I recently took up snorkeling and I thought I would share which pieces of equipment I purchased.
#1. BODY GLOVE silicone swim mask - Basically a pair of goggles these bad boys offer shatter resistant lenses, UV protection for your eyes, fog free and a strap for binding it around your head.
I picked this particular one in the store because it was: The most manly one there. That is really just enough reason to me. I could have got the really tiny swim goggles (for pansies) or some big huge honking goggles (for dorks), but I chose this one because it was normal looking and I didn't feel I would be embarrassed wearing them in public.
And not being embarrassed to wear something in public (ie. a god-awful ugly bicycle helmet) is reason enough for me. I don't think it matters so much what company it is so long as its quality, doesn't leak and you look good in it.
I chose the black goggles because I figured black matches everything.
#2. DIVE N' SURF professional dive snorkel - 100% submersible (meaning I can dive farther under and then come back up to breathe later as opposed to just floating near the surface), an attachment for my goggles, a purge valve and it is blue so I even liked the colour.
You can get a set for this which also comes with matching ugly goggles and fins, but I opted for JUST the snorkel because the goggles were so ugly and I don't want to wear fins. (Pourquoi? Les fins es tres embarrassing.)
Sadly I couldn't find a photo online of the snorkel without the set so instead I opted for a photo of a hot chick snorkeling. Huzzah!
I like the fact that it is 100% submersible. It has a piece which floats upwards and blocks off the tube to prevent water from getting in when going completely under, snorkel et al. However in actual practice I seem to have difficulty getting myself to go really far underwater. I guess I either float naturally or I am not that good at diving under.
Maybe I just need more practice.
#3. SPEEDO nose plugs - This is arguably the most important part of my snorkeling equipment. Without the nose plugs I simply can't control my breathing through my nose and end up having to pinch my nose when under water to prevent myself from inhaling. The nose plugs work wonderfully and make everything much easier.
HOT TIP: If you have to sneeze go back up first.
Happy snorkeling this summer and whenever else you get a chance!
When living in Canada there are several things you learn to expect.
#1. Sometimes websites (especially if you live in or near Quebec) will be in French.
#2. If the website is really professional they will have an English version of the website. In this example Déménagement Montréal is a moving and storage company in Montreal, and surprise surprise, they have an English version of their website.
C'est magnifique!
#3. If the website is really good they may even have videos showing what they do. Often the videos will be amateurish but they get the point across.
#4. If they're REALLY REALLY GOOD they will even have a professionally made video like the one below (which frankly really impressed me). So for those of you looking for "déménageur Montréal" (whatever that means...) you get sold on the quality of their service pretty quickly when you see how much quality their video has.
#5. I also really like it when people shown on their website dress professionally. Not necessarily suits and ties, but crisp clean clothing, well groomed people always makes a good impression on me.
#6. No annoying music. Call it a major turnoff but when a website has auto music on then its automatically annoying. However for the website in question, adtmoving.com, I like the fact that the only possible source of music is the video and its actually well chosen music (with no distracting lyrics).
#7. A well designed website always impresses me. Especially when its easy to contact the company. What does annoy me about the adtmoving.com site is that they don't list their email address and use a form mail instead. Form mails are ANNOYING to fill out (and often have errors in them). Plus you send the message and you have no idea if they actually received it and no record of what you asked them. It is my opinion that it is ALWAYS better to have a direct email to contact the company. Having a phone number helps too, but if I only have a question sometimes its better to just send a quick email. Having to fill out a form mail just doesn't cut it.
PET PEEVE: Websites which ONLY have form mail. SUPER ANNOYING!
#8. I also like it when companies have 1-800 numbers. Always handy.
So in summation I give adtmoving.com 4 stars out of 5, but it could have been better if they didn't have that annoying form mail on their website. I have never used their service but their video really impressed me.
When it comes to moving companies I have NEVER actually used any. Myself, family and friends have always just come together for a big move and had a BBQ or pizza party after the move is done.
ie. This past weekend I helped a friend in North York carry over 100 bags of dirt from a truck to the backyard for landscaping, +8 pieces of drywall and 6 huge things of insulation up to the 3rd floor where some repairs were being done. After we had a BBQ of hamburgers and beef hot dogs / sausages.
And don't forget free beer! And then the group of us hung out for a couple hours and relaxed.
So in my mind if moving things is an excuse to have a party, then why would anyone bother with a moving company unless they didn't have any friends? In which case sucks to be you.
In this era of drugs for everything from preventing erectile dysfunction to anti-wrinkle creams and any number of medications that may or may not work... it really does make you wonder who is lying to you more.
The Big Pharmaceutical companies producing patented drugs with tonnes of side-effects (ensuring that you need to take additional medications just for the side-effects).
or
The small time Naturopathic Healers pushing herbal remedies (although to be fair, many modern drugs like Aspirin were discovered thanks to herbal remedies and determining what the active ingredient is... acetacylic acid found in birch bark = Aspirin).
