jarrett...and several degrees of separation

system 5-4, sensor 8

2007-12-06T10:11:00.001-05:00

ah the beauty of living in an apartment. you never know what's going to happen. the tenants above you may decide to throw an impromptu all-night party. their air conditioner condensation drain may become clogged, causing it to leak through your ceiling. who knows, it's even possible that your security system (which you didn't activate) may even start talking and beeping incessantly at you about a broken sensor that you don't give a damn about. of course the only solution to this problem is to reset it by flipping the breaker every 12 hours for the next 4 months because...well, why would you not want to go crazy?!?

how 'bout something peaceful and serene like a blank white page?

iphone

2007-08-08T10:45:00.000-05:00

so, i guess it's time for another post (you're welcome debbie). what's happened since getting a job? ...hmmmm. oh wait, i know, I GOT AN IPHONE! yeah, i know, i'm a sell out, a fan-boy, a "that guy." but at least i don't wear a bluetooth ear piece; if that's of any consolation.

so what do i love best about it? well, i love being able to browse the web from anywhere...albeit, at blindingly slow edge (read: dialup) speeds. oh, and the hat and the lightsaber effects.

good news, everybody!

2007-06-13T07:03:00.000-05:00

i am sure that all of my fan (hi honey) is glad to see a new post. for the past 7 months i've been job hunting. some people say that they enjoy the process of hunting for a job. those people are insane and i won't speak on this subject any further.

starting monday i will be a unix developer, woohoo! i am really stoked about it! my new company is multistate associates. they, well, we are a consulting firm that aides companies/associations in the monitoring and (i assume) prodding of state legislation and regulation via analysts and lobbyists. bet you couldn't've guessed i be working for a company like that. tim's already given me crap about supporting the abramoffs of the world, to which i say, "wait, what does your company do?!?" i'm pretty sure that b of a would've easily been a financial supporter of enron, they just happened to not be. also, multistate works on the state and local level, so :p

anywho, i'm really excited about it...and that's without considering that my boss is in deep blue sun.

sometimes i think people are reading my mind

2007-01-24T10:08:00.000-05:00

just the other day, sara and i were at bi-lo doing our weekly grocery shopping. as sara hands over her keys which contain 5 separate money-saving barcodes, i say to her, "wouldn't it be nice if there was just one barcode to put on your keychain for all of those stores?"

...so what do i find on digg today?!? well...not that, but it serves a similar purpose. instead of one "master" barcode, you can consolidate your barcodes onto one card. i haven't tried it out at the store, yet, but i've printed off the five barcodes that we use and i'll see how well it works.

you can do the same.

the bear that wasn't

2007-01-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

the year was 1995, or maybe it was 1996, i'm not really sure...it was freshman year. the dorm, and i'm sure on this one was smith...third floor. life was more simple then, or maybe it was simpler...i'll have to confer with a dictionary on that. anyway, the details aren't important, what's important is that it was very late and joe and i had been watching cartoons for hours. we usually watched beavis and butthead, and probably did that night, but for 10 short minutes another cartoon played. one that neither of us had seen before.

it was about a bear. a bear that upon waking up from his hibernation, saw a dramatic change in his environment. there were buildings and construction sites going up all around him. he tried to get to the bottom of the situation, but no one would listen to him. as a matter of fact, no one believed that he was a bear. he was repeatedly told that he wasn't a bear at all, just a man that needed to get back to work. the cartoon was filled psychedelic moments and humorous social commentary.

the next day joe called turner broadcasting to find out where we could get a copy it. no one seemed to know what he was talking about. we searched the internet, which at that time didn't have the resources it does now, to no avail. over the years we would jokingly talk about the mysterious cartoon.

ten years later i do another search. to my surprise (and relief), not only is there a wikipedia entry, but it has been released.

greetings on a global level

2006-12-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

i don't know about you, but i like a good mash-up. send a message of love (or hate) made from aerial-views of buildings. what's cooler than that?!? a lot of things? well...

asheville rocks!

2006-08-03T17:25:00.000-05:00

last weekend sara and i went to asheville to partake in their annual bele chere festival. actually, the only reason we went was to see yo mama's big fat booty band. no, really, that's the name of the band...see?!?

anyway, so we went to the concert, and the booty band was awesome! we found out from the couple dancing next to us that they would be playing later that night at the orange peel...so off we went.

as you can see, the orange peel has one giant fan over the crowd for maximum dancing comfort. i took a picture of the fan and found out that it was made by the "big ass fans" company...and oh yes, they've got a website.

what we did this weekend...

2006-06-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

happy birthday vonya, debbie, theblog!

2006-04-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

actually, i missed theblog's birthday. oh well, i've sent it a belated birthday card, i'm sure it will forgive me.

so what have i been doing with my time for the past two months?!? well, i've been in jail. i ran into a parked car and i was a little over the "acceptable" blood alcohol limit for driving - and there was a kid in the car.

