A Whisky Contest for Bender

"Good sir, what has your Bender costume been up to lately?"
- Random Internet People

In a word (plus an article of speech), a contest! Bender's been battling for one of the coveted top five positions over at World Whisky Day's photo contest. Master Blender Richard Paterson will then choo-choo-choose the winner from those five photos.

During the first week I was actually surprised to find myself in the top five but that didn't last long. Over the Easter weekend my photo slipped to sixth and then seventh place despite Blair Bowman himself connoting on Facebook that my photo was brilliant!

It took some perseverance, but I pulled through and am currently mid-pack of the top five.

Many of the photos in the running are really great. Excellent even. And I'd be happy just to finish in the top five. But let's face it. It would be even sweeter if I actually won that fantastic prize.

Can Bender pull it off? I think so. After all, my photo encompasses more of the whisky-drinking marketplace than the others, as mine is the only top photo to feature women. And I am sure Mr. Paterson recognizes that the whisky market is more than men. Because someone wise enough to have blended what's been declared the world's best blended scotch in TWO prestigious competitions is surely wise enough to include men, women AND robots.

I sincerely thank everyone who has voted for me. A HUGE thumbs up from your favourite spirit-chugging robot, Bender!

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You can click here to see what Blair Bowman said.
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Update May 2012: My photo did not win. The winner was a great outdoor photo by Klemen Saje from Slovenia. My congratulations to him!

World Whisky Day 2012

Tuesday March 27, 2012 was the first ever World Whisky Day (despite the fact that it's also the 5th "International Whisky Day", a lower-key celebration, started by friends of the late revered reviewer Michael Jackson).

It trended on Twitter and the website even crashed! The idea was simply for people to get together and enjoy some good whisky, anywhere in the world. What's better than that?

Although that was a rhetorical question, it actually has an answer; a contest!

The prize offered is a bottle of Whyte & Mackay 30 year old blended whisky. It's not available at the LCBO so I checked a few websites and found its value to be between 137 and 162 British pounds. That's nearly $300 Cdn. Not too shabby!

And the contest isn't over yet. In fact, it hasn't even started. Deadline for submitting a photo was March 31st. Now, the folks at World Whisky Day are going to upload the photos to the WWD page on Facebook. The five photos with the most 'likes' will then be judged by Whyte & Mackay’s Master Blender, Richard Paterson.

I decided to invite a few friends over and don my old Bender costume for a photo op. After all, Bender is fuelled by alcohol so it seemed appropriate. So what does Bender drink? Well, he definitely enjoys The Balvenie Doublewood. And so did the meatbags. Happy World Whisky Day! Or International Whisky Day!

Recycling Gold

Desperate for cash, our city left two gold recycling boxes on our front porch today in the hopes that we will ignore Russell Oliver's pleas for our used gold, and toss it all into the recycling boxes instead.

Okay. Not exactly.

The truth of the matter is, I am Recyclor. All shall bow down before me and my mighty recycling skills! Gasp! at the "good variety of newspapers and cartons" I recycled. Excite! to the fact that my blue boxes and green cart had "no contamination." Thrill! to "diverting more than the community's target of 65% of waste from landfill." Gasp once again! When I tell you it would have been even higher if the city hadn't tested our garbage the week after Halloween!

It began back in November when a city employee in a non-garbage truck type vehicle picked up our waste and sorted through it to see how well we were recycling (and maybe snatch a credit card number or two).

Turns out we were doing well enough to earn their coveted "Gold Recycling Box" award. There was much excitement in our house tonight as we celebrated our recycling accomplishments after discovering the "gold" award on our front porch. The two new gold-coloured boxes are meant to replace our blue bins. This action will infuse jealousy and anger into our neighbours, who will then attempt to one-up us, keeping-up-with-the-Jones's style.

With everyone competing to be the best recyclers in all the land, the city wins. Especially if people begin throwing their gold into the bins. It's a very sneaky plan masterminded by ex-big corp. CEOs, small-time Trump wannabe's, and perhaps old Russell himself.

The program requires a citizen to sign up their address and give the city permission to rifle through their garbage for a waste-study. About 2 years ago, I did just that but was unaware that there was an award associated with it.

I had long since forgotten about it, until one day in late October when I received a phone call from a city employee. The pleasant, yet slightly recyclable-sounding woman stated that they were collecting my waste for the study I'd signed up for. Her instructions were to leave our refuse out on a specific date that was not our usual pick-up date. I gathered our throw-outables in the kitchen for one last hurrah, then kicked them to the curb without so much as a hug.

Pulling in to the driveway two months later, I laughed as Suz questioned the bins with, "yellow recycling bins? What the heck does the city want us to recycle NOW?"

It took a moment to set in, and I exclaimed, "we must have won! It was that recycling thingamajigger!" My only worry (associated with this event) is now that my gold boxes are so prominent on the street, I will face extra pressure to keep my recycling prowess at the kingly levels I've achieved. "Recyclor challenge everyone to recycle their best!"

