Cats

A Cat makes a great pet and companion. Cats are not only loyal, caring, and affectionate, but they posses a swath of incredible, if lesser-known, abilities:

• Cats possess superhuman hearing. Cats don't only hear a much wider range of frequencies than us, but their hearing is far more acute.
• Cats have an incredible sense of smell, superior even to that of a dog. Their sense of smell is fourteen times as powerful as a human's.
• Cats can see a wider spectrum of light than humans, stretching into the ultraviolet and infrared spectra. This allows them to see through relatively thin objects, and to see the heat emitted by an object.
• A cat's characteristic slit-shaped cornea acts as a crude polarity filter. This allows a cat to see with reduced glare. This helps with hunting prey under reflective surfaces (e.g. fish).
• As with all animals other than humans, cats are able to communicate telepathically. This is a rather base form of communication, but it has many advantages. Using this form of ESP, cats are able to sense distress and comfort their friends during trying times.

These abilities combine and culminate to make the cat nature's greatest killing machine. If a cat was as big as a dog, you couldn't trust it not to kill you. It wouldn't be out of malice, but out of pure deadliness. Effectively, hanging around a dog sized cat is equivalent to standing too close to the business end of a thresher... No good will come of it.



Cats' lethality is a mixed blessing. They are the culmination of billions of years of evolution of all that kills in nature, but they also weild this power with a gentle, loving paw. They have tiny little hearts of gold, and want nothing more than to be loved.

SARS Stock

In the whispy winter months of 2003, fiendish micro-organisms spread from the Guangdong region of China to infect and kill scores of humans around the globe.

The gentle, unassuming denizens of Toronto were some of the most adversely affected by this outbreak. It wasn't so much that we were all dying from the illness, it just so happened that enough people died here to generate a media scare that would take a hockey stick to our tourism industry's knees.

With our hotels and restaurants empty, convention centres unbooked, and attractions going unlooked, the local economy was reeling. A few daring groups of individuals, armed with small budgets and big dreams, put together innovative ad campaigns, but the fear of infection was overpowering, and the ads flopped. It was too little, too soon.

For the crisis was too dire; it couldn't be resolved by the whinging of marketing weenies. No, wordly intervention would prove inadequate in the face of this tourism slump. Our eventual redemption came from on high when the Gods and Demi-gods of Rock descended to the earthly realm to cleanse the city with their righteous hymns.

Legions of fans braved searing heat to attend the event. The performances were astonishing, and the fans were not disappointed. There was likely some sort of surge in hotel and restaurant bookings that coincided with the event.

Hearken, Rock Gods, the people of Toronto salute you!

MEC Cycling Shoe Covers (Unisex)

You can keep your tootsies warm and dry with these cutie booties!

Being made from poly-vinylene propyl-trichlorate, there are very few chemical compounds that can penetrate this material. High winds and torrential rains are no match for the ablation capabilities of these magnificent winged swords of comfort.

Norco CRD 3

The ride is like stepping onto an infinite, frictionless plane. You feel like one soft push would propel you to the horizon.

Norco's CRD 3 is the acme of modern bicycle design. Incorporating a space-aged aluminum frame, carbon forks and Sora componentry, the frame is light and fast; it's a precision instrument no less suited for conquering hills than a scalpel is for performing delicate surgery.

A day riding this bicycle is a religious experience. Your legs will feel energized as you waft through the misty dawn. Your beating heart will urge the sun along its azimuth as the heat of the day arrives. When your ride concludes, you'll be left spent but thirsting for more of what the CRD3 has to offer.

Panasonic RP-HV250-K Earbuds

Panasonic's RP-HV250-K headphones are great. You can use them to listen to any number of wonderful things: youtube videos, mp3s, podcasts, internet radio, etc.

That these deliver sound to the ear is quite a wonderful thing. Many illuminating works of art, science, journalism and so on have an auditory component; the audio delivered by these RP-HV250-Ks can really shine a light of enjoyment through clouds of profundity, illuminating the intellect and casting shadows on ignorance. They are well worth the ~$10 price tag, especially if you "borrow" a pair that someone else bought.

GoLITE P2

Do you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or the dreaded Seasonal Effectiveness Disorder (SED)?

The problem is that not enough neurons from the sun are passing through your eyes and reaching your cornea. It's a serious problem. Without the neutrons to synchronize your biotic clock with the Earth's natural rotation, your inner schedule won't mesh with Mother Nature's, and you'll be glum.

