For the past couple of weeks, just about every online acquaintance I know has mentioned or attended SxSW. I heard about it last year and didn’t pay it much attention, but then this Twitter thing came by and then everyone I follow on Twitter was yapping about it and how drunk they were getting at it.

From what I understand of the festival, I don’t really get how bloggers are able to attend this thing on their employer’s dime. What are you really getting out of it other than debauchery and networking — not necessarily bad things, I might add, but do they really add to your employer’s investment?

Part of me writes out of jealousy for not having the time, resources or my once youthful desire to attend SxSW, but the other makes me really wonder what I missed in the first place. Would I be a better writer for having attended this thing? Would anyone paying my way to SxSW get their money’s worth? My bet is that most people attending by way of their employer’s checkbook somehow talked them into the value of the event, when they were really hiding their true goal: meeting people to party with while listening to new music.

That money they spent flying your ass to a multi-day party could have been used to, I dunno, send someone to cover a real event. Honestly, have you read any worthwhile posts that came out of SxSW that were newsworthy?

Something else I wanted to get off my chest about SxSW, though not exactly just about SxSW, is the Twittering thing. I can’t get over how many people Twittered from the event, and part of that just makes me sad. You’re attending this event to network with people, in person, and you’ve got your nose buried in your iPhone more than half the time. People are Twittering who they’re sitting with at dinner and at bars, so what the hell are they doing fumbling around with a fucking gadget when they should be enjoying the people they are with!

And… AND! That gets me to one last thing. If you own a blog and find that you have to apologize to readers for not updating, guess what? You’re doing something right! It means you’re actually busy with real shit and not bored to tears such that you have time to write in a blog. So, as my bud Joel at TV Squad said to me about this, stop being sorry for having a life — if you’re not updating your blog, we won’t hold it out on you.

On that note, back to my life.