California Pizza Kitchen

Who's got the biggest billboard? "So what if they can make your car smell like new. We'll make it smell like Santa Fe Chicken Pizza."

SXSW

This is the week of the massive South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, TX. This is the biggest music festival I've never been to. Over 1,700 bands perform in just five days. And that's not counting all the other shows in Austin that are not part of the official festival.

From looking at the schedule, I can tell that the Karma Lounge had a Dutch night with performances of Adept, Aux Raus, Postman, and C-mon & Kypski. Elsewhere, Lobi Traore & Joep Pelt and Moke played. Amsterdam's Hospital Bombers, Do-the-undo, and Alamo Race Track shared the stage with Jakarta's own White Shoes & the Couples Company. Cool festival, SXSW.

Do I know these bands? Some of them. My friend Aernout keeps me updated with the Dutch music scene, All Songs Considered podcasts music from the festival, and the Dallas Morning News covers the festival daily.

The picture shows Bon Iver, from Eau Claire, WI. Together with Vampire Weekend, they were one of the festival's highlights so far.

Greetings

Here are some new greetings used by Sammy and Greg: "What's shakin', hard bacon?" or "What's shaking', Jamaican?", or even "What's cookin', good lookin'?"

Winter in La Cima

Here's what our neighborhood looked like after a second winter storm hit us this week.

New Amsterdam

Fox premiered a new series tonight about the immortal NYPD agent John Amsterdam. The series is set in New York City and is called New Amsterdam.

In 1642, JOHN AMSTERDAM, then a Dutch soldier in the colony of New Amsterdam – later to become New York City -- stepped in front of a sword to save the life of a Native American girl during a massacre of her indigenous tribe. The girl in turn rescued Amsterdam, weaving an ancient spell that conferred immortality upon him. Amsterdam will not age, she told him, until he finds his one true love. Only then will he become whole and ready for mortality.

Let me guess... John will find his sweetheart, and then run into trouble.

Two hour delay

We received an automated phone call at 6am this morning. An automated voice said that "Due to inclement weather, all McKinney ISD schools will be delayed for two hours after their regularly scheduled start times this morning. In particular, icy road conditions have been spotted in rural areas of the district."

That presented Greg and Sammy with an ideal opportunity to get some more snow time.

Snow

You don't like the weather in Texas? Just wait a couple of hours, and you will like it. Or so the saying goes. The Texas winter is known for 35 degrees temperature swings in a day. And we got one of them in the past 24 hours.

After having enjoyed a warm weekend, temperatures dropped to below freezing today. We could get as much as two inches of snow overnight. Greg and Sammy did not want to wait for that. They went outside to make a tiny snowman from the first flakes.