APRIL FOOLS!
(but that did happen right outside my window the other night)

some fun, some reminiscence

2006-02-24T13:43:00.000-05:00

i don't know how many of you had the opportunity to work/play on macintosh computers when you were younger (not those fancy COLOR macs, i'm talking macintosh classic ii), but this was my bread and butter in the early 90's. one particular piece of software that attracted me was a 2-d physics simulator. i wish i could remember the name (a beer to anyone that does). it allowed you to mock up pretty much any newtonian scenario that you could think of in 2 dimensions. i often created car-shaped objects with initial velocities that would "jump" anchored, ramp-shaped objects, while narrowly missing the massive rock-ish object that was accelerating due to the ultra-high gravity in this 2-d, monochrome world. man, that was fun!

good times.

anyway, this game reminds of the good ole days, except that it's in color.

i also recommend 'blast billy.' the object is to shoot a guy into things, heh

own and ipod and a bunch of cds?!?

2006-02-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

well, according to recent statements from the riaa, you better re-purchase all of your music from itunes. ripping cds that you legally own and uploading them to your ipod is NOT covered under "fair use."

riaa head-hancho:
"oh no, our profits are down! who should we blame?!?"

riaa exec 1:
"well, we are releasing horrible music. maybe we should create an environment that rewards and stimulates the artists to come up with better music."

riaa head-hancho:
"YOU'RE FIRED! any other suggestions?"

riaa exec 2"
"we should start prosecuting teenagers and college students that share music over the internet. hell, we should prosecute people for ripping music and putting it on their ipods!"

riaa head-hancho:
"excellent (with mr. burns'-esque finger-tapping)."

one of my best friends is goth

2006-01-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

...a goth artist to be more precise.

a while back tommy asked sara and i to accompany him to a goth-oriented art show. i certainly understood the need for moral support; this was an important networking opportunity for an up-and-coming artist such as himself. without sara and i he would've been left vulnerable the blood-sucking vampires therein. i had to find a way to keep the dark masses at bay while tommy found a chance to introduce himself to their leaders.

my solution: confusion.

i ran to the mall and had this shirt fabricated for the occasion. thanks to the wonders of the interweb, everyone can have one. thank you interweb gods!

websites with the same benefits as crack

2006-01-24T07:16:00.000-05:00

i've recently gravitated towards a few websites that eat away at my brain. couple that with a few beers and i'll soon be retarded...not inebriated, i mean that in a politically-incorrect way.

one of these sites, succintly titled "celebrities eating dot com," sucked away a good five minutes of my life before actually satisifying my fix. here's the climax, but i bet you can't view just one of the images. you'll keep clicking and clicking, but it will never be as good as your first time.

i should probably thank sara for this addiction...thanks honey...thanks a lot.

burninating for 3 years and counting!

2006-01-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

...the countryside that is!

holy crap!

2006-01-05T22:12:00.000-05:00

...another awesome sports-related video.

brought to you by google.

google video, i think i love you

2006-01-04T21:36:00.000-05:00

i was recently pointed in the direction of google's video search for the purpose of viewing a certain miller lite commercial (think christmas lights and trans-siberian orchestra). anyway, after finding that masterpiece, i bounced my way to another. thank you, google.

voilà.

snakes on a plane!

2006-01-02T14:32:00.000-05:00

...and there's not a damn thing you can do about it!

apparently i'm a little late in hearing about samuel l. jackson's latest movie-to-be, but here i am. i'm all caught up and excited! how could you not be?!? it's snakes on a plane! what else do you need to know? it's a worse case scenario, my friend, and there you are stuck on the plane! call the fbi!

you wanna know more? check out snakes on a blog.

...also, and i'm sure this is fate working here, imdb's "snakes on a plane" page was updated on my birthday.

a previously closed, but now open letter to sweetwater brewing

2005-12-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

many of you are probably wondering, "where has jarrett gone?" for one thing, that's bad grammar. for another, i've been busy. i've started a campaign to bring the wonderful taste of sweetwater 420 to the south! i mean north...to the chattanooga area. here's my plea:

howdy there steve,

riddle me this,
riddle me that,
why the hell can't i buy sweetwater
in north chatt(anooga)?

my girlfriend and i just moved to chattanooga
from the atlanta area some months ago. we
love it up here; it's beautiful and less trafficy.
and yet, for all the gas i save not waiting on
the car in front of me to move 10 feet, i waste
driving my otherwise lazy ass to georgia to pick
up a six pack of 420. don't you guys know that
there's a serious demand for excellent beers
up here?!? specifically those with not-so-subtle
references to things illegal.

me:
"hey, any word on when you might be getting
some 420?."

