2April2013
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
Sometimes makers in the Atlanta area ask where a good salvage place is. I’ve driven past this one a number of times and finally stopped in for a visit. Here’s my photo album of the place. It’s on highway 129 outside of Gainesville, GA on the way to Athens. As with any salvage place, the things you’ll see when you visit won’t be the ones depicted here, but it should give you a flavor of what’s available. Have fun, and happy hunting!
13February2013
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
I got an interesting email the other day from LinkedIn.com. It said that my profile was one of the top 10% most viewed profiles in 2012. Really? I had no idea, and wasn’t even trying. It made me feel special. But then it went on to say that LinkedIn now has over 200 million subscribers. So the top 10% would be… 20 million, right? So I’m one of the top 20 million most viewed profiles. Suddenly, I don’t feel quite so special. I’m just one of 20 million.
24January2013
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
This morning after breakfast at the local Waffle House, I asked the waitress about the new touch-screen Jukebox. Did people actually use it? Not really, only the employees. Why? Because the old jukebox would spontaneously play a song every half-hour or so. This let everybody in the place know “Hey I’m a jukebox over here. I play nice music.” It was an advertisement. After it played a song, someone would generally saunter over and stoke it with legal tender (extra points if you know what story-teller coined that phrase, pun intended). But the new jukebox never plays a free song, so people don’t think about playing music at the Waffle House any more.
By the way, my old friend, George Rawlin says he plays trumpet on the Waffle House Jukebox Favorites songs.
23November2012
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
At the Waffle House the other day, I saw this against the wall. Although it claims to be a jukebox, I have my doubts. Jukeboxes in my childhood had records that actually spun as reward for an inserted quarter. Then came jukeboxes that appeared to have CDs inside, and now no pretense of rotating media remain. This thing has a touch screen and slots for dollar bills! no quarters allowed. It even has an app so you can control it from your smartphone. This appears to me to be an iPod Touch, enlarged a thousand times.
For perspective, from today’s Writers Almanac:
It was on this day in 1889 the jukebox made its debut at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was called a “nickel-in-the-slot player” and was built by the Pacific Phonograph Co. and installed by entrepreneur Louis Glass and his business associate William S. Arnold.
The jukebox consisted of an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph inside a free-standing oak cabinet to which were attached four stethoscope-like tubes. Each tube could be activated by depositing a coin so that four people could listen to a single recording at one time — the sound equivalent of the peep-show nickelodeon. Towels were supplied so that Palais Royale patrons could wipe off the listening tubes between uses. Despite competition from player pianos, this primitive jukebox was a big hit across the country. In its first six months of service, the nickel-in-the-slot earned more than $1,000.
9November2012
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
As part of the social media class I’m taking at Emory, I’m now on Twitter. I’m @iblamm.
8November2012
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
At Panera the other day, I saw this poster:
I know what corn-fed beef is, it’s when you feed the cow with corn. So what’s vegetarian-fed turkey? Is it when you feed the turkeys with vegetarians? Maybe we could stretch it to mean that the vegetarians give the turkeys their food, but I don’t know! What a horrible fate for a deceased vegetarian, to be fed to turkeys! Also, I don’t think I’d want a sandwich made of such.
