I have to admit to still being in love with Google, for the most part. Gmail and Maps are staples of my life. But Search is starting to piss me off. Today, I need to find some web icons for email, the web, etc. so I type it in to Google. What do I get back? A bunch of spammy sites trying to download spyware (if I had a PC, I would have been worried about that). Anyways, eventually I found some usable icons but I wasn’t totally happy with them and I’m thinking I might need to find something better when I have more time to search. Sigh. That was the feeling we had before Google –when it came along, it helped us find what we were looking for quickly and easily on the net.

Dear Readers, I’d like to share an update on where I have been and what’s going on in my blog life. As many of you know, I moved to Austin hoping to find a better work/life balance. I’m happy to report that I’ve been successful in that search, but it has meant not too much posting here. Without traveling to festivals regularly, I haven’t had as much to report on or documentaries to discuss. I’m feeling good about the new balance but wondering where that leaves this blog. Most probably, it will evolve to something not specifically focused on documentaries, but we’ll see. Lest you think I’m just being lazy, I’d like to bring your attention to the other online projects I’m working on…

The Austin Film Society has a great journal called Persistence of Vision. I’ve been working on taking the journal online into blog format. The journal has two print editions annually but now exists online with regular updates. The focus of the blog is the Austin film scene with a bend toward AFS and its members, but I’ll be expanding it in time to hopefully include Texas film. If indeed Austin is the third coast of filmmaking, I hope to make this new blog a one-stop-shop for news on film in the area. It’s a work in progress, but bookmark it now. There is an amazing creative community here and my aim is to promote the people and work that make this an amazing place to live and work. If you are in Austin, feel free to send on your film-related news to afs-communications@austinfilm.org.

The other project I’m working on is the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program website, DocSource. Also a work-in-progress, the idea there is to create a space for program fellows to connect with one another and to share more in-depth information about the projects that are part of DFP’s various programs. Some of the best documentaries go through Sundance so keep your eye there for news. Especially exciting are the projects from the Skoll Foundation partnership, Stories of Change. The docs are focused on social entrepreneurs–people who are using grassroots support and ingenuity to make an impact on some of the most serious issues facing humanity–and include filmmakers such as Annie Sundberg, Jonathan Stack, Tracy Strain and Peter Friedman. The films are still in production so you can watch the evolution of those films.

Thanks so much for all of your support in my various endeavors!

There are many websites and blog posts out pre-SXSW to help you figure out the behemoth event, but since I have a panel on the subject, I want to add my own to the mix. Check out all of the geeky Film goodness – check back as updates are coming in all the time.