Author Archives: Filip Bojic

Interested in learning how to use a sword?

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People are often fascinated by what once was. There are those who could not care about what happened five years ago, but there are also those who look back and dig out what happened five hundred years ago and more.

If we turn our eyes to the time period between the years 1200 and 1600, you will find a lot of medieval swordplay. While many see swordplay and medieval martial arts outdated, some still take the time to learn and experience what it is like to wield a weapon. For those interested, there are places where they can learn how to do just that.

Image from Vancouver Courier

Academie Duello is one such place that teaches those interested in medieval martial arts. They focus on Europe, so if you are more interested in wielding a katana or a scimitar, you may need to look elsewhere. But if you want to learn how to properly use longswords, rapiers, daggers, or even polearms, you can call and book a class.

Image from Wikipedia

Academie Duello looks at manuscripts dating as far back as the 1300s for accurate portrayals of sword fighting. They aim to teach students with as much historical accuracy as possible, with maybe a few more modern techniques thrown in the mix.

There are so many things to learn about from medieval times. The roughly four-hundred-year period that is focused on by Academie Duello shifted many times by what was used. From advances in swords to the changes in armor, you’ll find there is more than meets the eye when looking at a rapier in its time rather than a longsword, and how much clothing affected the weapons of the day. For history buffs, there is a museum where you can look at weapons and armor from all over Europe. And for those just wanting to get down and dirty with a sword, there is no better place to learn right here in Vancouver.

What are you sitting in?

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Chairs. What’s so special about chairs? Unless you want a throne to sit on and assess your kingdom, there are two types of high-end chairs on the market: gaming chairs, and office chairs. The question is: what are the differences, and which should you choose?

Image from Gaming Chairs / TopGamingChair

First of all, it needs to be made clear what exactly is a gaming chair. While there are many types of gaming chairs, the kind we are analyzing here is PC and Racing gaming chairs. These chairs are meant for gaming at a desk and closely resemble office chairs in what they bring to the table. The average high-end gaming and office chair come equipped with casters, swiveling bases, armrests, padding for the seat and back, and a number of adjustable settings.

While the base features are very alike, both chairs have their differences starting with presentation. PC and Racer gaming chairs are designed after luxury and sports car seats. They prioritize style and therefore often come with bright accents and patterns in the design. They also usually sport a high back with a headrest, which many office chairs do not.

Image from ChairsFX

Image from Unisource Parts

Office chairs like to prioritize comfort. Back support is a wonderful thing they like to flaunt, as well as their adjustable settings for maximum comfort. Office chairs tend to be more low profile, not really caring what they look like as much because they are not there for show. Gaming chairs on the other hand like to sometimes bring a little flair for streamers. Gaming chairs also can come with built-in surround sound speakers for immersing yourself in the game, which can become obsolete if using a headset.

So the choice really comes down to preference. Do you value the flair and status of a gaming chair, or are you looking for a more low key comfortable sitting experience? Or if you absolutely don’t care about what you sit in and just want to be able to lay down and fall asleep, get a yogibo.

Image from Yogibo

Books – reading or listening?

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Technology in the world is advancing faster than ever. Self-driving cars, robotics, even a smart ring. It’s out with the old and in with the new, but some old things like to have a tendency of preserving the way they are done.

Image from Good e-Reader

Books are one of those things. Reading has shifted over the years to digital, of course, e-books became popular in the 2000s to readers who wanted to have many books without needing lots of space for storage. Of course, there were always those who preferred the hard copy.

Technology took reading a step further. Well, not really reading, but books. Audiobooks became huge to anyone who wanted to get through a book without actually having to sit down to manually read it. The first audiobooks came out way back in 1932, they came in the form of a recording studio by The American Foundation for the Blind. They started becoming more widely used in the 1960s and 1980s when cassette tapes and compact discs became more readily available. By 1994 the term “audiobook” was an industry standard.

Image from Voices.com

In the year 2000, Amazon’s Audible released the first portable audio player that was designed for audiobooks. The upgrades came with the years and now listeners can have hundreds of hours from their smartphones with more than 35,000 books to choose from.

In 2016, the Audio Publishers Association revealed that audiobook sales came out to $2.1 billion, beating out the $1.8 billion of hardcover copy books by around $3 million. In 2020, audiobook sales reached $3.3 billion, and the industry is only growing.

Many readers may look down on audiobooks, saying it’s not really reading. Listeners say audiobooks help them focus and pick up more of the book, allowing them to get through more novels. So what’s your side, will you be reading or listening to your next book?

Perfect places to dine out

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There has been quite a hassle during the quarantine over restaurants, their capacities, and safety for both the customers and staff. A buzz for sure about when things will be open again and if dining will ever be what it once was. That is all in the past now though. Restaurants are open and serving, maybe not like they used to, but you can still go out and get a tasty meal. So, if you are a foodie, be sure to take a look at these three Metro Vancouver restaurants the next time your stomach is asking for a delicious meal.

