Double thick custom fitted hoodie

I have decided to try and find a double thick custom fitted hoodie that I can wear doing all sorts of  activities. If you know a seamstress please have them contact me.

Why do I want this? Multiple reasons:

1. Super warm. Great for Fall, Winter or Spring.

2. Custom fitted and fairly tight so it is ideal for ice skating, archery, jogging, downhill skiing and other activities when it is cold outside and you want to have a full range of motion without feeling bulky.

3. Double thick because a normal hoodie is too drafty and...

4. Custom fitted because the tightness prevents drafts going up the back, front and side so its warmer that way too.

If I can find a seamstress I even know what fabric I would like to use, I saw it in a fabric shop on Queen Street West past Spadina (Downtown Toronto).

Travel Insurance

 I must admit that travel insurance is one of the few types of insurance I agree with.

Health insurance, very good.

Accident / liability / theft insurance for your car, very good.

Life insurance... kind of pointless after you are dead. Really only useful if you have family to worry about and haven't already arranged your funeral.

But travel insurance is basically health insurance for when traveling in other countries. Its also supposed to cover financial default of travel suppliers (eg. if they suddenly declared bankruptcy and no longer honoured prepaid tickets), and other losses incurred while traveling. But most of the "other losses" are pretty vague and not used very often so its really just health insurance for tourists.

Standard travel insurance is supposed to cover:

• Medical emergency (accident or sickness)
• Emergency evacuation (volcano, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, war-zone, etc)
• Repatriation of remains
• Return of a minor
• Trip cancellation
• Trip interruption
• Accidental death, injury or disablement benefit
• Overseas funeral expenses
• Lost, stolen or damaged baggage, personal effects or travel documents
• Delayed baggage (and emergency replacement of essential items)
• Flight connection was missed due to airline schedule
• Travel delays due to weather

Thanks to the internet (Huzzah!) you can now buy travel insurance online very easily. You can even buy travel insurance on your iPhone in roughly the same time it takes you do download an app.

So lets pretend you go to Mexico... and you get sick from drinking the water... or shot by kidnappers... or robbed by bandits... injured during a hurricane... fall in a sink hole and break your leg... Seriously, every year there is some problem with Canadian tourists stuck in Mexico and there has been some kind of catastrophe, murder, kidnapping or whatever.

I know Mexico is really cheap (and fascinating if you love pyramids like I do), but its really got a bad reputation to stuff happening. Having travel insurance when traveling to Mexico should be pretty much mandatory.

So yeah, if you are traveling to a dangerous part of the world like Mexico is, you really should get travel insurance. Mexico is like a jaguar... beautiful, but dangerous.

I remember when I was in South Korea (a country that is still technically at war with North Korea... and the North has nuclear missiles) I got travel insurance. Mostly to cover my health costs in case I ever needed a hospital.

One time I got sick and did need to see a doctor and get antibiotics.

Another time I was mountain climbing (freehand) and nearly fell. Thankfully I did not fall. But if I had fallen I would have either been:

1. Dead, in which case who really cares if I have travel insurance.

2. Very injured, in which case that insurance probably would have been used quite a bit.

That is really the point of travel insurance I guess. When traveling you are more likely to be doing new things - including mountain climbing, horseback riding, deep sea diving, swimming with sharks, dolphins, jellyfish, piranhas, and eating new foods that you could be allergic to. Or drinking water that might not be safe.

Thus travel insurance, even if not traveling to a dangerous part of the world, is still a wise precaution.

Grocery Shopping Challenge

CAN YOU BUY THREE BAGS OF GROCERIES FOR $20?

Because I just did. Just got home from the grocery store, still amazed from my feat.

Included veggies, fruit, meat, pasta and even desserts. Only $20.05 and frankly the 5 cents is barely worth mentioning.

THREE BAGS! Averaging $6.68 per bag.

Probably would have been more value per dollar if I had actually paid attention to what I was doing.

Go and see if your shopping smarts are good enough to beat that and still come out with a good balance of different foods.

A Good Day to Die Hard (Die Hard 5 Trailer)

Wait!

The're coming out with a new Die Hard film on Valentines Day? Really? How come I didn't find out until now?

Jackie Chan's Romantic Comedy

The following film (available for free on YouTube) is a romantic comedy starring Jackie Chan and Shu Qi. It is also, sort of, an action film, as part of the plot pertains to a boxing / martial arts fight between Jackie Chan and the hired champion of his rival/friend.

The Chinese title is "Glass Bottles", based on the plot device of Shu Qi finding a glass bottle in Taiwan which prompts her to go to Hong Kong looking for love. The English title is horrible and has nothing to do with the plot.

For the guy and gal who can't decide between an action film and a chick flick, this film makes a great compromise.

The English dubbing on the YouTube version is above par.

Richard Nixon Comedy "Dick" Surprisingly Funny

"Dick" is a 1999 political comedy about the Watergate Scandal, telling a fictionalized version of how Richard Nixon was removed from office by the source known as "Deepthroat".

While it is true that the real Deepthroat was Mark Felt and this was later revealed in 2005, this rather amusing comedy about how two teenage girls took down the president and all the president's men is surprisingly funny and smartly written.

What I also like about this film is the soundtrack. It has a lot of great songs from the 1970s on it.

The cast includes:

Kirsten Dunst as Betsy Jobs
Michelle Williams as Arlene Lorenzo
Dan Hedaya as President Richard M. Nixon
Bruce McCulloch as Carl Bernstein
Will Ferrell as Bob Woodward
Saul Rubinek as Henry Kissinger
Dave Foley as Bob Haldeman

And best of all you can watch it for free on YouTube.

Rogers Internet Outage

On January 9th 2013 Rogers Internet went down all across Ontario for over 5 hours.

No warning. No explanation why it happened after the fact. No refunds either to compensate people who lost productivity for their work or leisure.

The fact that Rogers Internet doesn't have any backup systems in place suggests to me that they're really running a shoestring budget operation - and overcharging customers for shoddy service.

There are OTHER companies available. Including faster companies. If you know of any in Ontario please leave a comment below about which internet providers you think are more worthy.

Shakespeare Baby!

Call it a personal preference but when it comes to live theatre I watch very little other than good ol' Shakespeare.

I have watched other things... Ie. Death of a Salesman is boring! Lysistrata is amazingly funny... But basically a lot of non-Shakespearean plays are annoyingly bad or boring.

Frankly I've enjoyed ballet events more. If given the option of watching Death of a Salesman or watching ballet... I would choose ballet everytime.

Same goes with musical plays like Les Miserables. I prefer the 1998 non-musical version because it has more story and less fluff. I haven't seen the new film of Les Miserables... But I have heard from friends that it sucks. Some people probably won't care however because they just LOVE Les Mis.

But maybe I should point out that I am an hypocrite. I am writing a musical theatre script... Whether it will be very good and get performed someday is questionable.

Three Books for Zen Archers

If you recently got into archery and want to go a step further to learn zen archery then I highly recommend the three books in the photo below.

Simon's Cat Review

"Simons' Cat" is a series of short (and relatively quiet) cartoons featuring a cat and his owner. The cat basically rules the house - just like a normal cat!

The beauty of this cartoon is that cat basically does everything a normal cat would do in similar circumstances. And then usually one thing more above the top to make it extra funny.

Five Stars! :)