The Driskill Hotel's pastries have us looking for reasons to become displaced. ...

With a shape-conforming bed, internet-enabled pillow and massaging bathtub, the hotel room of the future is on display this week at the Austin Convention Center....

Adrian Jaimes found safe last night in North Austin; police are still searching for his kidnappers. Whole Foods: "more interested in cheap tomatoes than the well-being of those working to get produce to the store." Parents from NYOS charter school met with school officials this morning to discuss death of student last week; memorial service for Tevin Park-Flowers tomorrow. Convicted rapist escapes South Texas prison by leaving through an unlocked door. Women targeting businessmen at fancy Dallas hotels, slipping them the Mickey Finn to steal their watches....

“No,” he said, laughing. “I’m a pilot.”...

It seems Chuck Woolery is back from the dead, chillin' at the beach out at Horseshoe Bay. While he's there, he's making ends meet by selling time shares home sites (at lease we think he's selling home sites - we're having a hard time figuring out exactly what is for sale). The commercials have been running on television in California and offering airfare and hotels to potential buyers, leading some Austinites to cry "Californication!" If......

If there is one thing that we love, it’s a good party. There are stipulations of course: there needs to be great people, great food, great drinks, great entertainment and of course, the crowning factor, we must have had absolutely nothing to do with organizing it. Thankfully, we can always count on the Austin Film Festival to do the heavy lifting for us and on Wednesday, October 10th, they are serving up just what we......

FRIDAY [27] music • While You Were Out, presented by Bueno Music Bureau, with The Unbearables, She Sir, The Scripts, Friday After Dark at Club de Ville ($5) books • Anita Gonzalez, Ph.D., presents Dancing Between Myth and Reality at CAAAS (UT - Jester A232) (3:00pm) comedy • Tig Notaro and Steve Burr at Cap City Comedy Club comedy • Punchline, open mic stand up comedy at ColdTowne Theater (10pm) dance • Fetish and Other......

Gallery Lombardi, having bid farewell to its warehouse on West 3rd, will present its inaugural show at the new gallery space on West 7th in a matter of weeks, but in the meantime they're hard at work on a new project with local creative "enablers" from We Manage Stuff. The endeavor is called Mobile Art Place, and it seeks to enhance our city's access to new art (and artforms) by taking them out of......

THURSDAY [8] film • Austin Film Festival screens an archival 35mm print of Trading Places, with screenwriter Herschel Weingrod (Trading Places, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Brewster's Millions, Space Jam) introducing the film, at Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (7:30pm, $4 General, Free for AFF Members, "Prince and Pauper"-style menu) books • Dalton Gang Poetry Showdown with Ric Williams, Lyman Grant, W. Joe Hoppe and Rob Lewis at Intellectual Property (6:00pm) film • Love Bites, the 80s......

Update: Our band listings are now sortable by band name and origin. SXSW unveiled the official lineup around midnight on Wednesday. You can find the roster in table format here -- we'll be adding more functionality to this list in the coming days. A quick glance down the initial list, which currently numbers just over 1,300, indicates that we were pretty close with our initial predictions. Short of a small handful of nice surprises,......

No band announcements today, but we'll share a few administrative details: Today is the cutoff date to register for SXSW badges at their current rates. After this, prices jump up as much as $80 (Platinum Badges), through February 9th. [link] Paste Magazine and DiscRevolt are throwing a contest for up-and-coming bands to win a spot in their SXSW party lineup. The grand prize winners also score housing, a mention in the magazine, and other......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

Have you caught up on sleep from last year yet? Because SXSW is only 90 days away. The 2007 edition looks to be as big as ever, as all hotels within three miles of downtown are already sold out. The rumor mill and early confirmations are now trickling in, with no announcement bigger than that Pete Townshend will both deliver the keynote address and participate in an acoustic showcase with girlfriend Rachel Fuller. SXSW......

In a few years, Second Street may look a lot more like Times Square, with the new glass-clad TRL ACL studios looking out over the proletariat. Stratus Properties is planning to develop Block 21 (just north of City Hall). The building will include the new home for KLRU's "Austin City Limits," which will function as a live venue between tapings. The structure will also inclue the first Austin outpost for the W Hotel, the......