For example purposes I would like to avoid mentioning companies I don't actually like, so lets start off with the companies I do LIKE.
LIKE
Ibuprofen 400 mg (aka Advil)
Acetaminophen 650 mg (aka Tylenol Arthritis)
Echinacea (not for colds, I buy it for its tissue regrowth properties)
Creatine (found in red meat but also available as a pill it boosts energy sent to muscle tissue, and when combined with Echinacea it DRAMATICALLY boosts muscle tissue regrowth)
Any kind of multivitamin
Vitamin D
Iron Supplements
I also have some muscle relaxants I sometimes use when I hurt myself weightlifting, they're in a drawer somewhere but I can't seem to find them.
Now most of these medications you can find in your local pharmacy. But what happens when you CANNOT find them? ie. I sometimes have trouble finding pharmacies that sell Creatine.
Well then you will have to look online for DCA (cancer killing drug that isn't patented and thus big pharma won't produce it) or whatever you happen to be looking for.
For example lets say you are having problems sleeping at night (hair loss or trouble maintaining an erection would be more funny, but whatever lets pick something that is relatively boring).
Some doctors refuse to prescribe sleeping pills because they are worried some patients might abuse the medication (sleeping pills can be addictive) or even attempt suicide with them.
And pharmacists typically won't sell sleeping pills without a doctor's prescription, mostly because they are worried about people becoming dependent on sleeping pills.
So where do you go? What do you do? You could try chamomile tea, red wine, turkey or other herbal remedies, but maybe you've already tried that and want something more powerful.
Enter Eszopiclone. Ahem, aka Lunesta, a mild sedative drug created by Sepracor. Its out there, but you can't always find it in a pharmacy because usually they're pushing the heavier sedatives for people with chronic insomnia.
But if you mild to moderate insomnia then a 2mg or 3mg dose of eszopiclone (Lunesta) would probably do the trick.
In the USA alone there are over 45 million prescriptions for insomnia medications EVERY YEAR. It is a $3 billion annual business for pharmaceutical companies and much of it is based on charging people large amounts of cash for heavy sedatives with lots of side-effects.
Where in contrast eszopiclone (Lunesta) is a mild sedative and has relatively mild side effects like headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, etc which means you should lower your dosage because you are taking too much. For fun I read the full list of side effects (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszopiclone) and it includes AMNESIA.
Wow. A pill that causes amnesia. I bet there are some women out there who had one-night-stands they would like to forget. Someone should be marketing "Forget-Last-Night Pills".
Anyway the point is you can now buy Lunesta online and many other types of pills. The website in question, buylunestaonline.net, tells you all Eszopiclone benefits, side effects and so on.
And there is a Big Red Button at the top for if you want to order online right now (always handy when websites have that button)... at which point it takes you to an ordering website wherein the minimum price for a bottle of 30 pills is $103.50.
At which point you realize that the pharmaceutical companies are really raking in the dough, but hey, if they make a good quality drug that solves what ails you then more power to them.
Now if they could get around to selling more DCA (Dichloroacetic acid, aka the cure for cancer) then I'd be happier.
The first book here is a mystery written by Vivian Meyer. I liked this book so much I bought a copy for my little sister because I knew she would enjoy it.
"Bottom Bracket, gives us an inside look at alternative lifestyles in Toronto's colourful Kensington Market neighbourhood. Feminist and urban-space activist Abby Faria bike-couriers packages around downtown Toronto to support her expensive bicycle habit. When a brutal murder takes place in the Market just a few houses down from her own apartment, Abby decides to enlist the help of her Market friends: together they protect a frightened young prostitute, fight gentrification in the Market and stand up for the rights of the dispossessed. Along the way, Abby indulges in great coffee, fine bicycles and one or two good men.
Never one to mind her own business, she runs into trouble when she comes up against the world of organized drug and female sex trafficking. Between dodging homicidal cars and attending Save the Neighbourhood meetings, it's all Abby can do to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. It all becomes personal when Abby discovers that the very people she is pursuing may have had a hand in a past misfortune of her own.
Meyer draws on her own savvy experience of Market life and youth culture to imbue her characters with authenticity and spice. Full of unexpected plot twists, memorable characters and down-and-dirty detail, Bottom Bracket is also a thought-provoking exploration of inner-city issues in contemporary times."
Ragged Chain continues the story line of Abby.
"Fledgling private investigator Abby Faria is taking a well-deserved break on Peregrine Island in BC's magnificent Desolation Sound. After the harrowing conclusion of her first case back in Toronto's colourful Kensington Market, she plans to relax and indulge her passion for cycling on the Island trails with her current boyfriend. But romantic plans with boyfriend Andy go off the rails when logging company magnate Jack Armstrong is found murdered on the edge of an island clearcut.
Abby's nosing around in the eco-politics of the island soon brings her into the midst of a whole cast of island characters, many of whom, Abby discovers, had both motive and opportunity to murder the unpopular Armstrong. Her penchant for mixing it up with questionable characters and ignoring legal niceties in the process soon gets her into more trouble than she bargained for."
And lastly for the vegans out there who love ebooks... here is a funky / well thought out vegan recipe book.
"Everyone is part of the solution, no matter where we come from or how we have been raised. This book has 174 full-colour pages filled with photographs and recipes of beautiful dishes that are remarkably simple to make (half of them raw, half of them cooked). It also includes photos and logs of our journey, to bring you closer to us. Our goal is to encourage widespread positive change as people become more and more aware of the link between our every day actions and the environmental/spiritual crisis we are in right now."
I came across the following info mentioning in a newspaper article complaining about companies overcharging people to their credit card:
"Dhun Noria, for example, disconnected his Bell cellphone in 2006 and didn’t know he was billed for it until 2012, when he’d paid more than $3,000 in erroneous charges."
But when he complained he only got reimbursed for three months’ service ($160).
Same thing happened to me over a year ago. Bell Mobility overcharged me for 9 months. So I left Bell and switched to a different company.
And Bell Mobility is not alone. Many other companies do this. Rogers, AT&T, Fido, Telus... all the big companies. If you sign up for automatic billing with your credit car that is basically like waving a white flag and surrendering your credit card to whatever fraudulent methods that they can get away with.
And because they will only refund mistakes within the last 90 days most people don't even notice they're being defrauded until months and months later.
HOT TIP: Don't agree to auto-billing on your credit card. ALWAYS, ALWAYS pay via online banking instead when you FEEL it. It forces you to look at your bills. When you notice a bill that is unusual then you can investigate and complain.
Check out this old Kidco car from 1980. Part of a set called "Burnin' Keys Cars" which was essentially a Hot Wheels style car with a spring in the back that went on a plastic key... and then zoomed off when the key is squeezed.
These things are such collectibles now that they're now worth about $15 to $30 each on eBay depending on how mint their condition is. If they're still in the original box they can be worth $40 to $50, but frankly that defeats the purpose of the toy. (I found a copy of the same one above in the video on eBay for $19, still in the box, a Nissan 280ZX.)
After all, to paraphrase Spock and Sheldon Cooper, the purpose of a toy is to be played with, and therefore it is only logical to take it out of the box.
The Ambrosia Holistic Health Centre is in the heart of Montreal and before you get caught up with all their harmony and serenity consider this...
When you first enter their website everything is in French.
Oh sure its in Canada, a bilingual country, and its in Montreal the most bilingual country in the world, but their Montreal massage / massage Montréal website is only in French.
Its only after a while of searching around do you notice a tiny link in the upper right that says English.
Its good that they have it there, but its very difficult to notice.
Beyond that Ambrosia offers everything you can expect from a health and beauty spa: massage therapy services, expensive skin care products, Feng Shui decor, osteopathy, yoga, meditation, life coaching, saunas, aroma therapy, kinesitherapy, body wraps, exfoliation, nutritional advice and stress management coaching.
But like all such health spas don't expect any of this to be cheap. Its $40 to get a facial, $125 for a Siamese Herbal Massage and $255 for the "Complete Royal Treatment" (a process which takes 3.5 hours to complete). And this is just a few of their services.
Having belonged to a gym and a yoga studio in the past I've become aware that such places charge an arm and a leg for any special services. A personal trainer at one such gym is $90 per hour.
So maybe I am just cheap. Maybe I think its overpriced to pay someone $90 / hour for exercise advice (I can get free exercise advice from YouTube or many other websites).
But you can't get a massage from the internet... or a sauna (unless you buy one for yourself). You could give yourself a facial if you know how, but I guess it all comes back to that idea of luxury.
Luxury.
Its the reason we go out to restaurants and pay other people to make food for us and serve it to us. A health spa is all about paying other people to perform a service you are too lazy to do yourself and to enjoy the luxury of it, assuming you can afford their ridiculously high prices.
Websites that give you a discount just for mentioning their website or where you saw their ad.
ie. Lets say you are Googling the terms Garbage Collection Edmonton or Junk Removal Edmonton and find the website vanishsiteremoval.ca. They offer free estimates and a $15 discount when mentioning their website.
True, they're not the only website that does this, but its a very good practice. The business learns more about which of their advertising methods is working and you save some cash.
More examples:
designSEO.ca offers a variety of discounts via Facebook if you mention how you find their website. (Mention this blog post and you can get 10% off website design work before December 31st 2012.)
hometex.ca offers a a 5% discount coupon off ALL purchases in exchange for you linking to their website. (No link here, since I am not buying anything from them.)
evenbetterhealth.com readers get a discount of $500.00 off the regular retail price of any Thermal Life® sauna from High Tech Health.
