sandieshewrites

i'm attending:

Women in Public Service: Power and Politics 

 

Friday, February 20, 2009

8:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Chez Zee

5406 Balcones Drive

 

     Please join GENaustin for our upcoming GENerate event, Women in Public Service: Power and Politics. In this presentation, a panel of elected women officials, including Elizabeth Ames Jones, Texas Railroad Commissioner, Council member Sheryl Cole, Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt and Justice Diane Henson, 3rd Court of Appeals, will offer a candid and insightful look into Texas politics from a woman's perspective. Tickets are $25, and memberships to GENerate, which include access to a full year’s worth of GENerate events, may also be purchased for $300. For more information, or to purchase tickets, please visit www.genaustin.org/getinvolved. We hope to see you there!

On Saturday, my librarian mom and I went to the Texas Book Festival. We saw R.L. Stine, Alice Schroeder (the alum who wrote the book on Warren Buffett), and Bill Tancer, the author of "Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters."

Tancer works for Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence company, analyzing the IP addresses and search terms of 10 million American Internet users and 25 million global users. At his talk at the book festival, he revealed that porn, which has long been the most popular use for the Internet, has now been outclicked by social networks. He shot out some stats he gathered to prove his point:

Web Visits Three Years Ago:
-Porn- 17% of all Web visits
-Social networks- 5% of all Web visits

Web Visits Last Week:
Porn- 10% of all Web visits
Social networks- 11%

Tancer wrote more about this phenomenon in his Time magazine column on Friday. He shared several other interesting insights he's gained from his analysis like how he inadvertently helped a teen magazine company prove they had changed consumer behavior for prom dress purchases and his theory that people's biggest fears relate to social interaction. I didn't buy a copy of his book on the spot, but I plan to as soon as my reading list gets a little shorter.

Latinitas magazine (latinitasmagazine.com) will benefit from two Dia de los Muertos-related events at the Mohawk this week. Michael and I will definitely be at the happy hour on Thursday evening. Come join us if it sounds like fun to you.

Rock Y Roll Dia:
Silent Auction
Thurs, October 30
The Mohawk (912 Red River)
5-8pm

This very special event kicks off this year's Rock y Roll Dia music show (Nov 1st) with a fundraising silent auction benefitting Austin Latino media arts organizations: Latinitas and Cine Las Americas.

Come out an enjoy food and drinks and a unique silent auction items including an autographed guitar from Los Lobos, a signed poster from Carlos Santana and even a flight over Austin for a party of 4!

Rock y Roll Dia Show
Sat., November 1
The Mohawk (912 Red River)
8pm doors open

Benefitting Latinitas and Cine Las Americas this music event features international Latino hit band Los Amigos Invisibles, L.A.'s Monte Negro and Austin's own Charanga Cakewalk. Tix: $20 in advance.

More info here: http://rockyrolldia.com/

she's going to be the new covergirl:
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/ellen-degeneres-a-covergirl/13154?nc

I just received this message via Facebook. You probably did, too:

Hey Everyone!

The very first meeting Texas Feminists (TexFem) will be WEDNESDAY September 17th at 8:00 in the JOYNES READING ROOM on the very bottom floor of Carothers Dorm. We would LOVE for everyone to come to the meeting. We'll talk about reproductive health and gender issues and about fun things we can do as an organization to spread all our feminist love! Hope to see everyone there!!

If you have any questions or would like to be added to the TexFem listserve so you can find out about upcoming events- find me on Facebook or shoot me an email!

Jamie Doak

as most of you know, michael has returned home to austin after 25 days in vietnam. we had an awesome weekend together. the highlight was probably on sunday when we rode our bikes on the trails near barton springs and swam in the pool afterwards. we were going to go kayaking after that, but neither of us brought our IDs, so we couldn't. we learned a valuable lesson that day. instead, we got snow cones. i'm soooooo glad we moved to barton hills! it seems like the perfect place for us, and i'm afraid we won't be lucky enough to live somewhere this cool next year (or any year after).

but speaking of living in not so cool places...i just found out that our old apartment complex, sedona springs, is trying to rip us off big time. they aren't giving us our $250 deposit back, and on top of that, they are charging us an extra $170. some of that money is going toward utilities (which might be legit...still need to check) but the majority of it is for weird stuff like leaving food in the fridge, mayo on the floor, not cleaning the oven, damage to the blinds, and $25 for having to take a bag of trash out. NONE of this is true! the place was spotless when we left. there were stains on the carpet from us just walking up and down the stairs everyday, so i'll give them that. oh and they charged us $80 for not turning in one of three mailbox keys and a gym key. (and i'm sure we did turn in all the mailbox keys!)this is pretty ridiculous since we all know it only costs $3 to copy a key.

i really wish i had taken pictures of everything before i left. i've never had an apartment do this before. i always get my deposit back. i'm going to have to post a terrible review on apartmentratings.com, which i hate to do because the rest of my time there wasn't too bad (except for the cricket infestation all of last summer). plus, i prefer to give good reviews like i've done with my last three apartments. i'm going to have to go check out the photos they say they have of the mayo on the floor and all the other bizarre stuff, and hopefully there's some way i can prove it's the wrong apartment.

Update: Sedona Springs called me back and said they'll give me a 10 percent discount and $25 off the trash fee if I pay today. Yet they still have failed to send me the photos even though it's been like 3 hours. Not impressive. This seems really shady to me. Why would you offer a discount if the fees were actually legit?

my sister and i were just looking at her new copy of entertainment weekly. she flipped the page, and there was a half page photo of brea (and hiro) with a quote from her on page 9! there's also a smaller photo of her taken in a parking lot somewhere, which is kinda oddly placed next to the big photo. very exciting! congrats, brea.

also, there's a sexy photo of doogie howser on page 39.

This appeared on KRLU last night: http://www.klru.org/docubloggers/?p=298

I love it! If anyone has advertising contacts for Latinitas, let me know. Our media kits are ready.

brea grant is a hero!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/09/tv.heroes.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

The SNL skit Hillary referred to last night:



I hope media studies researchers and students in "Women In the News" journalism classes are doing some serious analysis on this Clinton vs. Obama campaign. Everywhere I look, Hillary is being depicted as a she devil and Barack is sitting on a cloud somewhere. I've been wondering if this biased reporting is all in my head. I'm interested in this woman's take on the situation. She's speaking at St. Edwards on Monday.