[Promotum] Austin humor

[Ed Hintz]

Thanks to Brooke for this one. It's probably funnier if you've ever lived
in Austin, but it's amusing regardless.

RULES FOR LIVING IN AUSTIN

1. First you must understand that Austin is not Texas, but Austin is in  the
heart of Texas. The rest of Texas is defined by two zones-the vaguely scary,
inbred country regions, and the extremely scary, urban, conservative
mega-cities. In Austin, we respect both zones (they are, after all, in the
great state of Texas), but we really don't have much in common with them.
You may hear us speak disparagingly of other parts of Texas, but you are not
allowed to do the same. The only thing we hate more than people from Houston
coming to Austin and trying to turn Austin into Houston is people from
outside of Texas coming to Austin and insulting our state.

2. You should also understand that it is hot and humid as hell for at least
3 months out of the year. People in Austin know this, and they don't
understand people who complain about it. The day lasts 24 hours. There are 7
days in a week. It's hot outside. None of these things are worth mentioning
or complaining about.

3. Austin has some peculiar conventions when it comes to traffic. First, if
there is anything that could potentially distract Austin drivers, they stop
dead in the middle of the road. If they see the scene of an accident on the
other side of the highway, they stop. If they see rain, they stop. If there
is snow, they stop and start sacrificing goats. Get used to stopping on
highways. At the same time, you should get over the idea that drivers in
Austin will stop at other, more appropriate times. Austin drivers will not
even slow down for a pedestrian, even if that pedestrian is clinging for
life to the front grill of their Suburban Land Yacht. They also will not
stop to talk on their cell phones, and they damn sure will not stop for a
red light that is less than 10 seconds old. And, of course in Austin, as in
the entire state of Texas, it is against the law to use a turn signal. A
turn signal may distract other drivers, causing them to stop in the middle
of the road, so it is best to not advertise your intentions to turn or
change lanes.

4. If you park your car in Austin, it will be towed.

5. Getting around Austin requires a bit of training. First of all, it is
relatively easy to go north and south in Austin, but not so easy to get east
or west. And if you are going north or south, the directions will surely
begin with, "Go down MoPac... 'cause you sure as hell don't want to mess
with I-35." Of course, this rule is changing as more and more people crowd
onto MoPac, so in the future all instructions will begin with, "Actually,
it's probably faster to just take Lamar." Lamar is a road with no beginning
and no end, and everything is "just off" of Lamar, so it is just a matter of
time before it becomes a parking lot similar to I-35 and MoPac. Eventually,
a major flood of Shoal Creek will drown all the people parked on Lamar. We
call this, "thinning the herd. "There is no point going anywhere during
"rush hour," which runs from 6:00 to 10:00 in the morning and from 3:00 to
7:00 in the afternoon every work day except Friday (when rush hour starts on
Thursday night and lasts all day). On most days, at least one driver is
distracted by something during rush hour, which means that everybody has to
stop. You should also make a note that Mopac IS Loop 1 -- they are one and
the same. Similarly, Capital of Texas Hwy is 360, and Research is 183. 2222
is Northland or Allendale or Koenig, depending on what part of 2222 you are
talking about. 290 is Ben White, but there are two 290 exits on I-35 * one
of which is 2222 (which, as mentioned earlier, is Northland, Allendale and
Koenig). Don't try to figure it out. Just accept it. If you question the
intelligence behind this naming convention, people will simply tilt their
heads to the right and stare at you.

 6. Austin is effectively divided into two worlds. The new "tech" people who
live "north" of town (north of 183), and the old "true" Austinites who live
in the "middle" of town (although census data will no doubt reveal that the
true "middle" of Austin is now well north of 183). South of town is hard to
describe, so we'll pretend it doesn't exist, and East of town is
embarrassing to describe, so we'll pretend it doesn't exist either. North
Austin is a plastic, mass-produced world full of chain restaurants and movie
theaters. The houses are huge, the yards are small, and the treeless streets
have names like "Oak Forest View Circle." Central Austin, on the other
hand,tends to attract the granola eating, deodorant-shunning, aging
hippie-types. The houses are small and structurally frightening, but they
are no less astonishingly expensive, and the businesses tend to be small,
privately owned specialty shops that don't sell anything you'd want to buy.

7. There is no dress code in Austin. How you look and what you're worth
typically have little do to with each other here. In central Austin, it is
quite common to see some scruffy, smelly hippie with dread-locks, tattoos
and piercings driving a new Lexus or Mercedes. People in Austin like to look
weird. The woman you see walking down the drag with the tattoo of a dragon
across her back and the purple hair may be your child's kindergarten
teacher. Your congressman might be a leather-clad biker. And the girl in the
coffee shop serving you a latte may have a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Don't
judge a book by it's cover here. In the extreme, there is Leslie, who is
technically a bearded man, but who likes to hang out downtown in a teddy and
a tiara. Leslie's nuts, but he personifies Austin, and we're not going to
get rid of him.

8. Austin has a love-hate relationship with tech companies in general and
Dell in particular. We love being progressive, and the tech companies
represent "the future." However, they're boring, sanitized, and they tend to
treat their employees like cattle. Dell is a nasty machine that uses people
like a lubricant, grinding them up and cleaning them out when they get messy
or inconvenient. People in Austin are beginning to have a sneaking suspicion
that Orson Welles was right about everything except the date.

9. Austinites are largely a bunch of tree-hugging environmentalists. For
example, we're strangely and frighteningly proud of our bats. In the summer,
the Congress Avenue Bridge is reminiscent of a Hitchcock film, but
Austinites flock down there every night to see the show up close and
personal. We have a statue devoted to the bats, and we named our hockey team
after them (yes, we have a hockey team). The bats rule. As does our
salamander. At one time, money-grubbing developers (Freeport-MacMoRan
mostly) were building irresponsibly along Barton Creek, and because the
bastards (may they rot in hell) couldn't be bothered with things like proper
sewage drainage, our beloved swimming hole, Barton Springs Pool, was being
polluted with the sewage from Barton Creek Development residents (a.k.a.,
"rich scum spoor"). Most of the city council and the Texas legislature were
in the pockets of the festering scumbag developers, so it was necessary to
bring out the big guns-the Barton Creek Salamander, an endangered species
that was being threatened by the development sludge. For some reason, in
Texas it is okay to make your citizens swim in crap, but it is illegal to
make salamanders do so.

10. And of course, there is music. Austin is supposed to be the "music
capital of the world." We have a shrine for Stevie Ray Vaughn down on Town
Lake (yes, it's a lake-it looks like a river to you, but it's a lake); pay
your respects if you come to town. While you're at it, swing by Threadgills
and pay your respects to the memory of Janis Joplin, and drop by Antone's
and pay your respects to the memory of Clifford Antone. He's not dead, but
he's in a Texas prison on drug trafficking charges, and that may be just as
bad.




Peace,

Edmund A. Hintz              **|**     "You may say I'm a dreamer,
Mac Techie, Unix Geek,      *  |  *      But I'm not the only one...
Mac/Unix Consultant        *  /|\  *     I hope someday you'll join us,
<ed@hintz.org>              */ | \*      And the world will live as one.
'78 Westy                    *****      Imagine."
                     http://www.hintz.org