The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

If I were Barack Obama, I’d have shortened last night’s press conference to just this…

…and then I’d pimp-walk off the Podium, Bender style.

With Osama Bin Laden dead, it’s time to bring back this Family Guy scene:

…and I found out from this guy (warning: NSFW language):

(I wonder what it would be like to get all my news from him.)

I expect that we’ll be hearing additional details, such as how long he’s been dead (days? months? years?), the circumstances of his death, and maybe even the formation of the “deather” movement who’ll demand the long-form death certificate.

12 years ago today, my friend Karl Mohr and I took to Toronto’s streets with our accordions. By the end of that day, we’d learned a number of rock and pop hits, joined a hospital cutbacks protest, accepted DJ Todd’s challenge to perform onstage at Toronto’s most notorious goth club (The Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar, whose owner went by the name of Lance Goth – it’s now a Starbucks) and gotten all the free beer we could drink.

Such a day calls for a happy dance. It might even call for the happiest dance ever invented: Double Dream Feet, shown in the video window above. (And yes, it closes with jazz hands.)

I used to have the story and photos from that first accordion day out on the blog, but it seems to have vanished; it was one of the articles that got lost in the process of changing blogging platforms over the nearly ten years this blog has been in existence (I was first on Blogger, then Blogware and finally, WordPress). I’ll have to rewrite and post the story sometime, but in the meantime, you can hear the story in a presentation I did at CUSEC a couple of years ago called Squeezeboxes, Startups and Selling Out:

Yesterday’s Windows Live Royal Wedding-themed afternoon tea was a hit. The Windsor Arms Hotel has a lovely tea room, a fantastic selection of teas and some very, very addictive scones. Toronto’s lady bloggers and social media mavens, who are excellent company on any day, were doubly so yesterday afternoon. Many of them got into the spirit of the event by dressing up for the event and even wearing tea-worthy hats:

For those who don’t have hats, the tea room at the Windsor Arms provides a nice selection from which you can borrow; they ask that you donate $5 to an AIDS charity if you wear one for a photograph:

Here’s my tech evangelist teammate Ruth Morton modelling her new dress and hat – looking sharp, Ruth!

There was a lot of lively chatter and laughter in the room:

…and let’s not forget my favourite part of afternoon tea: the triple-decker thingy with the food on it:

Since the triple decker food thingies were so gorgeous and since this was a social media gathering, everyone had to snap a picture of them as soon as they arrived:

Global TV were there to get some quick coverage of the event:

After tea and snacks came presentation time. Ruth did the opening presentation, showing off some Windows Live goodies:

I think the hit of the presentation was Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011, and in particular, the “Photo Fuse” feature, which helps you fix photos where someone’s blinking, looking the wrong way or any other such thing by letting you assemble the best photo from a series of photos.

Afterwards, I did my presentation, where I showed off OneNote, Office Live and Bing’s uncanny ability to find embarrassing Kate Middleton photos:

(There are photos of Yours Truly floating about online that are far, far more embarrassing.)

Here’s Ruth, rocking her demo:

…and she was also available after the demos to answer questions and provide a little one-on-one help. That’s what great tech evangelists do!

The formal part of the tea ended with Jen from She Does the City thanking everyone:

And then it was photo time.

Attention Dell Canada! You know who’d be a good spokesmodel for the Inspiron Duo, and who needs a new computer (hers is on its last legs)? Raymi the Minx. She’s widely read, gets lots of hits, and hey, if these photos of her with the Duo don’t get your motor revved, you’re dead inside:

Give us laptop mode, Raymi!

Now table mode!

Now sultry mode!

I’m not kidding, Dell. Hook Raymi up with a Duo and she’ll be your best spokesmodel ever.

We had some prizes to give away. The problem: it was impossible to stump our guests with trivia about the royal couple; they knew far more than we did:

In the end, we had to resort to “Who’s birthday is coming up?” and “Who’s engaged?”

Here are a couple of prize winners, Raymi and Casie Stewart, with their booty:

All in all, a fun event – perfect for my last appearance as a Microsoft developer evangelist. My thanks to She Does the City and High Road Communications for inviting me!

In addition to my temporary change of address this summer (I’m going to be in Ottawa from May 1st through the end of August – here’s why), there will be a couple of changes in the ways I can be reached:

• My old work email, joey.devilla@microsoft.com, will be deactivated this week.
• My old phone number, (416) 948-6447, will be similarly shut down.

Want to reach me? Here are the ways that’ll work:

• My personal email, joey@joeydevilla.com, works just fine.
• I’m still @AccordionGuy on Twitter.
• My new mobile number is (647) 985-JOEY (and “JOEY” is “5639”).
• I’ll publish my new work email (probably joey@shopify.com or something like that) as soon as it’s enabled.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.