riverside beverage company attendant:
"shit, i need to take down that sign out front.
no, i'm not really sure why, but they won't
distribute up here. there's a guy, though, just
down the road that parks behind terra nostra.
just tap on his window and say 'trout.' he'll
sell you six packs for $10."

me:
"cool. hey, thanks man. i guess until you
get some i'll have to buy it black market. if
only sweetwater brewing knew..."

true story...except for the guy in the car.

in conclusion, please send me as many
free beers as possible:

jarrett

a change of scenery

2005-11-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

sara and i went to mexico a couple of weeks ago. i highly recommend both of the places we stayed, azulik and la tortuga.

two days after we left, hurricane wilma landed. talk about close. it's yet another lucky traveling experience for me. i spent my last ga tech term in europe and arrived back in the states just a few weeks before 9/11. anyway, less talk, more pictures.

"brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

2005-09-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

i have removed the content of this story for space-saving reasons, but here's a link to the original source.

i think it's really important that we not forget how poorly managed the relief effort to areas heavily damaged by hurricane katrina was.

...and no, i'm not turning into a socialist.

sqeaky wheels when the handle bar is missing

2005-08-31T09:09:00.000-05:00

<rant>
katrina has come and gone. she left thousands of people without homes. many have died. these are undeniably horrible things. that's why it makes me angry when people say stupid and out-of-proportion things about it.

the mayor of biloxi has described this event as "our tsunami." mayor, don't belittle the people of the philippines. this was your hurricane. the big one that you knew would one day come. it's a horrible, horrible thing to happen to your city and people, but don't compare it to the tsunami where people had a warning measured in minutes or no time at all.

i can certainly forgive the mayor for, what i consider, this faux pas considering the level of stress and emotion that he must be feeling. i have little sympathy for the hateful people that wrote this article. apparently, michael marcavage, director for repent america, has been enlightened by God of his plans to destroy this "wicked city." wasn't there something in the Bible about judge not, lest ye be judged?!?

...or maybe He is punishing america for it's hypocritical view of the world and absurd hoarding of power.

maybe hugo chavez isn't such a bad guy. or he's got a better p.r. person than pat robertson.
</rant>

my thoughts and prayers are with all of the people who have lost loved ones and homes during this natural disaster.

here's one way to help.

it's 1978 and your favorite show is coming on. what do you do?!? what do you do?!?

2005-08-13T17:04:00.000-05:00

i'm sure many of you have tried to picture yourself growing up in a different time or place. my dad's best friend says that he feels like he was meant to be born out west in the 1800's. working in the grit and grime, sans technology and the hustle and bustle of modern-day life. i guess i can dig that. i love to go tromping around in the woods; but i do love my computer, and my shower.

anyway, that's not my point. my point is, recently i started digitizing some beta tapes for a friend of mine. he told me that when beta came out, he and his friends would get together after recording a cool show (eg. letterman canceling the rest of his guests because james brown asked if he could play another song). they would connect all of their machines and bootleg their own copy. it was a completely new way of watching tv. and as with most initial iterations of technologies, it was overly engineered. in this case it was determined that the tape must be snug against the cylinder head (or whatever you call it) at all costs. how do we do that? we pull out two miles of tape and wrap it at least 180 degrees around the cylinder. as i recently found out, this can cause some serious problems upon ejection.

problems with this technology aside, i can definitely dig the excitement of new functionality. yes, i can even see myself growing up in the late 70's, having the ability to finally watch tv on my own time. of course, i'd rather have a dvr, and a la carte cable...or really just on demand tv. maybe i need to live in the future.

beer...and the goodness within

2005-07-23T08:23:00.000-05:00

despite the threat of terrorist attack, sara and i still held our house-warming party. perhaps because of the threat, perhaps because we're getting old, the keg was not kicked that night.

here are the remnants.

we had to pour the rest of it into this pot for multiple reasons (ice expensive, outside hot, kitchen floor wet). suffice it to say, we finally finished the beer.

'tater canon in lieu of fireworks

2005-07-06T20:06:00.000-05:00

i'm sure that many of you celebrated our independence day by drinking copious amounts of beer and setting off fireworks.

"hey y'all, watch this!"

not me, we didn't have any fireworks. we did have potatoes, pvc pipe, and butane. which, as it turned out, was a perfect combination for immense entertainment.

now i've seen/shot a few potato guns in my day, but none so deserving of the designation "canon." no, it takes at least a 6 foot long, 2 inch in diameter pipe for such a term.

...one that scott handles masterfully.

pac-man turns 25!

2005-06-16T10:22:00.000-05:00

....according to someone who keeps track of this sort of thing.

if anyone's looking for a good birthday or christmas present for me...i'll take one of these.

for the record though, ms. pac-man was better, and i'd rather have the table-top version. don't get me wrong, i'll still take the stand-up arcade pac-man. it's just that i'd gut it and put a mame box in there.