So I was interviewed live by the BBC today in the Chronicle parking lot. It wasn't that spectacular. In fact, perhaps a la Kirk Watson, I was caught a bit off-guard by the questions asked, which weren't exactly the ones I expected. The woman who set up the interview tried to prep me as best she could by explaining that the show host would be speaking from Moscow and the idea would be to compare the just-completed Russian presidential election with ours.

Nonetheless, I was expecting more Texas-centric questions about how excited people here are to be the center of attention, what the atmosphere is currently like, and what kind of turnout we're having. Instead, I ended up in sort of a debate (that was definitely unexpected) with some Russian political observer about whether our system is really any better than theirs.

Okay, I wasn't completely stuck without an answer like Watson during his moment of infamy, but I think the answers I did give were godawful uninteresting and lacking in insight. I doubt anyone in Britain gleaned any wisdom from me today.

If you click on the link above, my bit comes about an hour and 20 minutes in, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to fast-forward to that point without losing the connection. If you really want to hear it, I think you'll have to listen all the way through. Trust me, it's not worth it.

Good news for those of you planning to follow the election numbers in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary: I just got off the phone with Ann McGeehan, director of elections for the secretary of state’s office, and her office will be posting the results divided up among the state’s 31 senatorial districts, which of course is the real key to understanding who’s winning. (Of course, you could just come back here to Newsdesk Tuesday night, where we will continually update the numbers of not only that race but all of the state and county races important to Austin.)

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick primer: 126 of Texas’ 228 delegates will be decided by the popular vote tomorrow. They are not divvied up according to the statewide popular vote; instead, each of the 31 senate districts has a preassigned number of delegates based on Democratic turnout in the previous two general elections (2004 and 2006). Those delegates will be divided up based on the vote totals in each district. So it’s really 31 separate contests. I explain it in a bit more detail here.

Click on “continue reading” to see a breakdown of the delegate count by district, as well as a quick explanation of how the rest of the delegates are assigned.

Alcohol-industry watchdogs with the Center for Science in the Public Interest are seeking a court injunction that would ban beer makers Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Company from selling so-called "alcohol energy drinks" (yes, facially an oxymoron), report the drug treatment and prevention advocates at Join Together.

The CSPI argues that the drinks – "adulterated products" that the group has dubbed "alcospeed," which combine booze and stimulants, like caffeine, guarana, or ginseng – are marketed so as to appeal to underage drinkers. Indeed, the group notes that the alcospeed beverages – including A-B's "Tilt" and "Bud Extra" beverages along with Miller's "Sparks" drink – are similar in appearance and flavor (gag) to other nonalcoholic, quasi-energy drinks that are heavily marketed to kids. "Short of decorating these cans with Hannah Montana or Spiderman, it's hard to see how you could do a better job of marketing alcospeed to young people than Anheuser-Busch and Miller are doing," CSPI litigation director Steve Gardner told JT. "They have a sugary taste" – gag, gag, gag – "and colors that make it look more like Moutain Dew or Orange Crush than regular beer. It's a recipe for disaster and the companies should be held accountable."

Over the past 15 years in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, strings of rarely-solved murders of young women have persisted in an atmosphere of fractioning authority and violently-contested territories – be that of street gangs, the police, or more organized drug cartels.

But in a city where men are murdered at a far higher rate than women, the murders of these maquiladoras, – or assembly plant workers – while garnering some attention, have not garnered nearly enough of the right people's attention, says Cecilia Balli, an anthropology doctoral candidate from Rice University. Not all the young women who were murdered were maquiladoras, says Balli, but the term has come to say something about the infrastructure of towns like Juarez, where industrial complexes and campuses are on opposite ends of town from many residences, forcing students and those lucky enough to find work into contact with the ills of society during their long walks or bus rides to work/school.

Balli has reported on the murders for Texas Monthly and spoke to an audience at UT Monday about anthropological factors that could have contributed to the culture of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez. She said that classifying these murders as simple jealousy killings for women's recent upward mobility in the workplace or educationally was too simplistic – as was the explanation these murders are perpetrated entirely by drug lords and power brokers in shady trade near the Mexico-U.S. border.

The Austin office of the U.S. Marshals Service last week announced the capture of fugitive Ricardo Jaimes, who was indicted in November by a federal grand jury in Michigan for his role in a marijuana trafficking conspiracy.

