By eleven in the morning, the cavernous hallways of the Austin Convention Center are shoulder-to-shoulder with eager technophiles and casually dressed business types, already networking and gathering shwag. Rumor has it that most of the real deals at the SxSW conference go down during this interactive portion (like Foursquare and Twitter in years past), as few distributors are buying the festival's films, and most bands know better then to sign with a record label. After wandering through a few lounges to hear about APIs and hundred gigabyte clouds -- riveting stuff, really -- I head to the first panel of the conference, aptly titled “How Not to be a Douchebag at SxSW.”

Two of the four speakers on the panel have their hair dyed bright red and dark blue, respectively, which doesn’t necessarily instill confidence in their knowledge of how to avoid “douchiness.” They instruct a packed house on “conference etiquette,” giving insight on Badge Surfing (where people only talk to you based on your badge), Party Chasing (no party is worth waiting in line for), and voting at SxSW with your feet. I visit the Screenburn video game exhibit hall, where the new Mortal Kombat and Homefront games are being swarmed with gaggles of high school kids who have somehow scored the festival's coveted Interactive conference badges. The Unlimited Justice booth, a campaign being funded by clothing designer Marc Ecko to eliminate corporal punishment by paddling in schools, is undoubtedly the most memorable. They actually have a chair in which you can assume the position and a machine operated by some hot chick will smack you on the ass with a wooden paddle. This is almost entertaining enough to make me forget about the quake in Japan.

The film festival starts up shortly thereafter, with the World Premiere of Source Code, the exciting second film from Duncan Jones, who I have high hopes will ressurect the Science Fiction genre. I also check out the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times, which is entertaining and informative despite being rather scattered. It reminds me of a number of things I already know: the New York Times is one of the most important publications in the world, the New York Times thinks they are better then everyone else, the New York Times should be protected at all cost. However, the most enjoyable hour and a half of my day comes when I see Sound of My Voice, an indie feature about a Los Angeles couple who infiltrate a cult led by a woman who claims she is from the future. The film’s afterparty invite was nearly as high concept as the film itself. To close out the night, it’s James Wan’s horror film Insidious, which is both wonderfully campy and terrifying enough to make me lose sleep tonight. But that’s what afterparties are for...