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It Happened to Me Play

Scenes from Last Night’s Bombay Sapphire Rooftop Party

A little life hint: if someone invites you to a rooftop party where a celebrity chef is cooking and they’re serving gin, always RSVP with “yes”.

joey devilla accordion shaker 1

The party was a Bombay Sapphire promotional event featuring Food Network Canada chef Rob Rainford, who cooked some delicious dishes using gin as an ingredient. Co-presenting with him was Merlin Griffiths, Bombay Sapphire’s “Global Brand Ambassador”.

When this computer fad blows over, I think I’ll become a brand ambassador for a liquor company – it looks like fun!

joey devilla accordion shaker 2

These photos feature Yours Truly shaking up a “Southside”, which is essentially a mojito made with gin instead of rum, and it’s pretty nice.

There are more photos, including Rob Rainford cooking delicious dishes on my Flickr set of the event.

joey devilla accordion shaker 3

If you want to try out the recipes we were shown, they’re posted here.

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Play Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Win 2 Tickets to HoHOTo

hoHOTo - August 18, 2009Nobody in Accordion City throws a charity event quite like its creative techies, and the latest such event is hoHOTo. It’s the summer sequel to HoHoTO, a charity party that got put together in mere days, not weeks or months, by some very ambitious Toronto techies on Twitter.

HoHOTo’s charity is the Daily Bread Food Bank, the organization dedicated to eliminating hunger in and around Toronto. They provide food to hungry people. offer support with issues that often accompany hunger – social benefits, housing, employment, immigration – and work to create social change to reduce poverty through research, education and advocacy.

A recent report from the Daily Bread Food Bank says:

A new report released today by the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) revealed that there has been an alarming increase in the number of persons turning to food banks in Ontario since last fall. Between September 2007 and September 2008, food banks in Ontario have reported an average increase of 13 per cent in the number of neighbours turning to them for support.

HoHOTo will take place tomorrow night at Suite 106 & Wetbar, located deep in clubland at Peter and Adelaide, from 7 p.m. until late, with DJs and cash bars plying their trade all night. Only 500 tickets were made available, with prices rising steadily as the event drew nearer. In these last hours before the event, tickets are now $40 each and it appears that only three or so dozen remain.

Microsoft logo with accordion

Microsoft, for whom I work as a Developer Evangelist, is a sponsor of the event and has provided me with two HoHOTo tickets to raffle off. I’ll make it simple – just email me at joey.devilla@microsoft.com by 6:00 p.m. tonight and I’ll put your name into a lottery for those tickets. I’ll announce the winner on the blog tonight.