The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

I passed by Lee’s Palace last night, looked at the bands who were playing there soon and noticed that they’ve got an eighties revival going on. First, there’s ’80s proto-goth rock band The Mission, whom I’ll always remember for Tower of Strength:

Then there’s the ’80s ska band The Selecter, who are probably best known for Too Much Pressure:

The arty and experimental Pere Ubu, who’ve gone through all sorts of changes over the decades. Here’s 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, their first single:

and Edward Ka-Spel’s group, The Legendary Pink Dots:

…is Global Nerdy, and it’s my blog on technology and software development, with a particular focus on mobile technology. It also has those slice-of-life posts that are more related to my work, including my impromptu appearance on a panel at Jobspring Partners’ Tech in Motion meetup on Wednesday:

Among its regular features are the iOS Fortnightly tutorials, in which I produce a new tutorial on writing apps for the iPhone and iPad every two weeks…

…regular roundups of mobile tech news…

…special articles that ended up making the rounds on the internet, including:

• My observations on Microsoft’s stack ranking system, based on my experiences there
• My writeup about the time I tried the FizzBuzz test on programmers I interviewed
• My oft-cited article about how Chrome is now the most-used browser
• My article on why netbooks suck
• My poking fun at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

If you want to stay caught up on the world of technology, software development, mobile tech, and nerd humour, Global Nerdy’s the place to be!

I was first introduced to the cartoon short Lupo the Butcher one night at what was then called The Diamond Club (it became the Phoenix Concert Theatre in 1991). They played it on the giant screen hanging over the dance floor as an excuse to introduce a break in the music at 12:30 so that they could announce last call, back when you had to stop serving booze at 1 a.m., and over time, it became a sort of ritual to mark the approach of closing time. It was crude, full of cartoon gore, swear-tastic, and to me, downright funny.

Someone’s upload a high-quality version of Lupo the Butcher to YouTube, and I thought I’d share it here.

Be warned: There’s profanity and cartoon gore galore in this cartoon — it might not be safe for your workplace!

Lupo went on to star in a Converse commercial:

Lupo the Butcher’s creator, Danny Antonucci, went on to create the very odd (and not very well-received) Brothers Grunt, which started airing on MTV in 1994:

and then went on to the Cartoon Network with a hit you might recognize: Ed, Edd and Eddy…

“Now this is keg racing!”

Here’s another Friday distraction for you: the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock, narrated by none other than Orson Welles. This is ’70s film documentary at its most ’70s documentary-est, complete with dystopian themes, weird jump-cuts, a soundtrack that’s equal parts jazz-funk and creepy atonal music, and a celebrity narrator whose best days are clearly behind him. Welles had hit the Michael Caine “I’ll act in anything” point, from that regrettable shilling for terrible wine to that infamous recording session for a frozen peas ad:

…which was later parodied — and with the swearing excised — to a likely unaware audience in Animaniacs:

Here’s Welles at the intro of the film:

In the course of my work, which takes me to just about every corner of the globe, I see many aspects of a phenomenon which I’m just beginning to understand. Our modern technologies have achieved a degree of sophistication beyond our wildest dreams. But this technology has exacted a pretty heavy price. We live in an age of anxiety, a time of stress, and with all our sophistication we all are in fact the victims of our own technological strength! We are the victims of shock…of FUTURE shock!

And here’s the film — 49 minutes of cheese-tastic techno-dystopia, through 1970s eyes. Enjoy!

It doesn’t get any more 1978 than this clip of Boney M. performing Rasputin on the Italian TV show La Sberla. It’s the disco hit that’s also a sensationalized history lesson!

It’ll give the kid an appreciation for Ghostbusters II.