Creative Commons picture courtesy of Rene Erhardt.
Happy Canada Day! Have a safe and fun holiday, and I’ll see you tomorrow!
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From the category archives:
Uncategorized
Yes, the demands and schedule of my job as Sith Lord at Microsoft have kept me quite busy, but it doesn’t matter because I live in the “Hooray!” zone, as shown in the Venn diagram below:
For more information, see the LifeHacker article titled The Road to Happiness in Your Work Lies in the Hooray! Zone.
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This photo from Passive-Aggressive Notes made me laugh out loud:
When it comes to vegans and vegetarians, while I get along with them just fine, I’ve got to side with chef Anthony Bourdain:
Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
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I’m going to be in Ottawa this week doing a presentation on web accessibility, so I’m taking advantage of my being there and declaring a Coffee and Code event for this Thursday, June 18th at the Bridgehead Cafe at 109 Bank Street (at the corner of Bank and Albert). It’ll run from 12:00 noon to 5 p.m..
I will be joined by my fellow Microsoft evangelists from the area, the guys I like to refer to as “Les Bons Gars”:
- Christian Beauclair
- Rick Claus
- Pierre Roman
Come on and down and join us at the Bridgehead for some coffee, food and conversation! We’ll be there to answer questions, hear your comments, show you what we’re working on and even hook you up with a copy of the Windows 7 Release Candidate.
This would be a good time for you Ottawa-area Developers and IT Pros to come and give us your suggestions for the upcoming TechDays 2009 cross-Canada conference, a two-day deep-dive conference covering what you can do with Microsoft Tools and Technologies. TechDays will stop at Ottawa on December 9th and 10th, and we’re picking out our topics and speakers. Come by Ottawa Coffee and Code this Thursday and let us know what you’d like to see and if you’d like to present at TechDays 2009!
(Creative Commons photo of the Peace Tower at Night taken by the Poissant Family.)
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Me and "Lunchbox” of the Gore Gore Rollergirls. Photo by Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan.
The Anthem
I’d only seen roller derby on TV – hidden deep in UHF-land — and never in real life, so when I got an invitation from “Lunchbox” of the Gore Gore Rollergirls to play the national anthem at the start of the first roller derby match of the season, I jumped at the opportunity.
The Ginger Ninja and I showed up early at George Bell Arena so that I could meet the organizers and get an advance look at the setup. We had a look around the arena and hung out in the beer room for a while. While there, I played some Nine Inch Nails at a friend’s request, which was a good warm-up for my performance.
Game time rolled around, and after Crankypants, Toronto Roller Derby’s master of ceremonies introduced the teams – the Gore Gore Rollergirls and Chicks Ahoy! – he introduced me to the audience as “Joey deVilla, the Accordion Guy”, and led to me to the dual-microphone setup.
Me playing the national anthem, as seen from the stands. Photo by Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan.
I decided that since we were in a hockey arena, it was only fitting that I played both the unofficial and official national anthems. I started the original Hockey Night in Canada theme, which I thought would please the crowd. I was right – they cheered so loud that they drowned out the final notes. I followed up with O Canada and was joined by the players and referees, who sang with great pride and gusto. I closed with the classic hockey fight chords, took my bows and then joined the audience to catch the match.
Here’s the video of my performance:
The Scene
You can watch the game from the stands, which a lot of people did…
…but if you really want a nice close-up look at the action, there’s an area right on the rink called the “Suicide Seats”. I highly recommend it:
I knew that roller derby players took on a nom de guerre, and but I didn’t know that they could also take on oddball numbers, such as 7-11, the Roman numeral XVIII, or <3. One player even had the mathematical expression e raised to the power of pi times i, which is the left side of Euler’s formula.
Not only do the players take on names; the refs do too! Here’s one of them, “The Big Leboutski”:
Here’s another one, going by the name of “Lou’s Yer Daddy”:
All local hockey arenas have a sort of time-warp feeling to them. The architecture, signage and seats always make you feel as though you’ve stepped back into the late 1950s. I kept half-expecting to see the Hanson brothers waiting for some ice time. The crowd was a friendly, interesting mix; it was as if the families and friends of Junior A hockey and Queen West tattoo shop customers teamed up to throw a party. The overall vibe is an odd combination of small-town charm and big city “alternative”. It occurred to me that roller derby would make a great setting for a film, but a little searching revealed that Drew Barrymore had the same idea and ran with it.
The Rules
Here’s a Gem City Rollergirls video that explains the rules of roller derby:
The Bout
And now, some photos from the bout:
Aftermath
Although Chicks Ahoy managed to get an early lead in the bout, the Gore Gore Rollergirls rallied and won with a score of 93-87.
We managed to catch up with Lunchbox after the bout..
…where she was only too happy to chat with the fans, pose for pictures and sign autographs.
All in all, a great evening. I’d gladly play the anthem and see a bout again!
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