El Campo is in the heart of Hyde Park (305 West 39th Street).  Its a block away from a bus stop and an easy bike ride to campus.  Its a residential neighborhood so easy to jog if you are into that sort of thing.  Its also close to a number of convenience stores, restaurants, and a grocery stores.

These is not a new building.  Its a converted motel, but the reviews almost all mention that it is well maintained.  It may be old, but new carpet and a fresh coat of paint can make a place pretty hospitable.

Most of the apartments open up to a view of a quad like community area with some chairs and a few grills.  One of the reviews mentions a pool but that is long gone.  The pictures of the community area below show a pretty dirty area.  In fairness, it was a Sunday afternoon when I took these pictures so it is quite possible a party the night before had not been cleaned up yet.  I did think it was cool that someone is growing plants in the area (fertilizer and everything).

There is a laundry room on premises.  Seemed to be ample parking for tenants but a party of any size would mean street parking.  Also, no indication that parking is assigned.

There isn’t any gate or anything in terms of security. The area is very safe (you can check for yourself).  You will see in some of the reviews about tire slashings going on in the area.  That is true, but it stopped in 2011.

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If you’d like to keep shopping for an apartment anywhere in town or at any price level…we recommend you check out our map of Austin apartments.

We’d also love any feedback from current or former residents of El Campo in the comments. If we have made any mistakes we will gladly correct them.

We’ve scoured the internet forums and all the trivia company pages to build a one-stop shop for finding trivia in town. We even threw in a color-coded map so you don’t have to read if you don’t want.

Please help us keep up-to-date on this. If a new one shows up or an old one goes away…please let us know.

MONDAY

Up north at the aptly named, North by Northwest Brewery starts asking questions at 7:30.

Over on the east side, Shangri-La starts at 7 and Frontier gets started a little later at 8.

And finally, just south of the lake, The Upper Decks sports bar has trivia starting at 7.

TUESDAY

There is lots of trivia on Tuesday night.  Starting up in Round Rock, there is Third Base (7 PM) and Weirdo’s (8 PM).  And just a little further south at the Domain is the Canary Hut (8 PM).

Flying Saucer (7:30) is in the Hyde Park area.  You can get started on their selection of over 200 beers while you answer questions.  And right on The Drag near campus is the Mellow Mushroom (8 PM).  Its a pretty good pizza place on top of the trivia.

The downtown area has several options.  Opal Divine’s (Freehouse) (8PM) and Fado’s Irish Pub (7:30 PM) are both in the heart of downtown.  Side Bar (8 PM) is a little closer to 35 and Third Base (Downtown) (7:30 PM) is real close to MoPac.

Once you cross over Lady Bird Lake, you can head to Gibson (8 PM), Corner Bar (8 PM), Ego’s (8 PM) or Maria’s Taco Xpress (6:30 PM).  Maria’s has great Mexican food.

Finally, if you head all the way south you check out Red’s Porch (8 PM) on Lamar or Doc’s Backyard (8:30) on Brodie

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday is by far the most popular night to host trivia.  Every Pluckers (7:30) location is doing trivia and they have locations all over Austin. One is near you. The only exception is the Lakeline location, they don’t do it.

Up in Round Rock, you can head to Twin Peaks (8 PM).  I really like their steak and their queso.

In central Austin, you can head to Mister Tramps (8 PM)right off of 183.  You can also check on Billy’s on Burnet (7 PM) right off of….well….Burnet.

Near Hyde Park, the Waterloo (on 38th) (8 PM) and Wingzup (9 PM) are options.  And Posse East (7 PM) is an option closer to campus.

A little closer to downtown is Bacon (7 PM). Yes, the food is as good as it sounds.  There is also The Tavern (8 PM) which is more of a sports bar.

Several places do trivia in downtown proper as well.  BD Riley’s (8 PM),  Ginger Man (8 PM), and Trifecta on 3rd (8 PM) cover the west side of downtown. Gourmands (8 PM) and Violet Crown Social Club (8 PM) have you covered on the east side.

Just a little south of downtown Highball (7 PM) does trivia and way down south Waterloo (Southpark Meadows) does trivia too.

Finally to round Wednesday out, our friends out in west Austin can show off their brains at The Lion and Rose Pub (9 PM)

THURSDAY

Trivia options really start to decrease on Thursday. Canary Roost (8 PM) is up north.

Nomad Bar (8 PM) is a bit more central and just east of 35.

The Grackle (8 PM) is on east side downtown and Icenhauser’s (8 PM) is in the Rainey St district.

