My Top 10 Fruits

I don’t know what possessed me to make this list, but here we are. Despite being a picky eater, I’ve always been pretty good about eating fruits. Maybe not as much as the Food Guide recommends, but still. I thought I’d list out my favourites, and get a nice ranking so everyone knows where I stand. Also, I should note that I am White™, so this list is very basic and not at all ‘exotic’ because I simply have not been exposed to anything but the ‘regular’ fruits my White™ father buys at the grocery store.

1. Grapefruit – These are delicious. You eat them in such a fun way by scooping out the little sections with a spoon. They also last forever in the fridge, and even if the outside looks a little bruised or squishy, the inside is always perfect. I feel like these are underrated, but I think they’re just great and deserve more love.
2. Pears – shoutout to all the pear. These are a great fruit. It’s pretty easy to tell by feel if they’re ripe, and even if they’re not fully ripe, they’re still usually edible, which I have to commend. My only complaint is that the yellow pears bruise easily.
3. Raspberries – If you take me to a fresh Pick Your Own raspberry farm, I will eat my body weight in raspberries. Love them. From the store though, I need them to be firm. When they are, it’s good stuff.
   
4. Kiwis – Like grapefruit, I enjoy that they’re eaten in a unique way (I scoop the halves out). These are very tasty, but they take forever to ripen, and it can be unpleasant to scoop if you try too early, so I can’t put these higher on this list.
5. Cantelope/Honeydew – I’ve combined them because they’re essentially the same and I enjoy them equally.
6. Peach – A peach when it’s perfectly ripe and juicy is the best, hands down. However, it’s not a huge window. A less juicy one is still enjoyable, though, as long as it’s ripe. Peaches also bruise easily, but the bruise isn’t as brown and doesn’t taste bad like on other fruits.
7. Plum – these are respectable, middle of the road fruits. They don’t need to be juicy, but some are, and that’s great. I don’t find myself craving plums ever, but when they’re in season, I enjoy them.
8. Blueberries – like raspberries, I demand that these are firm. I enjoy filling my hand with them and shoving the whole handful into my mouth.
   
9. Strawberries – when they’re good, they’re good, but when they’re bad, and they taste like crunchy grass, I really can’t defend them at that point. My family has gotten to the point where we don’t eat strawberries unless there’s a can of whipped cream on hand just in case we need to dress up the grass taste.
10. Apples – these are a solid fruit, and I respect that there are so many different kinds. But they bruise easily, and I don’t particularly enjoy biting apples. Also, the insides get so brown so fast when they’re exposed, and I just have no tolerance for that.
    

Honorable mentions: cherries and watermelon. And this seems like a good place to mention that things like lemons or tomatoes, though technically are classified as fruits and are things I like to eat, are not Fruit™ enough to be on this list. Sorry not sorry.

What’s your favourite fruit? Sound off in the comments.

That’s all for now!

P.S. tomorrow (April 8th) marks 7 years of this blog being officially in existence! Thank you to all who’ve been on this journey!

 

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Monthly Look Ahead: April 2022

March ended up being a pretty busy month for me. I did not have a single day where I was just sitting around at home passing the time. Between seeing people, curling, and whatever else, ya gurl kept busy. So I’m not too disappointed that so far my April seems a bit lighter. It’s been a while since I had a day where I can just play video games alone in my room for several straight hours.

• The month is starting off on an interesting note as Morbius is finally coming out. It was supposed to come out in January but COVID delayed it. Its official release date is April 1st because anyone who is unironically going to see it is a Fool. Early reviews are pretty bad so it’s sure to be something.
• There’s a somewhat large professional curling tournament coming to a city near me (Toronto). On one of the days it’s happening, I’m already going to be downtown, so I convinced some people to go with me to a game though they’re very unfamiliar with the sport. I’ve never actually been to see professional curling live in person, so it’ll be neat to see the players I’ve only ever seen on TV.

  

  Me and my friends watching curling (just kidding, we’re all going to have a great time)

• The wonderful ladies on my Sunday curling team have been talking about going bowling or something, and with our curling ending this month, we’ll have more free time, so that might happen.

And that’s it! Like I said, pretty chill, but I’m okay with it. What’s your April looking like? I’m also looking forward to warmer weather. Not having to wear a winter jacket is always a blessing for this Canadian gal.

 

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The Fleeting Music Landscape

Music is and forever will be prelevant in general pop culture, but how it is consumed and how it has evolved has changed a lot in the past few decades.

As you know, around the Christmas holidays, ‘All I Want For Christmas (Is You)’ by Mariah Carey is everywhere. Everyone knows the song. I was talking about it and its pervasiveness this past holiday season when the following question was posed to me: will there ever be another song that’s as iconic and widely known?

And I answered no.

Music is so spread out nowadays that it’s is no longer forced upon us. Fifteen, twenty years ago, there was no Spotify, no iTunes. Yes, there were CDs and those on computers maybe had some mp3s, but we all still listened to the radio a lot and watched the same music videos on MTV. Thus, we all knew of the same big songs and big artists. But now, we can tailor our listening habits to our exact tastes and find songs that radios would never think of playing, so we don’t waste time listening to their set lineup. Music is now a personal thing enjoyed on one’s own, and sometimes never shared.

Obviously, Carey’s hit has the benefit of being a seasonal song so every year it makes a comeback, whereas other popular songs that everybody knows of like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ don’t have a timeline to follow to force themselves back into the spotlight, and this can affect popularity.

