Christmas is probably one of my favourite times of the year. I actually really enjoy spending time with friends and family. Enjoying good food, drink and of course, presents. I’m always a little overly generous at times during Christmas. I like the idea of having a ton of wrapped gifts for other people. I always try to get that one gift for one person that makes their holiday. A couple years ago it was Bon Jovi tickets for my Dad.

That being said, I’m also a big fan of getting a prank gift for someone. Typically that person is my brother. He’s 18, and for the last 8 or so year, there’s typically been SOMETHING to prank him. My sister and I are fans of the traditional coal prank, where you put a whole bunch of coal wrapped up in his stocking.

This year though, I want to make it a good one. I’m thinking of putting his gift in a freezer bag, freezing it in a bucket of water… then putting that frozen block into another watertight bag and then wrap that. Thoughts? Seems like a lot of work though for probably not a great pay off of stupid laughter.

Did you see Jimmy Kimmel the other day? He had parents give an early gift to their kids.. but it had to be a crappy gift. If you missed it, here you go:

Hilarious. Also, Fat slobs who love Star Wars make me smile. I think we also stumbled upon how to get America thin again?

And finally… because I know my opening rendition of “Twas” twasn’t very good… here you go!

I’m off to the Dominican on the 27th and will be doing some blogging from down there. Mostly to make people jealous. But I’ll probably have a post or two before that. Fuck I love Christmas!

Boxing is so much better. I might even become a boxer one day! They’ll make a movie about me called “The Pugilist Case of Rocky Bussey” where all my life I never once prepared for a fight, until one day in my late 50s I realize it’s my calling. Actually, I do have a little bit of a secret desire to learn a little bit one day. Always good to be quick on your feet and with your hands. ;)

Anyway, I’ve noticed a severe lack of boxing in Toronto. In fact, in all my years in Toronto, I haven’t even heard of any events!  Until now… October 22nd at Hershey Centre in Mississauga! This is a big event put on by Hennessy Sports, and features a card that’s designed to be a ‘Quebec vs Ontario’ series of matches. Montreal is the boxing capital of Canada, this is supposed to take some of the glory back to Ontario! While not in Toronto directly, this is the first step to bringing boxing to venues like the ACC.

Co-Headlined by a Super Featherweight matchup between Ontario’s Undefeated (15-0-1 with 7KOs) Logan McGuiness versus a world championship challenger and Quebecer, Benoit Gaudet and also with Undefeated Samuel Vargas of Mississauga taking on Ahmed Cheikho of Montreal in a walterweight match up. Others on the bill include  Lionell “Lonnie B” Thompson, Dillon Carman, Brandon “Bad Boy” Cook, Ibrahim “Firearm” Kamal, Natasha Spence, and Jeremy Abbott vs Harrison McBain.

You can purchase tickets on Ticketmaster.

OR!

You can win some through me! The great folks at Hennessy Sports have hooked me up with several pairs of tickets to giveaway! So here’s how to possibly win:

1. 1 entry: Follow Hennessy Sports on Twitter. Then comment here.

2. 1 entry: Like Hennessy Sports on Facebook. Then comment here.

3. 1 entry: Tweet “@HSportsCanada I want to see live boxing here in Ontario on #October22!”

Well, after a month of voting and a ton of media attention, (great practice for Talk Back Show) it’s time to get back into the content creation game. And you’ll be excited to know that I actually have a ton prewritten, and definitely a few that are bound to create the kind of discussion and dialogue you’re used to from me.

But first, let’s just wrap up Sexiest Candidate… while the radio appearances were fun, I’d say my television debut was the most exciting. And while nervous as hell, I feel like I held up well. Hopefully, this is just the start! Thanks again to Steve Paikin and the entire Agenda team for having me on.

Elected
Brad Duguid
Tim Hudak
Jeff Yurek
Michael Harris
David Orazietti
Andrea Horwath
Cheri DiNovo
Laurel Broten
Monte McNaughton
Jonah Schein
Teresa Armstrong
Bill Mauro
Dalton McGuinty

Runner Up
Karl Walsh
Lori Holloway
Marisa Sterling
Cortney Pasternak
Christine McGirr
Michael Lende
Pam Hundal
Donna Skelly
Liang Chen
Sandie Bellows
Helen Burstyn
Megan Cornell
Sophia Aggelonitis
Sarah Thomson
Andrea Mandel-Campbell
Ali Chahbar
Marilissa Gosselin
Paul Watson
Kevin Gaudet
Vince Agovino