Don't let Nature get you down! Nothing diminishes life like a defeated soul. Inflate your self-worth by blasting yourself twice daily with a healthy dose of blue anions and pro-anions! The harsh light will kick-start your psychic drumbeat and get you back on the road to fruition!

Enjoy Life!

"Rain" by W. Somerset Maugham

Rain is a story about the logical and emotional edifice that is human ideology, which is built in a foundation in the brain of a savage animal.

W. Somerset Maugham studies a contrast of characters in this short story. A cynical first world war doctor is travelling to the South Pacific to adjourn himself from stress and recuperate from an illness. He and his wife meet and befriend a pair of devout missionaries along the way. The missionaries are proud of the progress they've made converting an island's native population the Christianity, but their methods are cruel.

The four are quarantined together on an island due to a smallpox outbreak. On this island, they meet a prostitute, whose soul the missionaries take a direct interest in saving.

The story is brief, but it gives a very unflattering view of devoutly religious behaviour. Psychologically assaulting the young prostitute, and with the threat of sending her to jail, the missionaries cow her to their will. For them, the ends justify the means, but their behaviour is very much unethical.

It is clear that it is wrong to pursue of an ideal to such an extreme that the methods used surpass human decency. Maugham gives a great example of this in Rain, and a good read as well.

Milton Farmer's Market

Bustling rumpus and Rustling bumpkins await at the Milton Farmer's Market! With fresh produce lining main street for as far as the eye can see, food eaters are in for a real treat at this weekly event.

With a wide variety of items, from spicy peppers to soothing honeys, the MFM almost assuredly has the farm-fresh item you're looking for. It's time for some good food!

Taco Bell 7 - Layer Burrito

When you're feeling low, burrito!
It's spicy and tubular
And good good tasting
Lovely, lovely lovely
Burrito!

Taco Bell's 7 - Layer Burrito is easily the best thing on their menu. Enjoy!

Jakt Shoe Rack

Capable of holding more than its own weight in shoes, Ikea's stackable Jakt shoe rack is a time-tested shoe storage solution. With the ease of stackability, the rack enables a user to store as many shoes as a closet can hold. The available colour options are, on average, pleasing to the eye. The durability of the product is within acceptable standards. All in all, Ikea's Jakt shoe rack will do the job it was designed to do.

Most human beings wear shoes. Unless you've undergone surgery to have both legs removed, or were born without legs, you'll probably own several pairs of shoes, and will need a place to store them. We humans evolved over the course of millions of years to have body parts in certain shapes that make the part in question amenable to its task. One of these body parts is the foot; there is an arch in the foot, capable of storing and dissipating energy, and adding a certain spring to our steps. The foot is narrow at the back, to match the size of our legs, but wider at the front to allow more surface area for out foot falls. The result is that the foot is an odd shape in all three dimensions. The garment designed to protect this body part, the shoe, must therefore also have an odd shape. As such, a large group of shoes is difficult to neatly store. Luckily your Ikea Jakt has a design to resolve these issues. Single layer shelves provide the needed storage space for your foot wear. Stackable, they can accomodate any wardrobe's pedal portion.

Jakts are available in a narrow range of colours which were deemed as "pleasing to the eye" by top Ikea colour engineers back when you could still buy these items. I think that Ikea had a thing going for bright obtrusive colours at the time, so you could get these shoe racks in colours like bright yellow, pink and olive (if I recall correctly). Most people bought the olive ones because the other colours would show dirt too readily. Regardless, there were a wide range of options to fit into whatever space-aged colour scheme you or your interior decorator desired.

Jakts aren't made of honeycomb titanium, but nobody ever accused Ikea of making heirloom quality furniture. In fact, most of their stuff has a fairly limited shelf life, especially on the lower end of their price scale. Jakts are on the lower end of the price scale, but the durability is acceptable. When under a high load, the plastic will buckle a bit, which makes stacking damned near impossible, but it's still worth a whollop.

To summarize, a Jakt shoe rack is a half decent shoe storage implement, and I don't regret living in apartment where two of them reside.

Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Digital Elph

The name of the Canon PowerShot SD790 IS Digital Elph is a real mouthful. Weighing in at an impressive 17 syllables, it's the sort of product name you'd just love to hear Howard Cosell or Ron Popeil say.

