Today is the first day of the rest of your life, but it's also the last day to vote for my SXSW Panel!

I haven't been great about getting out the vote for this panel. Frankly, due to the work I'll be talking about, I haven't had time. And the panelists I've already lined up (with more to come) are also too busy/too important to do the same.

They say the vote is only 30% and I sure hope our lack of campaigning doesn't nix our chances.

I'm passionate about the topic -- working for online at a TV network. And I also loved SXSW, but found many of the best sounding panels were a bore because the moderators were highly qualified on paper but either shy, or didn't have a sense of how to make them entertaining for an audience.

I know I could put on a brilliantly rollicking panel about cheese or mating habits of the box turtle -- heck I've hosted odder than that. But with this, even better -- I've written and produced for on-air, off-air, online. I've appeared on-air, online, magazines, etc. But I do love the web best. And it dawned on me recently that I am an expert. I've 14 years experience working online for all kinds of sites, but tons for TV online. Just because you email or watch videos online doesn't mean you know what flies on the web or how best to hawk it. But we've all been through fire hammering out and testing what works, seeing the turnaround, knowing what has failed... the whole sheebang.

Sure, I don't know the answers to the questions I'm raising -- what is the future of TV and online entertainment -- and doubt anyone in the world does. But we might figure a thing or two out. And it'll be hella fun.

Anywho, last year I went to SXSWi for the first time as an awards finalist. For next year, I've already booked my trip and my SXSW badge. I'm going again no matter what. I know better what I can and want to get out of it. Plus, my man's best friend from chidhood in the UK just moved his tenure from U of Mich. to U of Texas in Austin -- so double score.

So if my panel is picked, great. And if it's not, I vow I'm going off the grid -- and will put on this event in some fabulous flophouse or similarly groovy Austin venue.

So, in short, pick me! Or don't. Either way it's going to be a darn good time.

My day job blog is a finalist in the SXSW Web Awards.

You can find out all about it in this post I wrote right here on the aforementioned day job blog.

I am writing my acceptance speech already.

Of course, I've written and rewritten my Academy Awards acceptance speech in my head many many times. Hasn't everyone?

I always wonder if I'd have the guts to open by staring at the Oscar in wonder, stroking it and saying, "Wow. I've always wanted one of these. I... I can't believe I was always too embarrassed to just go and buy one for myself!"

And then when the audience slowly began to collapse in uproarious laughter, I'd open my eyes wide, do a double or triple take, and pretend to look horrified like I just realized that the statuette I had just won was in not, in fact, a sex toy.

Then I'd give a sly smile and say "thank you" and leave. Or then I'd go into thanking my agents, actors and loved ones in a sincere but not annoyingly lengthy way. Haven't decided that part yet. Luckily, I wasn't nominated this year, so I still have time to plan.