The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century
Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog
From the monthly archives:
It’s going to be an interesting day. Not olnly are the future in-laws
flying in for the weekend, but it’s also Annual Performance Review Day
here at work. The picture in my library that best conveys this feeling
is the one below. Click it to see it full size.
I’m expecting a better outcome than this. Click the picture to see it at full size.
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If Kim Jong Il can have a LiveJournal, Darth Vader can have a blog.
(Bonus: Enjoy this Eminem-inspired parody [640KB, MP3] while reading Vader’s blog!)
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I’m not the only one who’s recently acquired a kind of interest in Superman. Jeff Rowland, artist/writer of the webcomic Wigu, recently ran a four-part series which melds the Superman story with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (right down to the name; in GTA:SA, the hero’s name is “CJ”, in this send-up, Clark Kent becomes “CK”).
The comics:
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Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle, whose knickers are so often in a knot that she should really switch to AntiPantis (now there’s a mental image), is annoyed at the the differences between the way Disney runs the Hong Kong and American theme parks:
“By contrast, look at what happens in the United States. At the Epcot Center in Orlando, there is a dazzling display of how life came about, popping up from a single cell in the oceans’ pure chance-plus-time evolution. Why does it go to Hong Kong and respect local religions and then hit Christians in the face back home?
Disney has been resistant to all of the Christian protests about ‘Gay Days’ at its so-called family parks. And it has produced movies that are blasphemous, so much so that Southern Baptists have boycotted Disney World.
“So to Christians in this country Disney says, ‘In your face. We’re not going to pay any attention to you.’ But for Disneyland in Hong Kong , it redesigns the whole theme park ‘to ensure prosperity’ based on a kooky Eastern fad…”
We do have the similar, goofy feng shui-like approaches to construction here too — many buildings here still don’t have a 13th floor, and triskaidekaphobia’s roots are Christian…
My blog entry, Sacrelicious! (with the formatting finally cleaned up), my look at the whole “7 days vs. 4 billion years” debate.
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Yeah, while the Outback Steakhouse
is a bit on the cheesy side, it’s a restaurant that to which we can
take my nephews (ages 2 and almost-4). Besides, the “Bloomin’ Onion” is
pretty good, as is the “Chocolate Thunder from Down Under”, despite the
fact that it sounds like a colloqiual term for “explosive diarrhea”…
Click the picture above to read the full comic.
The above comic from User Friendly may seem silly, but similar incidents have happened in
real life. I know of at least two people who ordered a “grande latte”
in Italy only to be surprised when they got a large glass of milk.
Bonus reading material: An Aussie in America writes about her impression of the Outback Steakhouse.
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Normally, I’m a pretty egalitarian guy, but I did major in applied sciences. Hence the current Dilbert online comic amuses me to no end. If only it were around when I worked at Mackerel Interactive Multimedia, where I was a computer science grad surrounded by people who studied underwater basket weaving graphic arts…
Oh, and I drank a lot of beer in University anyway.
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I’ve got a fever…and the only prescription is more Hurka! Click the picture to see the commercial.
Otto von Bismarck is credited with saying “Laws are like sausages. It’s
better not to see them being made.” Apparently, it’s also better not to
see this 1980s Hungarian TV commerical for them either [6.4MB, MPEG].
Want more? Got a whole evening to kill? Perhaps you might find this page of 101 Hungarian TV ads from the 80s amusing.
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Ah, what fortuitous story placement. Here’s one bit of hot man-on-man marriage that I do believe should be classified as some kind of sin:
“Oh Georgie, it’s not just oil production I’m boosting!” Click the picture to…heh, heh…enlarge it.
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I spent most of this weekend alternating between a groggy wakeful state
and passed out in bed. I felt pretty out-of-it on Friday evening and
decided that it might be best to sit out my burlesque-dancing friend Penny Whistleton’s birthday party seeing as I was driving to Detroit to attend Penguicon the next day.
