The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Thanks to an opportune run-in I had during a date back in April, I’m now working as a programmer at a little start-up called Silvercloud Entertainment. Silvercloud makes one thing and one thing only: online trivia games. The first one is called “Are You Smart Enough”, and we’re currently beta-testing it.

Two games are scheduled each day: one at 12:00 noon and one at 8:00 pm (Eastern Standard Time). You play against other people, answering multiple choice trivia questions. If you answer wrong, you’re out of the game. The last person remaining (or the last people remaining at the ned of 25 questions) wins the prize!

The questions are written by Ken Fisher, who’s written a boatload of trivia books, has a syndicated trivia quiz in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada, and wrote questions for TV’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The game’s database of questions is pretty sizeable, and once we use a question, we never use it again.

You have twenty seconds to choose an answer, and you can change your mind as long as some of those twenty seconds remains. In order to give people a better shot at lasting longer in the game, you have two “save me’s” at your disposal. If you don’t know the answer, you can use a “save me”; it’ll be as if you answered the question correctly. Since this is an online game, you can use any online resources to help you find the answer…if you can do it in the twenty allotted seconds, that is. You can also use your favourite instant messaging client to trash-talk your friends if they’re playing against you.

The beta test game is free, and the last person standing wins 2 free Cineplex Odeon movie passes. The real game, expected to go online later this summer, will cost $5 and the last person standing will win $1,000.

What you’ll need

You’ll need the following to play the game:

• A Windows machine (I know, I know). It should run WIndows 98 or later.
• DirectX 8.1. If you’ve installed some recent games or are running Windows XP, you might already have it.
• The client. You can download it by going here.
• A modicum of trivia knowledge.

If you’re in the Toronto area and are near a computer around noon or 8 pm, give the game a whirl and help keep your ‘umble accordion playing buddy employed.

The blogroll (the list of blogs or sites who’ve linked to me, even if only to pull down my pants and taunt me) in the right-hand column has been updated. Did I miss yours? Let me know!

Queen Street report

Queen Street West, a bustling street of bars, bookstores, boutiques, clothing shops, clubs, music stores (both for CDs and musical instruments), restaurants and street vendors, is my home turf. Casa di AccordionGuy — and yes, it’s a real house, not a condo — is tucked into a quiet residential neighbourhood a couple blocks north. I’m pleased to report that the worst effects of the garbage strike is that there are only three or four piles of garbage . Aside from an increased amount of discarded wrappings and cans in the street gutters, it’s surprsingly clean, and remember, this is after a heavy influz of tourists thanks to Canada Day, Gay Pride Weekend and the Molson Indy. Most American cities with Toronto’s size and population would be wallowing in their own filth by now.

I took some photos of Queen Street today at about 2:00 p.m. and will post them later.

Entrepreneurs or con artists?

A trio of guys — two in their early twenties, one in his early teens, have been doing the rounds of my neighbourhood, going toor-to-door and offering to haul people’s trash away for the measly sum of $2.00 a bag. They said they’d take the garbage to the proper depot (the depots are still open, it’s just the collectors who aren’t working). I opted to go with a pragmatic approach: we gave them only our food garbage and while they were canvassing houses down the block, I took pictures of their pickup truck, with the license plate in plain view. If they’re legit, there’s no problem, but if they’re just dumping the bags elsewhere (some people have been dumping garbage in parks), we’ve got a way for the cops to trace them.

Recommended Reading

Here’s what some of the local media have to say about the strike:

A discussion from the BoingBoing site on Toronto, my smart-ass comment about San Francisco (which I made here) and civics.

Strike talks collapse, city says (Toronto Star)

Trash talkin’ in court (Toronto Sun )

Talks stalled in municipal strike: unions accuse city of rigging bust (CBC Toronto)

A whole page on Canada.com devoted to the Toronto strike.

Trash talking: Mel’s deputy sticks it to unions while making like Mr. Clean (Now magazine)

Composting for smell and sanity (eye magazine)

The Daily Nonsense, a Toronto-based weblog, has more photos and rants about the current garbage situation in Toronto.

Rhyming “Dorian” with “accordion” when Dorian and I walked in the room showed some really quick thinking.

Two Fridays ago

Every now and again, Slut School — a group of Will’s friends from his high school, a school of the arts somewhere in Mississauga, a suburban sattelite city of Toronto — holds a DJ night. It’s usually at in Lounge 56, a basement dance club nestled between food stores in Kensington Market. Accordiong to Eva, one of the organizers, Slut School got its name from a remark her mom had made when she saw her and her friends getting ready to go out one night: “it looks like a slut school.”

(Memo to self: go to art school in your next life.)

The DJs played a great set — some funk, some jungle, some drum and bass, some ambient, and even let me drop some accordion science over some breakbeats. The evening ended at around 3, after which Will and I headed to Swatow for some fine Fukien-style Chinese cuisine.

And now, the photos…

And finally, because so many of you demanded it, more Heaven Lee. Even Heaven Lee asked if I had any more “cute” shots of her. It don’t get any cuter than this [Warning: not work safe.]. Cheeky girl!