Author: Joey deVilla

…isn’t too bad.

I decided that since I wanted the party to rage into the night, I would drink the official cocktail of wacky impresarios, vodka and Red Bull. Yes, yes, I’m aware of the warnings about mixing energy drinks and booze — a false sense of how drunk you really are, and so on — but if that’s the riskiest behaviour I engaged in all night, I’m not doing too badly. Whenever a guest asked if they could buy me a drink, my reply was the same: “Yes, please: Red Bull and vodka.”

At the end of the evening, I was presented the bill and warned with “I think you should look at it first before signing”. I got a little concerned until I saw the amount: $138.

“That’s it?” I thought, and signed.

It has just occurred to me that in my drunken, energized and relieved state, I failed to write in a tip.

This is pretty bad considering that they treated me like visiting royalty. I’m dropping by the Parkdale Drink later on today to present them with two double sawbucks for their trouble.

Since May 1st, 1999, the accordion has proven to be a handy not-so-little thing to have handy. I now present a couple of moments last week that were made better by the ol’ squeezebox.

DemoCamp 15

On Monday, we held DemoCamp 15, the 15th regular gathering of the Accordion City tech community. The idea behind DemoCamp is to have a forum in which software (and even hardware) developers can show off their current projects in action, network with their peers and share ideas. I like to think of it as show-and-tell for geek grown-ups, followed by beer and nachos instead of milk and cookies. If you work in high tech or are just curious about the industry, you should really drop by a DemoCamp.

Generally, people demonstrate their projects on the own laptop computers, hooking them up to the projector when it’s their turn to present. You’d think that after about two decades, they’d have worked all the kinks out of hooking up different laptops to a projector, but projectors still balk at that sort of thing. We had some projector difficulties early in the demos, but I brought the accordion and broke out some tunes while David Crow worked out the video problems.

I performed by own rendition of the computer programming parody song, Code in C, which is sung to the tune of the Beatles’ Let it Be. Trust me, if you’re into computer programming, it’s amusing.

Hallowe’en Subway Party

Another attendee of last week’s Hallowe’en party on the subway train has posted his pictures on Flickr. A photographer going by the name of “JaMmcat” took about a hundred shots of the party, including a couple of Yours Truly performing accordion rock and roll in places where the sound system the organizers brought couldn’t reach:

Click the photo to see the whole set.

To see JaMmcat’s photos from the subway party, click the photo above or click here.

Here’s a scene from Sunday night’s Kickass Karaoke, a regular karaoke event that takes place upstairs at The Rivoli, located by Accordion City’s club district. It’s me playing accordion and singing Adam Sandler’s so-wrong-it’s-right love ballad, At a Medium Pace (warning: contains not-safe-for-work lyrics!), with the Ginger Ninja helping with the accordion microphone:

Click the pictures to see the version where the lyrics — which aren’t safe for work — aren’t blurred out.

Most of the lyrics on the screen behind me aren’t safe for work, so I’ve blurred them out. If you really want to see them — and remember, you can’t unlearn lyrics easily — click on the photo (or click here).

Saturday’s birthday party was fantastic — I think I’m still recovering! Luckily, I arranged to take a personal day today tp hang out with the Ginger Ninja and Dave.

Photos are forthcoming, but here’s a quick preview:

Look at that suave expression — it’s proof that they should have cast me instead of John Cho as “Mr. Sulu” in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

It’s not a party until someone “throws the horns”.

My thanks to everyone who came, and to The Parkdale Drink who provided a great location, friendly service, tasty food and a non-stop stream of Red Bull and vodkas for the birthday boy. If you haven’t yet visited the Parkdale Drink, do so — it’s still just off the West Queen West crowd’s collective radar, and it’s a nice little place for dinner or drinks.

More photos later!

That’s what this is — I’m taking Friday and Monday off to celebrate, hang out with Wendy (and Dave, who flies in from Chicago on Saturday afternoon), enjoy my birthday and play a couple of XBox 360 games I just bought: Beautiful Katamari and Bioshock.

And, of course, on Saturday night, there’s this…

If you’d like to come join the celebration, please do! It’s at The Parkdale Drink (1292 Queen Street West, just west of Dufferin), a block west of the Gladstone Hotel. It’s pretty swanky for Parkdale, and among other things, there’s a dance floor and a DJ spinning some fun tunes (I requested rock, alt-rock and some retro). C’mon and help an old man celebrate!

(Don’t forget that we turn the clocks back to standard time on Saturday night, giving us an extra hour to party!)

As for Sunday night, I’ll be continuing the party at Kickass Karaoke at the Rivoli (334 Queen Street West, just east of Spadina). The fun starts at after 9:

“It’s too big and too heavy to hide”, said the Ginger Ninja as she walked in the door from her shopping trip, “and I don’t think you’d mind getting your present early, so here it is!”

It was the keyboard pictured above — the Axiom 25 by M-Audio. It doesn’t make sounds on its own; rather, you hook it up to your computer and use it with synthesizer, sampling and sequencing software to record music. This model is compact, yet bristling with controls for keyboard playing, drum and sound effects playing (that’s what the square pads on the upper right-hand side are for) and tweaking sounds on the fly (that’s what the bank of 8 knobs near the upper center are for).

Before I was an accordion player, I was a synth player. I’ve been meaning to get back into playing synths and writing electronic music and have had my eye on this keyboard for some time. I’m looking forward to making all sorts of music both for fun and for work (for podcasts, screencasts and videocasts).

Thanks, Wendy!

My brother-in-law Andy Ramoniac and his wife Sue came up to Toronto last weekend for a visit (I had a great time, guys — come back anytime!), and they brought me a birthday present — a USB webcam with integrated microphone shaped like a Dalek — the dread creatures from Doctor Who who scream “EXTERMINATE!” in shrill electronic voices. I love it!

As you can see from the photo above, it sits proudly atop my computer at work. Here’s a closer look:

Thanks, Andy and Sue!