The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Here’s The Redhead facing off against me at air hockey at The Great Canadian Midway, located on Clifton Hill, the cheesy tourist street in Niagara Falls.

(Alas, I accidentally erased a great video she shot of me displaying my
strength at one of those “hit-the-thing-with-the-sledgehammer” sort of
amusements. Working out has been paying off.)

The Redhead loves air hockey and pinball.

My summer vacation started on Friday with a trip to the Om Festival, which can best be described as the answer to the question “What if the Ewoks from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi decided to hold their own Burning Man festival?” I just got back from the festival, and in an hour from the time I write this, The Redhead’s plane will land here in Accordion City. We both have the week off and will enjoying just hanging out (we might make a short drive to Niagara Falls’ Clifton Hill; Wendy loves cheesy amusements). Since I have two computers and WiFi in the house, both Wendy’s and my blogging should continue at their respective normal paces, but there are no guarantees. We’re pretty good at distracting each other from work…

You’re going to need a little background for this one.

First, time-warp back to early March 2003: Mandatory Cheese Sandwich Entry Part One and Mandatory Cheese Sandwich Entry Part Two. Note the “Cute Girl”, whom I shall call “Kimberly” (not her real name) for the sake of simplicity.

The next relevant bit of back story is in the entry titled Last Night, a little later that month, which features Kimberly again:

That one hurt quite a bit, and that’s probably why my “people
radar” wasn’t working properly the following weekend, when I hooked up
with this sort-of-goth girl, which ended up being an even bigger fiasco.
Ever since then, I’ve had to fight down a sense of annoyance whenever
Kimberly’s around. I know it’s not her fault, but I can’t help
feeling annoyed just the same.

(A little aside: The entry prior to Last Night is Doc Searls Comes to Accordion City. If I’d never gone to that little get-together, I’d never have met Boss Ross and would never have been offered the current job. It was a life-changing couple of weeks.)

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Last night at Kickass Karaoke, I walked in to find Kinberly there. This is unusual — I’ve never seen her at Kickass Karaoke.

That’s when I noticed the second unusual thing: the new guy she had in
tow. He was about 5’11”, Asian, with a goatee and long sideburns. You’d
never mistake us for twins, but wow, did we come from the same style archetype.
 

Eldon walked up to me and said “He’s wearing the same colour
shirt you are, too.” I looked down, looked at my “clone” and had to
agree.

“This gives the term ‘cheap Asian knockoff’ a whole new meaning,” I said. “It’s like passing over a Lexus for a Hyundai.”

“Ah, don’t you worry,” he said consolingly, “he’s all Asian and no accordion.”

I guess I should be flattered.