Bender Costume Construction

April 2012 update.

I feel great thanks to the kudos from fellow bloggers as well as from other costumed Halloween lovers at the Boston Pizza Costume Contest I won October 31. Therefore, I thought a post on how I made my Bender costume was in order.

My homemade Bender costume started off as a hope. I knew it would be difficult even if I could find the parts I needed. But more importantly, I knew it was going to be impossible if I couldn't find the proper head. That's why I started in August.

Strolling through a Zellers one afternoon Suz stumbled across a $7 plastic garbage can, quite by luck. I popped the top off and slid it over my head. It was perfect.

I began working on the body first. I bought a Quick-tube, or sono-tube, for pouring concrete footings from Home Depot for $9. I bought the largest one they had, 12" diameter. As most people would agree, 12" is too small, so I split it open. It was also too tall for my torso, so I cut it almost in half. It was also too yellow, but that was easy to fix.

Using an angled strip from the bottom half, I wedged it into the backside, where my shiny metal ass would be, and screwed it together from the inside. I used other small curved bits of leftover tube as the joiners. The cracks were filled with Polyfilla and I later sanded them smooth. See Bender's body here.

While the glorious amounts of Polyfilla dried, I worked on the footcups. They were easy. I bought a pair of plastic salad bowls from the dollar store, flipped them upside down and, using a Dremel, cut feet holes out of them. I took an old pair of Nike's and glued the toe to the front of Bender's footcup. The glue (Goop) was flexible and allowed me to move the shoe around a bit. Finally, I painted them with grey primer, and attached a flap of grey fabric to cover my black shoes.

Back on the body, I carefully measured where my arms should go, and using a jigsaw, cut out arm holes in the sides. The tube would sit on my shoulders, so I attached a couple of spongey rubber pads that were a family heirloom, passed down from my grandpa to my dad, and finally to me. True story.

Once I climbed inside it I realized I could neither sit nor walk up stairs. With the jigsaw, I cut a flap in the front, but left it attached in the middle. Using carpenter's glue I attached a tab on either side of the flap and glued a pair of attracting neo magnets to each one plus the flap. The flap could be popped open with my thigh and would slam back down and be held in place by the expensive magnets.

Bender's head is unique and instantly recognizable. I knew I had to get it right so I was very careful and spent the most time here. First, I made the visor where the eyes would go. I made it from cardboard and added popsicle sticks for strength and a smoothness that bent cardboard is not known for. I filled in the little gaps with Polyfilla and sanded till it was perfect.

I know Bender is 30% iron, but in my case, he was 30% filler & adhesives. Using more Goop glue, I sealed the garbage flap in the top of the dome. Then I filled in the gap with, yep, you got it, more Polyfilla.

Using white caulking, I sealed the finished visor to the garbage can and smoothed it with my supreme caulking skills. I cut the top of a spray-paint can in half - horizontally - and glued it to the top of the garbage can to form the base of Bender's antenna. On that I attached a tapered tube of rolled paper. Finally, I mounted a wooden doll's head, which I purchased at Michael's for about $1.69.

The Dremel was too crazy and unpredictable to cut the mouth out, so I carefully drilled about 40 pilot holes around the mouth perimeter, then cut through them all with a nice blade. Once I sanded the edges smooth the head was ready for paint. Again, I used grey primer, as it matches Bender's colour perfectly.

The dollar store provided Bender's eyes. I used the domes off the packaging of two micro remote control cars, carved them to fit the contour of the garbage can, and spray painted them white. I painted the inside of the visor black, then glued the eyes in place. Once dry, I used a black Sharpie to draw his square pupils.

The fabric for Bender's arms & legs was cheap. I found 1.7 metres of the most perfect grey material at Fabricland for about $7. I had a friend of Suz's family sew this fabric onto some cheap clothing I picked up at Value Village for about $10. She also sewed the most excellent 3-finger square gloves from the same material. Here I am trying it on.

The mouth area is where I see out. I used a hot glue gun and attached some sheer fabric that used to hang in our bedroom window. Suz hated it, so it came down, and this seemed like a great use for it. I drew Bender's teeth with a black Sharpie. Inside the helmet I glued two strips I cut from popsicle sticks. The first reason was to add strength incase the mouth was poked from the other side, and secondly, to hold a neo magnet in place.

This magnet was the key to awesomeness. I glued the magnet's mate to the end of a big plastic novelty cigar that I picked up at Party Packager's for 49 cents. With the magnets, I could put the cigar "in" my mouth whenever I wanted. It worked flawlessly, and the Boston Pizza patrons agreed with their cheering.

This was the most elaborate costume, by far, I've ever attempted. Total cost was close to $100 which included a few extra parts I ruined and had to buy again. Total labour was about 25 fun and stressful hours. Everyone but my dad thought I was crazy. But it all paid off in the end when I won enough money to cover the cost of making it, plus more.

So, if you ever want to attempt a Bender costume, I hope this helps. If not, well, you know what you can bite.