The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

I had no idea that another movie version of Get Smart was in the works, with Steve Carell playing Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.

The casting gives me hope that it’ll be at least a half-decent movie. Someone observed that had this movie been made five years ago, they probably would’ve cast Jim Carrey as Maxwell Smart, and it would’ve stunk to high heaven.

I’ve always been a “simple phone” guy: every mobile phone I’ve ever owned has had no bells or whistles. Even my latest phone — bought about two years ago — is the bottom-of-the-line Samsung that was available at the time. No photo or video capability, no MP3 player, not even polyphonic ringtones!

I’ve become curious about how you folks with the fancy mobile phones live, so when the call went out for bloggers who wanted to try out the Motorola KRZR (pronounced “Crazer”) phone for free, I answered on a lark. The phone arrived about an hour ago, and I present a couple of pictures of the unboxing below.

Not content to send the phone in a regular box, the KRZR came in this secret-agent-worthy aluminum mini-briefcase:

Bond. James Bond.

And here’s what I saw when I first cracked it open. I half-expected “Q” from the James Bond movies to start lecturing me about the phone’s features (“Pay attention, double-0-accordion…”). I hope it comes with a grappling hook or a flamethrower!

I’m feeling major techno-lust just looking at this thing.

My gentlemen’s agreement lets me keep the phone and doesn’t even require me to blog about it. However, the unboxing experience was just too cool for me not to post any pictures.

More reports later, once I get this baby charged up and activated!

While doing some spring cleaning last night, I found my notes from my Networking class, which I took at Crazy Go Nuts University, waaaay back in the fall of 1992.

Remember, kids: if you want someone to take notes at an event or lecture, you want me to do it.

I never use the mobile data features (web browsing and such) on my cell phone because the rates seemed ridiculously high. However, I had no idea how ridiculous it was until local tech guy and fellow Crazy Go Nuts University alumnus Tom Purves plotted mobile data rates for various countries in the graph shown below. Even in Rwanda, you can get a better deal.

Click here to see the spreadsheet for this graph.

These rates are just insult added to the injury of Canada’s terrible mobile phone offerings. They’re a joke next to America’s, which in turn are a joke next to the mobile phone options available in Europe and Asia. And don’t get me started on the “roaming” rates that Bell Mobility charges me when I’m down in Boston visiting family.

Feel free to pass this graph and its information around. I think it’s high time that we mobile phone users and people reliant on mobile data had a little chat with our mobile phone providers.

Mark Kuznicki’s been spreading the word about the Accordion City tech community: Geeks and Guitars takes place tonight at the Press Room (850 Dundas Street West, between Manning and Euclid). It’s an open jam night, and you’re all invited — as we say, “Bring your gear and drink some beer!”

The fun starts at 9:30 p.m. and runs until they kick us out. I’ll be the guy with the accordion.

If you like to get out and about here in Accordion City, you might have heard of my friend Penny Whistleton. She’s a notable burlesque artiste, rock and roll promoter extraordinaire and entertainer-about-town. You may have caught one of her burlesque acts or vaudeville numbers at one of this city’s countless burlesque shows, or perhaps you ogled her pictures from my Great Birthday Hot Tub Party of ’03 (some pictures might not be safe for work; a sample of one of the racier pictures is on the right).

Penny has decided that it’s high time she followed her dream: she wants to become a professional wrestler.

Those of you who know me well have probably long suspected that I am a long-time supporter of women’s wrestling, and you would be correct in your suspicion. That is why I am encouraging you, Gentle Readers, to come to the Cadillac Lounge (1296 Queen Street West, a couple of blocks west of Dufferin) next Wednesday, April 18th, to attend “The Kickass Ass-kicking Fundraiser”. The money raised at this event will go towards Penny’s tuition at professional wrestling school.

Penny says:

That’s right, kids, I’m finally doing it for real, I’m gonna go become a

pro-wrestler! But first I have to get money to pay for training (which is

pretty darn expensive) so I thought, “what the heck, lets make the money by

doing what I do best and putting on a killer show!”