SATURDAY

The only two places on Opal Divine’s (Marina) (9 PM) way north and Opal Divine’s (Penn Field) (10 PM) way south

SUNDAY

The Black Star Co-op (7 PM) is a neat brewery concept in central Austin

Hole in the Wall is a dive bar right on The Drag and Star Bar (7 PM) is downtown on west 6th.

Ego’s (8 PM) is normally a karaoke spot but they turn the mic over to questions on Sundays on South Congress.  Highball (7 PM) has a second night of trivia

Map of Trivia Locations

Its color coded by day of the week.

Dark Blue – Monday
Red – Tuesday
Green – Wednesday
Light Blue – Thursday
Yellow – Saturday
Purple – Sunday

Again…PLEASE let me know if I missed anything

View Pub and Bar Trivia in a larger map

We decided to go get some information on our own. We stopped by and took some pictures. If you have already been to Popolo Village there isn’t much new information here, but if you haven’t you could learn a lot.

Popolo Village is in the heart of Hyde Park. The location is actually pretty nice – very convenient to campus and you can get to I-35 quickly if you need to. It is a only a few blocks away from a bus stop if you are planning on using public transportation. It is across the street from a nursing home if that means anything.

These are not the newest or most luxurious buildings around. It was freshly painted when I visited so the exterior looks pretty nice.  I wasn’t able to get a look inside an actual unit.

There are no community areas to gather. There are 15 parking spots for 14 units, so any guests will have to park on the street. There are 2 washers and dryers on premises (Pictures below). There isn’t central air; A/C comes from window units (also pictured below).

As far as security goes, There is obviously no doorman or anything and all the doors are on the exterior of the building, but Hyde Park is a pretty safe area of town. This place looks a bit sketchy, but I see no evidence from recent police reports that it is particularly dangerous.

Click any to enlarge

If you’d like to keep shopping for an apartment anywhere in town or at any price level…we recommend you check out our map of Austin apartments.

We’d also love any feedback from current or former residents of Popolo Village in the comments. If we have made any mistakes we will gladly correct them.

Rules?  That’s right.  This is not the first time someone has tried to collect up Austin blogs.  But I haven’t found one that has been exactly what I hope this one is.  So this is how you get included…

• It has to be about Austin.  Which is not the same as a blog by someone from Austin.  There are a lot of great Austin bloggers, but many of their posts aren’t about Austin proper.
• A similar note…an Austin business blog is only included if the information in it is relevant to people besides your customers.  If it is only specials, deals or feature updates, I didn’t list it
• Has to be updated within the past 6 months or so.

I think that’s fair.  So lets get to it.

What to do Blogs

What are we going to do today? The question never really seems to go away. These will help you figure out the answer.

Food Blogs

This was a difficult section because there are many people in Austin blogging about food, but very few blogging about ‘Austin food’

Drinking Blogs

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Austin has several blogs dedicated to drinking. I was surprised to see how many were dedicated to beer in Austin (or that there is that much to know about local beer).

Neighborhood Blogs

Public Policy Blogs

Similarly, this are blogs are about issues specific to Austin. Blogs about state or national issues are not included.

Entertainment/Social Scene Blogs

These blogs are about the people in the local scene, not necessarily things to do.

Miscellaneous Blogs

There isn’t much to explain. Marvel in the variety of things that people will blog about.

Austin Forums

Each of these have their own flavor and etiquette. You may want to lurk for awhile before you jump in and start posting.

That’s all I know.  Again, please let me know what I (inevitably) missed. Of course all of the blogs/forums here are included in our Austin Search Engine. There is also lots of non-blog information about Austin here too.

Apartment Rates Expected to Increase Due to High Demand

There was so much flooding that mushrooms started growing IN her apartment (Pictures here and here).  She reports that hot water went out monthly (once for two days).  And, of course, she had bugs (creepy looking ones)

People have a tendency to overstate things sometimes and I didn’t want to publish something that wasn’t true.  Now I didn’t go into his apartment and I haven’t met her….but, I did check their reviews on apartmentratings.com and it seems they have had these problems for awhile.

Allow me to quote:

Water problems occur frequently. – June 2011

Haven’t had hot water in several months – November 2010

I lived here for only 8 months and they shut off the water TWICE…that water issue is major.. – July 2010

The water issue here is awful. – October 2009

If you like your water to be turned off once a month..This is the place for you! – November 2008

My water was turned off at least once a week for about three months – August 2007

If you like hot water..don’t live here – March 2006

I discovered a leak behind the walls….Later it leaked again and again and they did nothing – February 2005

There are more if you care to look.  Unless there is a conspiracy that has been taking place for the last six years….I feel pretty confident saying that there are real problems at Lexington Hills.  They might not actually be the nastiest…but I have to believe they would rank highly in the contest.

Good luck current residents.  Potential residents – think real hard before you sign anything.

