The mineral sunscreen I bought a while back is making my skin itchy. I’m not sure if it’s the sunscreen itself that is making it itchy or if it’s just drying out my skin and that’s the cause of the itchiness.
Oddly, it’s only makes my arms and legs itchy but not my face, which I also apply sunscreen to. I’m not sure why that is. In any case, I now always try to really clean off the sunscreen in the shower and then moisturize right afterwards. This has helped a lot but my legs still feel really dry at times.
I might want to look at another mineral sunscreen that contains a moisturizer, so it doesn’t wreak havoc on my legs and arms.
The 2023 NHL playoffs are now into the second round and my local NHL team, the Vancouver Canucks are not part of it. The last time they were in the playoffs was the “bubble quarantine” playoffs of 2020, which some people don’t count as a real playoff season since none of the teams got to play in a real home and visitor situation. Before that, you’d have to go back to the 2014-2015 season when the Canucks were in the post-season.
I’ve written this before but not having the team you cheer for in the playoffs is not great but at the same time, it’s very liberating. I see all the fans of the teams in the playoffs celebrating all the wins but they’re also agonizing over all the losses. They get stressed out during the overtime games, some of which are series clinching overtimes. Only sixteen teams make the playoffs, so it’s guaranteed that fifteen fan bases will be disappointed, with the fans of the team that loses in the final having the most disappointment.
When you got no dog in the fight, you’re free from all those highs and lows and disappointment. To get a bit spiritual here, Buddhism teaches us that desire leads to suffering. The act of wanting something, puts you in a bad state, especially if you wind up not being able to acquire that said something. I’m totally paraphrasing here, so feel free to read about the Four Noble Truths yourself. The point is, there are no playoffs games for the Vancouver Canucks to play, so there’s no need for me to get all worked up about hockey games that won’t be played. It seems like enlightenment can’t be too far away for me.
Another way to look at it, in more of a pop culture sense is from the point of view of the ancient movie, WarGames. In it, an artificial intelligence comes to learn that the best way to win a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union is actually to not even start the war. Translating to the NHL playoffs, that means that you can’t be disappointed in your team losing in the playoffs if they aren’t in the playoffs at all. Now yes, I am totally hand-waving that one team every year does win it all but let’s face it, even if the Vancouver Canucks limped into the playoffs, they won’t be in a position for many, many years to actually win the whole damn thing.
So yeah, let’s everyone try to get into a state of hockey enlightenment.
In my search for new, healthy, and cheap protein to consume, I stumbled upon light canned tuna. Growing up, my family consumed a lot of canned salmon but my parents never really bought the canned tuna variety.
In the present day, canned tuna is half as expensive as canned salmon, so the price and novelty of it made me buy some. Over the last few weeks, I’ve consumed several cans. I love seafood and fish in general, so canned tuna is right up my alley. I usually prepare it in a frying pan with a little bit of butter. Then I put it on some toast. It’s great.
Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that many governmental agencies warn you that it’s possible to consume too much canned tuna (or seafood in general) per week. This is due to the amount of mercury in the fish. Depending on where you look, the recommended amount of canned tuna consumption is anywhere between one to two 120g cans per week.
In general, fish is healthy for you and provides many benefits. There appears to be a sweet spot in terms of fish consumption. People who don’t eat any fish are worse off than people who do. There is the caveat though that if you eat too much fish, the affects of the mercury then outweigh the benefits from the fish itself. You want to be in that sweet spot of eating enough fish to get the benefits but not so much that you start to get mercury poisoning.
Geez, even the things are that supposedly healthy for you can now kill you.
The Writers Guild of America voted to strike this week and the pickets went up on Tuesday. Many shows have been affected but it’s the late night talk shows that we see the immediate affects. All of them rely on timely writing and without that, they’ve all gone dark.
It’s been about sixteen years since the last strike of this nature. Back then, all the late night shows went off the air immediately as well. About two months into the strike, some of the shows went back making new shows, Letterman negotiated a deal with the WGA independently, so he got his writers back, while Conan just winged it without any writers.
It’s commonly accepted that some of Conan’s writer-less shows were among his best ones. It’s just him being himself or perhaps better described as being his wacky self. You wouldn’t think a segment showing him walking around the office with a guitar would be funny but it turned out to be hilarious.
I hope the strike ends soon and not because I’m worried about the lack of entertainment production. I hope the writers get everything they want. Increasingly, large corporations are even more laser-focused than usual on making profits and making executives rich, while those who toil to make the entertainment products aren’t getting the fair share of the pie.
In my search for healthier snacking, I came across Walmart’s Great Value brand rice crackers. For fourteen crackers, it’s only 130 calories, 25 carbs, and quite a reasonable amount of sodium. There’s barely any fat in as well.
The first time I bought these, I came home with two packages of the cheese variety. On first bite, I was immediately impressed with how crispy they were. They audibly crack when you bite them. They just feel great to eat. Taste-wise, the cheese flavour is subtle, not overpowering, but at the same time is what really seals the deal in making this an addictive snack. The cheese rice crackers are simply a delicious snack with satisfying crunch.
I probably ate the whole package in one evening, that’s how good I found them. Since then, I’ve bought the cheese ones several more times. They don’t last very long in my pantry (I actually don’t have a pantry, so I store them next to my shoes).
Anyways, on my most recent grocery trip, I discovered all the cheese ones were sold out and the only ones remaining where the “original” flavour and the BBQ ones. Rather than go empty-handed, I decided to try one of the “original” and one of the BBQ ones.
It turns out that “original” just means no flavour or seasoning whatsoever. It’s just the normal rice cracker with just a hint of salt on it. It’s so boring and bland. It tastes like nothing. The crispy texture is still there but we as humans, don’t eat things purely for the texture, it still needs to taste good and these “original” flavour ones taste like nothing. Even when I’m hungry and looking for a snack, I’m wouldn’t eat these and I’ll be hard pressed to finish even a single package of these.
The BBQ ones are slightly better but are closer to the terrible “original” ones than the holy standard of the cheese ones. The BBQ ones pull ahead because some flavour and seasoning is better than none at all, so by default it scores a victory over the plain ones. Judged on its own however, the BBQ seasoning is pretty weak. It’s almost like they forgot to put the rest of the seasoning on it and 50% of it never made it onto each cracker. Every time you eat one of these, it winds up just feeling underwhelming, which is not a great quality for a snack to have.
From a price point of view, these rice crackers are a winner no matter which ones you buy. Each package is $1.47, which is a steal when it comes to snacks. With inflation, potato chips are a luxury in comparison. Depending on the brand and store, a bag of chips might be double the price when considering the cost per gram or 100 grams.
In summary, if you want something healthy to snack on that doesn’t cost too much, the cheese flavour variety of Great Value rice crackers are the way to go. Don’t even bother with the other flavours.
