Although SXSW Interactive is over, the smell in Exhibit Hall 2 still lingers. That's because EH2 played host to the free-to-all arcade known as Screenburn. It took me back, as my father was (and still is) a gamer. When I was a kid my brother, father, and I played co-operative shoot-em-up games, shouting such gems as "In your face!" and "Dead! Dead! You're Dead!" at each other, while never taking our fingers off of the keyboard. But honestly, I got nothing on the kids who were playing in the Screenburn Arcade. You could tell they had been playing for hours on end, perhaps because their tech-dweeb parents were attending panels in other areas of the convention hall. So why is this in the GP?

I just know when I use words like "transcendent," you dear readers must roll your eyes. But truly, like Booji Boy on a bungie, my experience at Devo at the Austin Music Hall SXSW 2009 hovered above all others. I'll leave the reviews to the music section, but will share this:

All kinds of hell is coming down at Capital Metro. The feds are investigating one of Cap Metro's labor contractors. The launch of MetroRail, which had already been delayed from March 30 to "sometime next month," has now been delayed indefinitely; the celebrations planned for March 28 have been called off. And this comes about a year after its originally planned launch date. We'll have some actual reporting on this in the print edition, but for now, the basic explanation is in this press release from Capital Metro:

THE HOMOSEXUALS WILL BE AT END OF AN EAR.

(5pm, today, Friday).

So the loudest part of SXSW has arrived in full force with the music component unfurling. But the film festival is still here as well, and could teach these guitar-wielding whipper-snappers a thing or too about shocking the public. What could be more rock and roll than a film star, stark naked, on all fours, being stroked by strangers and urinating in the street? OK, so the stars of Artois the Goat had a very good excuse for such behavior when they turned up for the film's world premiere last Sunday: They are goats. Artois the Goat has its final SXSW screening tonight, March 20, at the Alamo Ritz at 7pm.

Every morning at SXSW Interactive, SX staffer Ari Styles led a yoga class for attendees. She led us through gentle stretches, deep breathing, and at least one hard pose designed for strengthening. Each day's exercises were different, though each day had a theme of yoga poses to help people who spend most of their time sitting in a chair and working with a keyboard. As we lay in Savasana nearing the end of each class, Ari spoke briefly (“Letting go... letting go... let go.”) to lead us into deep relaxation. Finally, as we sat in prayer pose, she ended with a spoken gratitude practice. This was a really beautiful place to connect IRL and to feel better both mentally and physically throughout the festival. Looking back over Dr. Keely Kolmes' list of five things we can do now to improve our mental health from her Therapy 2.0: Mental Health for Geeks panel, Ari's yoga class gave us four of the five things! Here's the list again, from an earlier post: 1. weekly gratitude practice 2. breathing and mindfulness practice 3. connecting with others 4. exercise 5. thought tracking See you all at yoga next year at SXSWi 2010!

Psychiatrist Keely Kolmes and writer Thomas Roche presented this Tuesday afternoon core conversation, which felt much like sitting in an AA meeting or other group therapy session. One after another, for almost an hour, audience members described their experiences with a relatively new category of neurosis – Information Anxiety caused by information overload. One young woman said she feels she has lost the capacity for solitude and she wonders if it is gone forever. She recently noticed that it has become extremely unusual for her to take a walk or drive the car without checking email and twitter during the walk or drive. She feels that she doesn't have a sense of wholeness unless someone else is validating her experience fairly constantly throughout the day. Others talked about feeling terrible guilt when they didn't electronically check in constantly, about sitting and tweeting in the same room with people they could be talking to. One man felt that the increased capacity to understand comes with responsibility, which feels like a great weight. Several people spoke of boundaries – how technology helps us hide and gives us a false sense of intimacy which can cause problems in online relationships.

Stuff you can catch standing outside the rail: While Gov. Rick Perry was visiting House Speaker Joe Straus and others up on the dais this morning, Rep. Edmund Kuempel of Seguin took a moment to relieve a painful arch and slip off his loafer. As he stood there with his shoe in his hand, about 40 feet from the guv, a grin came across his face and he asked colleague Gary Elkins of Houston, "You think I can hit Perry from here?" Unclear as of press time: Whether Texas has penalties similar to Iraq's for throwing shoes at a chief executive officeholder, or if there is a legislative exemption from punishment. Also unclear: Whether, if Kuempel had gone through with it, Perry's hair would have been mussed up in the least. Further unclear: Whether, given Perry's current approval ratings, anyone would have cared or bothered to prosecute.

Wading through the four hours of testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Education Committee hearing on the new omnibus education bill Senate Bill 3, the recurrent meme was that it tackles the worst concerns about TAKS as the ultimate metric for student achievement. On the other hand, no-one seemed happy that, while it got rid of the acceptable/unacceptable tags for schools, it did little to change the "all or nothing" metric for school assessment. Rod Schroder of the Texas School Alliance likened it to calling a student with almost straight As and one C a C student. Richard Kouri, Director of Public Affairs for the Texas State Teachers Association, weighed in with an apt metaphor.

"Madame chairwoman, this will probably come as a surprise to you, but it did to me, my doctor told me I need to lose weight. For a month I've been going in the bathroom and weighing myself, and you know, I haven't lost any weight. None! And I told my wife, the problem has to be the damn scale."