I woke up on Saturday morning feeling a bit better. I joined my friends George
and Leesh, their son Henry and Leesh’s parents Gerry and Allison for
Dim Sum lunch after which I planned to mosey on down to Motor City. I
began spacing out about halfway through lunch and soon went home
afterwards, where I passed out until about 8 p.m., well after my
schedule departure time.
After trying to see if there was a chance that anyone would drive me in
my car to Detroit — hey, I’d do it if I was free and someone
asked me — it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it. I gave Bill,
one of the organizers, a call and sent my regrets, and he was quite
nice about it. A couple of days later, another one of the organizers,
Matt Arnold, IM’d me just to say hi.
I’d like to send my sincerest apologies to Penguicon. I was honoured to
be invited as a “Nifty Guest”, the enthusiasm with which my
presentation suggestion was received was flattering and the way with
with you took my cancelleation was very gracious. Thanks for being so
understanding!
Cory tells me that it was a fun conference, and extremely nerdy. (Yes, “nerdy” is a good thing in our books.)
(Penguicon organizers: Keep watching your mailbox. A package of Tucows swag is headed your way.)
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Whenever I travel down to the US, I sometimes get “caught” using the
quintessential Canadian expression “Eh?” The expression is so linked
with the stereotypical Canadian image — lumberjack shirt, toque (and
according to South Park, beady little eyes and flapping heads) — that Wendy couldn’t stop laughing when she heard some goths on Queen Street use the word.
Now, according to BlogTO, one of Accordion City’s local-happenings blogs…
Smarties, the candy-coated chocolate candy that has been winning over
Canadians (and Americans with peanut allergies ’cause M&M’s aren’t
peanut free) are finally showing their true colours.
Eh” is a limited edition release of the candy where the pieces are red
& white with little maple leaves stamped on.
As we say in rural Canada: Give ‘er!
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Maybe it’s been part of the “Superman” meme that’s been going around the ‘net lately (for starters, see the excellent online retrospective, Superman is a Dick), but lately I’ve been fascinated by Superman
comics, especially the old “Silver Age” ones (which date from 1959 to
1970). They were oddly, if unintentionally prescient, what with what is
probably the first use of the word “blog” in mainstream media, or their daring-for-the-time repeated use of cross-dressing.
Here’s another instance in which Superman comics unwittingly ride the cutting edge: he’s a follower of the Getting Things Done
(often called GTD for short) methodology! Like any good GTD’er, he’s
taken his undone tasks “out of his head” and put them into a master
list, or what followers of the GTD methodology would call the “Inbox”:
Apparently, Supes isn’t an “under-promise and over-deliver” kind of guy. Click the picture to read the comic!
Note that a real GTD Inbox is isn’t ordered — you simply just add
undone tasks to it as they come in. Mind you, Superman’s list must be
unordered, seeing as his primary mission, “Wipe out crime and evil”
come third, after the self-serving “Find antidote to green kryptonite”.
Unless, of course, he’s a dick (which apparently, he is).
For those of you interested in reading the rest of the comic, you can read it in its entirety online! Marvel at the completely ludicrous story in which Superman accomplishes his super-tasks by duplicating himself and giving each duplicate 100 times his original already-super-brainpower! Gasp as how both Supermen’s sattelites of anti-evil rays make Kruschev and Castro give up their evil ways! Chortle at the
super-dumbass solution these two super-geniuses devise to figure out
which one gets to marry Lana Lang and which one gets to marry Lois Lane!
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Starting tomorrow evening, I’ll be at Penguicon, a convention for both Linux and science fiction enthusiasts…
AT Penguicon, I will be a “Nifty Guest” as well as a speaker, where I will be presenting the following talk:
Interactive Fiction: Down and Out in the Grue KingdomSun 2:00 to 3:00 pm
Kensington
Interactive Fiction, also known as “IF” and formerly known as “text
adventure games”, has a history spanning over 30 years and thrives even
in this day of console games. If you are (or hope to be) a game
developer, an author, or both, join us as we show you how to develop IF
using the Inform programming language. We’ll implement a game/interactive story based on a scene from Cory Doctorow’s “Down and
Out in the Magic Kingdom”.