If you would like to look for another place to rent…I could recommend a site to help.

If the management cares to respond I will post it here.

UPDATE:  They agreed to let her out of her lease after she presented a certified letter to them.  Probably something to remember if you have problems with your landlord.

UPDATE 2:  Wow.  Turns out there is reason to believe that the maintenance teams stole items from her after she said she was moving.  It is tough to sum up the story so check it out here

Consider this a Cliff Note’s version of Austin.

As always, please let me know in the comments if you think I should add anything.

Anytime things (Weather Permitting)

From the super-touristy to more local spots

Observation Deck of the UT tower

Bob Bullock Museum of Texas History

See a movie at Alamo Drafthouse (ideally a Master Pancake show)

Underground Caverns in Georgetown

Chicken S**t Bingo every Sunday at Ginny’s Little Longhorn

Tour the Capitol

Hike the Greenbelt and the Hike and Bike trail at Town Lake

Umlauf Sculpture Garden

Catch a show at Esther’s Follies

Climb Mt Bonnell – Count the stairs

Have a Honky Tonk night at the Broken Spoke

Putt-putt at Peter Pan mini-golf – Cash only, BYOB (no glass)

Spend some time at Hamilton Pool – Parking is limited so get there early

Wander around Zilker Park and take a dip in Barton Springs

Tubing down the Guadalupe (the party river but can get low when it doesn’t rain for a while) or Comal (more cops but can still be float-able in a drought).

Of course, you should spend at least one night going from bar to bar on 6th Street

Seasonal Things

These may require a bit more planning since they are only available at certain times of year

South by Southwest – March. This three part festival is almost overwhelming.  You’ll have to hang on and see how much free stuff you can get into.

Celebrate Eeyore’s Birthday Party – April

Root for the home team at a Round Rock Express minor league baseball game – Spring.  I think this is one of the highest ratios of fun/money spent activities in town.

A concert at Blues on the Green – Summer starting in June

See the Congress St Bridge Bats – Best during late summer/early fall.  No bats during the winter.  Wouldn’t be a bad idea to wear a hat.

Austin City Limits music festival – September. Practically an official holiday in Austin.

See a UT Football Game – Fall.  Even if you don’t go to the game, check out the tailgating. Its hard to imagine.

Christmas Lights on 37 1/2 St – December.

Christmas Tree at Zilker – December.  Get under and go spinning.  At least watch other people do it.

Food

What and where to eat before you leave

Have a Don Juan taco for breakfast at Juan in a Million

Sunday Brunch at Stubb’s Gospel Sunday Brunch with make your own Bloody Mary bar – you need reservations

Do the Trudy’s Triathlon ( A Mexican martini at each of their locations) – This is killer.  Have a DD.  Seriously.  I’m not kidding.

Get Breakfast at Magnolia Cafe or Kerbey Lane Cafe very late at night

Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood- Cash Only, BYOB.  Pretty good chance you will see a wedding reception there.

Spend a weekend hitting as many of our famous food trailers as you can

Grab a burger at Hut’s – Their onion rings are unbelievable

Make a day trip to Lockhart to try all three of their world famous BBQ spots

I live near the Power Plant and had heard that there was a lot of trash left after the Kanye West concert on Mar 19, 2011. I decided to investigate.

I have lived across from the power plant for almost a year now, and there are regularly events there. I can say that most of them (other than parking) go by without me even noticing. While I can’t report the disaster described at Reddit (I have a feeling the businesses located there cleaned up some of the reported mess before I got there), I can report this is the worst I have ever seen the place after a show. There was definitely an above average amount of trash, bottles, and food stuffs that didn’t make it into the trash cans/dumpsters in the area.

A utility room was used as a toilet. I know that cause you could smell it a good distance away.

Some people were clearly trying to tear down the fence and used a security barrier as a ladder to get over it.

And a gentleman by the name of Gilbere Forte decided that 3rd St was his personal promotion area. He (or his promoters or his fans) put posters up on almost literally every surface along the street. Almost definitely on every street sign, many toll collection machines, and even a couple of trees.

That isn’t every last one, but you get the idea. This is just one block. I took some down, but it is a little harder than it sounds since whoever did this used packing tape and usually wrapped it around the entire perimeter of whatever they were taping it to.

Maybe Mr Forte would be able to explain how they all got there and who he thinks should have to take them down? His website (appears to be down), Facebook, and Twitter.

UPDATE:

Upon viewing these photos, Mr Forte’s fans…bragged.  They thought it was hilarious.

