Most counter-cultural types think of Austin as home to the ever-burgeoning South by Southwest music conclave, when throngs of wannabes and up-and-comers choke the downtown streets in search of beats and beer. I've been there and done that, amigos, but have put such childish things aside and will forevermore associate this town with the Barton Creek Resort & Spa, where golf replaces guitars and quiet luxury is the order of the day. You want to share a motel room with six dudes with hangovers, knock yourself out, podnuh!

Call me crazy, but I prefer a place with four championship golf courses -- the two Tom Fazio designs are rated by Golf Magazine as the best public courses in Texas -- a world-class spa (including a half-court basketball gym!) and some top-notch food and drink on the premises. Four thousand acres of glorious Texas Hill Country surround you, eleven tennis courts, indoor and outdoor pools and wilderness trails for those who like their nature without flagsticks and bunkers. Mark Twain famously called golf "a good walk spoiled." I call a nature hike a waste of shoe leather. So there, Sam.

Yup, those Fazio courses are as challenging as they are rolling and picturesque, but just as appealing is the prospect of fine-tuning your game at the top-rated Chuck Cook Golf Academy, where they will high-tech analyze your swing, clean up your sand game, improve your putting -- you name it. No lie, I spent half an hour on the range with a dozen other hackers and walked away with a couple of tips that have dramatically changed my whole approach to the game. I only wish I'd have gone there twenty years ago!

Not that couples are unwelcome, but those savvy marketing types at KSL Resorts have devised an estrogen-free golf package for dudes who like to bond over birdies and bogeys and brew. The "Guys Golf Getaway" gets you a roof and a flat-screen tube in one of the recently renovated rooms, a breakfast buffet every morning of the two- or three-night stay and even free replays Monday through Thursday. Post-golf, you fellers would do well to repair to the brand-new 8212 Wine Bar & Grill where the veal breast nachos and mahi mahi fish tacos will obviate any need to leave the resort in search of authentic local fare. Summers can be brutally hot down here in LBJ Country, so plan accordingly. Right now would be a great time to go. Tell 'em Pecos Dave sentcha....

Great news: You don't need a hunched back and bad prosthetic choppers to find a fabulous seaside getaway, much less climb the flying buttresses of Notre Dame! Just up the coast from Monterey in Marina, CA., you can escape whatever mobs are chasing you at the Sanctuary Beach Resort, a luxury waterfront hotel situated on an endless stretch of unspoiled dunes. I've been stopping here for years and the facelift money they've thrown at the place has transformed it from humble to high-end in a happy heartbeat.

If you do decide to stay in the room and not prowl for seashells, you'll find flat-screen tv's, king-size beds, wet bar, minibar, high-speed internet -- all that and a personal golf cart you're free to use to race around the property in, from the heated swimming pool to the Kula Ranch Steakhouse. The views are fabulous, the staff low-key but attentive and the whole feeling of the property is that it hasn't sullied the pristine location. Rarely has such a sprawling resort left such a gentle footprint in the sand.

They are currently offering something called the "Paddle & Jump" adventure package -- two nights at the hotel, a tandem skydiving experience, kayaking in Monterey Bay, a massage for two at the Serenity Spa and dinner for you and the significant other at the aforementioned steakhouse. Whew! The deal is good through March of next year and runs around $1500 per daredevil. If you're not the dive-out-of-a-Cessna type, may I suggest loading up the iPod (docking station in-room) and a bottle of local cabernet and just keeping the gulls company? SANCTUARY!!

The rest of the world has been gobbling up great bunches of Acer computers for years now, while Dell and HP and other Americanos battled for market share here in the U.S. and A. This past year, Acer bought Gateway with some $700 million in loose change it had lying about and will concentrate on increasing the former company's local footprint.

Snazzy laptops like the Aspire 8920 shown to our left should attract finicky consumers who think computers should look as good as they perform. The 8920 is part of Acer's Gemstone Blue series, with a lustrous blue-black lid and a sleek black and silver interior. But it's what pops off the 18.4-inch screen that will really widen your pupils. The 8920 will play Blu-ray disks in 16:9 aspect ratio, meaning you're getting the full dimension, clarity and vivid color you'd expect from a big HD teevee.

