sam.zebarjadi.com

Wanna know what's open?

2009-04-20T00:21:00.003-04:00

So check it out...

You're going to a concert and want to know where to eat afterwards at 2am?

Maybe you're up sick in the middle of the night and want to know which pharmacies are open?

Or you need a utility repairman afterhours?

Perhaps you're sick and tired of calling those lame phone systems and navigating confusing webpages to find simple things like hours of operation for different businesses.

Never fear, baazr is here. Give it a whirl. Entries are still being loaded, but a la Wikipedia, users (you) can also enter information in. It's still in Beta, so be sure to send feedback...

Enjoy.

So...

2008-09-12T00:30:00.002-04:00

...who is excited about Tom Brady being out for the rest of the season?

(raises hand)

If only the same happens to Brett Favre, I will then realize that there's a little sports angel watching over me...

2008-06-29T23:25:00.005-04:00

The Best Three Weeks

Every few years an amazing opportunity comes up to enjoy a few weeks of football -- or as they call it here in America -- soccer. Now I generally don't blog about sports here...to catch good sports commentary, check out PHSports. I shall carry on...

The Euro Cup concluded today and was (what I would consider) one of the greatest tournaments I've ever seen. My original bet was on either Portugal or Netherlands taking the whole thing -- probably because of the fact that I'm partial to the Manchester United players...but as the tourney went on, I couldn't help but jump on the Turkey bandwagon. Their calm and collected play, amazing finishing, and all the heart they showed out there made me feel like they deserved to be in the final.

Anyway, another couple years and then we get some World Cup action...until then, we can settle on some boring baseball, another mediocre basketball season (did I tell you I hate the Lakers?), and seeing Tom Brady cry a couple more times...

2008-05-29T22:23:00.007-04:00

Going Home

Despite the fact that I've lived in Atlanta for about 2.5 years now, I still haven't gotten used to calling it 'home'. Merriam-Webster defines home as:

1) one's place of residence;
2) a familiar or usual setting

I still consider DC as being 'home' -- seeing as how I spent the vast majority of my life there. It's a familiar, usual setting. Don't get me wrong, Atlanta is nice. I have my family here now, life is more simple, people are friendlier, and cost of living is much less. But it's still not home. So in an effort to fill that void of missing everything and everyone, we're going back to DC this weekend. Here are 5 things which I'm hoping to accomplish:

#1 - See all my friends
My best friends in the world (outside of Sogol and Nafis) live in DC. It's hard being away from them. This weekend will give a good chance to go see everyone and even get a chance to peep Pay's new crib.

#2 - Check up on the house
We need to check and make sure that the tenant hasn't torn the place up and that the walls are still in tact. A healthy home makes for a happy owner.

#3 - Moby Dick
Man I miss this place. Nuff said.

#4 - Georgetown
Possibly one of the most beautiful places. Ever.

#5 - Go out and enjoy the diversity
I miss going out and hearing people speak different languages, all from different ethnic backgrounds and all commingling together in society.

As a bonus, I'd love to go back and check out some of the clubs I used to spin at. If there was a good act coming through the 9:30 Club, I would've loved to go back and see a gig there as well. But it's enough to go back and kick it with my homies, eat good food, shop, and just play it like it's 2002.

2008-03-10T13:04:00.004-04:00

All this social stuff.

As the number of social networking sites starts to grow and users start to join more and more, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with friends on different sites and what they are doing.

Some sites have started to pop up which are 'feed aggregators' for social networking sites, much like RSS feed aggregators for blogs, etc (read: feedburner). One of these new sites, now in Beta, is called Socialthing!. TechCrunch had a great article about them this morning. Pretty cool concept, and looks like they've got the technology down. I'm curious to see what their next steps will be and if they can get a good seasoned executive team to try and take them to the next level. It will be interesting to see what VC firms (if any) will want to throw money their way. Friendfeed received $5m, versus their ~$500k, so things will be very interesting from here on out.

Great new plugin

2008-03-08T00:49:00.005-05:00

Xobni is Inbox, backwards

Last week I was on a WebEx session with a guy at work when he pulled up his Outlook and I saw a really neat sidebar plugin he was running. He told me to check out Xobni. There's not much to say other than it looks like a really cool and efficient way of managing your inbox content and hyperlinking/smart tagging certain data (e.g. phone numbers) inside emails.

Only one catch for now -- it's 'Beta' and invite-only. I haven't had a chance to play with it first hand, but everything I've read about it and everything I've seen makes it look like a must have application.

Looks like they've raised around $5m from some great incubation and VC firms, and have recently joined the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program, so I would keep an eye out for Xobni coming to your Inbox soon.

2008-03-07T01:17:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the new SamZeb.com...

Hello and welcome to the new site, now accessible at samzeb.com and at sam.zebarjadi.com.

I'll try to keep this blog updated since I did such a horrible job doing so last year. Stay tuned...