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It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Sneak Peek: The Four Seasons Centre

Last Tuesday, I was invited with a few other select Accordion City bloggers to take a special advance tour of the Four Seasons Centre, the new home of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada. I’m still working on writing up my impressions of the place, but that shouldn’t keep you from seeing my pictures. I’ve taken my photos and put them in an album, which you can view either as a photo album or as a slideshow.

Here are some smaller versions of the photos I took; click any of them to start the slideshow.

Categories
It Happened to Me

My First "Cease-and-Desist" Letter!

It’s a sure sign that this blog has made the big time: I just got my first legal “nastygram” — a “cease and desist” letter from the hamburger chain Wendy’s International, Inc. Here’s a photo of the letter, delivered to me via FedEx’s “Urgent” sevrice:

And here’s the text of the letter:

Dr. Mr. deVilla:

It has come to the attention of Wendy’s International, Inc. that you have been infringing upon Wendy’s International’s intellectual property rights through your unauthorized and unlawful use of video clips of Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill” on your website www.accordionguy.blogware.com. This is a copyrighted work of Wendy’s International, Inc. It may be reproduced only with the express written consent of Wendy’s International, Inc.

You must immediately cease and desist from any further unauthorized use of Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill”. Should you fail to cease your use of the marks and video clip of the training video, we will be forced to take any and all legal actions available.

In addition, you must provide me with information regarding the source and manner in which you acquired Wendy’s training video “Grill Skill”.

I trust that you appreciate the seriousness of this matter. Please give this matter your immediate attention and notify me as to your intentions.

The video in question features burger cooking instructions done in the form of a circa-1985 funk music video, which makes sense give the average age of a fast food line staffer and MTV back in those days, when they actually played music videos. It may seem silly, but it’s effective: I haven’t watched it since last year, and I can probably still tell you the Wendy’s-mandated proper time to flip a burger and what a “four-corner press” is.

Far be it from me to upset my favourite large hamburger chain. As far as I know, Wendy’s still doesn’t cook their burgers from frozen patties, but locates their franchises close to supplies of fresh beef. They make a far better chicken sandwich than McDonald’s or Burger King, and I applaud their contribution to materials science in the form of their “soquid” research. I cheered during founder Dave Thomas’ cameo in the made-for-TV movie Bionic Ever After, in which he and Colonel Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man himself, exchange a couple of lines in the middle of a hostage situation.

So although the video was posted without malice towards Wendy’s International Inc and I never made a dime from having it on this blog, I have better things to do than to deal with a legal department on the warpath. I have removed the video from the blog entry, thus ending what must have been described in the Wendy’s offices as “the year of terror”.

As far as telling them where I found the video, the best I can do is “I found it somewhere on the internet”. I found it on some website while surfing randomnly last year, and damned if I can remember which one it was.

I intend to send them a note letting them know that I’ve removed the video, and I intend to brighten the day of some junior lawyer at Wendy’s corporate counsel by having some fun in that note, which is where you can help. What do you think I should write? Let me know in the comments!

Categories
Uncategorized

Commander Data vs. The Blue Screen of Death

Click the image below to see why they don’t run Windows on the U.S.S. Enterprise [1.6 MB animated .gif]:

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Uncategorized

Work at Tucows!

That’s right, we’re hiring! Among the positions that we have open are some junior developer positions. Here’s the brief run-down:

Salary range: Commensurate with experience.

Main purpose: Join a team of developers to develop new and maintain/support existing applications written primarily in Java but also in Perl. Additional project and duties may be assigned as required. Carrying a pager and on-call support duties may be required.

