The Canadian Blog Awards Round 1 of voting is currently under way. Please take a minute to vote for Smart Canucks in these three categories:

Best Blog
Best New Blog
Best Group Blog

You’re allowed to vote daily so please don’t forget to come back and vote.

Click here to go to the Canadian Blog Awards and vote

Thanks 🙂

The colonel got some brand new clothes for the holiday season and KFC got a brand new logo. I love KFC’s new logo but I still hate KFC’s “Dead Bird in a Box” food!

Check out KFC’s logos over the years here

On KFC’s website it says that the aerial view of KFC’s new logo hides a secret message and there’s a competition (and prizes) for figuring out what the message says. Check this out at KFC’s website.

I whole-heartedly thank all the Canadian bloggers out there who added SmartCanucks.ca to their Blogrolls or left comments 🙂 Without your support I wouldn’t have had the energy or motivation to dig for interesting content, deals and events everyday.

I tried finding all the blogs that link to SmartCanucks.ca but it’s very hard to locate them all so I started with the short list below. If I forgot to add your blog please just leave a comment and I’ll add you to the list 🙂

Flotsam/Jetsam by Jimmycanuck (Ontario)
This Chick’s Life by Tanya (BC)
Sleepless In Sylvan (Alberta)
The Lazy Canadian (BC)
From the Desk of Sara (Ontario)
Fred Fortin Blog’s (Montreal)
Alec Saunders .LOG
The Blog of Hohmann (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
Poetic Flower
Games & Gadgets by Matt & Curtis (Calgary/Toronto)
Ordisante (Montreal)
The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns
Much More Than A Mom
The High Places by Shane

Did I forget to mention your blog? please let me know.

I came across a Wikipedia article on Canadian English Words with an interesting list of Canadian Slang words! It’s a very fun read.

But wait… think you’re a Canadian Slang whiz? Take the Canadian Slang Proficiency Test before reading the Wikipedia article and see how well you do.

David Peralty just emailed me this awesome news:

There is a Canadian Video Sharing site going up, and it’s still in “closed beta” but if you go to www.video.ca/test.php you can register and access the site. You and your readers might be interested in that. Its not ready for a full launch, but if they want to get in early to secure their usernames…

Visit Video.ca here

Thanks David for the info 🙂

Don’t forget to also visit David Peralty’s new blog here

Looks like Santa learned how to use the Internet at last ;-). This year you could email Santa instead of mailing him a letter.

I still like the good old snail mail more, especially when you don’t have to buy stamps.. yes letters to the North Pole are free :-). Whether you send your letter to Santa Claus by mail or email, be assured that Santa will reply back!

Santa hasn’t changed his mailing address. He still lives in the North Pole. Send your letters to:

Santa Claus
North Pole HOH OHO
Canada

and remember to include your return address so that Santa could reply back 🙂

Email Santa here

More info on the “Write to Santa” program by Canada Post here

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah! 

I guess Guy Fawkes became known in Canada after last year’s enjoyable movie V for Vendetta. Anyone here celebrating Guy Fawkes Night with fireworks?

Yes! Deal or No Deal is coming to Canada! The application form and details are online here. It’s a very long form with 39 questions! If you’re going to fill it in, make sure you’re relax and patient… the better you fill in the form the better your chances of getting accepted I guess.

Hosted by Canada’s own Howie Mandel, the hugely popular Deal or No Deal comes north for 5 special episodes next Spring. Don’t miss this great opportunity to be a contestant and play this exciting game of odds and chance. 26 sealed briefcases containing cash amounts from a measly penny to 1 million dollars are yours to choose. Will your case hold your dreams? Are you willing to deal it away? Don’t delay! Deal or No Deal is now accepting contestant applications from across Canada. Be part of one of the most exciting television events in Canadian history.

Click here for more details on Deal or No Deal Canada

If you purchased a Vista Capable Dell system on or after October 26, 2006 you’ll be eligible to a free Microsoft Windows Vista upgrade when it comes out 🙂

You can visit http://www.dellvistaupgrade.com beginning on November 13, 2006 to get your free Windows Vista upgrade.

If you have no idea what Windows Vista is checkout this wikipedia article on Vista

Posted on the forum by julieonmymind. Inspiring story…

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

[youtube]vr3x_RRJdd4[/youtube]

Came across this very useful “Halloween Safety” article at Safe Kids Canada:

Did You Know?

Halloween is a great time for children. However, all the excitement can cause them to forget safety rules, particularly when trick or treating. The tips below will help you to keep your kids safe during this fun time.

All about costumes:

Make sure that drivers can see your child. Use costumes with bright fabrics and decorate costumes with reflective tape. Give each child a flashlight to carry.

To prevent falling, your child’s costume and shoes should fit properly. Costumes should not be longer than your child’s ankles.

