7 Foods I’d Never Say No To

I may be a picky eater who doesn’t eat a wide variety of food, but that doesn’t mean I have no taste. I have favourite foods too, but this list is beyond favourite foods. This list is foods that give me life. Foods that I hold near and dear to my heart. Foods that make me me. Here they are:

The alternate title for this blog post is “7 Foods That You Could Wake Me Up In The Middle Of The Night To Offer Me And I’d Happily Accept” but I didn’t think that was too SEO-friendly.

1. Dill Pickles – just thinking about them gets my mouth watering. I think that the pickles I make are very good, but I’m not opposed to a store-bought pickle! Spicy pickles are especially good, too, but some brands just don’t bring the heat the way I want.

2. Butter Popcorn – salted is fine too, but that doesn’t compete with butter. That buttery movie theater popcorn is widely overpriced, but damn, is it not the best? You know it’s good when you can see how yellow the popcorn is.

3. Spicy fries – the pub at my university had these spicy fries, and for $5, I could get a huge serving of them and a drink, and that meal got me through some awful courses. Unlike spicy pickles, these fries weren’t hot spicy, but flavoured, and a perfect shade of orange. Sadly, the pub isn’t open on weekends or holidays, so I haven’t been back there since graduation, but I’m seriously thinking of taking a vacation day and heading out there just for fries.

4. Fresh cheese pizza – when the cheese is still gooey and the sauce is fresh…perfect. I’ll eat any cheese pizza, but when it’s fresh out of the oven, and not sitting in some display for who knows how long, that’s the good stuff. Bonus points if there’s some fresh basil on top.

5. Bruschetta – for the life of me, I’ll never understand why restaurants want to fancy up what should be a simple dish: bread, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, herbs. That’s it. Maybe some light cheese on top. I don’t need balsamic vinegar or onions or whatever else they try to put on it. For this reason, homemade bruschetta is always the best. But I also eat canned bruschetta topping on buns, and that stuff’s good too.

6. Mint chocolate – some people hate it, but I love it. From After Eights to Mint Aero bars, I don’t think I’ve met a chocolate mint treat I didn’t like.

7. President’s Choice White Cheddar Mac And Cheese – Kraft is great, but when it comes to white cheddar flavoured mac and cheese, the PC brand tops. Sorry to all you non-Canadians who don’t get to experience the magic.

I like what I like, but in the case of these 7 things, I love what I love. What food would you happily accept into your life at any hour of the day?

That’s all for now!

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9 Alternative Things You Definitely Should Do While Stuck At Home

So you’re in quarantine. Self-isolation. Social distancing. Sorry, I just needed to get those keywords in. Anyways, maybe you have work to do still and aren’t as bored. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re like me and have been unemployed for months, so these weeks of panic and staying home are really nothing different for you except that job postings are slowing down and you can’t go curl a few times a week.

And while you can just binge watch Netflix and I’m sure there are 5001 articles and posts suggesting fun shows/movies to watch during this time, I’m here to outline some…other things to do with your time. You’ll thank me later.

1. Clean up your email inbox. Whether you have 20 unread emails to 20000, get rid of ’em. Doesn’t seeing that number bother you? Just thinking about it bothers me. Now, you could just mass mark them all as unread, or you could take time to unsubscribe from silly mailing lists and organize your inbox so they don’t pile up again. I never want to see another Tweet like “lol look at how many emails I’ve yet to open! Didn’t even know it could go that high lol” because there’s no excuse for not having time now.
2. Memorize all the lyrics to the musical Hamilton. This is a three-fold goal because a) you can appreciate the beauty of the lyrics and great songs, b) you can flex on people who don’t know the lyrics, and c) you can prepare for when the movie is released in theaters next year. So sit down and don’t get up until you can recite ‘My Shot’ in its entirety.
3. Watch TikTok compilations on YouTube as a crash-course in youth culture. Don’t let yourself be that one loser who doesn’t know what Renegade is.
   
4. Read the novel your best friend wrote two years ago because I know she gave you a copy.
5. Play the Alphabet Game. This can go on for ages, and I know this because about ten years ago, my brother and I once played over a weekend, and it was so intense that we haven’t played since.
6. Train yourself to see Magic Eyes if you can’t do it already. It’s possible. (Related: this blog post on how to make your own Magic Eye, which is weirdly one of my most popular posts)
7. Pull out your Nintendo 64 from the back of that closet and beat that one game you could never finish. Simultaneously, if you have young-ish kids, introduce them to the wonderful world of crappy graphic games. Remember when Link looked like this?
   
8. Organize and maybe label your drawer full of random chargers and wires and cords. This tip is brought to you by the fact that three days ago, I almost started a fire by somehow charging the TV remote overnight with a Blackberry charger (no one in my family has a Blackberry????) and apparently the batteries got very, very hot.
9. Put on your old wedding dress or prom dress. Have a fancy day. Just ’cause. Bonus: counteract the formal attire by speaking in pig latin all day only.

