h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On my way to work tonight (Thursday night, midnight clock-in), I almost missed my connecting bus (which is the last bus of the night heading east and missing it means a $30 cab ride), only one stop from where I get off to walk to that bus stop, because we sat for five minutes while the driver tried to advise two SXSW-ers how to get where they want to be, how the bus pass on their phone should be held under the scanner; in fact, how buses work in general.

They have smartphones. Cap Metro has both a website and a phone line for enquiries about how to get to where you have to be on the bus.

Thankfully my ride to work on Saturday and Sunday is early in the morning, and my ride home doesn't take me downtown, but going to work Wednesday and Thursday night next week is going to be because it'll be in the thick of the festival, and there isn't any other way to get to work on the bus at that time other than making a connection downtown. Unless I get to work two hours early.

These past two nights have been . Last night, Wednesday night, I left work at about 11pm. On the way home there were flashing lights and a diversion because of an accident a few miles into my journey home; there was a fire with even more flashing lights just as we got into downtown; there were more flashing lights on the way out of town (I think that was just a routine traffic stop); and once I got home there was a police helicopter in the vicinity during the whole time I sat and watched episode 5 of Wolf Hall before I went to bed. Tonight, on the way to work, the bus had to take a diversion because of, yes, more flashing lights, and in almost the same place as the accident last night, although I couldn't figure out what was going on there, and when I got off the bus a few miles later and was walking to the brewery I saw three cop cars go screaming down the road, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

It must be the end times. I think I'll get It's half past bleedin' five in the morning and I'm mere feet from several thousand of gallons of cider. Why not?

I suppose I should turn this into Gosho's 2015 South by So What conversation, in which case...

Russell Brand isn't coming to Austin after all Apparently he was going to be here for a documentary about... himself, which he's now decided is too painful to watch.

I never thought I'd find myself agreeing with anything Russell Brand uttered