Skills and qualifications:

  • B.A. or B.Sc. degree
  • 1 to 3 years of programming experience in production application development
  • Hands on experience with Java programming and Unix/Linux
  • Experience with relational databases and SQL (preferably Oracle)
  • Some familiarity with production environments
  • Excellent problem solving skills
  • Good understanding of OO techniques
  • Some experience with Perl, HTML, XML and shell scripting
  • Version control system experience (preferably CVS)
  • Understanding of the following protocols: SMTP, DNS, HTTP and TCP/IP
  • Experience with J2EE
  • Must work well with little supervision/quick learner
  • Excellent time management skills to meet deadlines
  • Attention to detail, ability to stay focused and work under pressure
  • Demonstrated team player
  • Demonstrates enthusiasm and is passionate about technology
  • Ability to work with vaguely specified requests is important

As I said before, we’ve got other positions open too — check out the Tucows jobs page for details.

Categories
In the News

Funniest "Gay Cure" Ever

Although the methodology for various purported cures for “the gay” varies, the result they promise is the same: that you’ll go from this…

…to this:

Here’s a video of a CNN report featuring a gay cure [2.3MB QuickTime] promoted by one Richard Cohen, M.A.. The fact that those two letters constantly appear after his name on his books should be your first warning. In my experience, people who insist on adding their degree letters after their names — especially if that degree is a master of arts — are more often than not low-watt bulbs who either know how to work the systems of academia or went to sub-par universities.

Your second warning should be that the exercises he demonstrates are so pathetic that even emo kids will find them laughable. Pictured below is some hug therapy, meant to promote some non-sexual father-son style love that Cohen says is missing from gay men’s lives:


“After the hug session, we’re going to start an emo band called “Falling Down Stairs”. Click the picture to see the video.

We don’t move into truly hilarious territory until Cohen demonstrates “bio-energetics” therapy. The name alone should set off your bullshit detector, as should the fakety-fake pseudo-scientific rationale behind it: “to release memory stored in the muscles”. Cohen demonstrates it by taking a tennis racket and smacking a pillow repeatedly, screaming: “Mom! Mom! MOOOOOOOM! Why! Did you! Do that! To me!”.


Although it’s probably been about two decades since he moved out, Mommy remains the root of all his problems. Click the picture to see the video.

I have no idea how Paula Zahn kept a straight face through the interview. If it were me, I’d have taken the racket and started smacking Cohen: “Richard! Richard! RICHAAAARD! You! Are! Too stupid! To! Live!”

Categories
Uncategorized

Job Opportunities at Tucows

Have you got skills? If so, we’d like to talk to you.

If you’re just out of University and are looking for a hi-tech job, may I suggest Tucows? It’s a great place to work (I’ll have been here three years in July) and we’re looking for a few good people.

We’re looking for some Junior Application Developers. You’ll need to know Java and Perl and should probably be familiar with PHP. Our back end is based on Unix/Linux and Oracle, so you’ll have to be confortable with working in a Unix-y environment and SQL. You’ll be both developing new code following a design spec as well as maintaining and enhancing existing code, and you should know how to perform unit tests and work with CVS.

We’re looking for all sorts of people with other skills, too. If you’re looking for work at a company that’s great to work for, going through some very interesting changes and is thought to be one of the “good guys” in the tech world, come take a peek at our jobs page!

Categories
It Happened to Me Music Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Accordion City Musical Tidbits

Just a couple of quick tidbits:

  • Last night, I was part of a small group of bloggers who were invited to take a tour of the Four Seasons Centre, the new opera house at Queen and University. I’ll post a writeup before the grand opening on Sunday. I think the architects and designers did a great job in making the building unique and yet fitting it well with it surroundings — the very open design makes it feel as though it’s part of the surrounding city, which is important for a place devoted to an art form that is often perceived as cut off from the modern life.

  • It must’ve been some sort of musical milestone: on Monday at Carson’s karaoke night at The Social, I met another guy who plays rock and pop on an unconventional instrument — the bassoon! After he performed Madness’ big hit, Our House (a.k.a. the Maxwell House coffee song) with an excellent bassoon solo, I joined him for what was probably the first bassoon/accordion/karaoke treatment of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. I imagine Robert Plant got chills down his spine at that exact moment and had no idea why.