Found via Reddit. Click the photo to see it at full size.
Author: Joey deVilla
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My new approach to team-building
From now on, when I build a team, I’m going to make sure it’s filled with people whose names can be arranged into amusing phrases.
It’s 5:30 p.m. in Tampa on the 7th of May, and it’s 90 degrees F (32 degrees C). I’m still in business attire, which is a short-sleeve shirt, shorts, and flip flops. I’ve put it a full day’s work at the home office, and managed to squeeze 60 lengths across the pool earlier this afternoon.
It’s May the 4th, also known as Star Wars Day, thanks to the fact the “May the 4th be with you” is a pretty good pun on the Jedi catchphrase.
According to Wikipedia, the “May the 4th” pun was first used in mass media on May 4th, 1979 as a way of congratulating British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on her taking the office. The first organized Star Wars Day celebration was co-organized in 2011 in Toronto by my friend Sean Ward at the Toronto Underground Cinema, and in 2013, Disney Parks started celebrating the event.
I’m celebrating by joining some friends in a game of Edge of the Empire (in my opinion, a vast improvement over previous Star Wars role-playing games) and posting some Star Wars-related stuff on the blog. Enjoy, and remember: let the wookiee win!
IV, V, II, III, VI: The Machete Order
Rod Hilton, on his site, No Machete Juggling, like most sensible people, considers episodes I, II, and III to be of little value. However, they’re part of the canon now, and you can be sure that they’ll be referenced in the upcoming episodes helmed by JJ “Lens Flare” Abrams. He’s come up with the optimal way to watch the movies if you must include both trilogies: The Machete Order. It’s pictured above, and spelled out below:
- Episode IV: A New Hope. Meet the most interesting characters and see the story that got the ball rolling.
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The best of the bunch, with some of the most memorable lines, including “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones. If you thought Luke was whiny, wait till you meet his dad! There’s some symmetry between episodes II and V, which makes the transition from 1980s cinematography and effects to 2000s filmmaking a little less jarring.
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. “The Chancellor’s all ‘dark side’ this and ‘Sith’ that. I think he’s trying to tell me something.” Anakin becomes Darth Vader, the Jedi Order is destroyed, and we know how the Republic became the Empire, which leads us to…
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Ewoks. Ewoks everywhere. Yub nub!
Note that Episode I: The Phantom Menace is skipped entirely. In a single stroke, it eliminates a lot of the spaghetti that George Lucas threw against the wall and didn’t stick: the fact that Star Wars is all about a trade dispute, Jar Jar Binks, Jake “Spinning! I’ll try that!” Lloyd, immaculate conception, and the pod race. It also minimizes mention of midichlorians, and cuts the number of times the Empire is defatead by flying into their base and shooting at the weak spot from half the films to one-third.
Want to know more? Hilton goes into detail about his logic on his page about The Machete Order.
No matter how big or unusual your instrument is, if you’re a street musician performing numbers from the rock and pop genre, you should have this number down cold:
Why Wonderwall? Well…
The chords he suggests sound a bit off. Having been a busker myself and profited well from playing Oasis’ most popular song…
Still the #1 Google result for “Best Accordion Picture Ever”.
…my recommendation is not to dick around with fancy-pants “musically accurate” chords. That’s for the losers at band camp. You want money for nothing and chicks for free, and for that, you should go with easy-peasy chords so you can devote more time to your adoring fans. I recommend:
Em G D Asus4
for the meat of the song. Try it! Here’s a verse:
Em G
Today is gonna be the day that they're
D Asus4
gonna throw it back to you
Em G
By now you should've somehow
D Asus4
realized what you gotta do
Em G
I don't believe that anybody
D Asus4
feels the way I do
C D Asus4
About you now
Here’s the chorus:
C
And all the roads we
D Em
have to walk are winding
C
And all the lights that
D Em
lead us there are blinding
C D
There are many things that I
G D Em
Would like to say to you,
D Asus4
but I don't know how
C Em G
Cause maybe
Em
You're gonna be the one that
C Em G
saves me
Em C Em
And after all
G Em
You're my wonder...
C Em G Em [dramatic fermata] [dramatic Asus4, knowing wink]
...wall
Now get out on the street and play!
Previously, in Spring Cleaning…
This is the tenth article in the Spring Cleaning series, where I take articles that have languished unfinished for too long, finish them, and finally post them here on the Accordion Guy blog. In case you missed any of the previous nine, I’ve listed them below:
- Burgers. Burgers everywhere.
- Which beer is most likely to land you in the emergency room?
- Weber Cooks, the saddest cooking show
- Get on your bicycle!
- Fireworks and sensitive body parts
- Work!
- Storytelling, “Save the Cat”, and same-old-same-old in Hollywood
- The best financial advice fits on a 4-by-6-inch index card
- Spent, the minimum wage simulation
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Public bathroom graffito of the day
Click the photo to see the sacrificial altar at full size.
Previously, in Spring Cleaning…
Welcome to the ninth article in the Spring Cleaning series, where I take articles that have languished unfinished for too long, finish them, and finally post them here on the Accordion Guy blog. In case you missed any of the previous eight, I’ve listed them below:
- Burgers. Burgers everywhere.
- Which beer is most likely to land you in the emergency room?
- Weber Cooks, the saddest cooking show
- Get on your bicycle!
- Fireworks and sensitive body parts
- Work!
- Storytelling, “Save the Cat”, and same-old-same-old in Hollywood
- The best financial advice fits on a 4-by-6-inch index card
Spent, the minimum wage simulation
Click the graphic to play Spent.
Even though I’ve recently bumped up against a few financial difficulties of my own — all thanks to an unscrupulous rip-off artist of a business partner and former friend — I’m still a long way from being in the situation of having no savings, few employment opportunities, and little hope. I’ve never been in the situation where I had to choose between paying the rent and eating, or falling back on that fastest-growing job category, retail work, to pay the bills. I have no idea of what it’s like to have nothing to work with. According to the demographic analytics package that I’m using, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, chances are that you have no idea, either. Welcome to the lucky club!
Spent is a simulation in which you start the month with a thousand dollars and have to make it to the end of the month without falling into debt. You’re unemployed, so you choose among the fastest-growing job categories today. They also happen to be the lowest-paying. Choosing “temp” puts you into a typing test to qualify for the job…
A piece of cake for me, but I’m someone who’s downsized to “just” two laptops. I landed the job, which nets me a weekly pay of $306:
$9 an hour? The last temp job I took paid almost 9 times that.
Next task: find somewhere to live, balancing being close to work with being able to afford the place.
My new place was too small for all my stuff, so I held a yard sale:
Dam right I kept this:
Maybe next semester; I’m strapped:
I went with the “running buddy” option for this one:
Salad? What am I, Bill Gates? Besides, isn’t the McDouble the cheapest, most nutritious and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history?
Oh, it’s on:
What the hell? Was I working for GitHub?
Walk it off, plebe, walk it off:
Bill time:
In a matter of a few minutes and an in-game month, I made it with money to spare by stiffing myself and my kid. The game is over; the real-life version requires you to wash-rinse-repeat for several dozen real-time months.
