Author: Joey deVilla

Please Note: You might want to read this before continuing, otherwise you might not get the joke.

Every other damned blog in the world to AccordionGuy: Mission Accomplished, Convert Thrilled

October 19, 2002

Yes, it’s true. I like The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® enough to change my whole blog-reading world around. Here’s the bottom line: The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and its associated blog, The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® gives me the widest range of stories, from the serious to the silly, more choices and flexibility, and better compatibility with the technology world as well as people with lives.

AccordionGuy® relieved my fears about switching. I can still use the same browser and continue to read in the same convenient English® language in which those other, lesser blogs are written in. All my hardware — including my eyes, contact lenses, and the lower lip that I bite with sexual excitement whenever I read a well-crafted piece by an attractive single man — works perfectly when I read The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century®.

To my surprise, the process of switching was as easy as Joey had promised. I was up and running in less than one day, Girl Scout’s honor (I got a merit badge in “advanced spanking”). First, let me tell you more about why I converted.

More Stories, for Less Surfing

I am a freelance writer; that means I have a lot of spare time. There’s a much greater choice of stories and features, for less surfing, on the AccordionGuy® platform. My laptop came with 512 MB of RAM, and after reading AccordionGuy®, so did I!

Ahem.

Anyways, AccordionGuy® covers current events, technology, humour, music, and life-in-general all in his two weblogs — to get that kind of range in other blogs, you’d have to read a pile of them, plus the assorted rantings of some messed-up LiveJournal kids writing their “nobody loves me” poetry after they’ve huffed a few too many household solvents. My recommendation is to go straight to AccordionGuy® Professional with features both The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth®; the extra features for people with time to kill are worth it. See Which Edition is Right for You? for more information.

More Blogware Flexibility

Doc Searls (previously called Medical Student Searls) pales in comparison to AccordionGuy®. There’s no equivalent to the Stagette story, and while Doc says that no one can keep more balls on the ground than he does, Joey can keep at least two balls in the air. When he’s juggling, maybe even more.

The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® does more for me than Hack the Planet ever did, and I am a surfing addict. He updates more; the comments feature makes it easier for me to have a dialogue with him, and “Joey” appears before “Wesley” in my “Favorites” list.

And Now for the How

Now that I’ve given you the reasons why I converted, here’s the skinny on the how.

Step 1: Delete those old bookmarks for the other, lesser blogs.

In Internet Explorer, open the Favorites menu and right-click on any blog that isn’t either The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth®. A pop-up menu will appear; select Delete. You should see a dialog box that looks something like this:

Click Yes. Now repeat this for every other blog that is neither The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth®.

In Mozilla, open the Bookmarks menu and select Manage Bookmarks…. Highlight any blog that isn’t The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® and hit the delete key.

Step 2: Add The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® to your bookmarks.

Visit The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century®, In Internet Explorer, select Add to Favorites… from the Favorites menu. In Mozilla, select Bookmark This Page… from the Bookmarks menu. Do the same for The Happiest® Geek® on Earth®.

Step 3: Say nice things about The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® to your bookmarks.

Talk about how astute he is. Say that he’s a handsome, dashing dude with his head screwed on straight. Say that he is an integral part of your shower-nozzle fantasies. Say his name, baby, say it!

Step 4: Say slanderous things about the other bloggers

Spread evil rumors about them. Make jokes about Jason Kottke’s hair — something like “I hear the stockboy at the grocery nearly stamped his head when he stood too close to the Kiwi fruit!”. Say that you saw Moxie trying to sneak nine items in the “eight items or less” lane — and suspiciously-shaped vegetables, too, if you get my drift (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more). Maybe something like “That Aaron Swartz kid has joined a violence gang!”, “That Anil Dash — did you know that he sniffs other people’s bicycle seats?”, or “I hear that Lileks, Tony Pierce and Richard Gere go to the same gerbil wholesaler.” And these are the suggestions that wouldn’t bring legal action — let your imagination go wild!

Do you have an idea for a story? We’d love to hear from you. How have you used The Adventures® of AccordionGuy® in the 21st Century® and The Happiest® Geek® on Earth® to make your home, work or sex life easier, more fun, faster, simpler or less biologically messy? Submit your ideas, and you could get published on this Web site!

Two nights ago, I had a dream where I was living in Prague. Last night I had a dream in which my friend Cory Doctorow was passing the lease for his SoHo loft over to me. Cory doesn’t even live in New York — he’s in the city he likes to refer to as “San Fran-scarcity”.

(Cory: in case you were wondering, it was a damned fine loft on Prince Street, atop a building with those banners that seem to hang from every building in SoHo. I must say that when I dream, I always get kick-ass real estate.)

As I was typing the last sentence, I was trying to think of why the loft would be on Prince Street. It could be the fact that I usually end up there whenever I go to New York, or perhaps it’s my desire for a new iBook — an Apple Store opened on Prince Street just recently.

I think I’ve been bitten by the travel bug. A pity travel isn’t in the cards, given my financial situation.

Yesterday’s interview with the headhunter — er, recruiting firm — went well.

I generally present well at this sort of thing, and having a well-fitting suit and looking comfortable in it always helps. I don’t think I’ve ever worn a suit to a job interview since my University days — I used to work at places where showing up for the interview in a suit would probably work against you. However, the job position for which I’d been contacted was for a senior programming position at a old and moneyed firm, so I decided to err on the side of conservatism: dark grey suit, white shirt with a few skinny navy stripes and a less-raffish-than-my-usual tie. On the way to the interview, I ran into my friend Char, who said I looked hot. After the interview, I went to Zooko’s and Amber’s for dinner, and she said I looked nice in a suit.

