Army Surplus, Winter Clothes

I begin to end 2009 by sharing with you my latest find, see below

This shop is on Notre Dame, 1 block west from Atwater Market

It sells as the name suggests uniforms, but also thermal undies, shoes, boots, coats, gloves, hats etc to keep you warm in winter at a cheap price...Forget Canadian Tire, even if you don't like uniforms you can go there to step back in time, long wooden counter, servers with tape measures...in short a Great Shop! Perrier approves, go there and you will be pleased. I think from now I will buy everything from there.

going going nearly gone

At the risk of turning this into a dieting blog, a while back I posted my gut and attempts to get rid of it. Here it is again, I lost a stone or more by combination of running and calorie counting, and I am sticking my gut out as far as it can go so no one can think I'm sucking it in....




week 1



Week 3

week 8

Week 31




Week 54
so I am 13 stone and could lose another 10lbs or so take 5 weeks unpleasantly or 10 weeks less unpleasantly..So a year back i had just started jogging and was told i'd have to be on statins

it has been v tough and has required being very anal at times but doable the worst thing is wanting results fast....

Bell Rip Off, VOIP, cheapest Phone

So I am sick of Bell, somehow it costs a fortune, the internet works erratically and finally I will do something about them. I have figured out cheapest solution and unpicked the geek speak so you don't have to.

My plan is to get internet and cable tv only through VDN . Then I will run a VOIP phone from the internet. This will work out at about $58 per month.

So far I have got as far as trialling the VOIP phone. If it runs trouble free for a month then no more Bell.

So the deal with the phone is you register at VOIP.ms . This is fairly painless but it is not very user friendly, but worth it.... Once you register you get a username and some password stuff, you also need to know the IP address of the montreal server which is on their webpage but nowhere blindingly obvious, it is 67.205.74.164 for montreal.
the you deposit funds by credit card.
To use it by computer you just download a free phone program like this one (X-lite). You enter your VOIP account details and off you go, you can make calls.
You can get a montreal phone number for $2 a month. You get free voicemail and lots of nice features. The X-lite phone can record conversations too. If you want to call 911 then that costs $1.50 a month. In short Voip.ms is pretty high powered and very customizable and cheap. The price you pay is some head scratching, but the customer support by web chat is pretty good and available most of the time, they talked me through some setup questions..

That's all fine, but what you really want is a real telephone, not to be sat at the computer to make a phonecall.

Well then you need an adaptor. I bought a thing called HandyTone 486 by ebay for about $42. In fact I went to the seller direct and picked it up. Saved waiting and post charges...

It worked fine at work but I had some bother getting it to work on my Bell-Sympatico Speedstream Modem. I fixed this by following these instructions.
You need the bell account name b1xxxxx and password.


So I have a $15 Dollarama phone hooked up to my modem and it works a treat...So far so good. I have switched modem on and off a few times, everything still works..Get voicemails sent to my email...

Soon I will check out VDN and disconnect from Bell.....hooray!The X lite phone is pretty good and cheaper than Skype, voice quality with VOIP.ms blows skype out the water...plus you can upgrade call quality for really important calls if you want...Like I said tons of features...
You can buy local international numbers in UK etc, not done it, but could be handy...

where are montreal speed cameras

They are here

Red is red light camera, blue speed, yellow mobile

And really...who cares? At least speed cameras don't apply the law at random, I am surprised Quebec has been so slow to take advantage of this free money, walk down sherbrooke at rush hour and no-one respects the red lights, and what is the big deal with slowing down near schools? Fuss about nothing, bring it on...

Get on yer Bixi, montreal bike rental scheme

I think I am not alone in thinking this is a complete waste of time and as there are 300 stations I'd say that's 600 parking spaces wasted.

Bixi is the new Montreal bike renting scam whereby you can be lumbered with a rubbish bike at $250 liability to you and 30 minutes are free and its $80 a year plus no doubt deductible tax (so why charge it morans?)

Don't get me wrong I'm all for less cars but just buy a bike from Canadian Tire and create some real jobs, they cost $100 (plus non-deductible tax......go figure) and it's really cool you can lock it up wherever you like and even take it home and the first 3 years is FREE.

The stupidity of it makes me want to kick the spokes in, but that would be childish...I can't believe the Observer didn't sack their monkey of a journalist for making them pay her to come here and write a pile of crap about how good it is. It's the same scheme they had in Paris some years ago.

I understand it is a private scheme so they better not have used one $ of my tax to pay for this lunacy, or else I'll swear a lot.

Modified Corn Syrup, Fructose-Glucose, high fructose corn syrup

Well in canada it is called Fructose-glucose or something

there is a large body of evidence that it not only is bad for you but it actually stimulates fat deposition.

I'd say steer clear if you are a little 'well-built'

see all this:
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=966
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/139/6/1257S

The lengths they go to to avoid paying out our pensions...

Family Doctor Scam

So I finally figured it out. They give you a doctor but then you can never get to see them, they just keep postponing the appointment. I have been waiting since the begining of september and they have postponed the appointment three times. Others I have spoken to have experienced the same thing at other clinics. So thanks to the overpaid twerp of a public 'servant' who thought that crap up, nice way of dealing with the problem, thanks....