The Derrick de Kerckhove-hosted, Steve Mann-attended “What is Reality?” hot tub event that I mentioned earlier is not this Thursday, but the next one, the 14th. My bad.
You know, it serves me right for picking on Steve. If I always wore cyborg eyepieces constantly hooking me up to iCal or Palm calendar, I’d never get dates screwed up. I’ll bet MISTER CYBORG never misses an appointment…
Here’s a QuickTime video in which your ‘umble writer attempts to stay the name “Steve Mann” without following it up with a sarcastic “MISTER CYBORG”, enveloped in “sarcasm tongs”.
I tried, really I did.
But wow, is my new Nikon Coolpix SQ a really nifty camera!
Would you like to live with two world-famous computer programmers? One of whom is one of Canada’s best-known accordion players and writes one of Canada’s Top ten blogs? The other being one of Canada’s best-known anti-censorship software designers? Living in one of downtown Toronto’s most televised houses? In an area giving you walking-and-biking distance access to some of Toronto’s coolest neighbourhoods?
It’s one of the nicest houses in a quiet residential neighbourhood tucked a mere couple of blocks away from the corner of Queen and Spadina. The facade is designated a historical landmark, but the interior is completely renovated, with hardwood floors and high ceilings in the common areas. There are two full bathrooms, with the downstairs one also being a laundry room with full-size washer and dryer. The kitchen has the full spread of stove, oven, microwave and dishwasher. There’s a back deck for barbecues and a large tree for shade.
Want to go see the latest blockbuster flick? We’re a five-minute walk from the downtown Paramount. Indie film more your cup of tea? We’re a five-minute walk from the Art Gallery of Ontario, and a quick bike ride away from the Cinecycle, Royal and Carlton cinemas. Like big bookstores? Chapters is close by. Like small ones? Pages is close by too. You can fall out of bed and land in Chinatown, Kensington Market or Queen Street West. Walk a litte farther, and you can hit College West, the dance Club district, the financial district, or the Eaton Centre. We’re a hop, skip and a jump away from the subway, and you can be on the Gardiner Expressway in minutes.
This is no bachelor cave; you will not find any milk-crate or cinder-block furniture here. I own the world’s most comfortable couches, and they’re pretty sharp-looking, too. There’s a Parsons table in the dining room and some real, non-reproduced art on the walls. We have eschewed plain old Bell DSL and Rogers Cable modem service and gone for the gusto with high-speed business DSL and I’ve set up an 802.11g open wireless access point.
We have a small bedroom that’s becoming available shortly. Perhaps you’re looking for a place in downtown Toronto. Perhaps this sort of place appeals to you.
The successful candidate will possess the following qualities:
In return, you’ll live in a pretty cool house with two pretty cool housemates who make nice dinners, go out on the town reasonably often, make scintillating conversation, have interesting guests and generally live pretty well.
Interested? Drop me a line.
This Thursday at the DECONism gallery, there’s be a strange gathering in a hot tub — Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the Marshall McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, will host a “What is real?” panel discussion featuring “post-post cyborg, performance artist and visionary Steve Mann as well as virtual reality artist Maurice Benayoun and the French cyberspace philosopher Pierre Levy.” According to the DECONism site, these gentlement will discuss “The topic of discussion will be fictitious truth, virtual fiction, realiction, and conjured reality.”
In my humble opinion, Steve and Derrick are probably two of the non-institutionalized/non-fundamentalist people least qualified to discuss reality. Then again, maybe they’re doing it as dispassionate outside observers. Levy doesn’t seem too crazy, and I like Benayoun’s art.
(I must confess. I’m quite incapable of saying “Steve Mann” without immediately following it by saying “Mister Cyborg” in a Homer Simpson-esque sarcastic voice, which making “air quotes”, a.k.a. “sarcasm tongs” with my fingers.)
The DECONism gallery is only a couple of blocks from my house, and hey, I’m a kinesthetic sort of accordion-playing guy who carries a lot of technology with him, so I’ll probably attend. Boris (a.k.a. “Bopuc” on the #joiito IRC channel at irc.freenode.net) might drive down from Montreal just to catch this.
Besides, I want to see if Steve’s cyber-implants short out or electrocute everyone in the tub.
(I mentioned Law and Order in the last article…)
Just in case your day isn’t surreal enough, Ice-T is now promoting his new beverages, according to this canada.com article:
Samuel Adams, Billy Carter, and even Canada’s own Dave Nichols have done it: Why not Ice-T? Following a long line of celebrity brewers, rapper and actor Ice-T is launching “Royal Ice,” his own brand of malt liquor. But lest he lose out on a potential revenue source, Ice is also reaching out to the teetotalling Ice-T fan with “Liquid Ice,” a non-alcoholic energy drink. The New York Post quotes Ice-T as saying, of the latter, “A true hustler needs energy to keep his game tight.” So true. Hey — if he can sell that line to his boss, Dick Wolf, maybe he can get his Ice drinks product-placed on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit!
Maybe he can rewrite the lyrics to Cop Killer and call it Thirst Quencher.
The ad on TV was for a company that seemed too unreal to be believed. “Romantic rendezvous for attached adults,” the spokespeople said. Even the alliteration they used seemed unreal. At the end of the ad, they flashed an URL on the screen. Since we’ve got wireless Internet and I had my Powerbook on the coffee table, I typed it in.
The company is the Ashley-Madison Agency, and according to their web site, they’re a dating service — with a twist. The slogans on their site are pretty provocative: “For attached women seeking romantic affairs and the men who want to fulfill them” and the pithy “Where monogamy becomes monotony!”
Hmmm…a service that’s going to hook me up with lying cheats with serious issues, make me a homewrecker, get me in all kinds of hassles and probably have some angry husband and possibly kids ready to kill me with their bare hands. Where do I sign up?
Who wants to bet that Ashley-Madison will inspire an episode of Law and Order next season?
Adventures in Adultery. A piece from the December 7, 2002 edition of the National Post. The author reports on the sort of responses he got when he signed up.
Oh, yeah, this one’s a keeper: One member, a divorced 36-year-old animated graphics designer, joined the site at the encouragement of a friend’s husband. “I was feeling quite damaged from a previous relationship and wasn’t looking for a commitment, so I figured I’d check out some married men.” An excerpt from Unfaithful: In Alberta, it’s cheating time again, an Edmonton Post article.
You can check out their ads (both TV and radio) as well as the rest of the media’s coverage of their business on their media page.
I’ve moved my blog! The new home for The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century is:
http://accordionguy.blogware.com
I’ll be posting there from now on. All my posts for the past month can also be found there.
The archives will eventually be moved there, but if you’re looking for old entries, this will be the place to look for the next little while.
