The score

I was a bad boy and didn’t file my taxes in 2000. I was a good boy and filed this year.

For the year 2000, I earned a nice, healthy tax refund from Revenue Canada. However, for the year 2001, I owe Revenue Canada about half of 2001’s refund. A combination of lower deductions from my former place of employment, coupled with a certain deadbeat housemate’s failure to pay rent for half a year (which in turn made me unable to make a decent RRSP contribution) did this. While the net result still puts me ahead, I’d rather have at least broken even with the tax folks this year. That 2000 refund would’ve been enough to buy me that new iBook.

I’m off to the gym to work off my annoyance. More tax stories later.

I am David Hasselhoff

I’d been thinking about splitting this weblog into two. The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century would have all my stories and observations about life in general while another blog would be more technically oriented.

One of the names I was considering for the tech blog was “Happiest Geek on Earth”. This turn of phrase is actually Cory Doctorow’s; he came up with it by altering the Disneyland slogan “The Happiest Place on Earth”. He’s used it to describe both himself (in many places, most notably this Industry Standard article from October 2000) and me (in a recent bOINGbOING entry about my becoming a go-go dancer). I decided to run a Google search for the phrase to see if someone was already using it as a title for a web page.

The result was a single page of entries, and they were stories about either Cory or me. Of the two about me, one was the bOINGbOING entry. The other was from a German blog called Der Schockwellenreiter (in English, that’s “The Shockwave Rider”). He’d seen the story in bOINGbOING and decided to link to The accidental go-go dancer. Here’s the entry in the original German:

[Der glücklichste Geek der Welt]. So könnte ich mir mein Leben auch vorstellen. Tagsüber ein wenig hacken und bloggen und abends durch die Musikkneipen tingeln, schräge Songs auf dem Akkordeon spielen und dabei immer von hübschen Frauen begleitet werden. Joey ist jedenfalls the happiest geek on earth.

Google’s translation feature offered this interpretation:

[the luckiest Geek of the world]. So I could also imagine my life. During the day a little chop and bloggen and by the music taverns tingeln, diagonal Songs on the accordion in the evening play and by pretty women to be always accompanied. Joey is anyhow the happiest geek on earth .

“Diagonal songs”? As you can see, machine-based translation has a long way to go.

Between this entry and Der Spiegel’s coverage of Peekabooty, I’d have to say the time may be ripe for me to get out of this dead-end software business and launch a David Hasselhoff-like career in Germany.

A paucity of evening plans, but I’m not worried…

Too many people I know are planning to “take it easy” tonight. It could be the cloudy weather, or simply the fact that after last week’s summer-like temperatures, the current chill has dampened everyone’s spirits.

Luckily, my folks want to take the family out to Susur Lee’s amazing-but-expensive gourmet restaurant tonight. I’m always up for any excuse to dress up and dine out.

And I can always follow that up with a little go-go dancing.

(I always have a backup plan, folks.)

Which Nokia phone are you?

I haven’t taken a “Which X are you?” online test in some time, but I couldn’t resist this one. I’m sure my friend Ryan Murphy already knows not only what kind of Nokia phone he is, but which Bang and Olufsen product and which BMW model too.

Here’s my result…

Daaaaaaaamn right.

You can take the test here.

The other entertainment bigwig in Washington

While MPAA head and Enemy of the Internet Jack Valenti is busy trying to scare Congress into imposing ridiculous laws designed to screw over customers and futher fatten the pockets of the entertainment industry, Sesame Street’s Elmo is speaking in front of the Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Along with head of an international trade association of musical instrument makers, he’s urging the U.S. Congress to spend more money on music research and musical instruments for school programs.

I will gladly testify in front of Congress that in addition to the sheer joy of playing music, there are so many unexpected benefits that come with playing a musical instrument.

Congratulations, Eileen and Richard (and Aidan, too!)…

…on the purchase of your new house. You’re in serious grown-up territory now.

Unfortunately, you’re also in another kind of territory, according to this article in The Onion:

According to Kiplinger’s senior writer Peter Akkaf, in addition to buying more homes, lame-o’s are refinancing existing mortgages to take advantage of lower rates.

“Lame-o’s across the country are making appointments at financial institutions to ask men in ugly neckties and women with hairstyles 10 years out of style to adjust their mortgages to a slightly more favorable rate,” Akkaf said. “When that’s done, they return to their homes, where they stare at their $12.99 Monet prints from Target and listen to Andrea Bocelli on their mini-stereos. What kind of life is that?”

Asked if the recent warm temperatures could have goosed the market, National Realtors’ Board president Maggie Zadora rolled her eyes.

“God, if that’s true, that’s sad,” Zadora said. “It’s like, ‘Ooh, Mary, it’s 10 degrees warmer outside! Instead of going out and doing something fun or creative, let’s all pile into the minivan and search for the bland colonial of our dreams!'”

(The full article is here.)

But seriously — it’s a lovely looking place and any house that has Aidan’s approval has mine.

Friday

Great day today.

The weather, once again, is summer-like. I went out for a quick walk down Queen Street to get some AAA batteries for my Visor. During that four-block trip, the following happened:

• I ran into Sandi and Karin, whom I met at the March Kick Ass Karaoke. They were having lunch at the Rivoli’s patio and chatted with them for a while. Good fun.
• Played some music beside Johnathan and Michelle, who were having a slow panhandling day. It helped net them about ten bucks.
• One of the girls who works at HMV, where I went to buy the batteries, asked if (a) I could actually play the accordion and (b) if there was some off chance that I might happen to know any Radiohead songs. I haven’t memorized the lyrics to their more recent stuff, so I went with a number I could play in my sleep: Creep.

  “As you can see,” she said with a shocking wide grin to her co-workers and the end of the number, “I am paralyzed with joy!”

  Brining joy and merriment to the world is one of my primary goals in life. That and getting toasted. Nicely toasted.

• A block away from home, a woman hauling a lot of beer to an office party asked if I could give her some accordion lessons. She bought a Hohner accordion at a yard sale a year ago and has always wanted to play, but has no idea how. I made arrangements to drop by her office — she works at Bruce Mau’s design firm, just down the street from me.

(Check the Hohner link in the above paragraph. One of the tag lines on their accordion page says “the resurgence of the accordion”. More proof that this is the Millennium of the Accordion, folks.)

I’m also having a good time working on this programming contract, an “Are you depressed?” quiz that runs on Palm and Visor handhelds. I’m doing it in NS Basic and should have it nicely wrapped up for the end of the afternoon. Once again, I’ve got the door that leads from my room to the back deck open and the stereo playing some old school funk as I’m coding.

Big date tonight. Have to make myself all purty soon.

All in all, I’m having a great day. Much better than the guy below: