7 Ways to Pretend You're at SXSW 2010

The film and tech folks are already in Austin and the music mavens arrive today. But perhaps your nasty boss is cutting back because of the economy or you blew your travel budget on a trip to Cannes. Either way, you can't afford heading to SXSW this year, but still don't want your hip rating to sink to the Osmond Family level. There's still hope. Just use these 6 strategies to pretend that you jetted into Texas for a few hours.

1. Follow and contribute to the tweets at #SXSW



2. But be sure to turn off geotaggingon Twitter, Flickr and all your apps so no one knows where you really are.



3. No one can trackyou are when you call from your cell to share how good thebbq at Stubbswas last night.



4. The best answer to “Dude! I thought you we're going to meet us for a cocktail?" is:“Man, that line was too long. I'll try to catch up with you later."



5. Force yourself to listen to as many of the 1000 songs as you can stand on the unofficial SXSW 2010 torrentand pick out a few to talk about that suck.



6. Read & Remember:Hypebot will have coverage of course, but so does Glenn Peoples and Billboard.biz (search @SXSW), Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired's Epicenter and too many others to mention.



7. AFTER SXSW: Print out the official schedules and maps. Crumple them up, sit and spill a little beer on them. Then leave them around your office during the week after the conference.