According to a federal indictment, Jaimes and his pals – Joseph Giganti, Ricky Chalfant, and Genaro "Biggie" Deanda – devised a scheme to send multiple 50-pound pot shipments from Texas to Western Michigan, via commercial carriers (think FedEx). Apparently things went swimmingly for a couple years – they'd send the pot to various residences, including unoccupied summer homes, and then arrange to pick up the goods at a later date; and apparently Deanda even set up his own shipping company, South Texas Shipping Express, in order to facilitate the operation – until the four were popped last year and indicted for trafficking in at least 100 kilos of marijuana. Jaimes fled, according to the Marshals Service, and wound up in Hays Co. He was picked up – "without incident" – by members of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force who surrounded his car in the Cabela's parking lot in Buda. (Now there's a decidedly un-sexy place to get popped, eh?)

The Texas Rollergirls said there would be March Madness on the flat track, and they were right. The first bouts of the sixth season, held March 2 at Playland Skate Center, saw changes: retirees out in the crowd or in management, enough rookies to create a new team (with substitutes), and a new crash barrier (so less chance of spilled beer in turn two). But there were also some high scores, some high emotions, and some high elbows.

The opening period of the season was almost like having two new teams out there. The Hustlers and the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers were both fielding seven new players (including familiar face Smash Hit, freshly transferred to the Heartbreakers this season). The two teams came out of the first jam tied, but a grand slam from former Minnesota Rollergirl Desi Cration put the Heartbreakers in a dominating position. Eking out only two points in the next 10 jams, the new-look Hustlers couldn't keep the Heartbreakers from consistently piling on points. Coming out of the first period 48-14, the Heartbreakers maintained their lead for a 100-32 victory.

Last week, Austin’s avant-garde reissue label, Unseen Worlds, unearthed Carl Stone’s 1983 composition Woo Lae Oak, a droning, 54-minute suite of string and wind samples. Along with an appearance Monday, March 10 at Scholz Garten in conjunction with SXSW Interactive, the California-based composer performs this Wednesday, March 5, at Ballet Austin (3002 Guadalupe), re-imagining his piece “Guelaguetza.”

Off the Record: Were you surprised when Unseen Worlds approached you about reissuing Woo Lae Oak?
Carl Stone: I was certainly very pleased. It’s nice to know that people remember the work. I’m not sure how the folks first encountered the LP. It came out in 1983, so it’s been a quarter of a century. It turns out that it has an underground status among DJs. I wasn’t so much surprised as I was glad they found it of enough interest to want to bring it back out.

When it rains it pours for Kevin Durant. ESPN.com’s David Thorpe has had KD as the premier rookie all season long, even in late January when Durant saw his output fall and his turnovers increase. But a four-game losing streak where KD averaged fewer than 20 – he’s the scoring leader on an unbalanced team. Translation: the Sonics blow – and as many turnovers as rebounds per game. With that, Thorpe didn’t have much of a choice. Down goes Durant, down goes Durant.

After watching Kobe Bryant walk by KD for easy bucket after easy bucket on February 24, Thorpe called out Durant’s preparation for games saying, “Specifically, he needs to learn the tendencies of his opponents. Anyone defending Bryant must know that he likes to get deep post-ups in the Lakers' early offense (one reason why he's so great), so playing behind him as he crosses through the paint is a mistake.”

And getting burned by Golden State’s Brandon Wright the very next game didn’t help the cause:

Following on from the news that SXSW '05 breakouts the Duplass Brothers will be getting their new movie Baghead shown at this year's festival (plus, as revealed here, a midnight sneak preview), another SXSW veteran is re-emerging: Darkon, which won the SXSW '06 audience award for documentary feature, has finally got a DVD release.

The film about the weird and wonderful world of LARPing (that's live action roleplaying to you) got its world debut at the Convention Center that year, with cast and crew in attendance. When I spoke with co-directors Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel at the time, they pointed out the value of film festivals: They'd spent over a year dedicated to making this film, hanging out with the Darkonians (as they call themselves) and standing in cold, wet fields in Maryland. But because they'd been living the film, they both said they weren't sure whether it was any good or not. Talking to them after a screening, they seemed struck by both surprise and elation that a room full of strangers (who all could have found something else to do) not only sat through their movie, but gave them a standing ovation afterwards. Which has to be nice.