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Normally we’re quite pro-McDix around here on McDonald’s Mondays, however, in an effort to provide fair and mcbalanced coverage (and in an effort to showcase something really cool) we present The Bionic Burger.

While the first part of this video is a re-creation and the last part of the video is fact-based slander, it’s the middle part of this video that makes sitting through this worthwhile. In it, they showcase The Burger Museum — a collection of McDonald’s hamburgers that have been left out for years — the earliest being 1989 — and have yet to decompose.

This video is an attempt to plug the website thebestdayever.com, which is basically just a pricey weight-loss infomercial. That being said, images of The Burger Museum (including a live webcam of the most recent entry) are on a sub-page which I’ve linked to here.

So now when the nuclear winter settles in, we’ll have Twinkies AND Big Macs to munch on. The post-apocalypse isn’t looking so bad after all.

McDonald’s Mondays is a weekly series of posts written by our own Jim Squires that initially appears on his pop culture blog fjetsam.com.

Just because you’re all Smart Canucks doesn’t mean that some of you aren’t Single Canucks. Maybe you just haven’t met that special someone, or maybe youwouldn’t even know where to begin looking. But have you thought to try looking on your computer?

Online dating sites used to have the same stigma as newspaper dating ads, but as our lives are becoming interwoven with our computers more and more, online match-up’s have become the logical next step for a lot of single surfers. Don’t think of them as the evolution of newspaper ads — dating sites are more like MySpace with intentions. You’re letting everyone know all about you, and you’re letting them know you’re available. And don’t think you can’t make meaningful connections online — not only have many of us made friendships on the very forums of this site, but I first met my wife online! So believe me, it can happen.

A number of free dating sites have sprung up online over the past few years, however, many of them claim to be free when they actually offer their service free for women. It’s their clever way of making sure that there are always enough ladies in the house. JustSayHi.com is a fairly new site, and it’s absolutely free for both genders. Probably worth checking out. Their service covers Canada and the US, so if you live in a border town like me your circle of opportunity is even greater.

So what about you? Have you met anyone through online dating sites? Are you thinking of giving this service a shot? Tell us all about it!

Today’s deal may seem like it offers some unbelievable savings on a set of pretty decent speakers, but don’t be fooled. Polk discontinued these a while back, and while searching for reviews I’ve been discovering that most people were able to pick this up on clearance in the $75-$200 range. That being said, the reviews were also glowing. Like — “these should have cost me a grand” glowing. If you’re looking for good sound on the cheap and haven’t seen these at a better price, you’ll have a hard time finding a better bargain than this — unless of course Future Shop discounts them further at some point, which they inevitably will. You can pick up the Polk Audio R50’s here.

As a bit of a download junkie, and item like this sets my heart aflutter. Not only is this a great price on a 500GB External Hard Drive, but it’s the first web deal I’ve seen to be available both in store and online. But not all is good in Comstar-town.

When searching for a review of the product, nothing came up. That’s not exactly the mark of a quality brand name. As a a matter of fact, the only information I could find came from our very own Boo when he posted the November’s 6 Days of Web Deals and this item just happened to show up;

Comstar manufactures mediocre products and when it comes to a sensitive items like external hard drives I’d rather spend a few more bucks and buy a higher quality product. If however you’re looking for the lowest price you could spend on a 500GB external hard drive then this is definitely the right deal for you.

There you have it folks – it’s not good, but it’s cheap. And at that time, Boo was writing about a price of $229 – so it’s dropped even further.

If you’re interested, you can pick up this deal here.

If you’re a parent, chances are you have to sit through more children’s programming in a week than you ever would in your life if you had the chance. That’s not to say all of it is bad – in fact, some of it is quite good. In Canada, we’re fortunate enough to have a number of excellent channels at our disposal that commit part of their programming to childrens television. With each of these channels being so different, it’s hard to know which of these is most suitable for your family. Luckily, we here at SmartCanucks have the inside track, and we’re going to share it with you in our seven part series “The Best Canadian Kids Channels.”

Offering 24 hour a day children’s programming, all aimed at toddlers, isn’t an easy task. But Treehouse pulls not only that off, but offers a Video On Demand channel as well! Treehouse On Demand offers a good selection of the station’s most popular original and exclusive shows (ex. Max & Ruby, Toopy & Binoo, Pocoyo) absolutely free of charge. Both stations offer a healthy mix of popular programs (Dora, Diego, The Backyardigans) and original content. Given the 24-hour, always toddler safe (and always high quality) nature of Treehouse, it’s generally become the default kid’s channel for parents of kids under five.