From what is claimed to be his official Twitter account (may not actually be official) http://twitter.com/#!/TeamGilbere/status/49879869861007360

From a fan…that bitly link takes you to this blog post http://twitter.com/#!/jwhi/status/49874101979987968

And finally from his manager.    I wasn’t sure if I should trust the Twitter bio he has for himself, but a quick Google search comes up with this LinkedIn profile that says the same thing.  http://twitter.com/#!/denigma/status/49880800593854464

Technically, we still don’t know who puts the flyers up everywhere….can we agree leaving them there is not the coolest way to promote a musician?

UPDATE 2: Commenters saying I am being paid to graffiti my own neighborhood and post about it are too clever by half.  I’ll let Gilbere’s manager speak to that with his most recent tweet about this

My intention was to show some of the littering that occurred.  Needed proof of what happened and linking to various ways to contact him was to make it easy for people to contact him and hopefully discourage him or overzealous fans from doing it again.  Some people did contact him/them but it doesn’t appear to have made much of an effect on anyone.

I did take down several even before I started taking pictures, but as a I mentioned….these were very securely fastened in many cases.  Thats when I got annoyed and got my camera.

Wait a second…maybe the guy who accused me of being a fan is actually a fan himself who is trying to trick me into taking this down to prove I am not fan…very sneaky commenter….very sneaky.

Oh well…I tried…live to blog another day.

Also, you should go ahead and bookmark/share with your friends cause you may not remember this when you need it the most.

24 Hours

Just to be thorough – here are the fast food chains that are open as well.

24 Hour Fast Food

What if you can’t drive (or you just can’t bear to walk away from Conan or Letterman)?  Depending on where you live you could be out of luck.  All of these are accurate but they often have limited delivery area so check before you get too excited.

Late Night Delivery

The rest of the list is broken down by closing time and location.  Each entry goes like this:
Name of the place, (Days it is open till that time if not all week), Type of food if it isn’t obvious

Open till 1 AM

Open till 1:30 AM

Open till 2 AM

Open until 2:30 AM

Open until 3 AM

Open until 3:30 AM

Even later

Please leave a comment for whatever I have inevitably missed or gotten wrong.  I will continually update.  Also, may want to go ahead and bookmark.  You may not remember how to get here when you need it.

I analyzed the ads and headlines of postings in the w4m and m4w section Austin Craigslist personal section.  I looked at all the postings for 44 straight days

We can’t tell how effective these ads are, but they do give us some clue about what men and women operate.  It also gives us some clue about what each gender thinks the opposite sex is looking for.

Volume

Men posted over 4 times as many ads as women did (522 and 2,252).  A couple of theories on why the large difference are women feel less safe on an internet forum than men might.  Men are expected to pursue women in society. Easier to post an ad looking than ask a woman in real life. Women get hit on all the time so they don’t need to post an ad, but men have run out of women to hit on.

Day of the Week

Men and women posted at roughly the same rate as each other throughout the week.
Women are 3% more likely to post an ad on Tuesday and men were 2.5% more likely to post on Friday.

Age

Average age for a woman = 30 Average age for a man = 32
I was surprised that men were more likely than women to not post their age.

Words

This is where it gets really interesting.  I looked for specific words in the ads.  Then we can compare how frequently each gender uses a given word or set of words.

Women use these words more frequently than men (In order of increasing frequency difference)

• Friend – 10.3% more frequently than men
• Long term, Long-term, or ltr – 23% more frequently than men
• Cute – 43.8% more frequently than men
• Date – 46.4% more frequently than men
• Democrat, liberal, or progressive – 64.3% more frequently than men
• Herpes -  72.6% more frequently than men
• Funny, humor, laugh, or witty – 79.6% more frequently than men
• Aggie or A&M – 115.7% more frequently than men
• Christian – 127.1% more frequently than men
• Single parent, single mom, single dad  – 138.4% more frequently than men
• Overweight, BBW, “not skinny”, thick, or plus size – 273.2% more frequently than men
• Job – 2,606.2% more frequently than men

Men use these words more frequently than women (In order of increasing frequency difference)

• Conservative or Republican – .4% of men used one of these words but no women did
• Sex – 5% more frequently than women
• UT or Longhorns – 22.9% more frequently than women
• 420, weed, or marijuana – 23.4% more frequently than women
• Cuddle – 82.1% more frequently than women
• Physical – 110.4% more frequently than women
• Handsome – 115.2% more frequently than women
• Tonight – 120.8% more frequently than women
• Athletic – 280.1% more frequently than women

Men and women used the following word at almost identical rates

• Attractive – men and women both used this word in 11% of their ads

What does it all mean?  Do that many women really have herpes?  Can unemployed men get a date?  What are men talking about cuddling so much? I’ll leave it to the commenters and other bloggers to dissect.  I’d love to hear what you think.