Some of the glory should go to Nvidia for its GeForce 9650m graphics processor, which kicks out the 1920 X 1080 resolution vidgeeks long for. Add Intel's top-o-the line Core 2 Duo processor (2.6 GHz) and 4 GB's of SDRAM and you've got warp-speed performance to go with the razor-sharp images. The capacious chassis has room for a full keyboard as well as a touch-sensitive media control area on the left flank, shaped intuitively like a remote control. Nice touch, that. And the sound is amazing for a laptop! A 5.1 speaker system with a subwoofer tries to simulate the surround experience, and acquits itself admirably.

All in all, this nine-pound bundle of bit-crushing joy is as good as it gets at the multimedia laptop high end. And if you've already made the move to Blu-ray for the home, this is the only way to go to squeeze every bit of a/v love out of those pricey disks. Acer rules.

Sometimes you have to wonder why we music types take so much trouble mixing and mastering songs these days, when people tend to listen to tinny, compressed versions on tiny earbuds! Here's why: when a respected speaker company like Polk Audio troubles to build an iPod dock that actually makes that handy little critter sound like it has heft and shimmer and sonic boom! Ah, but it warms the coddles of me wee heart....

Yup, the I-Sonic ES-2 system's four-speaker array, front and back -- with their patented PowerPort bass for all y'all hiphoppers -- delivers room-filling sound at a fraction of the price and without occupying half the living room with bulky gear and furniture to hold it. Not only that, this co-dependent hardware will stream video from the Pod to the TV via S-Video or composite connection. Podcasts, Youtube vids and photos -- all released from their tiny-screen bondage.

But wait -- there's more! This honey doesn't just play what's in the iPod, it also has a second generation HD Tuner, capable of bringing in the more than 1,500 HD stations now broadcasting across this great nation. You get CD-quality audio along with a data stream telling you what music's playing, where a traffic jam is or if heavy weather's about to hit. It also "tags" songs that you like at the push of a button, making them easy to track down for subsequent preview and purchase.

Add a traditional AM/FM receiver, trusty alarm clock, headphone jack and a wireless remote control and you can wake up to a Category 13 hurricane and never know what hit you. The music done saved your life!! Hallelujah.....

Firstly, it ain't French, but I couldn't resist the cheap pun for the headline! Forgiven? Calphalon is as American as rhubarb pie, and is best known for its hard-anodized aluminum cookware. Rubbermaid bought the outfit a decade ago, and they've subsequently expanded the line to include high-end cutlery, kitchen utensils and, voilà! (note the gratuitous Français) -- handsome small electrics like the oven you see posing so seductively above.

The Calphalon XL Convection Oven was born to multitask -- it can toast, roast or broil without breaking a sweat. It has upper and lower heating elements and a series of internal sensors to make sure heating is consistent throughout its capacious interior. Small footprint, big innards: this baby can cook a 12-inch pizza, roast a whole chicken and even bake dessert. I've got mine sitting next to the stovetop to use as a salamander, when I need to caramelize the sugar on a Crème Brûlée (and you know I do that daily!).

The stainless steel exterior means it fits in well with your other gleaming appliances, and the non-stick interior means you won't burn calories scrubbing and scraping if some cheese bubbles over. Check out Calphalon's other small electrics: I've got my eye on the 7-Quart slow cooker, a snazzier Crock-Pot that will make you the envy of tout le monde!

I was killing time at Whole Foods in Manhattan a few months ago when I picked up this heavyweight tome, Conscious Eating, the so-called "Bible of Vegetarians." Alternating between wonderment and abject fear, I shuddered at the depth of Dr. Gabriel Cousens's erudition and the damage done eating supermarket meats and produce lo these many years. A tidbit: Cousens recounts talking to a poultry industry union official who said privately he "would never eat chicken knowing what he has seen." KFC, anyone?