In addition to Treehouse and Treehouse on Demand, a new service has recently rolled out, Treehouse Direct. Treehouse Direct allows you to stream episodes of certain shows right to your PC. Direct is a little finicky still because it’s new (for example, it won’t allow me access as it thinks I’m not from Canada), however I have no doubt that it will evolve into a service just as dependable as their On Demand has been.

If you’re not sure if you have Treehouse On Demand, call your cable provider. The Treehouse website not only offers schedules, contests and games — but they also have a fantastic forum community for parents. You can check it out, as well as Treehouse Direct, online at treehousetv.com.

This article was written by our very own Jim Squires. To check out more of his writing visit the pop culture blog Fjetsam, now updated daily.

Samantha Burns posted the Deal or No Deal Canadian Prize Board. Here is her blog post:

I saw a commercial about that game show coming to Canada, and thought I’d share the new prize board with you all.

Go for the ‘big money’ – a Year of Beer!

By the way, what’s with Howie Mandel’s little fist handshake thing, also known as ‘The Touch‘, aka ‘Knucks’, aka The Fist Bump, and who knows what else it’s called.

Does he have some phobia about shaking people’s hands or something? (Probably, I mean, doesn’t half of Hollyweird have some bizarre hang up?)

If you happen to be out for a leisurely drive this Saturday afternoon, why not swing by your local M&M Meats location and have a hot dog for charity? This Saturday, May 12th, from 10am to 4pm, M*M Meat Shops Locations across Canada will be hosting a charity BBQ event in an attempt to raise $1.9 million for Crohn’s and Colitis research. A minimum donation of $2.50 will get you your choice of hot dog or hamburger and a bag of chips.

If you happen to have no plans for tomorrow, why not volunteer? Call your local M&M Meats to see if they need an extra hand – I’m sure they’d appreciate all the help they can get. You can check out more about this special day on their special Charity BBQ website.

Many thanks to LittleVampire for bringing this to my attention via our forums. 🙂

Future Shop’s 13 Days of Web Deals are back! By now we all know the drill, but just in case we don’t, here’s a recap. Every day for 13 days Future Shop will be posting a different deal on their website. The deal will be web only, and there will be limited quantities — so you’re going to want to order quick.

Now that we’ve gotten that our of the way, let’s see what’s on tap for Day One:

If you’re looking for a better deal on a 2GB MP3 player, you’re going to have a pretty hard time. The Sandisk Sansa 2GB Photo MP3 Player (C150). I don’t have any personal experience with the device myself, but here are the highlights from the CNet review;

Score: 6.7 (good)

The good: The affordable SanDisk Sansa c100 series boasts a simple and effective control interface; a small but handy color LCD that displays photos and album art; extra features such as an FM tuner, voice recording, and photo support; and compatibility with Audible and WMA subscription services.

The bad: The SanDisk Sansa c100 series utilizes a proprietary USB cable and has poor battery life for a AAA unit. It also offers poor voice and FM recordings, and you can hear a tiny click when you start a track.

The bottom line: The SanDisk Sansa c100 series gives you a decent set of features for a decent price, but don’t expect great battery life.

If you’re still interested after all of that, you can pick this deal up here.

If you’re a parent, chances are you have to sit through more children’s programming in a week than you ever would in your life if you had the chance. That’s not to say all of it is bad – in fact, some of it is quite good. In Canada, we’re fortunate enough to have a number of excellent channels at our disposal that commit part of their programming to childrens television. With each of these channels being so different, it’s hard to know which of these is most suitable for your family. Luckily, we here at SmartCanucks have the inside track, and we’re going to share it with you in our seven part series “The Best Canadian Kids Channels.”

For more than half of the day, from 6am-7pm, Ontario’s publicly-funded channel TVOntario transforms into TVOKids – a toddler friendly place featuring a good variety of shows for kids aged five and under. It’s a pretty solid lineup, with it’s only weakness being its lack of original content. Gone are the days of Polkaroo and Today’s Special — TVOKids focus nowadays is on bringing universally recognized children’s shows to the network.

In place of original programming TVO does offer fresh content in the form of Gisele’s Big Backyard and The Space, both of which offer quick 2-3 minute vignettes between the shows throughout the course of the day.

TVO also makes up for it’s lack of original content with it’s inclusion of syndicated shows that aren’t available anywhere else — Bali, Mustard Pancakes, and Tigga & Togga are perfect examples of this. The main staples of this channel though, are the big names you’ve come to expect in children’s programming, like Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder.

In the evenings, TVO switches back to original adult programming, and it’s arguably some of the most thought-provoking on television. I’ve recently discovered The Agenda with Steve Paikin, and I can’t get enough of it. Instead of just repeating a 30 second news item like all of the talking heads on cable news do, Steve assembles a group of experts on a certain subject that’s currently in the news and hosts a solid half hour debate.

