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Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Auction for Tickets to the Biggest Charity Party in Town, Featuring Burton Cummings

Poster for 'Bridle Bash II' featuring Burton Cummings.

If you’ve got more disposable income than I do, like good ol’ rock and roll, parties and charity events, here’s an interesting thing to do this Saturday: Bridle Bash II, featuring Burton Cummings.

Bridle Bash II is a charity event/pool party held in someone’s back yard. This isn’t just any old back yard, but one in Accordion City’s most exclusive neighbourhood, the Bridle Path. It’s full of big mansions on big lots and home to media moguls like Moses Znaimer and Conrad Black, the artist formerly and once again known as Prince, my old upstairs neighbour Jesse who sold a good chunk of his company WebHosting.com for a hundred million or so dollars, and my dentist.

Because this isn’t just any old back yard party, there will be entertainment, and it will be provided by none other than Burton Cummings. Yes, the “Guess Who” guy. If his excellent performance at “SARStock” is any indication, this should be a real treat. Better still, Burton has a reputation to not just simply play a set and leave, but for playing as long as the party’s going. Even better, the best view of the stage will be from the pool, since the stage will be right beside it. How many rock concerts have you seen from inside a pool?

Finally, the cause: Camp Oochigeas (pronounced “OO-chi-GAY-us”). It’s a camp for kids with cancer, where they can receive the care and attention they need but still enjoy the quintessentially Canadian experience of camping. “Ooch” as the camp is often called, provides a high degree of support by assigning one camp counselor per camper and medical facilities to support people with cancer, including a chemotherapy unit. As you might expect, running such a camp is a very expensive proposition. The idea behind Bridle Bash II is to help out “Ooch” by raising $300,000 for them — in a single night. As of this writing, they’ve managed to raise two-thirds of that money.

The party will also feature as DJ, go-go dancers, a barbecue and bonfires, and the bar will be an open bar (with booze provided by attendees — it’s a BYOB event writ large). There will be about 1000 people in attendance, most of whom will be Accordion City citizens of high standing.

Tickets for this event are hard to come by, but if you’ve got the cash to spare, there’s a pair up for auction on eBay. The starting bid for these two tickets is CDN$1000 and the auction will end on Thursday, July 27th at 8:52:50 p.m.. If you’re interested in attending this event, go and place your bid!

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Hypnocat Commands You to Hand Over the Tunafish

Hypnocat!

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Continuing the "Dungeons and Dragons" Theme…

Boromir with guitar saying 'One Does Not Simply ROCK Into Mordor!

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For the Baby Whose Parents Play "Dungeons and Dragons"

A number of my friends are expecting a baby, which means that there’s some gift-giving in my future. I wonder if they’d appreciate the baby t-shirt shown below:

Baby shirt with the baby's stats listed as a Dungeons and Dragons character.

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Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

DemoCamp 8: Tuesday, July 25th at No Regrets

Toronto Democamp logo.

We apologize for the short notice, but we’d like to announce the next DemoCamp, which will happen next Tuesday, June 25th at No Regrets (42 Mowat Avenue, not far from King and Dufferin).

As of this writing, the scheduled presentations are:

  1. WildApricot – Web-based software that automates daily administrative routines for associations and non-profits.
  2. Slot Available – Got a demo? We’ve got one spot available!
  3. Filemobile – Power tools for bloggers, letting users videoblog and moblog with ease.
  4. Languify A not-yet-released tool from the Nuvvo team & Nicolaas Handojo to manage translating your user interface to new languages.
  5. Pursudo – A project by the people at Unspace that helps you meet cool people to do interesting things.

Presentations will start at 6:30 and run until about 8:30, after which the social part of the evening will commence. No Regrets has got some great food, drink and free WiFi, so plan to make an evening of it!

For more information, see the DemoCamp 8 page.

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The “First Corinthians” Tramp Stamp

Poster for the movie 'John Tucker Must Die', featuring a lower back tattoo.

In the above poster for the movie John Tucker Must Die, you can see a lower back tattoo, often referred to by its colloquial name, the tramp stamp. According to Wikipedia, there’s a German slang term for lower back tattoos — Arschgeweih — which means “ass antlers”, which is probably derived from the fact that these tattoos have a barbed style and look like anters when they stick out from underneath low-rise jeans, which the young ladies seem to favour these days.

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn applauding at the end of a wedding in a scene from 'Wedding Crashers'.

One of my favourite quotes from Wedding Crashers is what Vince Vaughan’s character said upon seeing a tramp stamp at the wedding:

“Tattoo on the lower back… might as well be a bullseye.”

It’s funny because it’s true.

Another bit from Wedding Crashers that I liked was when Owen Wilson’s and Vince Vaughan’s characters were placing bets on what the reading at the wedding would be:

Priest: And now for our second reading I’d like to ask the bride’s sister Gloria up to the lectern.

John Beckwith (Owen Wilson): 20 bucks First Corinthians.

Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughan): Double or nothing Colossians 3:12.

Gloria: And now a reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

If you’ve been to a couple of Christian weddings, you’ve probably heard the excerpt from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Not only have I heard it a zillion times, but because I’m a performer at heart and my extended family knows it, I’ve been called to do that reading on at least a half-dozen occasions. There’s really nothing wrong with it and the message is so universal that I’ve seen it used at non-Christian weddings, but it’s become clichéd from overuse.

I stumbled across a photo — a preview of which appears below — where the tramp stamp meets First Corinthians, which is like having two Wedding Crashers jokes in one. I have no idea of the origins of this photo — maybe the Bible Belt is going through a Girls Gone Wild phase.

Preview of the 'I Corinthians' tramp stamp.

You’ll have to click the photo to see the full photo. The young lady in the photo is wearing pants, but they’re low-rise jeans. You don’t see anything you wouldn’t see at the beach, but there’s a little bit of “plumber’s crack” in the photo and it may not be safe for your workplace. But hey, there’s a Bible verse!

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I’ll Be Posting Later Today

I’m at a geek workshop today — the “How We Built Flickr” workshop — so I’ll be posting later today. Now get back to work!