Click the photo to see a higher-quality version at full size. It would make a decent desktop background image. Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
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A scene from Worst Date Ever, Part 4, just before it all went to Hell. I’m the guy with the only unblurred face; in the front row are Crabs, The Waitress and me.
Old Blog Entries? Why?
One of the downsides of switching domains (from accordionguy.blogware.com to joeydevilla.com) and blogging tools is that all the links to my old blog entries have changed completely. I’ve received a number of emails from readers who’ve bookmarked old entries of mine only to find that when they visit those bookmarks, they hit the “can’t find it” page.
So, over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to point to some of my best entries over the past six or so years. If you’re a long-time reader, go enjoy them again! If you’re relatively new to this blog, I think you’ll be in for a treat.
The Best Christmas Present Ever and Worst Date Ever
The first set of stories I’ll point to is Worst Date Ever, which took place around the spring of 1999. It starts with a bout of loneliness and turns into a story complete with strong language, adult situations, a bar brawl, butterscotch schnapps, iambic pentameter and ABBA.
Start with The Best Christmas Present Ever, which features my friend Crabs, who figures prominently in the Worst Date Ever story. While it’s not likely to ever be turned into a Hallmark Cards Christmas Special on TV, I think it’s a pretty good story about the true meaning of Christmas, and the only Yuletide story featuring crab lice.
Then, you can hit the Worst Date Ever entries…
- Worst Date Ever, Part 1
- Worst Date Ever, Part 2
- Worst Date Ever, Part 3a
- Worst Date Ever, Part 3b
- Worst Date Ever, Part 4
- Worst Date Ever, Part 5
- Worst Date Ever, Denouement Part 1
- Worst Date Ever, Denouement Part 2
I hope this provides you with some entertaining weekend reading. Enjoy!
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Chicken Fried Steak Recipes
Chicken fried steak is an occasional guilty pleasure of mine, and I’m pleased to share Chris Street’s recipe with you. The image below is a preview — click it to see the full recipe, complete with written instructions.
Be aware that there is a debate over which gravy truly belongs on chicken fried steak: brown gravy or white gravy. I myself prefer the brown, but be prepared to fight over this issue with chicken fried steak purists out there.
Thanks to Chris Street and Miss Fipi Lele for the image!
Here’s a link to another chicken fried steak recipe from the blog of the Homesick Texan, who got the recipe from her dad.
Last week, I got an email that went like this:
I’m a producer at MTV Canada and we’re looking for someone with your skills and talent to help us celebrate Accordion Awareness Month – which, as I’m sure you know, is June.
We’re heading out on the street with one of our hosts to talk with passersby about accordions and would love to have someone there to play us through.
Would you be willing and able to film for about half an hour either tomorrow or Wednesday in the Yonge and Bloor area? Our timing is somewhat flexible so we hope you can make it.
One of the traits that I have inherited from my American ancestry is that I am always ready to appear on television on short notice. Of course I accepted the invitation!
As a result, I spent my lunch hour Wednesday in the vicinity of this building:
The old Masonic Temple at the lucky address of 888 Yonge Street (at Davenport) in beautiful Accordion City is the current home of MTV Canada’s studios. Prior to that, it was the “CTV Temple of Television”. Before that, it was a concert venue simply known as “The Concert Hall”, and before that, it was the Rockpile club. I’ve been to a number of concerts there, my first one being Nina Hagen back in the 80s, my last one being Tool in the 90s.
I didn’t have to wait too long in their green room, shown below…
…and there’s lots of stuff in there to keep guests fed, hydrated and entertained. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to indulge in a coupel of rounds of the XBox 360 version of Guitar Hero II (I’ve got the PS2 version at home):
I was pleased to find out that I’d be doing the segment Daryn Jones, who hosted my last appearance on MTV Live. I’ve always liked Daryn’s work on the Rick Mercer Report and was a big fan of his old Comedy Network show, Buzz, which he co-hosted with “Mistah Mo”. Funny stuff, that.
The plan was simple — we’d make our way along the short distance between the MTV Canada studios and Accordion City’s main intersection, the corner of Bloor and Yonge streets and get reaction shots from passers-by, improvving all the way. We got shots not only on the street, but inside a pizza parlour and a hairstylist’s as well, and the highlight of the shoot had to be an improvised throwdown putting me against a digeridoo player busking at the corner of Bloor and Yonge.
I’ll hold off on more details about the shoot until after it airs, but I can say that I had a great time doing the shoot, and working with Daryn is always a blast. I even saved a little money: when I went to get my car from the nearby parking lot, the attendant gave me a discount. He told me that he saw me do the shoot from his booth and said: “I always give good rates to celebrities.” Rock!
I have no idea when the segment will air, but it’ll air on Daryn’s show, MTV Live, sometime soon. I’ll post details as soon as I find out.
One blog you should check out is Indexed, Jessica Hagy’s blog that’s completely based on charts, graphs, Venn diagrams and other visualizations. I posted a chart from Indexed titled The Seven Deadly Sins earlier this year. Here are some more…
Here’s one on dating and age…
Click the chart to see it on its original page.
Here’s one that answers the question “What did you do last weekend?”, based on your particular subculture…
Click the chart to see it on its original page.
And here’s one from that explains one of the little-publicized advantages of being average (although you can have “average” — I’m aiming for the right end of the curve, myself…)
Click the chart to see it on its original page.
According to this graph from Very Small Array, “Xander” is the hot name for babies right now, with “Willow” a close second. “Buffy” peaked in the early 1970s, and with perhaps “Rupert” and “Giles” are due for a comeback:
Click the chart to see it at full size on its original page.
If you’ve ever wondered which states have the best access to the International House of Pancakes (and they truly are international — they’ve got ’em in Japan, too!), wonder no more. The blog Very Small Array has the answer, and in a lovely visual form to boot:
Click the map to see it at full size on its original page.
For those of you who live in the South (dudes at the Starkville Tucows office, I’m lookin’ at you!), there’s another chart showing which states have the best access to Waffle House.