The camera is a nice small size. It fits perfectly well in a pocket, although it's not really durable so this might not be a great idea. I do it anyways.

I've had a few issues with screws coming out of the sides of the camera. This leads to the camera body popping open, so it can be quite annoying. It builds character though, so I like it!

Minute Maid Cranberry Cocktail

With enough antioxidants to ameliorate the biggest of tumours, cranberries are an excellent augmentation to a healthy diet.

Minute Maid delivers the cranberry goods with their Minute Maid Cranberry Coctail. With a nice point-counterpoint balance between sweet taste and tart aftertaste, drinking the cocktail is the oral equivalent of listening to Bach.

And the goodness doesn't stop there. From the side of my 450 mL bottle, I can see that each 250 mL provides 11% of your recommended daily carbohydrates and 1% of your recommended daily sodium intake. It's important to get those things out of the way. I generally try to get both taken care of during breakfast so I can spend the rest of the day focusing on nutrients that are more difficult to find.

Sorel Carribou Boots

Size 13 is a large shoe. Even a pair of converse that hug the shape of the foot like a fine Italian sports car waltzing through alpine passes is big at size 13.

It's nothing however, when compared to a fully insulated "Canadian Winter Approved" snow boot. ("Canadian Winter Approved snow boot" should be spoken in the voice Emperor Palpatine used to say "Witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station!")

These big assed boots are warmer than a taun-taun's disemboweled carcass and dryer than a Tatooine August. Just be prepared to spend like a Moff or a Hutt if you want a pair.

Flourishes of Prose

Words can dance likes bees, and buzz about in the minds of readers. Well-written language grasps the reader by their attention and gives an author a better opportunity to get their point across.

You can't go wrong with flowery words; words with a seasonal influence are also great. By using such language, you awaken the visual part of the reader's brain, further engrossing them in your work.

Sometimes it is a good idea to purposefully mispell a word so that people will re-read it. This breaks a reader's flow, which can be either a good thing or bad thing depending on what you are trying to achieve as a writer.

There are other great tricks for superb, engrossing writing. Try throwing a word from another language in every once in a while; not all of your audience will get it, but those who do will really think it is meliora. It's also great to throw in ten dollar words, like copacetic, and use synonyms, like "there, their and they're." These three words all mean the exact same thing, but if you mix them up, people will really think you're smart and it will improve their opinion of your writing.

Hide Menubar Extension

Don't waste space. Waste not, want not. A wasteful walk is an excursion into the realm of destitution.

Be thrifty with your space. A pixel saved is a dollar earned. Thrift, in short-shrift, is a gift!

Every reasonable adult has a toolbox. In this box, you carry an assortment of tools which, given the occasion, are extremely useful. Perhaps you have an adze for squaring up posts, an awl for punching holes, or an axe for chopping down trees. But you don't always square, punch and chop. Even a lumberjack doesn't need quick access to his axe all the time. A lot of the time, carrying around heavy and cumbersome tools is a hinderance. It's nice to have someplace to tuck them away for later use. God bless the toolbox.

On this tack, it's clear that menus which are rarely used on a computer system shouldn't be displayed by default. The Hide Menubar extension for firefox does just this. It enables a smoother browsing experience by enlarging the web page viewing area of the browser, thereby giving users access to more simultaneous information. It's a fantastic product.

Single-Payer Healthcare

I've often heard people ask questions about medical and health-care issues. I've heard questions like:

• How many nurse's does it take to screw in a light bulb?
  
• What do you call an occupational therapist with the runs?
  
• What did the x-ray technician say when he saw his parking ticket?
  
• What did the doctor say to his patient who had a sore knee?

I am just paraphrasing here, but you get the idea.

I am not a health-care professional, so I don't have the answers to these questions. However, there is one health-care question that I unequivocally do know the answer to:

How awesome is the single payer health-care system?

The answer is, of course, totally awesome! Every citizen in Canada has the same access to medical care, and we do well by it. We live long, healthy lives filled with the best hernia treatments, doughnuts, brain surgery and hockey that the world has to offer. Every aspect of life is more enjoyable, knowing that medical treatment is equally accessible to all.

Wordpress

Wordpress is a top notch blogging platform. It's active developers frequently release new versions with multiple improvements and security fixes.