It looks as though writing the War and Peace of resumes — a ten-page chef d’oeuvre providing a detailed run-down of just about every significant software project I’ve ever worked on since 1995 — paid off. The headhunter — I mean recruitment consultant — said “Thanks for putting your back into it on such short notice. It shows you’ve got initiative.”

He’s half right — it’s partly inititiative, partly a morbid fear of being reduced to giving sexual favours at the bus station in exchange for cheese.

“A strong Microsoft background,” he said, looking at my credentials, “we like that.” In some geek circles, this is the equivalent of Darth Vader saying “The Force is strong in youngnSkywalker. He could be a powerful ally if he were turned to the Dark Side.”

They seemed to like the fact that I’ve actually been to Redmond to meet with some of their kahunas. The only way I could’ve looked more Microsoft-y would’ve been to have MCSD certification (Microsoft’s certification for software developers, the primary value of which is to be able to demand a larger salary than those who don’t have one. Well, that and the lapel pin that Microsoft sends you.)

The company looking for a programmer is in Toronto’s sleepy Oakville (terribly suburban), which for me would be a 45-minute commute by highway during rush hour; possibly longer if the weather’s bad. I suspect that it’s in an office park. Shades of Office Space, cubicles (although I’m hoping that a senior programmer would rate his own office) and battles over red Swingline staplers. And it’s in an industry notorious for being boring (I leave you to guess what it is). Still, if I didn’t think that the work matched what I can do and that it is possible to have interesting work in the IT department of a boring industry, I wouldn’t have shown up for the interview. I also like getting paid more than I dislike commuting.

On the good side, the inside poop is that the structure within the place is solid enough so that it’s not a mass pandemononium, but not so rigid as to be stifling, and that they’re surprisingly office politics-free.

I think that’s all I can say without treading onto dangerous breach-of-confidentiality territory. Now I just have to play the waiting game.

That night, I had the closest thing I’ve had to a nightmare in some time. I boarded the Queen Street streetcar bound for home. Somehow, after boarding it, the streetcar had become a non-stop express bus bound for Barrie, a town not quite an hour’s drive away, from where a good number of Toronto’s commuters come.

I tried to negotiate with the driver to drop me off anywhere so I could find my way back south to civilization, but an old lady beside me begged me not to — she was running late and would miss a connecting train if the bus took even the shortest of stops. The conductor (Conductor? On a bus?) looked at some kind of fancy PDA with large screen and an antenna (hey, when I dream, I dream high-tech, baby!) and confirmed what she said: “Son, if we stop for you, the old lady will miss her train.”

He then gave me a very solemn look and said “And there will never, ever be another train again.”

Damn, I couldn’t do that to a little old lady. So on the bus to nowhere I stayed.

That’s when I woke up with a bit of a start, sort of like that cliched way in which people wake up after a nightmare in TV shows and movies.

“Only a dream,” I said to myself. I staggered out of my Victorian four-poster bed and walked down the marbled chandeliered hallway leading to the bathroom that I shared with my housemates.

“Dobry den,” (that’s “Good day” in Czech) said my housemate, whose name I still didn’t know. I said “Yo, dogg.” back, and made a mental note to learn his name. It’s bad to live with someone whose name you don’t know.

I went into the bathroom, a palatial commode so fancy that Queen Elizabeth herself would’ve been honoured to take a dump there. Ornate hand-blown glass fixtures, a claw-footed tub, and a tiled wall mural depicting a battle scene with men carrying muskets and bayonets. A large door-size window provided a spectacular view of the Vltava River, the Karlova Most and the Old Town. I opened the window, letting the cool breeze blowing over the river wake me up a little more.

Wait a minute, I thought, what the hell am I doing in Prague?

And that’s when I really woke up.

I have my own theories as to what this dream means, but if you’d like to give me your interpretation, feel free to use the comments for this entry.

It’s a little hard to believe, but putting your resume online actually works — at least if you’re a programmer. I got a call from a recruiter yesterday, which led to an interview today.

The headhunter — I mean recruitment consultant — asked me if I could rewrite my paper resume, though. I kept it to the standard limit of two pages using a font size that doesn’t require you to use a microsocope to read it, but what these guys want is something more detailed. He e-mailed me a sample resume, which had a whopping seven full pages of twelve-point text.

“That’s the opposite of what most resume guides tell you to do,” I said to him in our phone conversation, “Most of them say that resumes over two pages get tossed in the trash.”

“That’s often the case,” he replied, “but d’you want to work for someone who won’t even take the time to find out about you before deciding whether to hire you?”

Of course not. I was just always under the impression that most employers and agencies used people’s resumes as a quick way of paring down the candidate list.

So right now, I’m scrambling to put together a detailed resume in the format they like. This should be an interesting interview; wish me luck.

Could someone please translate this article from the Express Gazette? It’s about Helen Hunt, and it has a very odd photo [Warning: It may not be safe for work].

I’m certain that the translation will be nowhere nearly as entertaining as the stories I’m imagining, but I’d like to know what it says anyway.

…you might want to look at the past couple of entries in The Happiest Geek on Earth, which cover both Apple’s latest “Switch” ads and Microsoft’s fake “Switch” testimonial. Even for non-techies, it’s a interesting read.

I’ve been taking care of some programming projects as well as a major overhaul to my other blog, The Happiest Geek on Earth.

There’s be more stuff soon, but first I’m off to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving lunch.