The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Hey Canada, it’s your birthday / Party like it’s your birthday!

Yup, it’s July 1st, which is the anniversary of the founding of this rather nice country, my home for the past 28 years. I raise a pint of Upper Canada Dark Ale to everyone today. Cheers!

If you choose to go by months, July 1st also marks the start of the second half of the year. Yup, we’re 50% of the way through 2003. The first half had its share of excitement, and I certainly looking forward to what the second half’s got in store.

Recommended Reading

The New Canada. A multi-part series from the Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail on how Canada’s younger generations — many of whom, like myself, are “New Canadians”, are redefining the country. One of the installments is a piece on the cultural salad bar that is Accordion City, where you can get biryani, bulgogi, bouillabaisse, bratwurst and Big Macs, all in the space of a few blocks.

Canadian fashion quiz. We don’t wall wear accordions on our backs and flaming cowboy hats…yet.

Canadian World Domination. Well, we can dream, can’t we?

Rush. The Canadian band that turned rock on its ear. “What you say about his companyyyyy / Is what you say about societyyyyyy!”

Men Without Hats. The people who brought back maypole dancing and midgets to rock videos and gave us all The Safety Dance!

Degrassi Junior High. Low budget, as Canadian as all get-out, corny and cheesy, but yet so addictive. Filmmaker Kevin Smith is a big fan.

And where does the really good kind bud come from these days?

Avalon. What could be geekier than Canadian online comic high school melodrama?

Crazy Go Nuts University. My alma mater, Queen’s University. And yes, I was there for the “Chaos of ’87”. I remember my first job interview out of school — the interviewer asked “So you went to Queen’s, right?”. I answered “Yes,” to which he replied “but you’re sober!!!”

And last but not least, our favourite mutant:

Wolverine’s still the best at what he does, and what he does isn’t very nice.

Paul and I have been busy over the past week — he’s working towards a black belt, I’m working towards wrapping up my freelance clients and moving to a new job — so neither of us has had a chance to get our Om Festival 2003 memories together. Paul took the photos, and I will (eventually) write the words.

I don’t have time to give it a proper review, but I’ll give you the Joey Pithy One-Line Review™: “Like Burning Man if the Ewoks Ran It!”.

(And yes, I mean that in the good way. Don’t be harshin’ on Wicket and my homiez.)

Thankfully, other people have documented the event:

• Ceasar from TheLoneRider.com has posted his photos and impressions. The photos of Yours Truly and the gang are here, here, here and here. If you’re wondering why the girl in the last photo looks familiar, that’s because it’s Mira, who appeared in these rather arousing chick with guns photos.
• NOW, one of Accordion City’s free alterna-weekly newspapers, has a nice writeup titled Splendour in the Grass.

Thanks to Marg-Rock The Practical Hippie for telling me that Ceasar posted the pics!

My technical blog, The Happiest Geek on Earth, is being revitalized. My new job gives me ample opportunity to blog on all manner of interesting programming-related stuff, and some upcoming changes will also make it easier for me to blog about the technical stuff and the life stuff and let you pick what you’d rather read. It’s all good.

Today’s “Happiest Geek” entry is called “Did I come at a bad time?”.

(I promise, the posts will get a little meatier as I wind down my freelance clients and start ramping up the Tucows work.)

You want to ignore this post, but I know you. You can’t.

Bowel Buddy Brand Biscuits

You really have to come over to Canada now, because we lead the way in cool. Consider these:

• Legal gay marriage
• While not formally de-criminalized, marijuana’s no longer a big deal
• A drinking age of 18 or 19 (depending on the Province), instead of the Americans’ silly 21
• Better beer
• Healthcare (which is world-class, no matter what rich right-wingers who have investments in HMOs and summer in the Hamptons with doctor friends will tell you)
• A video station that actually plays music videos (okay, so they’re not playing the widest variety of them, but they are playing videos)
• A video station that will let you perform on the freaking accordion, live, in front of the entire damned country, just because you asked nicely

And now, we have this…

I would normally say “I shit you not”, but since two Bowel Buddy wafers have almost 23 grams of fibre, the more appropriate phrase would be “I shit you lots.” According to the literature, some people lose up to five pounds thanks to Bowel Buddy’s erm…ah…cleansing action.

I’ve tried them at the nearby health food store (the one on Queen Street, staffed entirely by cute women). They’re tasty.

So are the wafers (arf! arf!).

Let’s make San Francisco pretty this Christmas!

Now that we’re done with the Canadian poop-altering product, let’s look at the American one:

Hershey’s green chocolate syrup is part of a tie-in with the Incredible Hulk movie. According to Shelli, this stuff turns your poop (or at least, her toddler’s poop) green.

Now let’s consider the case of San Francisco. There’s a considerable amount of human poop — and yes, you can tell it’s human as opposed to canine without any study — on the streets.

I see a way to make sure the homeless are getting some of their nutrients and making the streets more Christmas-y at the same time, don’t you?

Non-recommended drinking

This is Romulan Ale, which you can buy at Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. All my bodily waste was blue for a day.

Which would you prefer?

A. Everything you do, you do wrong.

B. Everything you do, you do right, but you have to do it three times, the second and third times with no purpose whatsoever.

If you like questions like this — perhaps like me, you’re fond of The Book of Questions — you’ll love the questions at the Web site You Must Choose. They’ve got lots of these A/B questions, and you can also see how other people chose.

(You’ll need Flash 6.)