This was my day at SXSW for March 14th

Sunday was pretty rush day. 

I attended three panels: David Heinemeier-Hansson's "Why You Aren't Done Yet", Coding for Pleasure and Online Advertising: Losing the race to the bottom with John Gruber and Jim Coudal.

David HH's talk was a lot of fun. The flare and voice of the Getting Real book was personified. All the content David spoke of seemed to come from their new book Rework.

David's message was loud and clear: Cut the shit, make some changes and do good work.

Immediately following Heinemeier-Hansson's talk came the "Coding for Pleasure" panel. What I expected was some kind of conceptual talk about how to make personal projects happen. I wanted to hear "quit playing World of Warcraft and watching Lost and just do this..."

Instead we got three panelists telling us where to outsource our HTML/CSS work, what technology they used and some plugs for things they'd made.

It was a total waste of time, and most of the place left long before the panel was over

I met with Tim, Travis and Brett and the Hickory Street Cafe for a quick lunch, since we were all heading to the Gruber/Coudal talk together. Hickory Street is a good place to grab a quick lunch in Austin. Do swing by if you're in the area.

Gruber and Coudal interviewed each other for their panel. Both of them had an interesting outlook on how online advertising can work. Neither of them follow the conventional methods of selling or distributing ads – and it was refreshing to hear from people who aren't figuring out everything they do with a calculator and an accountant.

The main thing I took away from the panel was publishers should focus on making good things for their readers first, and revenue will be easier to sort out later.

After the panel we went out to have dinner. We thought it was time to have some local fare, so we went to Stubb's for some Texas barbecue. Stubb's was terrible. Thin cut slices of flavorless beef, french fries that likely came from a McCain bag all topped with a piece of Wonderbread and a mushy slop that might have once been macaroni and cheese.

After dinner we met up with some other folks and the inevitable finally happened: Someone said strippers.

On the recommendation of a local we cabbed up to Palazio.

Strip clubs in Austin aren't anything like their Calgary counterparts. There's nothing vulgar about them. There aren't guys crowded around a stage throwing coins at the dancers. They're set up like lounges. 

I was surprised by how many men brought girls on dates there. There were three or four tables with couples.

Throughout the evening girls will come by the table either waitresses or dancers. They're flirtatious and very persistent. The whole experience was a little embarrassing but a lot of fun.

The crowd outside the club at closing was pretty sketchy. There was a small fight and a lot of pretty revved up dudes shouting. I was really surprised that many of the dancers exit out the front with the patrons.

At the end of the evening Brian and I caught a cab back to the hotel, which turned out to be three blocks from the club.