We’re gonna have raffle prizes, and a Silent auction including some great

artwork, tattoo gift certificates, a pin-up photo shoot session, an

apperance by Mysterion at your next event or party, and a custom-made for

you lucha mask!

And not only that but Wolfman and I have some pretty big surprises planned

that you’ wrestling smarks will lose your minds over, and everyone will

love!

It’s also going to be my Semi-official 25th b-day party!!

Among the acts appearing at the show will be (note — some of the links might not be safe for work):

• That most hirsute of masters of ceremonies, The Wolfman!
• Live performances by these bands:
  • Tripping Hazard
  • The Z-Rays
  • The Famous Monsters
• Mentalist, illusionist and guy who like to drive nails up his nose, Mysterion the Mind Reader
• Human pincusion Kayla Pin Lynn
• Burlesque performances by
  • Penny Whistleton (of course!)
  • Ginger Wilde
  • Miss Mittins
  • Contortionist Pyrate Paradox
  • Miranda Askew
  • Virginia D’Vine
• Tattoo artist Jimmi Hellbent
• Beau Monde Photography
• Artist Anthony Brennan
• Artist Jen Hall (lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for Tripping Hazard)

Cover for the show is a mere $10. Catch the show, get entertainment you can’t get on TV and come help launch the career of a professional wrestler!

The line from the movie actually goes like this: “”Badges!? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!!”

It’s been two weeks since Kathy Sierra’s blog post about her taking a break from blogging after some very vicious and threatening things were posted about her on some sites that functioned as the online equivalent of “burn books”. So far, we’ve seen:

• Valleywag showing their worst side. It takes a special breed of dickery to dismiss Kathy Sierra with the line “A cry of misogynism pretty much shuts off debate”, which itself is a good way of pretty much shutting off debate. It smacks of the old canard on neocon blogs, “A racist is someone who’s winning an argument with a liberal”. The tone of their follow-up articles pretty much sums up their editorial stance on the whole thing.
• Dave Winer condemning the “chorus of cowardice”. You know things have gotten weird when Dave Winer is giving lectures on how to treat people.
• That Sierra/Locke meetup on a CNN piece that you could argue was a plot by the mainstream media to make bloggers look like idiots. The piece was awful, and CNN anchor TJ Holmes’ closing remark, “How can you threaten the cute kitty?” was insult pile atop injury to our intelligence.
• Precious little discussion about what I consider Kathy Sierra’s worst call: naming names prematurely. Namely, listing names that were very tangentially related to the sites in question. I stand by my earlier remarks that Chris Locke and Frank Paynter made bad calls in starting those sites. However, her mention of some other names seemed more like lashing out. I understand the sentiment, but disapprove of the actions.

And now, we have computing’s best-known book publisher and conference organizer, Tim O’Reilly, announcing the draft version of a Blogger’s Code of Conduct. This code of conduct has six points, which are:

1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
2. We won’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.
3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
5. We do not allow anonymous comments.
6. We ignore the trolls.

The code of conduct has attracted a considerable amount of attention in both the blogosphere, where it currently is the #1 topic on Techmeme, and the mainstream press, where it’s the subject of an article in the New York Times.

As with many movements that start on the web, there is a badge that people who want to adhere to the code can stick on their websites to show their adherence — it’s the “Civility Enforced” badge that appears below:

If your blogging style takes the opposite tack — that is, you’ve got a “free-for-all” blog where “discussions get heated, crude language, insults and other ‘off color’ comments may be encountered”, Tim provides this badge that you can post on your blog so that all the world can know what they’re getting into:

I agree with longtime blogger Shelley “Burningbird” Powers, who wrote this comment in response to the code of conduct:

You created badges.

You actually created badges.

I just can’t believe you created badges.

My response was to create the badge below. Feel free to use it!

More editorializing later, when I’ve got the time.