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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!

Here’s a faux panoramic shot of DemoCamp 15, the 15th show-and-tell event where the bright lights of Toronto’s high-tech community show off their projects to their peers, which took place on Monday:

Click the photo to see it at full size.

For more on what happened, see this entry in David Crow’s blog.

Click the photo to see the Flickr set.

Last night, newmindspace held a Hallowe’en party on a subway train, which they announced on their site as:

Subway party tonight! Dress in your spookiest, scariest, fun furriest costume and join us for a late night ride beneath the streets of Toronto. Bring candy, decorations and a friend to this Halloween celebration. Bangin’ electro tunes will blast from the Rothko Institute + VelcroRocket portable soundsystem, and we will ghost ride the train!

You may join the party at any station, but the fun starts at Kipling 🙂

Ghost Ride the Subway Party!
Kipling Station, last car @ 11:13 PM
Wednesday, October 31st 2007
Free and all ages!
No facebook plz

Last year’s went perfectly! This is because we followed some simple guidelines for the TTC’s sake:

• No smoking *anything*
• No open alcohol, tickets have been written before
• Keep off the seats, really!
• Mind the emergency alarm
• Leave no trace
• Don’t hold doors open or leave the train

I joined the party at Kipling station (with accordion, of course) and took photos. I’ve posted them in a Flickr photoset — click here to check them out!

Click the photo to see the Flickr set.

And don’t forget: the clocks get turned back this Saturday, which means that we get an extra hour’s worth of party!

The choice of talking heads of FOX News has always left me wondering what journalism school would generate such a sorry lot; they seem to have been picked for less for their ability to ask the Five Ws and more for their ability to cheerlead for President W.

Even stranger is the choice of anchors for the spin-off channel FOX Business, who seem to have been picked for their Debbie Does Dallas (don’t worry, the link is safe for work) looks rather than j-skills. Even the design of the FOX Business site — gold on gold — makes it look more like a porn site than a news site. RADAR magazine noticed this and created a little game called FOX Business Anchor or Porn Star? The game is simple: you’ll be shown a picture of a woman and you must guess whether she’s an anchor on the FOX Business channel or a star from an adult entertainment film.