We were relieved to find out that Austin's own "wandering moon howler" Red Hunter, aka Peter and the Wolf, made it back safely after his whirlwind national tour -- the final leg of which was traversed by sea. Accompanied by Jana Hunter, The Castanets, some eye-patch-wearing fellow from WFMU and other assorted pirate types, the motley crew successfully navigated their way up the East Coast's Intracoastal Waterway. Also, as Red mentioned in the interview......

San Marcos is being courted by a group of developers from Arizona who want to create a "Riverwalk" area in the town (their site has one of the more Web 1.0 designs we've seen lately). The Statesman mentions that an Alamo Drafthouse is being included alongside plans for condos, shops, hotels and an outdoor amphitheater. The patch of land owned by the group is between the Blanco River and IH35. This could be good,......

If you're in the market for a change of professions, today's your chance! WorkAustin.com is hosting a free job fair over at the Omni Austin Downtown -- bring plenty of resumes if you're serious about schmoozing with the HR folks, as they've brought together over two dozen companies in various industries, from technology to hospitality to insurance. A sampling of the firms represented: Advanced Technologies Burnett Staffing Dell Enterprise Rent-a-Car HCI International Omni Austin Hotel......

Oh, God. Might San Antonio play host to the 2008 Republican National Convention? In a press release issued today by the RNC, 31 cities across the country were chosen as preliminary contenders to host the next convention, two years from now. Each is required to submit an application proving that they can meet such requirements as: Main Convention Area: Facility capable of seating at least 20,500 persons, including the convention floor with seating for......

When examining this week’s film options, don’t let the cast of Richard Shepard’s new film “The Matador” scare you away. With Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear in the two leads, you could be forgiven for expecting a by-the-numbers heist movie (“After The Sun 2”, anyone?). Thankfully, the first couple of minutes of the film completely dissolve any baggage James Bond brings by way of Brosnan’s character having a bad mustache, a SuperCuts do, and......

According to a story in Tuesday's Austin Business Journal, Austin offers more free wireless availability than any city in the US except San Francisco. We wish they would have told us this while we were trying to find a place to check our email last week. Austin has 97 free hot spots, while San Francisco has 368, according to JiWire Inc., which ranked cities in the United States and around the world based on......

[festival/music/art] First Night at Congress Avenue (All Ages, 2pm, Free/$10) [info] [tickets] [music] Nic Armstrong and the Thieves, Moonlight Towers and DJ Polecat at Club de Ville (21+, $5, Call 512-457-0900) [fabulous] Studio 54 Par-tay! at Rain (21+, Call 512-494-1150) [info] [music] White Ghost Shivers and The Small Stars at Blue Genie Art Industries (21+, 9pm, $37) [info] [tickets] [music] Flametrick Subs with Satan's Cheerleaders, Slick 57 and Basin Street at Emo's (All Ages,......

Contaminated water is being pumped out of New Orleans, now that a major levee has been plugged. The mayor is saying it could take up to two months to get the water cleared out and the energy back on. In an article in The Statesman, Austin is praised for its generosity. About three warehouses are full of donations; they're so full, in fact, that donations are being put on hold in Austin . Monetary......

We have always had romantic notions of hotel living--like Royal of the Royal Tennenbaums, or Karen on Will & Grace making it with the the maintanance man at the Plaza Hotel during her divorce. Our fantasy includes terry cloth robes and slippers, daily maid service, champagne at our door, and lots of movies on demand. We fantasize about striking it rich just so we can make a habit of room service. We love hotels......

Thousands of Hurricane Katrina's refugees will be bused to Houston and sheltered at the Astrodome. The news was announced this morning by Rusty Cornelius, administrative coordinator for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Cornelius said, "We are planning on being able to do a full shelter operation for 25,000 people." The majority of the refugees coming to Texas were staying in the New Orleans Superdome, which held about about 20,000......

As is our tradition around here, the first order of business before we get into the dirty details of this week's episode is to list off the errors and errata that have been submitted since last week. In our previous recap, we accidentally said that Danny and Melinda were in front of the "Driscoll" hotel, when we meant to say "Driskill." Also, we were totally wrong, it wasn't either of these hotels. In other......