Category: It Happened to Me

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me

Pictures of the Day

I attended Tom and Michele’s housewarming party on Saturday and took some pictures. Here are my favourites…

The “College Girl Dorm Room Poster” Shot

Tom did a little birthday dance number to entertain the crowd — first solo, then joined by Michele. It concluded with this smooch, which just cried out for the Robert Doisneau black-and-white treatment:

Tom Purves and Michele Perras in a post-dance smooch
Coming soon to an Imaginus poster sale near you!

Another Accordion Convert

I’m always happy to let a friend try on the accordion, and since Michele asked, I got these photos.

Michele Perras playing Joey deVilla
She hasn’t hit that moment of accordion transcendence yet…

Michele Perras playing Joey deVilla
…ah, there we go!

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Geek It Happened to Me

Our “Space” Shoot

Last week, my friend Mark Askwith, a producer at Space — the Canadian sci-fi channel — dropped me a line asking if I’d like to talk about a couple of cool gadgets in a segment for HypaSpace, Space’s “geek news” program. It sounded like a fun idea, so I said I’d do it.

Mark and Space camera guy Darcy came over to the TSOT offices last Wednesday to do the shoot, which some of my co-workers starred in. The segment will air during the year-end installment of HypaSpace; I’ll post the broadcast date as soon as I found out when it is.

I took some photos during the shoot — they appear below.

Darcy the camera guy from Space
Darcy, the camera guy from Space. In this shot, he’s setting up his camera prior to the shoot.

Darcy films as Adam and Mariko play Wii Bowling
Strike! Darcy films a segment where my co-workers Mariko and Adam play a round of Wii Bowling.

Mark and Darcy watch as Adam and Mariko play Wii Bowling
Wii action. Mark and Darcy watch and Mariko and Adam bowl on the office Wii. Gotta love the perks in the place.

Darcy shoots as Alex demos his iPod Touch
“Music is where I’d like you to touch…” My co-worker Alex demos his iPod Touch as Darcy films.

Alex demos the iPod Touch as Darcy shoots and Mark watches
Alex is a hand model now! Mark watches as Darcy shoots an iPod Touch segment — I’ll do the voice-over.

Darcy the camera guy from Space
The “beauty shot”. Darcy gets a shot of the featured gadgets, using the office video game screen as the background.

[This article was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.]

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It Happened to Me Work

El Zone Del Trabajo

For the curious, I’ve got a Flickr photoset showing my current workplace, TSOT’s temporary office (we’re moving to the permanent office in January).

Tcotchkes on my desk
Click the photo to see the whole photoset.

I’ll be updating it from time to time, so check it often!

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

Sign of the Day

I noticed something strange on a sign on Bloor Street, just west of Avenue Road:

Medical Directory sign on Bloor Street listing “Imagineering” as one of the services.
Note the services offered: “Imagineering”?

I read the sign: “Accupuncturist, cardiologist, dentist…imagineering? As in Disney ride engineer?” (Clearly Cory Doctorow has rubbed off on me.)

It turns out that Imagineering is also the name of a multimedia company. Ah well.

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

Is Something Up with the TTC?

TTC LogoSwitching jobs from Tucows to TSOT means that for the first time in four and half years, it’s quicker to commute by subway than by bicycle. Hence for the past couple of weeks, I have been doing something I haven’t done in a long time: I’ve been riding the subway during rush hour on a regular basis. I’m concerned by what I’ve been seeing.

It’s been a while since I was a regular subway rider, so my memories may be wrong. Could someone tell me if there’s been a downhill slide in the Toronto Transit Commission’s service? I’ll admit that my commute is incredibly quick — it’s a quick walk to High Park station, 10 stops to Bay station, then a quick walk to the office — but even in that short trip, I’ve faced trains too full to board, trains running at half-speed and trains sitting idle at the station, sometimes for five minutes at a time.

I know that when it comes to its website and to promoting itself through merchandise, the TTC often tempts me to declare “Toronto Transit Commission, Thy Name is Half-Assery!”. The TTC’s apparent attempt to mimic San Francisco’s MUNI’s core incompetency at public transport worries me.

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It Happened to Me

I Made “Reader of the Day!”

Conservative columnist Mark Steyn declared me his reader of the day on his site:

“Reader of the Day” sidebar on Mark Steyn’s site

The quote comes from my recent article on the Conrad Black case. Alas, thanks to some sloppy editing on my part, my quip is missing a couple of key words. It should read (and after editing, it does now):

While I have not been following the details of the Conrad Black case, the fact that such questionable characters such as Mark Steyn and Elton John defend him doesn’t help his case as I am concerned.

I don’t often agree with him, but I’ve got to hand it to him for taking it with good humour. Cheers, Mr. Steyn!

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me Work

The Office Accordion

My original accordion, a Titano student model, has been through a lot, from the streets of Accordion City to Burning Man to saving my butt from a mugging in Prague (see this story for details). In spite of a few broken chord buttons, some missing key tops and a slight air leak, I can still get some sweet sounds out of it.

These days, I keep it at the TSOT offices in case of emergencies. You’d be surprised at the number of times having an accordion handy has paid off.

Joey deVilla playing accordion at the TSOT offices
Click the picture to see the video on Facebook.

Last week, I did a quick little medley at the office, and my coworker Dan Williams shot some video of the event and posted it on Facebook. If you’ve got a Facebook account, you can see it here. I’ll see if I can get the video from Dan and post it someplace a little more easily accessed, like YouTube.

A friend of Dan’s saw the video, and she commented that if it were posted on a dating site like LavaLife, I’d get responses like crazy. The accordion has already served that purpose, but maybe it’s time for me to give lessons.