…and it looks like lots of people will be there, including a number of Tucows folks (including Blogware product managers Kim and Rahat). It’ll be at the Lone Star Grill on Front Street tomorrow at 8 p.m.; see Ross’ blog entry for details.
John Allison’s webcomic Scary Go Round, which descended from his original webcomic, Bobbins, is currently running a storyline about a mayoral election in the fictitious town of Tackleford, England.
Strangely enough, the candidates seem rather like the parties that
could be vying for the Canadian federal election that could take place
soon given how the current minortiy government is mired in
scandal (the current government is a minority government; a vote of “no
confidence” in parliament would result in a general election).
When reading this, please keep in
mind that: (a) this is just one ‘umble Canadian blogger’s view of
Canadian party politics; (b) on the average, said blogger is smarter,
better-looking and gets more pageviews than most.
Party
(generally the party you vote for if you are the hard-workingaccordion-playing immigrant high-tech industry son of hard-working
immigrant doctors, at least before the scandal…)
Scary Go Round, April 11, 2005. Artist John Allison went back to his pen-and-ink style for a day. Click to see the full comic.
Scary Go Round, April 12, 2005. Click to see the full comic.
Then there’s Mr. Quorn, who’s sort of like the Conservative Party,
recently reconstituted from the Progressive Conservative Party
(generally fiscal conservatives, but socially all over the spectrum)
and the Reform Party (a distressing number of whom see hard-working high-tech accordion-playing high-tech immigrant sons as hard-working salt-mining equipment)…
Scary Go Round, April 13, 2005. Click to see the full comic.
…and finally, Tackleford’s Progressive Party sounds a bit like the New Democratic Party, for whom I shall refrain from comment for the time being:
Scary Go Round, April 13, 2005. Click to see the full comic.
I had a lovely weekend with Wendy — hanging out with Wendy’s friends on Friday night, going to Rachel Barenblat’s and Ethan Zuckerman’s gorgeous house in the Berkshires
on Saturday and dinner at Wendy’s parents’ house on Sunday (where I
gorged on Wendy’s mom’s delicious coffee cake, for which I must atone
at the gym this evening.)
Details later. Hope your weekend was just as fun!
A couple of Friday nights ago, I attended Girlesque, yet another local burlesque/vaudeville show hosted by my friend, Mysterion the Mind Reader. Here are some photos from the event (they’re all safe for work):
Ah, the dance of the seven veils!
You can see video of the dance here [4.8MB, QuickTime].
This poor goth was a bit freaked out by Mysterion’s “PK (psychokinetic)
Touch” trick in which he touches her back while standing across the
stage.
Mysterion was one of the finalists for a contenst held by the local
alt-rock radio station to find Toronto’s biggest freak. One of the
other finalists, a burly fella by the name of Professor Orbax put on a great show. Here he is, shoving a power drill up his nose:
Here’s Orbax, after havig been wrapped in Saran Wrap by a professional
dominatrix, announcing that he will now attempt to escape as
cross-dressin’ Chris holds the mic (yeah, we have a lot of odd people
here in Accordion City):
I’ve got two video’s of Orbax’s escape from the Saran Wrap:
And finally, the stomach pump trick. Orbax first drank some yellow
liquid then used the pump (which fed a tube running up his nose and
then down his esophagus) to inject blue liquid into this stomach. He
then used the pump to extract the liquids from his stomach (now a
sickly green) to fill two glasses — one for him and one for Mysterion:
After the show, Mysterion came up to me, grabbed me by the lapels and screamed, “I drank some guy’s BILE, Joey!”
“Sounds like a typical Friday night for you, dude,” I said.
The show was punctuated with some classic vaudeville humor by the
comedian known to most people only as “The Wolfman”. He’s hilarious,
and he greeted me with a hug after the show. Wolfie, we have to do a
song-and-dance routine for the next show.
Curtain call! Here are two photos of all the performers taking a bow.
Mysterion was extra-kind that evening: during curtain call he said “I’d
also like to thank Joey deVilla, the Accordion Guy, for attending
tonight — he’s in the audience, but we hope to have him onstage for
the next show. Give it up for Joey!”
Thanks, Mysterion, and yes, I’d love to perform at the next one!
From Wikipedia:
Podcasting is a new term for the online publishing of files in a way that allows for the subscription-like syndication
and distribution of files as they become available. Most podcasts are audio in MP3 format, syndicated through the RSS
protocol. Other formats and other types of files, such as video, can also be podcasted,
though these are limited by common bandwidth
constraints.
While the term “podcasting” is a portmanteau of Apple’s popular “iPod” and “broadcasting,” podcasting does not require an iPod. Any digital audio player or computer can run an appropriate aggregator to convert
podcasts for playback.
My boss Ross “Spank me hard and call me Julie” Rader is organizing a Toronto-and-surrounding areas podcasting dinner for next Tuesday night, April 19th, 8:00 p.m. at the Lone Star Grill down on Front Street. Among those present will be:
There’ll be good Tex-Mex, good company, and if you’re really lucky, maybe an accordion performance.
You don’t need to be a podcaster to come! Just RSVP in the comments of this entry at Ross’ blog!
“Son of Jor-El, kneel before my blog.” Really, we should’ve called it “Zodcasting”.
[via Kottke] One of my favourite reads, The Economist, has an article — The Rise of the Creative Consumer — with ideas that I plan to use in my own role as the Tucows Developer Relations Guy…
LAST November, engineers in the healthcare division of General Electric (GE) unveiled something called the “LightSpeed VCT”,
a scanner that can create a startlingly good three-dimensional image of
a beating heart. This spring Staples, an American office-supplies
retailer, will stock its shelves with a gadget called a “wordlock”, a
padlock that uses words instead of numbers. In Munich, meanwhile,
engineers at BMW have begun prototyping
telematics (combining computing and telecoms) and online services for a
new generation of luxury cars. The connection? In each case, the firm’s
customers have played a big part (GE, BMW) or the leading role (Staples) in designing the product.
How does innovation happen? The familiar story involves boffins in academic institutes and R&D labs.
But lately, corporate practice has begun to challenge this
old-fashioned notion. Open-source software development is already
well-known. Less so is the fact that Bell, an American bicycle-helmet
maker, has collected hundreds of ideas for new products from its
customers, and is putting several of them into production. Or that
Electronic Arts (EA), a maker of computer games,
ships programming tools to its customers, posts their modifications
online and works their creations into new games. And so on. Not only is
the customer king: now he is market-research head, R&D chief and product-development manager, too.
…my Unitarian Jihad name fits my centrist sensibilties quite well: it’s Brother Broadsword of Moderation.
You can get your own at the Unitarian Jihad Name Generator. Like any religion, there’s an original and reformed version.