Lamajoun

Image from Yelp

Lamajoun is a Mediterranean restaurant in Richmond. They serve Armenian food for takeout or dining in from the hours of 11 am-6:30 pm Tuesday through Saturday. Customers are delighted by all the options on the menu, which are delicious and plentiful. With reasonable prices and contactless payment for more safety, Lamajoun is a great option for your next food trip.

 

Fable

Image from fablekitchen.ca

Fable is a new Canadian restaurant in Vancouver. It is open all week long from 5 pm-10 pm and on the weekends opens at 10 am. They have got ribs, halibut, duck, and plenty of other mouth-watering items on the menu. Fable is a farm to table restaurant, so the menu does get adjusted now and then, but that’s all the better when it comes to dining.

 

Joojak

Image from Yelp

Joojak is a Chinese restaurant a little on the Vancouver side of Boundary. They serve from noon to 9 pm on most days and are closed on Mondays. Noodles, dumplings, and even pork and lamb burgers to boot, dine-in, or take out anything you want. The restaurant has a homemade feel to all its food and is just waiting for you to order.

 

So what are you waiting for? Maybe until you get hungry… but when you do, you know where to go.

Winter break could be extended

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December has hit and school is close to wrapping up before winter break. Usually, winter break starts a few weeks into December and lasts for two weeks, this of course varies depending on the school, college, or university students are attending.

Image from Unisus School

There is some talk however about extending winter break this year in British Columbia. Dr. Bonnie Henry and the Ministry of Education are looking at options for an early winter break in order to reduce the chance of COVID-19 spreading. This of course would only be in elementary and high school, who are scheduled to be in classes until December 18th. Colleges and universities have their own schedule to follow and a lot of those students are already taking most of their classes from home.

Image from Vancouver Sun

So this begs the question: should winter break be extended? Dr. Bonnie Henry says “We can see that transmission rates are less in schools than they are in other parts of our communities, and we know they are also incredibly important for families and for children to have in-person, in-class schools. But we’re looking at all of our options”

If B.C. wants to make the change it better happen soon, the 18th is coming rather quickly. Ontario has already decided not to push up the break but is considering extending it later in January. This could be the path to take as it allows for more time to decide and would not speed up any courses that still have lots of material to get through.

Education is such a strange field to tackle in a pandemic like this. The need to be there and learning in person is very important, especially in younger students. Any post-secondary courses that are hands-on are also a challenge to balance. All anyone can really do right now is hold tight and keep learning as best they can.

Snow is here, time to hit the mountains

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The skiing and riding season has begun this year. Typically, in British Columbia, the skiing and riding season would start in November and run until April, possibly even later depending on the snow that year. This year, there has been heavy snowfall already. The three local mountains all have snow on them and have been seeing it since October. There are some changes to how those mountains are operating this year due to COVID-19, and if you want the full details there is a link to another article with all the details you need.

Prepare to shred some powder!

If you want to go on some bigger mountains, travel a little further north from Vancouver to North America’s largest ski resort, Whistler Blackcomb. The resort has already seen more than a meter of snowfall this year, and plenty more to come in the coming months.

If you have other ideas in mind and are willing to go for a four-and-a-half-hour drive, Sun Peaks Resort is a wonderful place to visit. Most trails and lifts are already open, and while it does not have as much snowfall as Whistler Blackcomb, there is and will be plenty enough to shred powder all the way down.

Image from Whistler Question

All these mountains have been available for years now. The oldest being Cypress Mountain which opened in 1927 for skiing. Following Cypress, Grouse Mountain had its first ski club formed in 1929. Mount Seymour opened for skiing almost ten years later in 1938. Almost 30 years later was when Whistler opened in 1966. Sun peaks was the last of the five to open, known as Tod Mountain beforehand, Sun Peaks officially opened in 2007.

Whether or not you want to travel away for a vacation, or just stay local and hit up some smaller mountains, be sure to prepare yourself with a mask and proper gear, this year will be a snowy one.

Cyber Monday is still going on

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Cyber Monday this year had a massive sale. It was set on Friday, November 30th this year and reached almost $11 billion in sales, more than a 15% increase from last year. If you are a little unfamiliar with what cyber Monday is, think Black Friday, but for shopping online. Black Friday happens on the first Friday after thanksgiving (American thanksgiving, not Canadian) and Cyber Monday happens, probably like you would have guessed, the following Monday.

Image from IMFBlog

To some It is a surprise, to see such a great turnout after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Experts are speculating that the total GDP loss could be around $9 trillion. The obviously showed no effect on the Cyber Monday sales though.

And the sales are still going on. The event is officially over, but sales are still happening right now. Much like Black Friday sales extending to the entire weekend instead of just the official day, Cyber Monday tends to linger around a little bit after the 24-hour time period. This year Cyber Monday has extended to a full Cyber Week. It is a great time to hop on your computer and do some online shopping, especially if you are looking to buy some electronics, TVs, laptops, even gaming consoles.