If you are making a costume, use materials that are fire resistant. If you are buying a costume, make sure it is labeled “flame resistant”. This means that the costume could catch fire, but it will burn more slowly than other materials. Avoid costumes with loose sleeves, pants, and skirts.

All costume accessories such as swords or knives should be made of soft, flexible material and should not have any sharp edges.

Your child should wear face paint or make-up instead of a mask. Make-up and face paint are better than masks because they don’t block your child’s ability to see. If your child is wearing a hat, wig, or scarf, tie it securely so that it won’t slip over your child’s eyes.

Tips for safe trick or treating:

Children under nine years of age should be supervised by an adult when trick or treating.

Children over nine years of age should trick or treat with an adult or in a group with older, responsible children. If your child is trick or treating without an adult, make sure he or she knows how to cross the road safely. Children should cross only at corners or pedestrian crosswalks. Children should walk, not run, from house to house and stay on the sidewalk or at the side of the road facing traffic.

Children should stay in well lit areas and should only visit homes that have their outside lights turned on. Children should not go inside homes.

Tell your children to bring their treats home before eating them. Before your children eat their candy, make sure you inspect it. Throw out any treats that are not wrapped, those in torn or open packages, or any that have small holes in the wrappers. Remember that small hard candies are a choking hazard for children under three years old.

When decorating your home:

Small children should never carve pumpkins. Instead, let your child draw a face on the pumpkin.

Make your home safe for trick or treaters. Remove all objects around the outside of your house that could cause children to trip or fall. Turn your outside light on.

Avoid using candles to decorate pumpkins. Small inexpensive flashlights can be used to light pumpkins safely.

Keep lit candles out of children’s reach and away from curtains and other objects that could catch fire.

If you’re driving on Halloween:

Be extra careful when driving. Children are excited and may forget safety rules.

When driving in areas with children, slow down and watch for them.

Enter and exit driveways and alleyways slowly and pay extra attention

I suggest you also play this fun Halloween safety game

mrG has a very interesting point of view on face photoshoping. Here is the comment he posted on my No Wonder our Perception of Beauty is Distorted post:

I think we maybe miss the point with these excerises. It’s like what Carl Jung said about UFO’s and how it is not nearly so interesting whether UFOs exist or not, but how tenaciously we cling to the desire to want them to be real — what I find fascinating about these photoshoppings (and I don’t believe the Lazy Canuck for a second) is the vectors the artist takes attempting to anneal the “source face” into the abstracted “perfected face” because it says something very important, psychologically, about the human perception of face features.

Consider the famous zen gardens, or the later paintings by Picasso, each of them studies into the neurocognitive reality, extracting essential details from the subject matter, enhancing and highlighting those details, arriving at not an image of stark mundane photographic exactitude, but at an image of seeing our way of seeing, of seeing vision, of seeing the mechanics of the way we humans turn the noise-laden reality of our bare senses into abstracted Platonic forms which we can readily remember and recognize.

IMHO, criticizing the photoshop artist is as lame a pasttime as criticizing the grammar of the person banging on your door to tell you your roof is on fire. You may not agree with their abstract/extraction of her ‘essential’ features, and the sane response would be to present your own abstract/perfected view of her, but to put a blanket dismissal on the practice or to turn it upside down to assert that every woman is somehow trapped in a game of trying to be her own perfected abstract self is fodder for comic books, not a viable life strategy.

Thus the woman on the right is every bit the woman on the left, in the eyes of the photoshopper, and in the eyes of all those who find they would rather stare quixotically at the right image while finding it easy to pass the other image by. Those who know that woman on the left, especially those who are close to her, and ok, maybe the lazy canuk too, they probably already see that right-side image on the right every time they look at her.

mrG, I agree that it’s not the Photoshop artist’s fault. In fact, I appreciate the artist’s breathtaking changes and creative touches. As you also mention “Those who know that woman on the left, especially those who are close to her … they probably already see that right-side image on the right every time they look at her”.

My only concern is the way these Photoshoped photos are used by beauty companies to portray the image of an “ordinary” person. Photos in magazines have caused many people to lose their self esteem. I basically think this is wonderful art that belongs to galleries and not fashion magazines. Just my point of view 🙂

This is a video from dove’s campaign for real beauty where you see a girl get a heavy makeup and then get “fixed” in Photoshop before she’s beautiful enough for an ad.

Watch Dove’s video here

jimmycanuck is a Super Mario fan so I thought I’d share this Nintendo 1988 Inside Edition TV news report about Super Mario 🙂

[youtube]yGFRi_ueq-M[/youtube]

jimmycanuck has a very enjoyable blog. Check it out here

I don’t remember coming across this type of Coke machines in Canada. Has anyone seen these Coke machines here?

[youtube]BIUSonlasl8[/youtube]

Even if there is such a machine, this is totally not cool and it’s unethical. I’m only posting it for fun 🙂

[via gizmodo]