Like last week’s post, this is a little jokey. It’s the only way I know how to be right now. I didn’t want to give y’all some downer post on COVID-19 because I’m sure you see enough of that on the 24/7 news channels, and honestly, my family and I are totally fine. And I considered posting one of the non-coronavirus posts I have written, but it just feels weird. Like, denial or something. But I promise this will be the last one for a few weeks at least. Back to regularly programmed nonsense after this.

Take care of one another. Stay home. Do your best in these trying times. I’ve been at home for months now, and it’s not that bad. You’ll find things to do. And if you really do need TV or movie recommendations, hit me up!

That’s all for now!

 

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10 Things I Want For Christmas

I don’t want a lot for Christmas, there are just some things I need. And here they are. Because writing them down in a blog post is the same as sending thoughts and wishes out into the world, just with more witnesses.

1. I want Apple to bring back the headphone jack. I am still very sad they got rid of it, and I don’t even have a new phone. How dare they do that without consulting me.
2. I want the busses in my city to actually show up when they’re supposed to. I am sick of waiting at a stop for half an hour for an east bus while five thousand north busses show up in the meantime.
3. I want my roommates to turn off the damn lights when no one is in the kitchen or the hallway. We even have one of those lights where there’s a switch at the top and the bottom of the staircase so you don’t have to go down to turn it off, but it’s still left on. All. The. Time.

   

   The one and only time I agree with something Trump has said

4. I want Darren Criss to release a full album. We’ve gotten a handful of songs from his new EP and from Computer Games’ EP, but his voice is just too good, and I need more of it. Especially since we’ve been waiting on a full album since 2012-ish.
5. I want a Dairy Queen to open up near me. I keep getting BOGO Blizzard coupons sent to me but there isn’t a DQ near me so if I were to take the bus to the closest one, my second Blizzard would melt by the time I got home.
6. I want the Canadian TV channels to play the promos for next week’s episode right after the shows finish. I know America sees the promos, so why can’t I?
7. I want my laptop to stop doing this really fun thing where it just randomly stops connecting to the internet for absolutely no reason and won’t reconnect until I reboot it. Apparently it’s a Windows 10 issue, so if Microsoft could get their act together, that’d be great.
8. I want Quidditch practices this coming semester to be warm. I’m shivering just thinking about the snow and wind I’ll have to endure. I know global warming is bad, but I wouldn’t complain if it decided to kick in for a few specific hours every week.
   
9. I want my hair to stop looking great right before I take a shower at night and instead start looking great when I leave the house.
10. I want Agents Of SHIELD to have a planned and satisfying ending. I’m coming to terms with the fact that this may be the last season, and if it is, I’m really hoping the showrunners know this in advance and can give the fans the ending we deserve. I’ve spent years worrying about these characters. I deserve closure.

I’m not asking for too much here. Some of these should be considered basic human rights, I think. And I’ve been a good girl this year, so I’m really counting on Santa to deliver.

What’s on your Christmas list this year?

 

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Why Does Daytime TV Suck?

No, seriously, WHY?

Whyyyyyyyyy????

I don’t have an answer, so if you’ve come here to get one then you are out of luck.

But honestly, is anyone else confused and angered and maybe even a little saddened by the sheer suckiness of daytime television? Because I can’t be the only one who’s had to settle for some weird programming.

I know that the majority of the world isn’t just lazing around watching TV all day, and I know most people work, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some good stuff on. I know it’s a bad time slot, but what’s the harm in playing something decent?

In the summers, after the school semester ends and before I get a job, I watch TV….like, all day. So I get very familiar with what is on and what I want to watch. I end up watching random morning talk shows, random disturbing episodes of Law And Order (I don’t even care for that show!) and praying that I find something more exciting to do in the afternoon (lest I be condemned to watch episodes of Dr. Phil or Bar Rescue!). Sometimes I’d find re-runs of good sitcoms (Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother…), which would be great, but then I’d find that the same episodes were on during prime time as well, so I’d have to avoid them.

Would it be so terrible to show movies? Or multiple episode reruns of a good show? I don’t even care if it’s old. I’d watch Happy Days if it was on. But it’s not. Instead, there are infomercials, and not even the good ones*.

I mean, I guess it probably has to do with licensing and contracts and money. Perhaps the shows aren’t letting the channels play their good stuff during the not-so-good time? In which case, that’s very rude because I don’t see how it’d do any damage to the shows. In fact, I see it as ways to raise more interest in the shows so when new episodes are on during prime time, they may get more viewers.

I guess the good news about sucky daytime TV is that it does motivate its viewers to go be more productive. Go apply for that job, go write that article, go breathe that fresh air…

But let’s not forget that there are some people who have nothing better to do than watch daytime TV. I’ve compiled a list of people who are perfectly allowed to do so and are unfortunately plagued with junk.

