of blogs is one of many blogs available for subscription on Kindle, including this one.

Why pay for something that you can get free otherwise? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t pay $400 for a book reader either.

Still it’s kinda cool.

The $20 dollar project records what that sum of moolah will buy in Metblog cities around the world. What follows is a list of items on an actual sales slip from Saturday’s stocking-up expedition to H-E-B. The H. E. Butt Grocery Company, homegrown in Texas and over a century old, continues to hold its own against the real big guys, with its H-E-B stores and its Central Market stores. Long may it stay that way.

King Arthur unbleached flour, to begin holiday baking now that it’s cooler ($2.34)
El Galindo restaurant chips, unsalted, local brand, our personal favorites, although El Lago and the Whole Foods brands aren’t bad ($2.00)
El Galindo yellow corn tortillas, 10-count, local brand, nothing but yellow corn, water, and lime ($.84)
TV Notas, because I follow the telenovelas and because our favorite Adamari Lopez is on the cover ($2.95)
H-E-B regular eggnog, quart, first of the season ($1.99)
H-E-B fresh sausage, hot ($2.00)
H-E-B frozen baby lima beans; H-E-B Fordhook limas also available ($1.34)
Falfurrias butter, 1 pound, for baking and eating; a Texas brand ($2.44)
spicy Texas slaw, H-E-B made; what used to be called “Spanish cole slaw” and just as good as Luby’s or the Frisco’s ($1.94)
small limes, 8, for margaritas ($1.00)

That’s not quite $20; using pencil and paper, I make it out to be $1.16 short. We do pay sales tax here, though. The list is fairly representative of some of what anybody might head for H-E-B to buy. Also on the sales slip, although not listed above (and taking total purchases well over $20) is a whole lot of H-E-B natural chicken (reported to be Buddy’s Natural in disguise, packaged for H-E-B). The quantity isn’t on the sales slip and it’s unknown, because it’s all been cooked and a lot of it’s been eaten since then and there’s no packaging left. As people who enjoy a classic margarita, straight up, not on the rocks or frozen, we follow the lime index quite closely. At its worst, it has stood at 3 limes for a dollar; at its best, a dollar may be exchanged for a dozen limes.

Fresh vegetables were already in stock, from the South Austin farmers’ market and from Wheatsville. So were eggs from Del Valle, courtesy of the Farm to Market Grocery on South Congress. In looking over the register slip, I was surprised to find how many H-E-B house brands and other local and semi-local items we buy. And those chips? They go with Pace Picante Sauce, Jaime’s Spanish Village Restaurant Hot Tomatillo Jalapeno Garlic Sauce, and homemade pico de gallo. These purchases were made a day before the initial posting about the $20 project and two days before I heard about it and so were not in any way, form, shape, or manner influenced by it. A bonus is that on the back of the register slip is a coupon for Sazon (buy one entree and two drinks, receive the second entree at half price). And that’s why I still have the slip in my possession and therefore was able to recount what became of twenty bucks.

The Islamabad Metblog has been doing amazing coverage of the Lal Masjid siege in their city. This has implications for us and for the rest of the world as Pakistan is a major battleground between moderates and extremists. The comment threads are particularly interesting to those of us not from that part of the world.

After much debate and wringing of hands, we’re going to have a meetup on Monday night. As many people have pointed out, plans tend to fall apart during SXSW so we’re going with the flow.

Let’s meet at Nuclear Taco Night in Brush Square Park (Neches between 4th and 5th) at 6pm. If it’s crowded, we can move on. If we feel the need to move for no reason at all, we can move somewhere else. There’s a party at Sidebar for Lifehacker only a few blocks away. The EFF-Austin Steampunk party is at Scholz’s, several blocks (13) to the north. There’s a Mozilla/Democracy Player party in Brush Square Park as well. There’s a Creative Commons party. We’ll find something to do.

I’ll be wearing a bright red Metroblogging shirt and I’m 6′5″. I should be easy to spot. I’ll be running around SXSWi all day Monday, so grab me.

We’ll stay at least until 6:30 before moving on, so don’t be late. If you think you’ll show, e-mail me at my gmail account, my username is my first initial and last name (take that, you dirty spambots). I’ve got the same username on Dodgeball and Twitter. I’ll check in with both when we move on.