Administration Interface
Wordpress' admin interface is by far the most intuitive of any blogging platform or CMS I've used (i.e. Blogger, Joomla, Drupal and so on). It is a fully featured administrative section, providing ample opportunities for various forms of moderation, media management, plugin control, theming, and so on. The administrative interface itself even supports theming, which is a nice touch; it give those who can't help but meddle with everything one more knob to fiddle with.

Plugins
Wordpress' plugin library is by far the most extensive of any blogging platform or CMS that I've used. There are plugins to alter the basic functioning of the software, add interesting new features and extend existing ones. Do you want scheduled database backups perhaps, advanced caching technologies, in-depth statistics and user monitoring? It's all in there. The only downside is that each additional plugin will use computing resources on your server, so page loads are slower.

Nobody ever said life was easy; get over it.

Themes
In the midst of A Tribe Called Quest's fabulous New York period, they released a charming little ditty, titled What? wherein they pose the following question (paraphrased):

What's Rasheed without Tonya, Tamika?
What's (a blogging platform) without (themes)?
Not a not a not a, not a damn thing

Blogging was just in its infancy when this track was released, but as with many of these minstel's hits, time would tell that truer words are rarely spoken. And never in polite company.

Using a blog with a default theme is the blogging equivalent of wearing last year's culottes. It shouldn't be done. The wordpress community has a very active theming contingent, so no faux-pas-culottery is necessary.

Widgets
When it comes to blogging image is everything. Or it's at least seven tenths of everything: content is important too.

Appearing to be important is more important than being important. It's the old "cleanliness is next to Godliness" routine. Everybody who is everybody has a Flickr, a LinkedIn, a BoogieTootie, a Facebook, a MySpace and a Tumblog and the odd Orkut. It's important to let your blog's readers connect with your multi-faceted web personality. Wordpress facilitates this interaction by providing a bevy of widgets capable of spewing tweets, posting pics and blasting tunes to your audience in the aptly named "sidebar."

Conclusion
A mile is approximately 5800 feet long, but let's say it's 6000. This means that in today's mile-a-minute world, that we are all travelling 100 feet per second. This is approximately 100 times better than travel by horse, an animal which is limited to about 1 foot per second. It stands to reason that there will be a lot more interesting stuff to blog about in 100 feet than in 1 foot, so the horse loses.

Don't let the smell of the horse being rended, turned into glue and sold for meat in exotic markets turn you off... blog about it! Handsome men and bosomy ladies will be your reward, and your throne will be polished daily by anxious commenters hoping for a share of your snarky glory. When you look down upon your followers, just be sure to do so through the best of lenses, wordpress.

PC Blue Menu Low Fat Instant Vegetarian Chili

This chili is so tight. It's like eating an early 90s Mike Tyson boxing match on pay-per-view. The chili, after watering, microwaving, and waiting a few minutes will have your taste buds on the ropes with a deft combination of blows that will remind you of a mid-career Sugar Ray Robinson. Nutritionally, the meal could hold its own against George Chuvalo, or maybe even Evander Holyfield. With heavyweight refried beans and simulated meaty texturized vegetable protein, the chili has the protein needed for your most George Foreman-like workout routines. Tipping the scales at a meager 64 grams, the freeze dried nature of this meal makes it easy to transport, like Oscar de la Hoya.

Black and Decker 12V Cordless Drill

In today's fast paced world, the modern rugged contractor needs to be mobile. Being geographically confined to within the limits of a power cord restricts ones abilities and creativity. Thanks to Black and Decker's new 12V cordless drill, these limitations are a thing of the past. No remote outpost is too remote; no far-flung oasis is to far-flung. The wings of desire flutter in the heart of all contractor-kind for this kind of spatial freedom.

That freedom can be yours for the low price of $79.95 at your nearest Black and Decker dealer.

Nvidia GForce 6500

This NVidia GeForce 6500 with 256 MB of onboard RAM will revolutionize your 3D computing experience. Being handcrafted by Chinese computer artisans, and lovingly branded by a reseller of your choice, you'll be able to tell that a lot of love went into the making of this product.

Never again will you experience choppy frame rates, poor pix-bufs or low ratio yields after upgrading to the 6500. It truly will elevate your computing experience to a new level.

Eddie Bauer Legend Wash Broken-in Chino

Determining the right cut, shape and fit of pant is an ongoing and tremendously personal experience. Due to the fact that our bodies vary so much with time, it is difficult to choose a pair of pants that fits well all of the time. Couple this with the fact that most folks do a lot of sitting at a desk, where ones waist elongates both physically and physiologically, and there will be problems finding pants that fit well.

