Category: It Happened to Me

It’s been such a busy time that the third anniversary of The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century — Wednesday, November 10th — completely slipped past me!

I’m glad to report that 3 years and 3,338 articles later (3,339

including this one), it’s still fun. Like the accordion, the blog has

paid off in ways I never could’ve imagined. When I started back in

2001, I thought it would just be a creative outlet and something to

pass the time as my job responsibilities as OpenCola were being

whittled down (in the end, all I was responsible for was building the

installer and the “About” box for our software). Instead, it expanded

my social circle, gained me a little internet notoriety and a handful

of newspaper and TV appearances, landed me a job, saved my bacon from a girl who wasn’t who she said she was and played a part in my meeting my fiancee. Hooray for unexpected uses of technology; as William Gibson once wrote: “The street finds its own uses for things.”

Or in my case, “The street musician finds his own uses for things.”

Dave “Dave’s Picks” Polaschek informs me that the my age — the number 37 — is sacred in the numerology of the Hells’ Tunas Motorocycle Club.

I was busy cleaning up the house and getting ready for the arrival of Wendy and her parents (2:20 this afternoon) when someone came to the front door. Normally, I’m not bothered by door-to-door “spammers”; I’m usually safe from them at the Tucows offices. I’m glad that my house has a front door intercom with which I can screen out door-to-door salesleeches, Jehovah’s witnesses and the like.

I hit the “talk” button and the conversation went like this…

Me: Hello?

Guy: Hi, I was going door-to-door — I tried to reach your neighbours but they weren’t home — and I wanted to talk to you about The Rapture and the Great Tribulation…

Me: I’m very sorry, but I’m on my way out the door. Look could you, er, come by later?

Guy: Sure. I was wondering if you…

Me: Oh, I know about the Last Days. I read Left Behind, see, and I fully expect to be pulled away in The Rapture. I think that with everything the way it is in the world right now, it could happen really soon; the signs are there! Maybe you could come by for coffee later and we cou…

…and that’s when I let go of the intercom’s “talk” button.

He buzzed three more times, each buzz growing in length and sounding more desperate, but by then, I’d started scrubbing the toilet.

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To the poor fella out there: Thank you for the opportunity to indulge in a little birthday prankery. Best present so far!

To those of you who were wondering if there’s a Chick tract on the topic: of course there is! You get bonus points for correctly guessing that it contains a reference to the Catholic church as “The Whore of Babylon”.

And to to my Evangelical friends: Real Rapture believers don’t buy green bananas!

This just arrived in my inbox. My thanks to Patrick Kent!

Me at the OpenCola office in August 2000.

More birthday self-indulgence: I’ve set up a photo album that would be

a catalog of where I was and what I was doing all these years. The

photos contained within the album were selected from my 1998 through

2001 collections; I’ll add more later.

You can see the photos in album or slideshow format.

This is a big weekend for Yours Truly for a couple reasons. There’s the

party (email me at accordionguy you-know-what-symbol gmail

you-know-what-punctuation-mark com if you’re in Accordion City and would like to attend), but even more importantly, this is the weekend when Wendy

and her parents fly in for the Meeting of the Parents. This is not new

territory for me, as our family did this back in 1999 when we first met

my brother-in-law’s folks (this meeting gets some mention in the final installment of my Worst Date Ever story).

This is also the weekend that I give Wendy her ring. It’s a little bit

unusual and a little bit flash. Perfect for the special lady who wants

to spend the rest of her life with me.

Robertson and I did some party shopping yesterday evening. First Costco

for food and mix, followed by a trip to the beer store. I’m supplying

microbrew this year, all from the Wellington Brewery: Beehive Honey Lager, Wellington Special Pale Ale and Wellington County Dark Ale. In honour of the engagement, I’m also serving Ring Pops.

Dave “Logan’s Dave” Ahrens,

an old friend of Wendy whom I met in July, arrives in Toronto Friday

night. Dave, I’m hoping to show you a little bit of the ol’ stomping

ground — perhaps Smokeless Joe for some fine ales or the Bovine Sex Club for some disreputable drinkin’!

I can guarantee that an ambulance guy will show up sometime at the party, but I assure you it’ll be good news. Tom “Random Acts of Reality” Reynolds

is flying from London to Accordion City to attend the bash. Tom, you

have earned the party’s Phineas Fogg award for being the guest who

travelled the greatest distance to attend the party.

(Tom’s blog, which details stories about his life in the London

Ambulance Service, is a gripping read — it earned him an interview in The Guardian.)

I have a Shaun of the Dead trucker cap that I keep forgetting to send to Suw “Chocolate and Vodka” Charman, who is possibly the world’s biggest fan of that movie. I’m going to give it to Tom to bring back to her.