Just a quick note to everyone out there that Jameson and I survived the Atlanta Downtown Tornado of 2008 (I’m trying to make it sound more dramatic than it really was).

Strangely enough, I was outside walking my dog when the tornado hit — only just now did I find out that I was merely a few miles from the path of the tornado. I remember it being a nasty storm, and getting pretty drenched with rain, but I had no idea it was as bad as it was until I opened the door to my place and the power on the entire street went out. For about 5 seconds it was eerily quiet and very dark.

From my view outside, I can see downtown, and it is strange to see a few buildings still with holes in the windows and curtains flapping in the wind.

A strange occurrence, for sure — Atlanta hasn’t ever had a tornado in the downtown area (at least since they’ve been keeping track).

I got this letter from my pal Javier:

Dear englishspeaking friends

As you might have already heard, we’re planning a little roadtrip in may 2008 starting from Zürich to Odessa (Ukraine). We’ll be driving about 3000km in 10 days in a car that should cost less than CHF 500 (~ $425). The cars will be sold in Odessa and the profit will be donated to a local NGO.

Intrested in joining us? Write an email before the end october that contains the following information:

1. Teamname
2. First name, last name and email-address of every team member.

The maximum number of cars will be 20, so: First come, first served!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Carlo, Duri and Javier

P.S.: Excuse our english, but it’s not our fault that your german sucks.

I just went down to Blockbuster Video (and had to re-sign up for a membership, it’s been so long), and rented 8 movies for a total of about 31 bucks (I got a free one).

I whipped out my trust copy of HandBrake (for the Mac).  Set it to iPhone, and hit rip.  My flight to Frankfurt is looking bearable already.

To Whom It May Concern:

Please accept my SECOND FINAL attempt at paying off a balance for a charge I did not authorize. You see, I haven’t used your crappy credit card since 2003, and somehow one of those Internet companies charged $14.95 to an already expired, non-activated card (which I still can’t figure out how they were able to do). Unbeknownst to me, your company purchased the previous Credit Card company, MBNA, through which this Georgia Tech Alumni Credit Card was issued, and never bothered to get my account working for your paperless billing system.

You reported my account delinquent, and closed the account without contacting me. Ever. When I finally decided to pay you losers off using your phone system, since you couldn’t take any other forms of payments, I found out a month later, that you charged me $10.00 for paying off my $19.00 balance (14.95 plus all those huge late fees). Please accept this payment of $21.50 which includes another $10.00 in addition to the $10.00 fee and $1.50 who-knows-what charge. Keep the damn change.

Thank you,

a customer you will never have to deal with again.

Last night we watched the Ultimate Fighting Championship at Mark’s place. It was noted that the downfall of the Roman civilization began with the glorification of brutal sporting events. What a great fight. Made only more visceral by the HD broadcast on Mark’s big flatscreen. Add to that Rayman on the Wii and you got yourself a great evening.

Spaceship Discovery returned home today, and in honor of that, I’m wearing my vintage Columbia Space Shuttle 3/4 t-shirt. I am so indie-hip that it hurts sometimes. It really does.

Thanks to Rez and Omar for their sheer l33tness in having a mythtv-recorded, transcoded, ipod video ready format movie of the entire episode including all 15 minutes of Jodi, Jameson, and my fame ready for bittorrent downloading.

All that nonsense above means that you can watch it here. Thanks guys!

As you might recall, I posted a while back about HGTV filming our place for their show, “What You Get For the Money.”

Well, we just got a call last week, and our segment will air on the newest episode — Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 10:30 pm on HGTV.

Fire up your Tivos (and mythTV boxen)!

Ladies –

My brother made a Video Dating Audition Movie.  He’s quite the catch, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Download Joel Quinn’s Video Dating Audition Movie.

I have to welcome two new members to the elusive MacBook Pro club. My buddy (and Meople cohort), Tung Chan, couldn’t let me have the best computer for too long. He let me have the honors for about a week before he forked out and got an even better one than mine. Thanks a lot Tung, thanks a lot.

Also, my good pal Derek Haynes of Highgroove Studios, founder of an amazing AJAX and Ruby on Rails Development and Consulting company, just joined the elusive MacBook Pro club. I’m actually a little nervous about this one. I thought Derek was incredibly productive before with his old laptop with 256MB RAM — but now, with the MacBook Pro in his hands, we’re about to see some crazy, crazy stuff. It’s like an anime cartoon/movie where the super-hero gets the ultimate power sword weapon, and all of a sudden the foreground stops, and the background goes crazy scrolling as he leaps into the air and charges up, charges up, charges up….. then…. a commercial break.

Welcome to the club, fellas.