Author: Joey deVilla

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me Work

The Office Accordion

My original accordion, a Titano student model, has been through a lot, from the streets of Accordion City to Burning Man to saving my butt from a mugging in Prague (see this story for details). In spite of a few broken chord buttons, some missing key tops and a slight air leak, I can still get some sweet sounds out of it.

These days, I keep it at the TSOT offices in case of emergencies. You’d be surprised at the number of times having an accordion handy has paid off.

Joey deVilla playing accordion at the TSOT offices
Click the picture to see the video on Facebook.

Last week, I did a quick little medley at the office, and my coworker Dan Williams shot some video of the event and posted it on Facebook. If you’ve got a Facebook account, you can see it here. I’ll see if I can get the video from Dan and post it someplace a little more easily accessed, like YouTube.

A friend of Dan’s saw the video, and she commented that if it were posted on a dating site like LavaLife, I’d get responses like crazy. The accordion has already served that purpose, but maybe it’s time for me to give lessons.

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Uncategorized

Poster of the Day

“Had enough? Vote Democrat” poster featuring hypothetical Republican campaign buttons.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Categories
Uncategorized

Snappy Answers for Stupid Hippies

Hippies

Here’s the intro to my favourite article on Valleywag today:

Biodiesel. Hemp. Local sustainable farms. Hippie tech is infuriating. You know in your engineer’s heart it won’t work, but because it’s outside your field of study you lack the handy stats to rebut the moonbat ideas evangelized by modern-day hippies and their shiny shiny cousins, the ravers. Before Burning Man starts up again in earnest, I’ve prepared canned comebacks and bookmarkable URLs from hippie-approved sources like Wikipedia and GreenBiz.

Categories
funny

Seen on the Subway This Morning

Here’s a photo of a poster I saw on the train on the way to work today:

“Window Wonderland” poster with the line “Ryerson students must create holiday window displays on a budget of $100. Come down and see how they fair.”

A quick reminder:

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In the News

The Obligatory Conrad Black Joke

Conrad Black stars in “Let’s Go to Prison” - Coming March 2008

While I have not been following the details of the Conrad Black case, the fact that such questionable characters such as Mark Steyn and Elton John defend him doesn’t help his case as I am concerned.

Categories
funny

Poster of the Day

I took a photo of this “Hillary Clinton” poster done “old school” style, which was hanging in the waiting area of Gabby’s, a pub not far from the office:

Old-style “Hillary Clinton” poster hanging in the waiting area of Gabby’s pub
Photo by Joey deVilla.

Categories
Work

College Professor Salaries vs. College Football Coach Salaries

Cover of “BAD, or The Dumbing of America”
BAD, or The Dumbing of America — A worthwhile read 15 years ago, and still relevant today.

In his book, BAD, or the Dumbing of America, Paul Fussell suggested that one of the best ways to make America a less dumb place would be to eliminate athletic scholarships entirely.

I agree — I think that the term “athletic scholarship” is an oxymoron. They’re also almost completely non-existent in Canada; the rules forbid entrance scholarships based on sports ability. As far as I recall, the only Canadian university to attempt (and fail) to join the NCAA was Simon Fraser University (presumably in an attempt to undo their rep as “The Marxists on the hill”).

Alas, the market does not agree with me and Paul Fussell. Take a look at this graph from the blog Carpe Diem, “Mark J. Perry’s Blog for Economics and Finance”, which compares college professors’ and college football coaches’ average salaries for 2007:

Graph comparing college professors’ and college football coaches’ average salaries for 2007

Here an excerpt from an article in USA Today on the topic of U.S. college football coaches’ compensation:

At least 50 coaches are making seven figures, seven more than a year ago. At least a dozen are pulling down $2 million or more, up from nine in 2006. Last season, Stoops was the only one making more than $3 million.

“Is this a favorable trend? The answer is: Of course not,” says LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, who worked out the new deal with Miles. “That said, it’s also market dynamics. The value of things is determined by the demand that exists. There’s nothing unfair about that.”

I often consider the free market to be like the developmentally delayed little brother I never had: I love it dearly, but sometimes it’s as dumb as a bag of rocks.