You can check out the TVOKids schedule as well as games, contests, and information for parents and teachers on their official website tvokids.com. If you’re interested in the adult side, check out the TVO website at TVO.org.

This article was written by our very own Jim Squires. To check out more of his writing visit the pop culture blog Fjetsam, now updated daily.

Do you have a son, daughter, grandchild, sibling, nephew, niece or cousin that was born in 2007 or 2006? If you do, they could win the Smart Canucks Cute Baby Contest and receive a FREE gift

Submissions open from now till May 31st, 2007
First week of June all Smart Canucks members will vote for the cute babies.

Prizes:

1st place: $25 Shoppers Drug Mart or Indigo/Chapters or Cara gift card
2nd place: $20 Shoppers Drug Mart or Cara gift card
3rd place: $15 Cara gift card
4th place: $10 Shoppers Drug Mart or Cara gift card
5th place: $10 Shoppers Drug Mart or Cara gift card

I chose these gift cards because they’re all Canadian companies. I like Cara because you can use their gift cards at several restaurants including Swiss Chalet, Montana’s, Kelesy’s, Second Cup and Harvey’s.

How to join the contest

1. You need to sign into the forum. If you’re not a member you can register here.

2. Go to Upload an Image. A new form will show up. Use that form to upload your images.

3. Now that you’ve uploaded the image go to Your Images. Copy the code next to “BB Code IMG”, reply to this thread and paste the code you copied in your reply message.

You also need to provide the following information:

• Baby name or nickname or initials (full name is not required for privacy reasons)
• Gender
• Month and year of birth (day not necessary)
• Your relationship to the baby

4. You can upload several photos of your baby but you can only officially use one for the contest. However you can refer members to the other photos if that will help you get more votes .

Please feel free to ask any questions here or discuss the cute pictures

You can view the submissions here

Thanks EnjoyToronto for this awesome freebie 🙂

From Enjoy Toronto:

Sign up for the Boston Pizza email club and get a free starter coupon from email. Choose from Boston’s Pizza Bread with Bolognese Dip, Cactus Cut Potatoes, Panzerotti Roll or Classic Potato Skin. There is not a lot of restriction for the coupon, no minimum purchase. A very nice dinner for two in the sport bar is ~$30 only!

1. Half liter of Mission Hill red, $13.95.
2. Classic Potato Skin, $7.99. I like the little hint of spicy. Cactus Cut Potatoes is good too but it is superb spicy!
3. Cheese steak pizza individual, $10.39. BBQ beef, onion, green pepper and mushrooms. Yummy!

Thanks rita heyworth for mentioning this freebie in the forum 🙂

Here’s the new 2009 invitation request info:

http://smartcanucks.ca/pinecone-research-canada-free-invitations-2009-hothurry/

Now’s the time to join pinecone research. Once they stop accepting new members it will likely be a few years before they re-accept new registrations. Pinecone is a consumer research company that pays you $5 per survey and sends out lots of full size products to test. They have been known for their prompt payments. I strongly encourage everyone to sign up (you have nothing to lose).

If you want an invitation please send a private message to Prue7979 and WRITE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS OR SHE CANNOT EMAIL YOU AN INVITATION with your email address and she’ll email you an invitation.

Email me at smartcanucks [[[[[[att]]]]] gmail com and I’ll send you an invitation

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If ever there was a time that Ronald McDonald looked like John Wayne Gacy, this was it. This commercial aired in the Washingtion area in 1971, eight years after Ronald’s debut. As you can see, by ’71 he began to look a little more like the clown we know and love today. Still — the slightly askew make-up and the creepy Willard Scott voice make this one of the more terrifying Ronald appearances.. It just goes to show, even pop icons go through growing pains.

Does anybody else find it strange that the doll looks more like Ronald than Ronald does?

McDonald’s Mondays is a weekly series of posts written by our own Jim Squires that initially appears on his pop culture blog fjetsam.com.

Useful to the point summer beauty tips by lifetoolsforwomen.com

Summer is a great time for relaxation, recreation and renewal. If you’re like most of us, you probably take advantage of the longer days and warm weather to enjoy extra time with family and friends. While enjoying the hot, lazy days of summer, keep in mind that different beauty rules apply. Here are a few tips to keep you looking as good as you feel:

Summer Hair Care

• If you spend lots of time outdoors and want to spice up your look naturally, try combing a little lemon juice through your hair. The sun will lighten those strands faster than your locks sans lemon, giving you an attractive sun-streaked look. It’s also easier on your budget than salon highlights.

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