Yeah,
I’m shamelessly borrowing some of Cory’s mojo to get people to come to
my talk. You gotta understand — I’m scheduled at the same time as the Tron Guy.
In addition to making the presentation and quite probably playing the
accordion, I have secured a small number of Tucows T-shirts and the
coveted SquishyCows™ (a herd of which you can see here). I’ll give ‘em away at the presentation.
P.S. I’m driving from Toronto to Novi, which is just outside Detroit. Anyone who wants a lift, let me know…
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Outside of a high school prom, one doesn’t often see a guy in a suit begging like this…
Paul Martin, for your performance, I hereby crown you the Prom King. If you’ll kindly stand with the sheltered telekinetic Prom Queen under the bucket of blood, we can get rolling…
If you missed last night’s address, you’re lucky that we live in the age of the Internet. Someone’s posted it at BlogMatrix, who provide both podcasting software and hosted space for your podcasts. Click the photo above to see the video.
(BlogMatrix is developed by my friend David Janes, and the BlogMatrix dudes were the raucous table at Tuesday night’s Podcaster Gathering.)
I was impressed by the skullduggery of the leader of the Loyal
Opposition and the Reeeeeeefoooooooorrrrrrrrmmmmmmm-party-in-disguise,
Stephen Harper. He rightly pointed out that Paul Martin called for an
election last year at a time conveniently before any of the facts about
the scandal would come out — but he did so in the service of calling
for an election before the results of the inquiry come out. Mind you,
were I in his shoes, I’d have done the same thing, possibly topping it
off with my favourite line from Superman: “Son of Jor-El, kneel before Zod.”
Mr. Harper, you get the Machiavellian of the Week award.
As for NDP leader Jack Layton, you get the “God, he reminds me of
Reverend Lovejoy’s wife!” award. Of all the speakers last night, you
made the best points in your speech, sir, but I kept expecting you to
start screeching “Won’t somebody please think about the children?”
(In some bizarre coincidence, one “sean incognito” at BlogsCanada’s e-Group says almost the same thing.)
Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois are not contenders for my vote in
the least. Politically, I view them in the same light as this one girl
I had a dalliance with: sexy accent, fond of chain-smoking and kink, best ignored.
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…while doing some research on the elements of Filipino weddings
(candles / cord / coins / veil), I stumbled across these hilarious –
at least to me — t-shirt designs at PinoyMall.com (”Pinoy” is a
Tagalog term for “Filipino”).
Mmm…adobo…
Click the photo to see the order page for this shirt.
Mmm…lechon…
Click the photo to see the order page for this shirt.
…and finally, the Filipino answer to Friendster (as you’ve probably guessed, “kaibigan” (kah-ee-bee-gahn) means “friend”)…
Click the photo to see the order page for this shirt.
Other goodies:
I’m not associated with PinoyMall in any way, except for the fact that I might place an order.
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Hip-hop and Passover meet in the latest edition of the webcomic Shabot 6000 when 50 Cent (or at least his doppelganger) drops by for seder in a hilarious Flash animation!
Be sure to check out:
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My co-worker Adam brought
these masks depicting the plagues that hit Egypt as a reprisal for the
Pharoah’s refusal to free the Jewish slaves. Never before has God’s
wrath looked so cute!
Click the photo to see the slideshow.
My favourites are the “lice” mask with the googly-eyed bugs, the
“firstborn” mask with X’s for eyes, and the flaming “hail” mask, which
for some reason reminds me of the “Hot Hail” that Ming the Merciless
rained on the Earth in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.
(Yes, I know that there were ten plagues and that there are only nine
masks in the shot. Those are all the masks Adam brought. Adam, what
happened to “darkness”?)
If you want to see larger photos of the masks, I posted them in a photo album, which you can click through manually or see as a slideshow.
Happy Pesach to all my Jewish readers and future relatives!
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