• People who work the night shift
• Ladies on mat-leave
• Stay at home moms
• Stay at home dads
• Writers/authors
• People who work from home
• Students with spaced out schedules
• Kids on PA days
• People on house arrest
• Someone getting over an injury/sickness/surgery
• The unemployed
• Rich CEOs who don’t have to go to work if they don’t want to
• People who take the day off/people on vacations
• Retired people

See? Look at all those people who TV companies are choosing not to make happy.

Hopefully, daytime TV will get better. The TV industry is always growing, and hopefully we’ll get more and more high quality shows on at all times.

It’s no wonder that Netflix is so popular. Netflix gives you the good stuff 24/7.

Leave a comment and tell me:

1. How bothered are you by the quality of daytime programming? (if you’re not, that’s okay, tell me that too!)
2. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve watched on daytime TV? (for me, it’d be this weird TLC documentary about this poor kid in India who had extra limbs protruding from his stomach and half the village worshipped him and the other half thought it was satanic).

*  “the good ones” being: The Shamwow, The Shticky, The Slap-chop, The Magic Bullet, The Bullet Express, The Shark Vacuum, and a select few others.

Quality.

 

P.S. If for some reason you’ve read this exact post before on the internet, I actually wrote it for a blogging course I took last year in university, so it’s all my own words, I’m just reposting it on my real blog!

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My Musical List (And Some Bootleg Discussion)

Three years ago, when I was in high school, I started getting into musicals. I don’t recall why or what drove me to them. If I had to guess, I would say it was likely my love for Glee and Team Starkid, and in the ven-diagram of related subjects that I’d come across on the internet, Broadway musicals is right in the middle.

I decided to go popular (literally) for my first musical and try Wicked. I chose to read the book first, and I enjoyed it. At this time, I wasn’t as familiar with bootlegs, so I settled for listening to the soundtrack. This, I later learned, was a mistake as I assumed that the musical followed the book better than it actually did. Seeing the show live downtown nine months later was awesome but slightly disappointing as the soundtrack didn’t match up to the plot like I had envisioned them to. That bugged me more than it should. (Related: why I hope the Wicked movie is more like the book)

In May of that year, I also went on my school’s arts trip to New York City. I had never been, so it was very exciting. On that trip we saw three Broadway shows (Les Miserables, A Raisin In The Sun, and Aladdin, but the second is just a play) and that was such a great experience. But as we wandered around Times Square and I saw the marquees for all the other musicals playing, I realised that the three we went to see were not ones I would have chosen. So in that grubby hotel room we stayed in, I sat on my bed and opened a note on my phone, and started a list of all the musicals I wanted to see. That list had 11 shows, and I considered that a lot.

But in the past three years, that list grew to 20 and now over 30 musicals. I am now a huge musical theater fan and nine times out of ten, when I listen to music, I’m listening to various show tunes. I wanted to wait to blog about this until I had successfully crossed everything off my list, but I just keep adding musicals on, so the end is not in sight! So instead I figured I’d show my progress, along with a list of musicals I had seen before I started keeping track.

 

Some of these I loved, some I liked, and some I wouldn’t watch again, but I am glad I saw them all.

And that brings me to my next topic of discussion: bootlegs. While I was fortunate to see a few of those shows live, and a few were movies that I watched, most of them I saw via bootleg. I have no little shame in this. Sometimes I stream movies, I’ve admitted to occasionally streaming TV, and I download music that I didn’t pay for. Sorry, but I’m a student and I don’t have the money to pay for every bit of entertainment. And you know I’m not the only one who does this. But with Broadway, it’s different, because for me to experience the full, legal thing, I need to go to New York. I’d need a roundtrip plane ticket, a hotel room, food, and then a ticket to the show, which could be pricey itself. That’s very different than the 12 bucks I save by not going to a local movie theater. Not to mention that some of the shows aren’t even running anymore or are sold out, so even if I were to somehow get to New York, I still wouldn’t be able to see them.

There’s the argument that bootlegs take money away from the show, but I disagree. Bootlegs let people who are on the other side of the world see shows they love and experience theater. I’m somewhat lucky because when shows do go on tour, they sometimes stop near me, but that is not true for many people, so bootlegs give them a chance to see it, even if it from someone’s shaky iPhone. Shows aren’t losing money because it’s money that they won’t ever get. But they may get money from the purchase of the soundtrack or other merch. Because if people are like me, they won’t listen to the music until they see the show, so basically, the bootleg is bringing in money.

Bootlegs don’t replace live shows the way that streaming a TV show replaces seeing it when it airs. There’s no comparison at all to the environment and quality. People have said time and time again that if they could pay for a professionally filmed stage musical they would, but there isn’t even an option for that. Broadway caters to people who can get there, and that’s somewhat understandable, but if hockey games can be streamed, why can’t a musical? There IS this new service called BroadwayHD that is trying to give us what we want, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have the new, big-name shows that I personally want to see.

What are your thoughts on the matter? I’d love to hear them, but I beg you to do it politely. I’ve seen many bootleg debates go down on Tumblr and it’s a horrific, rude mess that I want no part of.

I’d also love to hear what musicals you think I should add to my list. What are your favourites?

 

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