If you have been asking “Who Wins Survivor Samoa?” Well, its official, Natalie has won the latest edition of Survivor!

Personally I think Russell, the player everyone loves to hate, should have won. But what do you think? Who did you want to win?

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Russell did play a very strategic game, and while many may think he may be evil, its a game, and you have to do what you have to do.

I don’t think Natalie played a bad game, I think sticking under the radar is a good strategy and she does in fact deserve the money, but I think Russell might be the smartest player to play Survivor and not win.

If you hate Russell, or if you love him, you have to admit that he made Survivor Samoa very exciting and fun to watch.

Last year I put up a post (I Don’t Care What They Say – Merry Christmas), asking if readers would be offended if someone wished them a happy holiday for a holiday they did not celebrate. Out of 180 voters, only  6 voters said that yes, they would be offended.

I wanted to re-introduce this poll to see if any new voters/readers out there would like to cast their opinion here.

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I celebrate Christmas. Its my favorite time of year. I would like to say Merry Christmas to people I come across, and send “Merry Christmas” emails to my clients, but because there are a few out there who are offended by this, I am reduced to saying a generic “Happy Holidays”.

If someone came to me and wished me a Happy Hanukkah, or any other holiday greeting for something I don’t celebrate, I would never be offended, in fact, it would probably put a smile on my face.

I was at the Home Depot looking for a Christmas Tree stand, and when I asked an employee where I could find one, he quickly developed a sour look on his face and said “I don’t Celebrate Christmas, I think they’re over there somewhere” and he pointed in the general direction. Are you kidding me? You don’t celebrate it, but that doesn’t give you a right to be rude to me about it – especially when I am looking for a product that you sell!

Why can’t we all just get along.

If you were given two options which would you pick:

1. Get shot with a hand gun
2. Get shot with a taser

If you like me, you’d probably pick the tazer, granted, neither would be much fun. With the options of bullet ripping through my body, with an end result most likely being death, compared to being electrocuted with the end result most likely being life – I pick taser!.

I am so entirely sick of people complaining about the use of tasers – its all over the news these days, but tasers are a good thing. Look at all the criminals who have been stopped dead in their tracks with a taser, who otherwise would have been shot and likely killed… hmm… criminals killed, perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing?

When an officer is in danger, and he tazes someone to stop the attack, he gets criticized over its use. Now, what are the alternatives… He could do nothing and let the criminal attack and maybe kill him, or he could fire a bullet in his ass.

Hello people! Tasers, while they have their risks etc, are far more human than shooting someone.

The next time you hear about someone being tazed and want to complain, ask yourself, what if that were a bullet.

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P.S. I am not sure if it is “taSer” or “taZer”. Pretty sure its taSer, although I see it being used both ways. Which version do you use?

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A few days ago I wrote a post and embedded a video about United Airlines breaking Musician, Dave Carroll’s Guitar. (You can see the original post here: United Airlines Will Break Your Guitar).

I recall that same day reading something online about Delta Airlines, and when I wrote the post about United, for some reason I ended up referencing Delta.  Not sure exactly how this happened, but its been fixed. For the record, to the best of my knowledge, Delta Airlines has not broken any guitars, but who knows, I didn’t research this much.

When I returned yesterday form a weekend camping trip I found a comment from “tex” basically calling me a twit for my error, and went on a little rant. While his response was somewhat inappropriate, I corrected my mistake then decided to approve his comment, and a nice little thread began to emerge for that post. (I don’t think tex likes me, but maybe if he got to know me we could be friends? I hope so, otherwise it will make me very very sad)

I really don’t know what got into him – perhaps he was having a bad day, perhaps he is just some guy trying to have a little fun, and wrote his replies with a grin on his face – truth is, it doesn’t matter, it was fun – I enjoy a little arguing now and then. (My wife told me to just delete his first comment and block him – but where is the fun in that?)

My question at this point is, do you think he was a little over the top? Do you feel his response was inappropriate? Be sure to vote to let me know – I am curious. If I find that an overwhelming majority take his side I’ll… well, I’ll probably not do anything, but I will be humbled for knowing that I was “wronger” than I though. (Yes ‘tex’, I know “wronger” is not a word, please don’t call me out for misleading youngsters learning to master the English language).

I for one will be making sure to be as accurate in my posts as possible as to not offend the all-mighty tex in the future.

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My wife and I just recently bought a house and lately have been buying and selling quite a bit using Craigslist. I have to say, that I am very surprised at how quickly you can sell stuff there, we have had a great response from our posts, and are selling stuff rather quickly.  Gotta love Craigslist!

One of the categories we check out frequently is the “housewares” category. Recently someone posted an ad essentially complaining about a particular retail store posting listings for new commercial products, and I thought I would use this as some inspiration for something to write about. First, this is the location/category in question: http://comoxvalley.en.craigslist.ca/hsh/

First, My opinion:

I have to agree with a few of the posters that commercial advertisments are a bit anoying here, and they should not be permitted. My reasons for this opinion is simple. I agree with the first poster, and believe that if commercial retailers start using Craigslist excessively, as this one particular business has been doing, then before long all commercial businesses will be doing the same thing, and this will drown out all of those who are trying to sell their used products.