Because of these issues, I've never found a good pair of pants. I essentially try a new brand every year. I've been through the big 3 manufacturers of chinos, and have taken a somewhat random sampling from other vendors, mostly based on the availability and price of the product.

As such, it was inevitable that I would someday try out Eddie Bauer's offering. Cut from a slightly sturdier fabric, I've found that the pants hold up better than most.

Arm and Hammer Baking Soda

Are your baked goods lacking leavity?

When you need a leavening agent, and don't have time to wait for yeast to work it's magic, nor the inclination to use baking powder, reach for the baking soda.

Arm & Hammer is synonymous with baking soda. Over the past 260 years, the good people at A&H have put their blood, sweat and tears into their baking soda, and you can taste it. It beats the no name brand, hands down.

Pheylonian Pure Beeswax Drip Candles

Om. Om. Om. om.

Burning paraffin wax candles releases carcinogens into the air. Breathing carcinogens can cause cancer. Even though the carcinogen levels in paraffin smoke are quite low, it's probably best not to breathe too many of those fumes.

But if you can't fire up the old candle, how are you supposed to meditate, dawg? Not sure? Well bust out your Grandmaster Flash LP, because it's time to meditate old school.

People have been using beeswax candles for hundreds of years. As it turns out, paraffin is an industrial byproduct, and didn't even exist 150 years ago. Back then, people made their candles out of other forms of wax.

For meditation, beeswax is a great choice for candle wax. The subtle earthy aroma instills a feeling of oneness with the Earth in the meditator. As far as beeswax candles go, you could do worse than a Pheylonian Pure Beeswax Drip Candle which, when properly managed, can burn for over 100 hours. Put that in your meditation session and smoke it.

Gios Cycling Cap

Few garments wed style and function as tightly as a cycling cap. The germ of the idea for these caps was probably formed over a hundred years ago, as a cyclist crested one of the French alps, heading east early in the AM. Wanting to keep the sun out of her eyes, but not wanting to obscure her field of vision unnecessarily, she would have rushed home to sew a cap with a curt brim. It blocks the sun, but it doesn't stop the world from seeing your beautiful face. Another bonus is that the hat prevents painful pate sunburns for balding individuals.

With a cycling cap, you'll go from just another sucker on a fixie to instant street cred. Wearing appropriate clothing is the easiest way to gain respect.

Forever Stovetop Espresso Maker

An unmistakably South American aroma wafts down the streets and back alleys near a fancy italian coffee shop. Aroused nostrils flare at the smell of steamed cooked bean grindings. Gourmands and foodies alike casually meander toward the smell, riddling themselves about which variety of biscotti would go best with the aroma. Before long, the little coffee shop is packed full of people, clamouring to get the oily paws onto a beaker full of loving, flavour-charged espresso.

You can have this experience at home with Forever's Stovetop Espresso Maker. Using a pressurized steam system to force pressurized gaseous water through the coffee beans, you won't be able to tell its espresso from store bought. It's so good, in fact, that world espresso champion Drea du Mandionne always takes one with her when she is camping. Her taste is unimpeachable, so this is clearly a quality item.

Gill, Issue #1: I'm Not Retarded, I'm Big Boned

Just edgy enough to never get syndicated, but still brimming with youthful folly and delight, Gill is a real treasure. Published serial comics are an interesting read, generally going through a complete storyline in 15 panels, split up into 5 strips over 2 pages. The author Norm Feuti does a great job of portraying a socially outcast, overweight gradeschooler with a less than ideal home life in this format. The comic simultaneously heartening and heartbreaking.

Sleeman's Silver Creek Lager

To everything, there is a season.

Take beers for example. Nobody in their right mind would drink a light lager at a christmas party, nor would one quaff a stout after a hot afternoon's worth of road work.

Once the needle tips past 30C on the backyard thermometer, it takes a special brew to refresh. Today's active professionals know best, and choose Sleeman's Silver Creek Lager. Blessed with an ethereal crisp taste, you'll think that it was brewed by angels in the great breweries of Valhalla. There's nothing heavenly about the price though; it's a bit steep at $38 / 24 beers.

