Categories
Accordion, Instrument of the Gods In the News It Happened to Me

“Can I Get a Witness?” (or: The Toronto Star’s Story on Julie and Amanda’s Wedding)

Sepia version of photo of Julie and Amanda at their city hall wedding.
Click the photo to see the article in the Toronto Star.
Click here to read my account of the wedding.

Today’s Toronto Star has a story about Julie’s and Amanda’s wedding. I should run over to the corner store and pick up a few copies for the ol’ scrapbook (and to send to Julie and Amanda, of course!).

For the Star readers who came here, my story about the wedding is here.

Categories
funny

“It’s not that we don’t like them, it’s just that Jane Goodall’s cheques always bounce.”

Store sign: “Please: No smoking, food, drink or gorillas.”
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele and Brian.

Categories
Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me Music

Playing Accordion at the “Give Me Liberty” After-Work Party

Poster for 2007’s “Give Me Liberty” after-work party

The “Give Me Liberty” after-work party takes place on the second Thursday in June and is a chance for people who live and work in Liberty Village — an area of Accordion City full of factories converted into lofts, offices and television and radio stations — to gather for a street party featuring a beer tent, food from local restaurants and live and DJ’d music.

One of the traditions of the “Give Me Liberty” party is my playing a couple of tunes on accordion between DJ sets. This year was no different — I played Fatboy Slim’s Praise You and Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild for the crowd. The Ginger Ninja shot video of the whole thing, which appears below:

Categories
funny Geek

Internet Safety Guidelines

Here’s something that’s been sitting in my “post this to the blog” folder for some time: Internet Safety Guidelines. Enjoy, and remember — it’s funny because it’s true.

Internet Safety Guidelines
Graphic courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Categories
Work

23 Ways to Hack Your Work

Hands holding up handwritten sign: “Too busy to be creative — it sucks!”
Photo by Mary-Cakes / Desiree. Click to see it on its original Flickr page.

Over at the blog Dumb Little Man (whose slogan is “Tips for Life”), there’s an entry titled Hack Your Work: 23 Ways to Get Ahead, Work Less and Achieve More with some good ideas. Here’s the intro:

It’s something we’re all looking for — the perfect solution that will minimize our work life while still getting the stuff done that we need to get done. Well, that one solution doesn’t exist, but with a combination of strategies, you can get to where you want to be.

Now, none of these tips will turn your life around. But they can make a big difference, and when used together, your work life might just be enjoyable, productive, low-stress and high fun. And these tips won’t work for everyone. They’re not meant to be used as a step-by-step guide. It’s a list of strategies that work — choose your favorites and give them a try.

Categories
funny

Placement is Everything, Part Deux

Movie marquee listing “Pirates”, “Knocked Up”, “Shrek”
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

If you liked this movie marquee, you might also like this one.

Categories
Uncategorized

Blast From the Past: The Girl Who Cried “Webmaster”

Moving to a new blogging tool and URL has pretty much made every old link on this site invalid. In order to help the search engines re-index the site and regular readers find the more popular stories, I’m pointing to old stories. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, come stroll down memory lane; if you’re new to The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, this is your chance to read some of this blog’s most popular entries.

The Kindness of Strangers

A phrase that’s been popping up lately — thanks to Julie’s and Amanda’s wedding — is “the kindness of strangers”. I benefited from the kindness of a stranger back in the spring of 2003 when a reader of this blog pointed out that the new girlfriend (“The New Girl”) I’d been gushing about was not who she claimed to be. The story, titled The Girl Who Cried “Webmaster” was my most popular article of 2003 and was the exact opposite of all those warnings about the people you meet on the internet: in this case, the con artist was someone whom I met in real life, while the honest person was a stranger on the internet.

Some interesting things about this story:

  • I am aware of only one person who was rooting for the New Girl — one “Rachel”, who let it be known in the comments of a friend’s blog. She saw it as a reason to celebrate female power in unexpected places. I wonder if she sought that much-needed professional help.
  • That entry led to my first contact with AKMA, who dropped me a line the in comments. I’d meet him in real life later that year, at a Bloggercon cocktail party I would gatecrash (with the assistance of the accordion), and at that party, he’d introduce me to the Ginger Ninja. Two years later, he would be one of the officiants at our wedding.
  • A friend of mine who worked in tech suggested that I take the story down, warning me that it would be “career-limiting”. In fact, it helped me land my current job at Tucows.