From the monthly archives:

January 2007

I Dare You to Put This on Your Resume

by Joey deVilla on January 31, 2007

Photo of two people shaking hands, captioned with 'I'm so market leading, I shit solutions'.

Maybe being in the tech evangelism business has finally twisted my brain, but this really made me laugh out loud. I wonder if I can get this printed on a batch of Tucows t-shirts…

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New Kid in Town

by Joey deVilla on January 30, 2007

Gabriel's crib is ready and waiting!
Actual crib soon to be occupied by Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K.

I just heard that Deenster gave birth to a healthy 8-pound baby boy. Rumour has it that his name is Gabriel, but until I hear actual confirmation, I shall assume that his name is Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K.

Congrats to the Deenster and Kiff, and welcome to the world, Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K!

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The "Seven Deadly Sins" Combo Chart

by Joey deVilla on January 30, 2007

Why commit just one of the Seven Deadly Sins when you can go for combinations?

Small version of the 'Seven Deadly Sins' Combo Chart.
Click the image to see it at full size. Picture courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

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Photo: "Evolution: It’s Not for Everyone"

by Joey deVilla on January 30, 2007

'Evolution: It's not for everyone' featuring George W. Bush.
Click the photo to see it at full size. Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

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Song of the Week: "Dragonflies" by Povi (1999)

by Joey deVilla on January 29, 2007

Cover for the album 'Life in Volcanoes' by Povi.

This week’s song of the week is the criminally underplayed Dragonflies by Povi.

It wouldn’t be technically correct to refer to Povi as a “group” or “band” — the term “long-distance collaboration” might be more apt. Povi is really two people: Los Angeles-based music producer/technical wizard Carmen Rizzo taking care of all the electronic instruments and Cristina Calero handling guitar, bass and vocals from a studio in Australia.

Povi put out only one album, but it’s a charming one: Life in Volcanoes, which hit the streets in 1999. The album navigates that territory between trip-hoppy chill out a la Morcheeba and catchy female-led alt-rock in the vein of Garbage. It’s definitely a product of its time: the sounds and production of the album evoke a time when one Fatboy Slim was eating up the charts and the songs would fit nicely in a Napster “makeout playlist” between Esthero’s Heaven Sent and Radiohead’s Paranoid Android.

(Now that I am a married man, I can neither confirm nor deny that I was ever in possession of said makeout playlists and will only state that I am speaking hypothetically. I can only say that I can imagine that you single kids might enjoy making the “hot sweaty pancakes” with those songs in the background.)

Dragonflies is the catchiest tune on the album, and as Christopher Thelen wrote in Daily Vault Album Reviews, “if there’s any justice in this industry, should be burning up the alternative charts in no time flat”. Alas, justice didn’t prevail, but that’s no reason that you shouldn’t enjoy this tune.

This song of the week has now expired, but you can always download it (and two other songs off the album) from the Epitonic website.

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Why Coachella?

January 29, 2007

I have no idea why Leona is so excited about going to Coachella — most of the acts make it sound like my musical idea of purgatory…
What, no Nickelback?

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Toronto Transit Camp: Sunday, February 4th, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

January 29, 2007

What is Toronto Transit Camp?
Toronto Transit Camp is a one-day unconference where people of all types who depend on and care about the TTC — designers, transit geeks, bloggers, visual artists, tech geeks and cultural creators — will gather to discuss, collaborate and brainstorm ideas about the transit system we know and, in spite of [...]

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For Sale: Even More Computer Books, $5 Each

January 29, 2007

That’s right, I’ve got even more books for sale. This set is a mish-mash of computer books — some are mine, some are from a company for whom I worked in 2002 that went under. As with the other books for sale I mentioned today, all are going for $5 each. I’d rather they went [...]

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For Sale: Deadbeat Ex-Housemate’s C++ and Security Books, $5 Each

January 28, 2007

That’s right, there are even more books for sale from my deadbeat ex-housemate’s collection. This installment covers his C++ books plus a couple of extra security books I found; an earlier installment covers Java books, and an even earlier one covers information security and cryptography books.
Want any of them? They’re a mere $5. Come pick [...]

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For Sale: Deadbeat Ex-Housemate’s Java Books, $5 Each

January 28, 2007

As you may have seen in the previous article, my deadbeat ex-housemate left a number of books at my house ages ago. It’s high time to sell them!
In this installment, I list some of his Java books for sale. Remember, they’re only $5 each. You can pick them up from my place (I live in [...]

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For Sale: Deadbeat Ex-Housemate’s Cryptography and Security Books, $5 each

January 28, 2007

As I mentioned in the previous article — in which I announced that I had a Symbolics XL1200 Lisp Machine for sale — I also have a number of my deadbeat ex-housemate’s books. After having held onto them for five years in the expectation that I would send them to him once he paid me [...]

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For Sale: Symbolics XL1200 Lisp Machine (Backstory Included)

January 27, 2007

Flashback
November 2001: “There’s the matter of these $1200 in long-distance calls to London, England, Mr. deVilla,” said the Bell Canada rep.
I looked over my shoulder at my housemate, who was already three months behind with his share of the rent. Three months, three thousand dollars. Luckily, I’d been good at saving money, so I wasn’t [...]

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Was It THAT Long Ago?

January 26, 2007

While listening to iTunes at work in “shuffle” mode, the Propellerheads’ cover of the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (from their album Decksanddrumsandrockandroll) came on. Like many of you, hearing a particular tune can take me back to a particular time, and that’s what this tune did.
Then it hit me — I was [...]

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How Would You Answer this Question? (Part 2)

January 26, 2007

In a previous post, I asked how you would respond to the following:

Are their [sic] any Godly uses for higher math?
I’ve come to realize that probably one reason I struggled with algebra, geometry et.al., was that
it seemed to me that these were basically atheistic academic disciplines, useful for promoting evolution or
other [...]

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My Googlebomb Still Works!

January 26, 2007

As of this writing, the top story on the tech news site Techmeme is that Google has modified its algorithm to negate a number of popular Googlebombs. I checked, and thankfully a search for the phrase deadbeat ex-housemate, both within and without quotes, still returns my deadbeat ex-housemate’s weblog as the number one result. Honor, [...]

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