Ziploc Containers

No master chef has ever presented a dish that looked like it sat under a U-lock and a stack of books, so why should your lunch look that way? Stave off the embarrassing effects of sandwich squishing and cookie crushing using fabulous ziploc containers. Never again will your nectarine be prematurely tenderized, nor will your kumquat come squashed.

Baggies are great if you don't have to worry about your food arriving in one piece, but for mission critical meals trust nothing less than a ziploc container.

Li'l Guppie

It's been dark for so long. You don't even know what time it is anymore; your alternator is shot, and the clock is buzzing 88:88.

You've been driving through this misty marshland for hours. Visibility was poor to begin with, but you're so tired that you're sweaty all over and your eyes are swelling up. The gently rolling hills and dream-like landscape are slowly lulling you to sleep.

As you are slowly succumbing to exhaustion, your mind begins to wander. You can't see that a huge snapping turtle is about to lunge in front of your vehicle!

With a deft, and well-rehearsed move, the turtle rolls under your car and bites a hole right though the inner sidewall. The sudden yawing acceleration startles you out of your trance. You expertly make an emergency stop.

Surveying the damage, you realize that you'll have to put on the spare tire. Unfortunately, you know that you don't have much time, because the turtle is slowly ambling toward you with a deranged lustful hunger in his eyes. You reach into the trunk, and extract your spare tire and tire iron. You look back, startled by the dripping fangs of the approaching beast. This shock causes the tire iron to drop out of your still sweaty hands into the depths of the marsh.

Luckily you have your Li'l Guppie multitool in your pocket. The adjustable wrench is nowhere near big enough or strong enough to take the bolt off of your tire, but the 2" knife might just give you a fighting chance against that turtle...

Nokia 2760

Telecommunicative convergence is the conglomerating force of personal electronic devices. In the mid 90s, the cordless phone was combined with the pocket watch, and the cellular phone was born. These new cellular phones had the added bonus of not being limited to the range of the cordless phone receiver. As time went on, more functionality was added to cellular phones. Over the years they gained the ability to play GameBoy style games, then calculators were added and even colour screens.

Time wore gradually on; custom ringtones and even MP3 capability were added, as well as the latest in Java capability (Java is a web programming language). Eventually even cameras were included in cellular phones, and it was good.

This is 2009; a phone is expected to be able to play MP3s, take pictures, and tell time. The Nokia 2760 is an affordable camera that has all of these features!

Sigg Water Bottle

An adult human should ingest approximately 2L of water per day. Water is essentially the only "wonder-drug" for humans. It keeps us alert, tidy and healthy. It's also concommiserant with a healthy lifestyle.

The history of personal water transportation devices is a long and storied one. To this end, flasks, pouches, coconuts and so on have been used at various times in human history with varying levels of success. Each new day brings progress.

Not ten years ago, it was quite common to see folks walking around with "the nalgene." A "nalgene" was a clear plastic bottle with a twist of lid. This was considered state-of-the-art at the time.

Unfortunately, it turns out that these nalgene bottles were laced with bisephonol-A, a potent carcinogen. It was then learned that the parent corporation that made these bottles, Nalg, made most of their money selling animal restraints for cruel animal testing procedures. No one died from using these bottles, but it was clear that something had to be done on a large scale to cut back support for this evil lair of animal torture and cancers.

The Dark Horse, long discounted for selling more expensive metal bottles, was poised for a charge. Sigg, a longtime manufacturer of metal contrivances, began having great success with its water bottle line. These bottles were non-carcinogenic, and cruelty free. They're a bit hard to clean though.

Filzer Spoke Wrench - Multispoke

You know the feeling. Your back end doesn't feel as tight as it used to. Whenever you go anywhere, you feel it jiggling a little more than it used to. You can see what the problem is, but you can't turn the nipples hard enough with your bare hands to get things back in order.

You need this baby.

The Filzer Spoke Wrench - Multispoke is the tool for you. Made using hardened construction, and weighing in at only a scant 50g, this is a great tool. It costs less than $7 too. Not shabby.

Victorinox Swiss Army Knife

"If you cut every corner, it is really not so bad
Everybody does it, even mom and dad."

This song, featured on The Simpsons, was about doing a poor job. The song can also be interpreted so that it's about cutting things. As such, the song would be correct. Cutting things is not so bad.

In fact, cutting things is great.