And since we’re all in control of music now, we can move past songs and artists quicker. Of course there are big, popular songs still, but they’re fads that come in and out, and even artists with the number one song can struggle for a lasting career past it.

And speaking of artist careers, I think this concept of music spreading out also relates to the idea that winning a competition show guarantees you a career like it’s advertised. Back in the days of there only being network TV to consume, everyone and their mom would be up to date with shows like American Idol. When a winner was announced, everyone knew their name and music, so yes, they did have a basically set career ahead of them. Even if you didn’t watch the show, you still probably know of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and even runner-ups like Adam Lambert.

American Idol winners in 2008 be like

So it’s super interesting to me that nowadays, shows like The Voice have had over 20 seasons in the past decade with big-name mentors, and I, someone who is fairly up on pop culture knowledge, can’t name a single winner. Not a one. Do these winners have music careers now? Am I just not in the right places to hear their music? Or is music so spread out now that the only fans are the ones who watched the show, and they struggle to grow in such a competitive industry?

I’m not complaining that the music landscape has shifted. I love being in control of what I listen to. But maybe it is a bit sad that society won’t collectively come together because of music anymore. Unless it’s coming together to agree on how awful songs are. ‘Gangnam Style’, I’m looking at you.

I’m sure in the next few decades, music as a whole and how we consume it will continue to evolve even further, and I’m fine with that. But it is interesting to consider what we may lose in this process.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

 

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A Roll-Up The Rim Rant

Apologies to the non-Canadians reading this, but I’m pretty disappointed by this that I need to rant about it.

The iconic Canadian food chain Tim Hortons does this event every year called Roll Up The Rim. The concept isn’t that unique, so maybe you’ve seen another chain do it too or something similar. Basically for a month, there are special Tims cups made, where after you finish your drink, you’re supposed to roll up the cup rim to see if you win a prize. Prizes can range from a free donut to a free car.

I always enjoyed this event. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it in Monthly Look Aheads over the years. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I definitely make my way to Tims for hot chocolate a lot more when Roll Up is on because I think it’s fun. I remember as a kid, my whole family would make a Tims trip after church sometimes just because of Roll Up.

When COVID started years ago, Tim Hortons understandably didn’t really want an event that involved touching things your mouth was on and helping others roll their rims (sometimes the rolling was a struggle that you really had to use your teeth for) so they went virtual. Roll a virtual rim on a virtual cup on some website (actually, I think there was a virtual wheel to spin, if I recall correctly). Because of the pandemic, I didn’t go out much so I never got a chance to do it.

So here we are in 2022. Things in my area of Canada are somewhat back to normal. We’re vaxed and masked, and you can sit in a Tims to enjoy your food or drink. The season of Roll Up is back and there are commercials for it all the time on TV. So I go to a Tim Hortons and order two drinks. After they are consumed, I pull out my phone to begin figuring out how I roll, since it is still a virtual process. That’s when I learn that unless I had informed the lady at the cash register that I wanted to play and registered through the app ahead of time, the cups were useless.

Tim Hortons: why aren’t your employees trained to ask for this when I made my purchase? I had the app downloaded and could have pulled it out, but I wasn’t prompted. I didn’t know. Maybe it’s partly on me for being out of the loop for a couple years, but still.

And your commercials don’t help either. They show someone buying a drink but there’s no mention of an app being needed ahead of time. Just a happy employee saying, “just scan to roll! Every cup is a winner!” It feels a little deceptive.

Doing it digitally in 2020 because of the pandemic was fine and made sense. But by still doing it in 2022 when restrictions have lifted, for one, and still not making it easy to actually play, for two, is unacceptable. If I’m struggling, I can only imagine how other people are with it. What about old people without smartphones? Or people without data going quickly through the drive-thru? You’d think that if Tims wanted to sell more cups and include everyone in this fun event, they’d make it easy or at least clear. Go back to the way it was. Take me back to the days of rolling up the actual rims.

I know there’s basically a literal war going on on the other side of the world, and in the grand scheme of things, Tim Hortons’ silly little cup game is nothing, but maybe someone from the franchise will see this and know that I’m pretty disappointed in how it’s run. I can’t do much else from my blog.

That’s all for now.

 

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I Am Your Scholarly Sources

In my nearly seven years of blogging, I’ve been faced with this interesting scenario twice: someone wanting to cite my blog in their academic work.

I’ve said yes both times. I mean, why not? I went to school and I wrote many papers. I know how important a good source is for a project, and if someone sees something of use in my blog, then I support that.

I just think it’s funny. My blog, though not unprofessional, has always been an outlet for just whatever nonsense I want to post. Minimal SEO, minimal editing, and minimal research. It’s largely a vibes-only kind of thing, ya know? I love inciting conversation and thoughts from my writing, but I just never considered that that would happen in academic cases ever. I was just happy in the comments section.

But it’s very cool that blogs like mine can even be used. Obviously I don’t know the scope of the projects, but I remember dreading the research phase of my own essays because so many sources, especially the peer-reviewed ones, are so dense and written in such a pretentious, complex way. I’d like to think that my blog was and is a refreshing change for these people deep in the trenches of research.

Sometimes I feel like blogs are only read by other bloggers and that breaking out of that bubble is hard, but I think having these academics find and use my posts is proof that it’s possible once in a while. I like having that impact.

Anyway, I am amused greatly, and have spent a lot of time recently thinking about how cool this whole thing is, so I wanted to share it with you all. It goes without saying that if anyone else wants to cite me, feel free to contact me and let me know!

That’s all for now!

 

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