Categories
It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

That’s a Little TOO Neighbourly for Me!

While biking down to the Hacklab (which I use as a day-to-day workspace) on Dundas Street West this morning, I noticed this ad at the Landsdowne bus stop’s shelter:

Bus shelter featuring the ad "My Neighbour Jerks My Chicken"

“My Neighbour Jerks My Chicken” might sound like the sort of situation that would make for a pleasant freshman year in a dorm, but in this case it refers to the Jamaican style of cooking in which you dry-rub meat with jerk spice. It’s pretty tasty, and I recommend trying it if you’ve got a Jamaican restaurant in your neighbourhood.

Speaking of restaurants in your neighbourhood, that’s what these posters are all about: encouraging you to support your local businesses. There are plenty of great ones around my place – Sweet Flour, My Place, Bloor Meat Market and Crema Coffee come to mind – and I’m sure that there are plenty of businesses in your ‘hood that deserve your business.

If you look closely at the bottom of the poster, you’ll notice that they were sponsored in part by Tabia, the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas:

Closeup of the "My Neighbour Jerks My Chicken" poster

A little farther east on Dundas, I stopped to take a picture of a less racy poster in the series:

Another poster: "My Neighbour Saved My Marriage"

Categories
It Happened to Me

Happy Guy Fawkes Day / Birthday to Me!

Joey deVilla playing accordion, with a Guy Fawkes mask and a cake superimposed over his face

Since it’s both Guy Fawkes Day and my 42nd birthday, I should download Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony; it’ll let me celebrate both since it’s both a videogame and an excuse to blow up buildings:

Scene from "The Ballad of Gay Tony": Helicopter shooting up a Liberty City street

Categories
It Happened to Me Work

Halifax Coffee and Code This Afternoon – Just Us Cafe on Barrington

Just Us Cafe logoThis afternoon (Wednesday, November 4th) from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Atlantic time, I’ll be holding a Halifax edition of “Coffee and Code” at Just Us Cafe on Barrington (1678 Barrington). My coworkers Damir Bersinic and Rodney Buike will be joining me. Come on down and chat with us about Microsoft, the tech industry in general, the job market, accordions, whatever!

(If you’re a developer who’s interested in building a cloud computing-based application on Windows Azure, you might want to come down for this one, as I might have an offer that you might find difficult to resist. Just sayin’.)

There may be plans for dinner and accordion-and-beer-fueled mayhem this evening, so if you’re into that sort of thing, drop me a line.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

Categories
Life Work

Headline of the Day: “Blockbuster Worker Stabbed Himself in the Leg in a Ploy to Miss Work”

combat knifeThe amount of work people do in order to avoid work never ceases to amaze me. If there’s a prize for this sort of thing, we might have to award it to Aaron Siebers, 27, of Denver, Colorado, a Blockbuster employee who didn’t think that simply calling in sick was enough. Here’s the report from the UK paper The Telegraph:

Facing a night shift at a Blockbuster video store, Aaron Siebers, 27, took a serrated knife and stabbed himself in the leg. For good measure he then slashed his own face and stomach.

Mr Siebers then told the video store in Denver, Colorado, that he had been attacked by three men dressed in black on his way to work.

After stabbing himself, he was hospitalised with a deep puncture wound to his lower leg.

But his ploy sparked a large police manhunt with officers and sniffer dogs combing the streets for his attacker.

CCTV near where the incident was supposed to have taken place showed no attack and, after repeated questioning, Mr Siebers eventually admitted that he had made it up to get out of work.

He has been charged with false reporting and obstructing police.

Categories
Life The Current Situation

I Do Not Think That Word Means What Fox News Thinks It Means

Clipping from Fox News site: "GOP SWEEP: McDonnell cruises to victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race as Christie upsets incumbent Gov. Corzine in New Jersey; Democrat Owens takes closely watched NY congressional seat."

Two out of three races is pretty good, but it’s not a sweep.

Categories
Life

Algoma University’s Unusual Ads

I saw these posters for Algoma University yesterday:

algoma posters

There’s always been an implicit promise of freedom in going away to university, but this is the first time I can recall where it’s been used as an actual selling point.

I don’t think that this campaign is a good idea. Algoma’s got some things going for it – as a techie, I’m aware of their $6 million technology wing and game development courses. I think that any good qualities that Algoma may have are tarnished by these ads’ “Live the dream — No curfews! Dress like a skank!” message. In trying to hit 18 or 19 year-olds yearning to break free from their parents where they live, they’re cheapening the school’s image and the value of an Algoma degree.

What do you think?

Categories
Uncategorized

Headline of the Day: “Police Seek Serial Groin-Kicker”

Beware the Groin Kicker: Woman in pink 1980s Danskins kicking a man dressed for golf in the midsection.

There’s a woman in or around the area of Langley, British Columbia who’s going around kicking men in the groin. One was hurt so badly that one of his testicles had to be removed.

This case will probably spark two types of conversations, editorials and online commentary:

  • One will be some persecution fantasy among men who think we’ve ceded too much ground to women
  • And the other will be that sort of toxic combo of “Too many womyn;s studies courses, too few brain cells” rhetoric along the lines of…

Woman from "SuperFriends": "I think it's empowering!"