As far as knives go, I've got no complaints about my Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. It has the perfect balance, sharp blades, and some extremely useful scissors. At first, I laughed at the knife for having scissors, but over the years I've found that I use them more than anything else on the knife.

Wahl Dual-head Nose Trimmer

That we, as a society, have brought such wondrous technology to bear on nose hair grooming is a ringing endorsement of our society. Wahl's dual-head nose trimmer is a godsend for any man who is leary of plucking. It should be noted that this is a multi-orifice tool; it also works on ear hairs.

The sideburn trimming attachment isn't great, but neither is the idea of trimming sideburns with a nose groomer.

Logitech Precision

Logitech's precision gaming pad is a real work of art. Coupling logitech's raison d'etre ergonomics with optimal gaming performance, this is an ideal controller for those looking for fun on a tight budget.

In my lab tests, I found that Mario would jump 2% higher using the Logitech Precision than he would using an inferior joystick. And don't get me started about Luigi, but jumping Jesus was Luigi ever performing well. Lab tests also revealed a minimum of wrist pain, cramps, and palm sweat.

Dick Cheney Finger Puppet

This adorable finger puppet is fun for the whole family. Young or old, conservative or liberal, there is no one who this miniature doll wont appeal to. Lovingly crafted in China, the doll provides hours of politically motivated amusement. Regale fancy liberal dinner party guests while doing a squeaky-voiced impersonation of Cheney becoming sexually aroused on the night of March 19th, 2003. Conversely, you could amuse your conservative gun-club brethren with a rambo-voiced, liberal-faggot-shooting puppet shows. Nothing is holding you back with this tiny effigy except for your imagination.

For ages 3 and up.

Gandhi Cuisine

If you're looking for good Indian food in Toronto on the cheap, you can't do any better than Gandhi Cuisine at Queen and Bathurst. Their speciality is curries in roti. These rotis are some of the most delicious food I've had in Toronto, not even counting budget. They are just great.

My personal favourite is the veggie korma roti, mild medium. The hot, sweet and savoury flavours counteract and complement each other orgasmically well. This is a spot that is not to be missed.

Employment

From Scarlett O'Hara to Howard Hughes, everyone knows that it's nice to have some money to spend. Sure, jobs give you money; there's more to employment than that. As your long-retired grandmother often reminds you, it's nice just to have something to do with your time.

Even a casual observer knows that your druthers (namely biking around the country and watching lots of movies) isn't feasible. Go to work.

Introversion

We all feel like we don't want to talk to, or be around, other people at times. Those of us who go through long stretches of feeling this way are called introverts. The old saying goes "The world is your oyster;" to an introvert, it would more aptly read "I'm my own oyster. Leave me alone. Get your own oyster. And your own world."

Introversion is pretty good. Having spent my entire life as an introvert-leaning ambivert, I'd say that extroversion is probably the superior of the two extrema, but introversion has its perks as well. You get lots of time to yourself, which you can spend reading, attending to cats, and / or painting miniature Star Trek models. Another perk is that you can really crank up the unpleasantness when someone you don't like starts talking to you, when you're not feeling too shy to do so. I've whiled away many a peaceful afternoon hurtling soul-withering comments at people who probably didn't deserve it. From a certain standpoint, it's fun!

Shimano Sora Componentry

On a big group ride two years ago, a gentleman I know who works at a bike shop told me that he'd be using bar-end shifters on a touring bike that he was building because there are no good finger shifters on the market. An awkward silence followed after he noticed that I was riding a bike solely equiped with Shimano Sora componentry.

I've found that his complaints were unfounded. I couldn't be happier with my Sora components.

Subway Veggie Delite

You: hungry, have $10 on you, near a subway, don't mind subs, craving the veg.

Subway: all vegged up, subs on the almost cheap, always nearby.

Ask any pragmatist and they'll tell you that there's no such thing as a match made in heaven. Shakespeare once wrote "All the world's a stage," by which, of course, he meant to say a stage for compromise. We both know that you're not going to a fast food restaurant expecting La Cordon Blue experience. It's a game of attrition really; what a fast food eater wants to do is minimize their losses. Clearly burgers and tacos are out. Pizza and burritos are a nice choice, but decent options are far from ubiquitous. Sometimes you have to settle on pretty good instead of damn good, and that's were Subway comes in.

If you've decided to go to subway, get the Veggie Delite. It's a little known fact, but it's actually their best sandwich. Enjoy!