The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

This Twitter exchange is from last summer, but it’s new to me and might be new to you:

Toronto mayor Rob Ford doesn’t have the wit or anger management skills to do this; he’d either flip out or call 911.

Heh. (If you’re not familiar with the 2000 Japanese film called Battle Royale, here’s its Wikipedia entry.)

I played Dungeons and Dragons, majored in computer science, know a number of science fiction and fantasy authors and like eating turkey legs. You’d think that that would make me the sort of person who goes to Renaissance Faires, but I’d never been to one…until St. Patrick’s Day, a couple of Saturdays ago. That’s when I went to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival (where “Bay Area” refers to Tampa Bay).

I can always be convinced to do something if you say “You get to walk around with a giant mug and a silly hat”. I can be more easily convinced if you’re wearing an outfit like this:

In case you were wondering where Ren Faires are on the Geek Hierarchy, this handy chart should help. Click on it to see it at full size:

My hat was a loaner from my lovely young lady friend. I’ve got to get me one; I’d wear it all the time, even at work!

I am a suave mofo.

First, we caught some jousting…

…and then some sword fighting…

…and they weren’t afraid to get a little anachronistic and have a WWE-style smackdown:

Then it was time to walk through the Faire — a collection of tents and stalls spread throughout the wooded grounds of MOSI, Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry — and see what else was going on. Here’s a pic of my charming guide with some of the Faire in the background:

These guys put on a great acrobatics show. My first thought upon seeing the move below was “Hey, I’ve seen this movie before!”

They call this trick “The Table”:

These guys were in great shape. I could practice for 20 years and still not be able to do this:

Elsewhere, there were demonstrations of ancient German sword fighting technique:

They did a pretty good job of showing how to use the large German swords, which many people considered to be too unwieldy.

“The most dangerous swordsman,” they said, “is the one who knows nothing and goes out on the field swinging wildly. He’ll get both himself and his opponent killed or maimed.”

That sword’s a little close to some tender parts:

We covered most of the Faire grounds:

Ye test of strength!

We ended our day by watching the comedic stylings of Christophe the Insultor. He is a clever and funny guy — sort of like an evil parallel universe version of my friend Reg Braithwaite.

Christophe insults people for money. He gets people to pool their money together and choose a person to insult. He’ll then improvise a monologue in which he insults the poor victim; the duration and intensity of the session depends on how much money he’s given.

The lovely young woman in the background was the final victim, for which we collected about $200. That kind of money will get you a full ten-minute Christophe routine.

He got both the audience and victim laughing:

…and he did so with raunch sufficient to make the young lady cover her mouth in shock:

…and a good time was had by all. I love the looks on both the victim’s and Christophe’s faces in this pic:

All in all, great fun, made even better by great company.

Let me say this: I had a pretty good time.

The inscription on this plate of frites translates from the German as “Nothing is as hot as the love between a Bavarian and a Prussian“. I see potential in making plates like this for film fans (“Nothing is as unlikely as the love between a Coen brothers aficionado and someone who waiting in line for Twilight tickets”), Toronto neighbourhoods (“Nothing is as Toronto hipster as the occasional hook-up between a Parkdale chick and a guy from Leslieville“) or whatever (“Nothing is as WTF as the love between Richard Gere and a guy who looks like the Dalai Lama in a Hamtaro costume”).

Feel free to suggest more inscriptions in the comments.

Fun fact of the day: The Wikipedia entry for Prussia features a map that uses the colour Prussian Blue to indicate the Kingdom of Prussian within the German Empire.

While doing some “housekeeping” on this blog, I went through the articles that have been sitting in the “drafts” folder, awaiting completion and being published. I deleted many because they were no longer relevant, uninteresting or just going nowhere, and cut and pasted the more interesting drafts below. Enjoy!

The 38 States of America (October 2008)

An interesting idea: a map proposed by C. Etzel Pearcy, geography professor at California State University, Los Angeles, that redraws state lines to better fit the way populations across the U.S. ended up being distributed, where the big cities and lines of transportation are, as well as to make the states more evenly-sized. This page explains his rationale further.

R.I.P. Alfred Shaheen, Who Popularized the Aloha Shirt (January 2009)

A tribute I never finished, in honor of the passing of Alfred Shaheen, the guy behind a staple of my summer wardrobe: the aloha shirt (also incorrectly called “Hawaiian shirt”).

Alfred Shaheen

Elvis!

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum from Magnum, P.I.

Nick Nolte’s famous mugshot

Al Pacino as Tomy Montana in Scarface

Ernest Borgnine vs. Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity

Don Ho and his daughter, Hoku

Mikey Welsh from Weezer

Jack Black

“Weird Al” Yankovic

Larry Wall, inventor of the Perl programming language

Yours Truly, looking suave

Former Marijuana Smuggler (or: Employment Ad of the Day) (February 2009)

Gotta give this guy credit for his candor.

L.A.’s Dopest Attorney (May 2009)

I assume that she’s intended to use “dope” in its hip-hop slang sense, meaning “cool”:

Photo courtesy of Certified Bullshit Technician.

I wonder how many people have been idly leafing through their local “alternative” newspaper, saw this ad and thought yes, this is the person I want representing me in court.

I wonder if Rob Hyndman would ever consider running an ad in which he called himself Toronto’s Dopest High Tech Attorney

More Spaghetti Dogs (May 2009)

This was meant to be a follow up to Spaghetti Dogs: The Cheap and Cheerful Treat.

Skills (May 2009)

I love this photo. I’m sure it’ll eventually end up in one of my presentations.

Nomad (July 2009)

A couple of photos of Hacklab at the time, which I used as a downtown office, even when I was working at Microsoft.

How to Live Given the Certainty of Death (February 2011)

I’ll admit it: I listened to this lecture from Yale’s Philosophy 176 course a number of times in the weeks after the whole nearly-dead experience in January 2011. It was certainly a contributing factor in a number of changes I made in the wake of The Great Reset, including leaving Microsoft, joining Shopify, relocating to Ottawa for the summer and taking up a more nomadic lifestyle. Yes, it’s 47 minutes long, but I think it’s worth your while to give Professor Kagan a listen. It might change your life too.

Milwaukee Travel Diary, Part 2 (October 2011)

Scenes from a fun trip that I never finished writing about. I went to Milwaukee last October as part of my participation in the BarCamp Tour and had an excellent tour guide: my friend Anne, who took me all sorts of places, from German pubs to spy bars to the Harley-Davidson Museum.

Never underestimate the importance of clear labelling.