Didn’t Place
Andrew Brannan
Aleksandra Navarro
Joe Whitfeld
Nancy Fiorentino
Angela Salewsky
Andrew Miller
Tanya Gutmanis
Matthew MacKenzie
Meredith Cross
Aren Bedrosyan
Erin Gorman
Cheryll San Juan
Michelle Bilek
Nik Spohr
Judith Van Veldhuysen
Taylor Howarth
Gina van den Burg
Mark Cairns
Kevin Lebonte
Kira Mees
Trevor Westerhoff
Stephanie-Lynn Russel
Paul McKeever
Steve Dyck
Evan Wiseman
Judi Falardeau
JD McGuire
George Singh
Charlie Taylor
Gerti Dervishi

So last Tuesday, @cdot_in_tdot and I got to participate against some great people including @jaycanadian, @keriblog, @cellguru, @wondermoms_ca, @jessehernick, @malindadenbok and others. Meeting at Ultra to sign in, and grab a little brunch we got to meet some of the team at Ford and the competition. I realize now that I signed something that I didn’t actually read… hopefully I still retain my name or whatever… I’ve already had enough trouble with other Zach Bussey’s showing up, I think I’d be pretty enraged if a Ford Zach Bussey hits the roads.

At this point were taken to Ontario Place where we get our cars for the day, and also participate in an obstacle course. We’re also given iPod Touch’s to film some of our day… Calvin and I are competitive and we were determined to win… so with the obstacle course, the key was not hitting any pylons, but we decided for not hitting pylons and speed (speed wasn’t tracked, we tracked with the iPod and on one of our tries we got 27 seconds.) Oh and never hit a pylon!

That same run, we apparently were ‘exceeding driver and car capabilities’, though, both driver and car handled incredibly! For 180HP, that car had some serious GO!

After that the “rally race” of sorts began… essentially it was going destination to destination to learn more about the car, while trying to be good driver. The car actually gave ‘awards’ for eco driving. Much like a video game, you could get achievements and points. Gaming mechanics in car is a very solid idea!

We also got puzzle pieces at each completed challenge to help us with the final quiz… (Pictured at the bottom of this post).

It was at the Havencrest Riding Academy(get it? Horse power?) in Oakville where the only really bad thing happened… see they have fences there… and those fences have a rope that runs around the top. These ‘ropes’ have a purpose… to shock the fuck out of people! Well, maybe not people… the horses I guess… but damn I got hit hard and for about 10 minutes my right arm was completely numb! The above photo is from two days after the event, and it’s since then cleared up mostly, but you can see the dark spot where I was hit with the electricity and my skin was breaking around it. Crazy! Now before you say anything… I didn’t know it was electrified! They apparently had these signs warning against it, but I have vision similar to Superman and I didn’t see them… Electricity is my kryptonite.

Anyway, that was the only bad experience of the day. The rest was fantastic. Ford really took care of us and treated everyone really well. We tested out the self park system built into the Ford Focus (and I imagine other cars soon?), which was so amazing. Honestly the spot was tiny, only slightly bigger than the car yet this thing did it with no problems. Then afterwards, free Starbucks. We learned that the car has a lot of recycled material in it, jean especially. Has a unique feature for parents called MyKey which allows a parent to set limits on the car such as volume, speed, seat belt reminders etc.

And the “MyFord Touch” voice controlled system + touch screen was really cool too – albeit it has a bit of a learning curve. “Lucy” as we called her, wasn’t much a fan of mine at first… but over time she grew on me and started to respond to me better. I considered it foreplay and only after a while was she warmed up to really respond to me. Then we got along fine.

As a non-driver, this car actually made me want to become one haha. As a passenger though, I can say that without a doubt it would be a nice car to ride in!

At the end of it all, back to Ultra for dinner, drinks and to fill out the end quiz. With the full puzzle, we had all except for one answer correct we think… so we waited to see who won the day… and the winners were Calvin and I! We’re each getting an iPad 2!

Ford really treated us well, which is why this post is very complimentary. It was a very good day, lots of laughs, great food and a unique experience! If you’re in the market for a new car, I can safely recommend the Focus! The features are incredible. In fact, if you’re thinking of buying… take me with you on a test drive! I can show you all the different features built in. I’m basically a Focus Expert now.

Learn more about the Focus here. And make sure you follow @ammar_ammar of Ford.