Listen to the bear: punk rock lives!
Gabba Gabba Bear!
That’s my brother-in-law, Andy, who plays bass for the Ramoniacs. The Ramones may no longer be around, but these guys are still beatin’ on the brat with a baseball bat in Boston.
If you’re in the Boston area, you can catch the Ramoniacs this Sunday at The Rack (24 Clinton Street) at the Battle of the Bands. Cheer loudly, expose body parts and throw women’s underwear at Andy in Tom Jones style — he’d appreciate that.
…was worn by karaoke regular “Johnny O”. I shall dub it “Honore de Balzac”, but not for literary reasons…
Here’s what I wore to Kickass Karaoke on Sunday: “Indigo Girls Fan”.
Wendy says that if you took away the cowboy hat, collar and leash, this
was the sort of thing she wore all through high school:
Wendy and I joined my sister, brother-in-law and nephews yesterday for their Hallowe’en run, which took place in their Kingsway
neighbourhood, on a street heavy with young families. Some of the
houses went all-out, with giant inflatable jack-o-lanterns, faux
gravestones and smoke machines. Some of the houses did such a good job
at being scary that my nephews Aidan (age 4) and Nico (age 2)
refused to go anywhere near them.
Here’s Aidan, in his “George Shrinks in his zip-car” costume.
Nico went as Thomas the Tank Engine:
There’s more to being a programmer than just programming: a lot of the job involves “managing up”. I do it with Boss Ross, Boss Ross does it with his Boss Noss,
and Boss Ross’ Boss Noss does it with the Illuminati/Mason/Alien
Conspiratorial Triumvirate, often with a suitable sacrificial goat and
a PowerPoint deck.
But seriously, folks — over at the blog I get paid to write, The Farm,
I’ve started posting articles that you, a techie, can take to
management. These articles are marked with this unmistakably suit-y icon:
The first of these articles is Ajax Linkdump,
a laundry list of some recent interesting articles covering the web
programming paradigm of the moment. The last item in the list points to
an Adaptive Path white paper which explains Ajax to management,
including some answers to the all-important question: how’s it going to affect the bottom line?
Feel free to use these “Suit-Friendly” to make your case, support your
arguments or just to make it look as if you don’t spend 30 minutes doing
actual work and rest of your day looking at pictures of women with no
pants on.
Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya!
This Sunday, a special “Scare-e-oke” Hallowe’en edition of Kickass Karaoke will take place at the Rivoli.
Host Carson T. Foster has requested that women dress like tramps and men dress like women. In other words, business as usual.
The fun starts at 9:00 p.m., and Wendy and I plan to be there.
I have no Hallowe’en party plans for Saturday night, so if any of my friends/readers are reading this, let me know of any party action that you’re aware of. In the words of my friend Charles G. Watson, “I need to dress up like an idiot and get beerlarious.” I’ll bring Wendy, scintillating conversation, booze and an accordion.
Yesterday’s posting of the goth-themed Archie comic got BoingBoing-ed, leading to a spike in visits to this blog. Welcome, folks!
A number of posts across the blogosphere that linked to it made a couple of astute observations:
My own experience with goth-dom has been overwhelmingly positive. Being a keyboard player, I’m fond of much of the music, which tends to be synth-y. I’ve had many a lovely evening at the no-longer-existent local haunt, the Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar, a wonderful establoshment owned by my friend Lance Goth. And lastly and most importantly, my first onstage appearance with an accordion was in front of a roomful of goths at Sanctuary, where my friend Karl Mohr and I played our first accordion rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole to great applause.
It has been said that the goth subculture is derived from two earlier subcultures: the new romantics and the punks. I don’t know if Archie or his pals ever appeared in a new romantic incarnation (wearing clothes from Parachute, listening to Visage and Vince Clarke-era Depeche Mode), but they’ve gone punk at least once, most notably in a “comic-within-a-comic” in issue 1 of Anarchy Comics:
Click the image to read the full comic.
Check out the full comic segment, titled Anarchie [433K JPEG file, may not be safe for work if your workplace is a little on the conservative side].
I rather like the lampooning of hippie parents — the pot-smoking Mr. Andrews (Archie’s dad) reminds me of a few of my friends’ folks.
[A tip of the hat to Josh Karpf for providing the comic!]
Here’s the job that my friend Jay Goldman is offering. Tell ’em you heard about it from the “Accordion Guy” blog.
Job Code:
DEV02Location: Toronto
Type: Full Time
Radiant Core has an immediate opening for a full-time Integrator. You
will be responsible for implementing client sites based on Architecture
and Design Documents, including HTML/CSS, images, and integration with
Radiant Core’s Foundation Website Management Platform. You feel at home
in a self-directed team environment and love producing work that
pleases both you and your clients. You are comfortable building HTML in
a text editor, fixing cross-browser/platform rendering issues, and have
some amount of programming experience in either JSP, PHP, or ASP. You
understand the importance of web standards and are often heard
muttering about validation and cross-browser compliance testing.
You will work very closely with our Architects, Developers, and
Designers as a member of our Professional Services Team, reporting
directly to our Vice President, Professional Services. You will be
responsible for implementing client websites based on Architecture and
Design Documents, as well as ongoing work to improve our processes and
client services.
standards-compliant websites (XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS2.0) without the use
of WYSIWYG editors as we hand-code our sites. We are not, at this time,
hiring implementers who are not fluent in CSS2. Please do not apply for
this position if you use tables to lay out your websites as your
application will not be considered.
Compensation
Compensation will be commensurate with your level of experience. Our
employees enjoy competitive pay, flexible hours, a prime downtown
location, and potential ownership opportunities. We are in the process
of finalizing our benefits package and stock plan.
How to Apply
Please send your resume, in an electronic format (e.g.: Microsoft Word,
PDF), along with a link to your portfolio site, to “careers at radiantcore dot com”. Please reference job code DEV02 in your
subject line.