( The Blog of Rude: Life of Geekery & Pop Culture )

The 3rd season of Canada's Worst Handyman came to a close on Monday, and the new worst of the worst handyman king has been crowned.

The "I should be ashamed of myself" award goes to:

Joe The Bullet Barbaro




I have to say that without a doubt Joe is the worst handyman I have seen on the CWH series, he probably is the worst handyman in North America. I don't know why his nickname is 'The Bullet', it should be 'Hacksaw'.

In just about every episode he used his favorite tool, the hacksaw, to solve any difficulties that he encountered with a specific task, and of course he usually ended up making things worse . If you have not seen the show before, and live in Canada you can watch the entire season @ DiscoveryChannel.ca , it's definitely worth watching if you enjoy laughing.



The hosts facial expression while Joe uses the hacksaw to saw off some screws should give you a pretty good idea as to why he is Canada's Worst Handyman.

My buddies and I are beginning to plan our 2008 summer vacation: "Life outside of the suburbs", which will intentionally lead me to one of the many remote (considering that I live in MTL) areas of Canada.

Initially I was thinking of going to Calgary or Winnipeg, or possibly Vancouver. I know relatively little about atlantic Canada. I know for a fact that I won't enjoy a week of cod fishing or visiting potato producing farms....But I'm sure that those areas have more than that to offer.

Ahh...Life in Calgary : Me after a lesson or two


Fishing in PEI : Hellllllll nO!!



I hear that Vancouver is another Toronto, so I doubt that i'll experience anything new , but I'll definitely have fun. This trip isn't supposed to be an educational trip or anything like that, but I want come back home saying "Mom, Dad ...I'm getting out of Montreal"

Nas- I Can (God's Son)


I heard this song while listening to HitzRadio a few days ago and I felt compelled enough to google it. Yeah I know this song is old, but I stopped listening to Nas several years ago.

I've always felt that Jaheim's song "Fabulous" is the most hypocritical Hip-Hop/R&B track that has been labeled as "inspirational/uplifting" that I've ever come across. I'm not going to compare the two tracks, but telling people that they're "Fabulous" while they're doing things that negatively impact their life isn't something that I respect.

Karl Marx and 2Pac have a few names for people like that...

I Can is REAL....the lyrics are REAL...

act your age, don't pretend to be
older than you are, give yourself time to grow
you thinking he can give you wealth, but so
young boys, you can use a lot of help, you know
you thinking life's all about smoking weed and ice
you don't wanna be my age and can't read and write
beggin different women for a place to sleep at night

I'm definitely planning on buying this album. I've always had my head on straight, but I rather listen to positive songs like this than hear the usual "Bling" this "Bling" that songs which seem to dominate the Hip Hop/R&B industry.

I found my old iRiver Slimx CD MP3 Player from a few years ago, so I decided to write a mini review...Yup I have a lot of free time on my hands today!



iRiver SlimX

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The Slim factor in SlimX



Take out a 10 cent coin, and take a good look, cause the SlimX is slightly shorter (in height) than one. This also makes it very light, even with the batteries installed. Speaking of batteries, as you can see they look like a stick a of gum.

Bright is Right - The Remote



The LCD screen on the remote is very bright and clear, and the blue backlight is nice to see. Some of the menus use a font size that is too small for my eyes...but I'll get used to it (hopefully).

This remote is a must, without it you can't do too much...most of the basic buttons/functions are also on the CD Player itself, but with no LCD on the player they're of little use.The Menu system is system is pretty slick, and well laid out. There are too many options and submenus for me to list or talk about, but take my word for it when I say that nothing comes close to the SlimX's customizability.

Rudeboystylez branded <-------- ----> Snakebyte (game)


Looks nice, and it doubles as an advertisement tool. Snakebyte is an oldie, but its fun to play. You can play the game while you're listening to either an Audio CD or a "MP3" CD. The SlimX has A LOT of available memory, and decent processing power, so games, newer audio formats, or anything else that can be displayed on the tiny screen can eventually be added to the SlimX.

Battery Life



It seems to be okay at best. On its first full charge, the rechargeable batteries died after around 10 and 1/2 hours. Iriver claims the unit to have 13 hrs of playback time with the rechargeable batteries, and an extra 10 or so hours with the external battery pack.

Sound Quality

Well the included earphones are nice looking but sound terrible . They produce practically no bass, and the earphones seem to be slightly out of phase. When coupled with a better set of headphones, the bass produced by the SlimX is not as deep as my really old Minidisc players bass response, however the bass and treble response is comparable to that of my Samsung YP-U2J. There's a built in equalizer, so everyone should be able to modify its output enough so that they'll hear something that they like.

The FM tuner seems to pick up most of the radio stations that I listen to in Montreal ....actually the only radio station that I listen to: 99.5 FM Classical music at its best.

Conclusion

The SlimX is...errr...was amazing



*This is my first attempt at writing a rudeopinion while being sober-esque

Anyhow, back to the brown box in my closet the Slimx shall go...

I had nothing planned this weekend, so I decided to visit my family in Toronto who are about a 6 hour drive away. Before I could go on this spur of the moment trip, I had to find a solution to two problems:

1) I have never driven to the GTA
2) Thanks to Montreal's adequate public transport infrastructure....I don't have a car

Honestly, those problems didn't last too long. Within the span of 3 hours I rented a car, used MapQuest to find the directions, and received a "you shouldn't do it" lecture from my parents about how dangerous driving on the 401 is.

None of my so-called friends (oh I named names on RBSCC ) were willing or able to join me, so I headed out early Saturday morning for the longest solo drive that I have ever done. After a few hours I ended up at the below parking lot safe and sound, waiting for my Torontonian cousin to arrive in his car:

Telus building near Scarborough Town Centre



I still have to make 'the rounds' and visit my aunt, but hopefully I can visit the CN Tower before I leave.