Deciding that there was no time to lose, three hardcore SXSWM-ers (Stef, Dom and myself) decided to hit the streets of Austin to see if we could hook up with fellow conference goers.

The place to be, apparently, is 6th Street…which is Austin’s version of Broad Street without the short skirts and bunny ears.

Our trip out didn’t start too well – I’m still trying to get to grips with the Nokia N95 and missed a few tweets about the various parties that were going on.

So we decided to walk 6th Street until we saw somewhere that looked interesting. We found Buffalo Billiards (the Nation’s best new pool hall, 1999), which after we blagged our way in without our SXSW entry passes, we found was hosting the first night party for SXSW Film. Free beer, darts, pool and shuffleboard – a fantastic game which I am average at (and that is good for me).

Thanks to Joe who we met at the bar for teaching us the rules and letting us beat him.

We met a couple of people in the film industry – mostly indies – and Stef hooked up with a friend from Google. Dom and I had an interesting chat about the future of newspapers – he has seen an article that points to news only being supportable through not-for-profit ventures in future. It’s an interesting idea – one that has crossed my mind as competition for advertising revenue appears to be increasing.

So, considering we had no idea how to spend the evening, I think we did pretty well.

Roll on tomorrow and official registration.