The Flash - Still fun to watch 22 years later

Recently I decided to watch some nostalgia television.

Specifically "The Flash", the 1990-91 live action TV series featuring the character The Flash from DC Comics.

Here is a summary:

"The Flash is a live action series based on popular DC comic superhero. Police scientist Barry Allen accidentally was struck by lightning and bathed in chemicals he worked with. As a result, he now possesses the power of super-speed. Together with his friend Dr. Cristina McGee, he creates a costume, and he becomes the super-hero Flash. Despite its high popularity, the series ran only for one season, and most of the villains were modernized versions of Flash's classic villains like Captain Cold, Mirror Master, The Trickster..."


The entire series can be streamed via http://watchseries.eu/serie/the_flash

As old TV shows featuring comic book heroes go I have to say that "The Flash" is one of the best. Sure, there is The Incredible Hulk and the old Batman series, but "The Flash" manages to come across as being both a superhero TV show... and also something unexpected:

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Barry Allen (The Flash) is a crime scene investigator. At times it will feel like you are watching a CSI episode, but at the same time still managing to be a superhero show. That combo is so good it makes me wish that they would do one of three things:

1. Do a CSI episode which is about The Flash...

2. Bring back The Flash as a new TV show. Huzzah.

3. Make a film wherein Barry Allen's CSI skills and super speed abilities are both put to the test.

Oh well... Even if the powers that be don't do such things at least we have the old Flash TV series to watch. FIVE STARS.

No No Hair Removal? Don't Waste Your Money

No No Hair Removal is a little electronic device that supposedly will get rid of hair follicles and remove hair so that it stops growing back. Similar to laser hair removal if you watch the official videos from the No No company.

When I saw the product in a store I was intrigued. Even tempted to buy it so I could remove some hair on the back of my neck and several other spots. Nothing major.

Just looking at the box I was thinking it would be $30 to $50... but when the lady in the store came over she informed me it was a whopping $300 for the little box.

And I'm like, okay, maybe some more research is in order before investing in such a product.

So one of the things I did was check out reviews on Amazon.com.

The product had a handful of 5 star, 4 star, 3 star and 2 star reviews... but it was the whopping 212 1 star reviews and the utter disgust of people who had tried No No Hair Removal and been vastly disappointed.

Really all it is is a shaving kit. Its not permanent at all. And replacement bits are $20 each and an extra $10 for shipping. So the product not only doesn't work, its a complete rip off because its designed to get you to keep trying it unsuccessfully and coming back for more replacement bits.

I then checked YouTube for additional reviews, same thing. $300 complete waste of time and money.

So now I feel honour-bound to warn people about this shoddy and misleading product.

ZERO STARS.

SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB = Goes through the laundry, keeps on working!

Okay so I was doing my laundry earlier this morning... Had two loads going at once.

I checked the pockets in my jeans and tossed them in the one washing machine, and had all my nice dress shirts in the other washing machine. Then I sat down to work on some writing...

30 minutes later the washing machines stop and I start transferring my laundry to the dryer... It was during this that I heard a small clunk in the bottom of the washing machine as I was taking shirts out.

I look down and I see my USB key (a SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB flash drive), like the one in the photo shown here.

It must have been in a shirt pocket and I don't usually check shirt pockets to see if anything is in them.

So I immediately think "Oh oh, that has got to be broken now." Water should have got into it and broke it somehow. Still, I've had it for a couple years. It has to get lost or break sometime, right?

Except when I stuck it in my computer later, voila, it still works.

So yeah, I'm impressed. Good work SanDisk. Kudos.

Vinyl Record Stores in Toronto

It recently occurred to me that I could get an unusual gift for my mother for xmas...

A vinyl record.

Thus I went looking for vinyl record stores...

The vinyl record stores in Toronto are a true phenomenon since very few prophets would have predicted so many stores would still selling LPs, EPs and 45rpm records over a decade after the millennium, especially since in the 1990s collectors were shedding their records, and vinyl was selling by the pound.

Nobody could have predicted vinyl's survival years and decades later.

After its effective extinction by the compact disc, never mind the Napster and mp3 revolution... the revival of vinyl among young collectors who've embraced the iPod and brought back the turntable and effectively put the stake through the CD's heart. You will still find CDs in all the music stores like HMV, but they're not selling like they were during the 1990s.

But it is vinyl that will survive the test of time. CDs have lost to mp3s, but to the true music collectors vinyl is still king.

After all, what's a CD these days except one extra step between you and your mp3?

The vinyl revival is a sign of what is happening right now. It is a re-injection of new, quality, heavy weight LP pressings into the marketplace, and not just new titles, but classics and obscurities as well. Record store owners expected a surge in demand for classic rock, with a new generation discovering Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin on twelve inch black plastic... and instead they're seeing sales in a wide variety. Everyone it seems is going back to vinyl.

Here is a list of Toronto's best vinyl record stores:

Rotate This
Hits & Misses
She Said Boom
Play De Record
Cosmos on Queen/Cosmos West Records
Vortex Records
Planet of Sound
Kops Records
Slinky Music
Paradise Bound
Second Vinyl
Pandemonium

So there is quite a few and they're mostly in downtown Toronto, which means for fun you could just do a walking tour of all the vinyl shops and make an afternoon of it. No plans today? Go for it!