Another thing I like is when websites have VIDEOS. vanishsiteremoval.ca's video below is also a good example of this in action.
Promotional videos for websites don't have to be complicated. Some times making a simple video is just as good because it concisely gets the job done. No extra fuss hiring actors or wasting people's time with a phony script. You get the point across, explain your service, how to contact you and you're done.
So for a service like garbage removal its really a no brainer. Its not like the service requires a huge amount of skill or trained expertise. Any idiot with a truck can remove garbage. The bigger issue is how cheaply it can be done and what happens to the garbage after its removed (recycling, land fill, incinerator, etc), and does the garbage contain any bio-hazards/chemicals that will have to be dealt with properly (this latter part may require some expertise).
Another thing I like is when companies / websites make a genuine effort to make a nice looking logo. Shows a degree of professionalism some websites / companies lack. If the logo looks spiffy I find I trust the company more even if I've never dealt with them.
Its a bit like buying a car. Would you rather buy a GMC (with its classic GMC logo) or a car made overseas with a badge that looks poorly made? The answer is obvious. Everyone buys the more professional product or service if they can afford to do so.
The one thing I don't like is Vanish's contact page at http://vanishsiteremoval.ca/contact-us/. Why? Because they use a form mailer and don't even give the option to email them directly.
What if I wanted their email address to write down and use later? What if their form mail script is broken (this happens sometimes with websites and your carefully written letter goes into oblivion)?
Is it too much to ask that a website have a proper contact email you can send to directly without using idiotic form mail? (Makes me want to whack their website designer over the head.)
I also despise websites which use WordPress. Yuck. Badly done.
But I guess that is what you get sometimes when people spend all their money on a good logo and leave a few peanuts left over for website design. vanishsiteremoval.ca probably offers a good quality service, but they should fire their website designer.
Ever noticed how difficult it can be to find products which are "Made in Canada"... which are ACTUALLY made in Canada?
They do exist. They are hard to find these days, but not impossible to find.
TIP #1. Look for local manufacturers. If they're manufactured within 40 km of your home they might even offer free shipping.
TIP #2. Check the labels. It might say Made in Canada, but that might only be 'packaged in Canada' and manufactured overseas. Make sure.
TIP #3. Make a List of Canadian companies that manufacture in Canada. Organize the list by category or topic. ie. cosmetics, toiletries and local fashion such as Cake and Fresh Collective.
TIP #4. Research! There are several websites devoted to “Made in Canada” products. ie. buycanadianfirst.ca has consumer goods made in Canada, covering all segments of the market from clothing to furniture to sports equipment (Woot! Hockey sticks!). The website's goal is to “educate consumers on the availability of products made in Canada.”
ie. reallymadeincanada.com is also helpful, but you need to use the directory if you are looking for a particular topic.
And lets not forget the benefits of buying Canadian!
BENEFIT #1. Local manufacturers have more pride in their work and it shows in the quality of their craftsmanship. No plastic stuff from overseas or cheap wood that you have to assemble yourself from IKEA!
BENEFIT #2. Even the delivery men treat the objects you buy with more respect when its a local company.
BENEFIT #3. You are boosting the local economy by buying Canadian.
But one of the fun things about China is how they copy everything from Gucci bags to specific brands of cars. Where else can you get:
#1. A rip off of the famous "In-N-Out" burgers from California at a restaurant called "CaliBurger".
#2. Fake Apple products from a fake Apple store in southern Yunnan province.
#3. Dairy Fairy (Dairy Queen)
#4. Pizza Huh (Pizza Hut)
#5. Jambo Juice (Jamba Juice)
#6. Obama Fried Chicken (Kentucky Fried Chicken)
#7. Fake Dior sunglasses.
#8. Fake Armani jackets.
#9. Fake Gucci bags.
#10. Fake Apple iPads.
And so forth... basically any big brand name you can think of there is a fake or ripped off version of it in China.
Including cars! Check out the following videos with clips from Top Gear's trip to China.
So... coming back to the title of this blog post, is all this ripping off of products a good thing?
Well... if you're just looking to get a Gucci bag and can't afford one, absolutely. Ripped off fashion is no big deal.
If you're looking for a cheap car, yes, by 2020 you should be able to buy a pretty good Chinese rip off. Right now they suck, but in 8 years they should be pretty decent.
Even the fake electronics is getting to be pretty good.
As long as you aren't buying fake birth control pills or fake medicine, you should be fine.
Just remember you get what you pay for. Cheap junk is more likely to break, but for certain items it won't be that big of a deal. Real Levis Jeans still rip anyway, so don't be surprised if the fake Levis rip too.