We are talking 800-plus pages of mind-altering information, raw food recipes, healing properties of foods -- and by an author who is not only an actual M.D., but a psychiatrist, family therapist and licensed homeopathic physician to boot. Deepak Chopra you can have -- he is a media stooge and used chakra salesman compared to Cousens. Within a week of reading this book, I started a daily juicing regimen, lost 17 pounds and started earnestly thinking about the physical and spiritual dimensions of what I ingest day to day. I am far from perfect, but you won't see me in line at Burger King anytime soon.

There are new age echoes in GC's stentorian voice, but I have never been put off less by such touchy-feeliness, given its roots in solid empirical research on human nutrition. "A nutrient," the Doc says, "is what we absorb into our overall body-mind-spirit from the different density levels that have precipitated from the cosmic force." All that high-mindedness and recipes for "live" catsup and mustard, among many other treasures. This could be a life-saving thirty-five buck investment. The publisher, North Atlantic Books, has many other titles worth a gander as well -- including Cousens's There is a Cure for Diabetes.

Readers of this humble blah-blah-blog already get the idea I spend way too much time in the kitchen, love shiny things that go whirrrrrrr and am a sucker for gizmos and geegaws alike. So imagine my utter, near-erotic glee upon cooking my first meal with Le Creuset's new 12-piece stainless steel cookware, pans so silvery smooth you could style your hair in the frying pan while sauteéing the garlic. Not recommended, but within the realm of possibility.

Beyond hair care, what this set has to offer is flawless heat conductivity, ensuring even cooking from stem to stern. The three-ply steel construction features a pure aluminum
core and a magnetized exterior that works well on any kind of surface, including induction. And Food Network junkies will recall being told that stainless steel doesn't react with any types of food, including acids. Those used to cooking with aluminum or cast iron may have noticed lemon juice and tomatoes don't take well to those pans. Metallic taste, discoloration -- tsk tsk tsk...

The handles stay cool during cooking and there are convenient little lines and numerals inside the saucepans and casseroles for accurate measuring. Once the meal is consumed and the family is abed, pop these silver warriors in the dishwasher and settle in for a postprandial nip. Le Creuset is old-school in the best possible sense of that tiresome phrase -- 80 years of experience in forging enameled, cast-iron cookware. These star-spangled beauties will be the class of your kitchen, whether you're cooking burgers or beef bourguignon. Allez!!

Designer headphones are all the rage, given the success Dr. Dre had with his Monster Beats line. Enter the Phiaton MS-400's, a combination punch of laser-sharp sound and eye-popping design that will make you the envy of the commuter class. Just make sure the CHP doesn't ogle you bopping to the beat on the 405.

The red and black carbon fiber details are pretty fly for a piece of gear usually relegated to the functional, but these headphones also deliver an even response across the board -- the lows aren't too boomy, the highs don't sizzle so much that they distract and dominate. They sit comfortably about the ears, tight enough to drown out ambient noise. Also, they fold up two ways and fit snugly into a compact carrying case.

For $250 smackers, you can now have a pair of headphones that match the Ferrari in your driveway! Or at least the Ferrari edition laptop Acer put out a couple of years ago. Either way, you're styling and profiling while getting your Brahms on.....

The time has come to put away childish things, and to join the adult world of kick-butt audio. Introducing the M-00 powered multimedia speaker system from NHT, already a favorite among high-end audio retentive types, but perfect for gamers demanding sonic realism and music freaks who want to hear every last frequency in that hi-res download they paid extra for.

NHT has long been a highly respected manufacturer of speakers and home theater rigs, and applies that know-how to this compact system: a pair of M-00's, an S-20 subwoofer and, if you want to splurge a wee bit more, a "passive volume control" that ensures you don't lose fidelity due to rinky-dink audio connectors. Now you're ready to crank that thing to 12 and really annoy your housemates.

Mind you, this ain't yo daddy's Wollensak anymore, and will cost you more than the average heap o' plastic on the shelves at Best Buy. But if it's good enough for the finicky likes of Peter Frampton -- who has been a M-00 Man for some time now -- it will more than do the job for civilians who also cherish accurate sound reproduction in a compact system. In this iWorld we live in, small is beautiful until it comes to the power and grandeur of music: NHT delivers all that and a dose of glory to boot.