Made in Canada: Robobearcop suit

Troy Hurtubise from North Bay, Ontario first came to fame with the documentary Project Grizzly which chronicled his work to create a bear proof suit spurned on by his fascination with bears. Fortunately, this bear documentary didn’t end up with his girlfriend and him being mauled to death, instead he has gone through several iterations of this bear suit culminating in the “Trojan” which he announced early this year.

The Tojan’s feature list is as follows:

The Trojan incorporates 16 different electronic functions and prototypes impregnated into its exoskeleton. Some of the Trojans key features are a laser tracking system, 5 L.E.D. light spectrums, a voice recorder, a voice activated pedometer, a digital electronic compass, built in compartments for salt tablets and morphine pills, a digital thermometer, a built in intake cooling fan which runs on solar power, a throwing and knife, a medical emergency light transponder and much more.

Below is the evolution of his bear suits, as you can see the suit has come a long way:

Sadly, just weeks after announcing the new suit, Troy went bankrupt after failing to raise additional financing or find any buyers. Troy has been forced to sell the prototype on ebay and as of this writing has reached CAN41,000.

I’m very surprised by this as I would have thought there would be a great amount of demand from Police and Military forces around the world. The consensus from what I’ve read appears to be that while Troy is very eccentric and some of his inventions sound a bit far fetched, his suit has proven to be as effective as he claims. It would be a shame if eccentricities were what got in the way of the suits success.

On rotation

This is a new feature on the site where we’ll talk about what music we’re listening to at the moment. I’ll probably have an eclectic mix of stuff from the 60s through the 90s as well current music. Mark will probably being listening to something horribly depressing.

1. “Mason vs Princess Superstar” by Perfect Exceeder – some Eurotrash dance music
2. “This Aint A Scene, Its An Arms Race” by Fall Out Boy – This is the only song I’ve ever listen to by Fall Out Boy becausee they generally seem like a bunch of guys I’d hate, but this song is catchy
3. “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen – Took the lady to see Dirty Dancing the musical and now this song is stuck in my head… I’m straight
4. “Grace Kelly” by Mika – Catchy
5. “- Something Kinda Ooh” by Girls Aloud – I’m a big fan of Girls Aloud, they are huge in the UK but I think are unrelatively unknown in North America. There songs are very catchy and they are hot.

What women want

 

Mel Gibson and I are alike in many ways, we both know how to flatter women (I often use the term “sugar tits” myself) and we both know what women want. Case in point my girlfriends birthday (this past Friday).

I told her to take the day off work as I had planned a romantic weekend away – I did not tell her where we were going, however I did lead her to believe we’d be flying to get there. I had in fact rented a car and planned a trip to Oxford for one night and then to a spa retreat in the English country side.

Things started off just as planned. I had devised a rouse that I would plant something in the rented car and then as we were allegedly on our way to the airport I would pretend to steal it from what she would think was a random car. I set the scene perfectly by complaining of being very thirsty as we walked down our road looking for a taxi, and then as we passed the rented car I yelled, “Look a smoothie!” and ripped open the door. Her screams of “Baby!!” and “What are you doing?!” made all the planning worthwhile.

On our way to Oxford we stopped by at Warwick castle which is an amazing castle. When you think of your stereotypical Medieval castle, you think of this place. I got more then a few home decorating ideas for when I eventually buy my own place, including massive portraits of myself on the walls of the dining room, a smoking room and giant stuffed bear.

 

At Oxford we stayed at the Randolph Hotel which incidentally, is where Bill Clinton stays when he visits his daughter who is a student at Oxford. The Randolph is a very nice hotel with a great spa (rated as one of the Top 50 spas in the world by the Independent), a famous bar (frequented by Inspector Morse from the Novel and Television series of the same name) and a great tea room for your typical English afternoon Tea. I’m happy to say I took advantage of all three – however I do think the actual hotel rooms befit a 4 star hotel rather than the 5 star the hotel is rated at.

 

After spending a night in Oxford we then carried to our next destination, the Cheltenham Park Hotel in Cotswolds, driving though the English country side to get there and stopping by a quaint little village called Woodstock. Here we just relaxed, hung out at the pool and in the sauna and then enjoyed some spa treatments before heading home late Sunday afternoon.

On our way home we did get slightly lost (time and time again I let her navigate only to be sorry), but it did allow me to do some driving on some tight windey back roads at speeds excess of the limit.

All in all, the trip was a success, she was very impressed which resulted in the desired outcome.

God vs Jesus (a.k.a JC)

Who is the better? Why I direct all prayers to just one…

For my first post, id like to settle an age old debate, who is better….father or son. In this case, the father/son duo is God and J.C. Ive divided this battle of titans into three categories (1) Beards (2) Carpentry and (3) Hanging out on a Friday night. I will use TV, movies and the Bible as my main sources of information.

Beards – The acceptance of beards from a fashion perspective is cyclical. They are currently in style in a short form. The “I haven’t shaved for a couple days so I look like I have a beard, but I don’t resemble a bear” look (note to my friend sean: you look like a bear). In TV shows like The Simpsons, God is portrayed as having a long beard, very unfashionable. On the other hand, J.C. is very hip, sporting a shorter one in FamilyGuy. At this time I choose to look past J.C.’s mullet and give him the win.

Verdict: JESUS

Carpentry – One would naturally give J.C. a head start in this category due to his earth dad’s occupation as a carpenter. God’s hand in creating the world can not be overlooked since he basically did it all on his own. The definition of carpentry has to be considered as God simply created people, wildlife and nature (we will overlook his mistakes with red heads & gypsies), J.C. was schooled in the art of creating structures from wood. This is not to say God couldn’t build a gazebo, but J.C. would have refined skills in handling a a plane, Black and Decker drill or hammer.

Verdict: JESUS

Hanging out on a Friday night – Since there is little documentation of God actually hanging out on earth, J.C. has the upper hand. J.C. not only rolled with a pretty big posse (not sure if you’ve heard of the 12 apostles- except that a-hole Judis), but also had a gal on his side. J.C. hung out with the lepers of society, which would give him easy access to street drugs and malt liquor. J.C.’s blood also tasted like wine (see mass last week as an example). God would probably be no fun, since he spent a lot of time making people, wouldn’t be in favour of actions which would hurt them. He was all alone in creating the world and seems like the kind of guy that would prefer reading a good book (probably either the Bible or The Da Vinci Code) in front of a fire.

Verdict: JESUS

J.C.won this round, but in a battle against other religions he doesnt stand a chance against the Supreme Being that is Vishnu. As you can see, he has many arms which ables him to do more stuff.

Good stuff: Crussh Smoothies

This post will probably mean nothing to our loyal North American readers, but here in London, England there is a fantastic chain of Juice bars called Crussh which offer fantastic smoothies. Not only are they very tasty, but they are also extremely healthy, which anyone will tell you is important to me as my body is like a temple. Also, unlike other lesser smoothies, these are made fresh and with frozen yoghurt (98% fat free natural – eat that TCBY).

I think this would be a great franchise to export to Canada and the US, I’m not really sure where the smoothie stands trend-wise in North America at the moment, but I’m pretty sure the health craze is still alive and kicking. Not only does Crussh offer smoothies but it also has a range of healthy lunches and breakfasts, so it would do great with the health-conscious lunch crowd and instead of a coffee in the morning, grab a Bananarama with an energy booster on the way to work! What do people think? Would this make a good business?

Good stuff Crussh.