The cheapskate video story started about two years ago when Jarrett was working at Insight. He was surfing around online bored at work like he usually was, and came across a contest that a website was having on who does the cheapest things to save money. I e-mailed my little story, thinking it was just funny to do, and not serious that I would actually be acknowledged. Little did my psychic abilities know, about a month later I get a call while I'm at work, from a woman who worked with the newspaper, The Times out of California. She was interested in my story... even though I didn't place in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, they wanted to include my idea. This was very flattering, and I like all the media attention I can get, to build my ever-growing entertainment empire. So we had a small phone interview, in which she asked me questions about myself and why the hell I did what I did. I explained myself as best I could (being taken off guard about the phone call, especially while at work), and we got off of the phone. I was expecting another call at some point to tell me if I won a prize and when to expect to see this paper or news show or whatever it was... I was never quite sure.

About a month after that phone call, I get a call from a client of mine in California. At Insight, it was my job to build relationships with the computer buying people of companies so that I can become their long lasting computer vendor. Anyway, this guy (unfortunately I forgot his name, it was a long time ago) tells me he saw my name and story in an article in the paper. This, again, caught me off guard. He told me it was a good article, and that he would send it to me. Sure enough, about a week later I have a copy of that newspaper in my possession, with my cheapskate story included. I was very proud. You can see a picture of the actual article below.

I didn't win any prizes for what I did, and my mother was actually quite embarrassed by the whole incident, but I was still happy that it happened. There was a nice little 15 minutes for me... I might not be the rockstar I want to be yet, but I've been in the paper! (actually a couple times for cheesy things) Well, after that was all said and done, I had completely forgotten the whole thing for about a year and a half, until my parents receive a call from a television show. They want to talk to me involving the article I was in, and see if I would be interested in doing a spot for them. More media attention? I couldn't resist, even though I knew I was going to make my mother even more embarrassed yet another time.

It took me awhile to get a hold of the woman who left the message, as those tv people are very busy. When I finally do, it turns out she is calling from King World Production (same company that does Oprah) about the Ananda Lewis show that was about to premiere. For those of you who don't know, The Ananda Lewis show is a hip new talk show, on sometime during the day... to be honest, I still haven't seen an episode, or know what the woman looks like. Ananda Lewis was going to do a show based on wacky people, with a skit about people who do funny things to save money. I was hoping they wanted to fly me to New York to be on the show, but they ended up wanting me to record me doing what I do to be cheap. On top of that, they only gave me a weekend's time to finish it. Think we were up for it? Hell yeah we were!

Jarrett obviously couldn't do this project alone, so he recruited the help of his beautiful girlfriend Jessica and his not-so-beautiful roommate Marco. Jessica was there to do some acting along with Jarrett, and Marco was doing the filming and much of the directing. What come out was pure gold, and I sent off the videotape to the television show that next Monday. After that, I've never really heard anything about it. The Ananda Lewis Show was bumped behind schedule due to the September 11 tragedy (yes I too, in Phoenix, was effected by this tragic occurrence). I don't have a good television reception in any way here in The Dome, and wasn't able to track down that particular episode and when it played. I still want to call the station and request a copy if they ever did in fact use and air our tape. That is pretty much the whole story in a nutshell, besides not telling you what the actual Cheapskate idea and video are about. You'll have to find out for yourself. You can read the actual article in the paper, provided here for you.

If Jarrett ever gets the movie file to work correctly, then you will be able to see that too.