I happened to notice the particular business posting quite a few items, but as I was looking only for used appliances, I simply ignored them.

As of my writing of this post, 4 people in total had responded to this issue. Here are their comments in the order they were posted.

First:

Is anyone else sick of Central Builders in Courtenay SPAMMING Craigslist with their inventory? This should not be permitted, at this rate all commercial retail outlets will eventually be posting here for Free advertising, littering the place with crap.

I went to Central Builders as I was looking for a fridge/stove, and their deals aren’t nearly as good as their Craigslist ad states, and there selection is terrible.

I am boy-cotting them until these posts stop.

Second:

Not sure what the problem was. I recently went to the business in question and found their selection quite good. And the prices that attracted me were quite clearly listed in the ads. Make your own decision.

A VERY satisfied customer.

Third:

I agree that there Craigslist ads are SPAM. This is not a place for commercial retail advertisement. Their selection & price is irrelevant, they should not be spamming here, its not the place. This is a place for individuals to buy and sell their used products, not brand new retail. I chalk their ads in craigslist up there with the mass spam email I get for Nigerian money scams and penis products.

Fourth:

I think you should check some of the other categories, like materials for instance. You will find plenty of commercial resellers there. If you had a bad experience, it probably should not be posted here.

So have your say with this new poll:

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Update:

Here is a Fifth Post:

How can the commercial resellers be listed as spam? It’s not sent to your e-mail and you are not forced to look at it. You sound disgruntled and need an outlet for your words I guess.

“Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising.<continue reading their definition>.”

So we are sitting here watching American Idol, and we realized something – Ryan Secrest is super short. But how tall is he? He “claims” to be 5’9, but we think thats a load of bull – SO, how tall do you think he is? Take my poll and tell me what you think? (As for the 1’11″, I got that figure from a response that some put over at Yahoo Answers claiming that he Seacrest is a leprechaun – he may be right, so I included it here

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I washed my hands today in the kitchen sink and proceeded to dry them on a tea-towel hanging on the stove. I, like most people, do this often. Today I stopped to think – that tea towel is probably not very clean – I probably just made my hands “dirty” again.

I am not a germ-o-phobe so this didn’t bother me. I’ll probably do the same thing again later today – probably more than once, but it did get me thinking.

Which is better, paper or air? Let’s look at the two options, and the three main categories

Environment
I think this is probably the easiest one to answer, obviously the air dryers are best for the environment. I have done no formal studies, but I think the electricity generation required to power the hand dryers probably has less of an impact than the electricity and raw materials used to create the paper towel. Even if the paper towel is made with 100% recycled materials you still have to use electricity to turn those materials into paper, and then fossil fuels to ship that paper, and then you ultimately wind up with all this recyclable paper towel in the land fill.

Germs
I suspect paper towels are the more sanitary product here. Hand dryers; for the most part just blow the bathroom air full speed back at your hands, likely contaminating them all over again. If you’re using a hand dryer that filters and purifies the air, then I suspect that the hand dryer is the least germy choice, but only if your hands get 100% dry.

Functionality
The vast majority of air hand dryers I have used absolutely suck – that is till I tried the Dyson Airblade. I had seen many commercials and thought, hey, its just another hand dryer, then when waiting at a recently revamped BC Ferries terminal, I saw in their washrooms, they had the Airblade installed. I was pleasantly surprised to see my hands 100% dry in a matter of seconds. According to their website, they use a HEPA filtration system, so that makes it clean too.

As far as I am concerned, paper towel is my method of choice, unless the hand dryer is one that actually works.

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Happy New Year Everyone! Welcome to 2009!

I wanted to throw up a quick post about New Years resolutions. Do you make them? Do you keep them? curious of the responses… please vote!

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Christmas is just around the corner – Are you ready? My wife does almost all the Christmas shopping in our house, and is just about finished, with the exception of stockings. Her gift is sitting in the other room – she picked it up and paid for it. Its from me. Man shopping gets easier and easier the longer you’ve been married.

My responsibility is her stocking. Sounds pretty easy, but considering I probably wont get to it till – I dunno – the 24th, it will be a hectic challenge.

With Christmas morning exactly 3 weeks away – I thought what a perfect excuse for another poll.

So the question is:

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Looking to get your hands on a new BMW Mini-E? At the L.A. Auto Show, BMW unveiled the new all-electric Mini, and in preparation for mass production, they are looking for 500 lucky people to test drive the car for a year.

There are several restrictions: To be involved in their “year long research project” you must have: $850/month to cover the lease and live in either New York, New Jersey, or Southern California.

You will need to have a secure garage, and be willing to surrender the car and all the charging equipment immediately at the end of the lease – also if you don’t have a spotless driving record, don’t bother applying.

Keep in mind you will be required to fill in surveys, maintain a detailed log, and the car will be equipped with a GPS for BMW to keep a close eye on you.

If you are interested in applying to become a part of the project, you have until Dec 10 (that’s about 7 more sleeps). Visit the Mini-E website for more details.

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