Image from Hardware Zone

If you are looking to buy the new next-gen consoles though, you are out of luck, as they are still out of stock. However, if you already have a gaming console of any kind and want some new games, now is the perfect time to go on a shopping spree. Games are getting prices chopped all over, so you can score some major titles for much less. Even the brand-new releases like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are getting a small discount.

The time is now if you want to hop online and buy big.

COVID-19 has settled in

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It has been over a year since the first COVID-19 case, which occurred in China on November 17th last year. For Canada, there is still more than a month to go until the anniversary of the first case come around, which was on the 25th of January. British Columbia’s first case happened shortly after on the 28th.

Image from CTV News

It is a wonder how the world had a complete redesign of how it works in pretty much the span of a year. And to those who were hoping that COVID-19 would have gone away before the summer hit, it still does not seem to have an end in sight.

British Columbia went into lockdown almost nine months ago on March 5th, 2020. The restrictions have since been loosened and tightened over the following months. Cases rose steadily for a while, occasionally flattening and dropping in May but picked back up again over the months of July and August. And in September when school began again, there was a second wave that has still been rising steadily until now.

Image from Twitter

Schools in the greater Vancouver area have had some effect on that rising number. Class sizes have been reduced but high school is still a bunch of kids in a room together. While there have been shifts to online learning, not every educational facility has made the shift. It is strange when you think about it, how everything shut down when there were not nearly as many cases as there were when everything reopened. But then again, masks and social distancing have been put to use everywhere.

Now that COVID has actually settled in as part of everyday life, it is hard to imagine how the world will react when it eventually dies out. A vaccine is one the way, but it might still be years until the world goes back to the way it was, if ever.

The Holiday Season is in full swing

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December has arrived, and with that, the holiday decorations are pouring in. the optimal time to decorate and get into the Christmas spirit varies depending on who you ask.

Image from History.com

Some say it is never too early and start whenever they please, some say you should not even think about it until after Halloween, others that you should not think about it until after Remembrance Day. Some people south of the border would argue that the perfect time to start is right after Thanksgiving, which for them is on November 26th, so it does not apply to any Canadians, who celebrate it on October 11th.

One set time that almost everyone agrees on though, unless you happen to be speaking to Ebenezer Scrooge, is that once December hits, everyone is free to go as crazy as they would like when it comes to decorating.

Image from NKyTribune

The tradition of decorating shows evidence to date as far back as the Egyptians when celebrating the Winter Solstice, but modern Christmas trees and decorations are a little more recent than that. They were actually brought to light by Germans in the 16th century. The evergreen trees were first used in church plays and later put into homes by Christians, which became a tradition over the years.

The tradition spread over Europe, and German immigrants coming to America and Canada brought the tradition with them. The decorations adapted over time and changed from candles, nuts, and some fruit to lead and glass, and then further to tinsel and what we have today.

So if you are ever wondering where traditional Christmas trees and decorations came from, it was the Germans in the 16th century. The tradition of course has disassociated itself from its religious origins in many parts of the world and is now celebrated by people of all sorts of beliefs and faiths.

So get decorating, and happy holidays.

The rise of Zoom

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Online chat platforms have been around for a while. Discord has been around since 2011. Skype was made way back in 2003. Zoom is one of the most popular services that has risen up during the times of the pandemic, for schooling, work, and all sorts of other things. But Zoom isn’t as recent as you might think.

Image from Variety

Image from Net Aware

 

 

 

 

 

Image from Business News Daily

Just like Discord, Zoom was developed back in 2011 by Eric Yuan, former corporate vice president for Cisco Webex, under the name Saasbee. It changed its name to Zoom in May 2012. Later in 2013, Zoom became partnered with business-to-business collaboration software providers such as Redbooth, Logitech, Vaddio, and InFocus. Zoom continued to grow over the years little by little, expanding with more customers and upgrading its software to allow more and bigger meetings to take place.

Zoom really started getting popular in 2019, when COVID-19 came around. Since the world began quarantining, education and work had to find a way around the problem in order to continue, this is where Zoom stepped in. Not only was Zoom used for classrooms and work though, but social events such as meetings with friends, birthday parties, lunch meetings, even dates. In the year 2020, Zoom was experiencing 300 million meetings every day. This skyrocketed from the meek 10 million in December of 2019.

Image from Business Insider

It is an absolute wonder how one platform became so popular so fast. The pandemic and quarantine pushed it to do so, but it was a surprise to many who previously knew Skype and Discord as the main online communication platforms to suddenly be pushed into a “brand new” site called Zoom. Even if it was nine years old.

To those previously used to online meetings, the switch was more than comfortable. But to everyone else, it was a rocky turn of the ship that doesn’t seem to be changing course any day soon.