OMG! It’s the “Will It Blend?” Guy!

Tom Dickson of Blendtec has made quite the name for himself and for his company by blending all sorts of things. From iPhones to Chuck Norris, there doesn’t seem to be anything left for him to throw into these crazy powerful and super loud blenders. I met up with Tom at the Lunch@Pieros press event across the street from the LVCC during CES 2009 to ask him a couple questions about blending stuff…

Initially I was kind of star struck but after talking to him for a little bit, it’s pretty clear that he’s a big gadget geek like the rest of us and really loves what he does. I mentioned to him how Kelly has broken my blenders with her weird protein shakes. Of course, I had to tell him the reason why she drinks these blender wrecking concoctions.

After hearing that Kelly can easily throw my 80 kg frame over her head and that she was on track to compete at the 2012 Olympics for Olympic Weightlifting for Canada, Tom immediately hooked us up with a Blendtec Blender which should be arriving soon. A powerful little female Olympic Weightlifter vs the world’s most powerful blender. Now there’s something that blends well together. I can’t wait to have this thing in the house!

Some of the things he blended at this event included…

A Tape Measure which put up a really good fight…

A few cellphones including the legendary Nokia 5190 which went down without much complaining…

Michael Kwan tried to blend too, but we all know that he doesn’t do so well with things with motors. He seemed to take the task very seriously though. Why so serious Michael? More pictures after the jump.

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I Knew It! Phelps is Some Kind of Marine Mammal!

In my last post of complete randomness, I mentioned how I was heading back to the pool to work on my swim. I’d never been a good swimmer, and in fact, I’m about as clumsy in water as Michael Kwan is on a Segway or a Scooter. I guess we have something in common…sort of…nah…not really. I’m not that uncoordinated. At any rate, I’m a bad swimmer. So bad, I had to be saved once, and I nearly drowned myself in a kayak…in a swimming pool. After watching Michael Phelps take home more Gold medals than the entire Canadian Olympic Team, I was inspired. On TV, he makes the butterfly and breast stroke look so easy and the freestyle look like a walk in the park. Well, looks are very deceiving.

On my first day out, trying to do my best Michael Phelps imitation, I ended up doing a Michael Kwan Segway imitation: I failed. I was so useless, flailing around in the pool and barely made it to the other end. I I knew in that moment, if I was on a cruise or a boating trip, and the boat sank, I’d be going down with it. I would not go down like that, so I swam harder. After two and a half laps, my body was full of lactic acid and it felt like my chest was going to explode. Maybe I should have had a Phelps breakfast that consisted of a bowl of cereal, three egg sandwhiches, bacon and eggs, and two chocolate chip pancakes to wash it down before heading to the pool.

Today, I had a bacon and egger (as close as I had to the Phelps breakfast at the time) at A&W and swam much better than the day before, but it was still the hardest four laps I’d ever doggied, flailed, something resembling freestyle, swam. There had to be some explanation as to why Michael Phelps can do it without seemingly any effort, while I was killing myself to stay afloat. Then I found this…

It appears that the Onion News Network has unearthed the true reason behind why Phelps is the man that he is: He is not…a man that is.

Shortly after his return from Beijing, his handler, Bob Bowman, coralled “the 6′4″, 200-pound aquatic mammal, and the first ever SeaWorld swimmer to be raised in captivity by foster swimmers (Mark Spitz and Dara Torres)” back to his tank at Sea World. Apparently, in addition to fried egg sandwhiches, he has an even greater love of “Dutch Apple Pie” which Bowman used as bait to get him back into the 5,500 seat stadium known as “Phelps Happy Harbour”.

Although they let Phelps out every four years to play with the US Swim Team, the “World Society for the Conservation of Olympic Swimmers” alleges that he’s not really as happy as he seems. “When he was placed back into his tank, the slightly loose portion of his black swim cap immediately folded over to the right side, a telltale symptom of stress and angst”.

No wonder this guy swims like a Dolphin. He practically is one! However, I now feel sorry for him being all locked up like that. I’m sure that there will be a movie called “Free Phelps” somewhere down the line. I guess I’ll stop pitying myself and go back to flailing like a human being. I must not be doing as bad as I think I am.

You can read more about the Marine Mammal known as Phelps at the Onion News Network. Thanks for the laugh guys!

Completely Random Things - Olympic Edition

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted as it has appeared that I have caught the “Olympic Fever”. I’m not really much of a sports watching guy. I’m more of a get out there and do it type of person. However, every four years, for some reason, I find any sport that one of my fellow Canadians are competing in, interesting…even badminton. Here are a few completely random things that I’ve got on my mind…

Why Do My People Have to Pull This Shizzle?

If you haven’t already seen it, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing were probably some of the most spectacular ever. They better be for a cool hundred million or so. I thought it was a solid 4.6 out of 5.0 though it did drag for me in some section.

If you haven’t heard already, it appears the event wasn’t totally authentic. For example, the 29 foot steps that paved the way to the birds nest: Fake. CGI was introduced into the first 55 seconds of the opening ceremonies to give the effect of footsteps walking into the city of Beijing. Chinese officials say that it was too dangerous to have a helicopter pilot follow real fireworks foot steps so they faked it.

That wasn’t really such a big deal, but the biggest fakery: Lip Syncing Nine Year Olds. The little girl that sang the song that opened the cereomonies wasn’t cute enough to be in front of the camera so they replaced her with a lip syncing double. The original girl was singing live in the background. We like your voice, but your face is fugly. Wow.

I can’t say I’m really suprised. I mean, fake things have been coming from China for years, from Gocci, Prado to Rolax. I just didn’t expect them to perpetuate the stereotype. Oh, my peoples…

Peanut Butter Scooter Time!

After picking up my scooter in June, I’ve been amazed at how useful it has been. I ride it almost every day and its saved me a whole ton of money on gas. For example, a fill up on my Subaru Impreza which costs around $70 to fill up on 89 octane, gets me about 400KM’s. My scooter sucks in about $6.00 bucks of 94 octane for a tank. How many Kilometers you ask?

Well, I hadn’t filled up since Dot Com Scooter Gang so today I decided to fill’er up and put in only $5.61 of 94 octane with the needle at a millimeter or two from the red mark, at 697KM’s. It’s actually my first full 94 octane fill up as I did a half tank before Dot Com Scooter, after finally cluing in that they use a separate hose only for 94 octane while the other grades share the same hose. Though this is not a big deal for a car, the scooter takes far less fuel so I probably got 87 octane when I paid for a 92 octane fill up at 322KM’s.

After Dot Com Scooter Gang, Carl filled up at just over $6.00 for half a tank after riding 5 hours on the Honda Metropolitan that CycleBC rented out. Kwanye was a hair above $4.00 because he never cracked the throttle wide open. I can’t count Gary’s total because John ripped the nozzle from out of his hand and proceeded to fill his own scooter.

I rode out from Port Moody to Vancouver for Dot Com Scooter Gang and back and hadn’t filled up for eight days till today. It’s already over 60 KM’s from Vancouver and back, plus five hours of non-stop scooter terrorism with the Dot Com Crew and I always ride nearly wide open throttle. I think this is a new mileage record but I forget how many KM’s I filled up at last time. I guesstimate that this is just over 200 KM’s on a tank. Let’s see how many KM’s till the next fill up on this tank so we can find out for sure.

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