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.
British Columbia broke several temperature records on Saturday, as Kamloops, located in the interior, was the hottest place in Canada, with a high of nearly 32 degrees Celsius. Think about that for a second. That would be a hot day in the peak of summer but it was that hot in April.
Local to me, Saturday was much cooler than Kamloops, with our high being in the mid-20s. I was outside for a few hours and it felt like a regular summer day, except that it wasn’t even May yet.
It immediately cooled down today however. The clouds came back and the temperature dropped about ten degrees in a day. The sunny skies are supposed to return this week though but the highs won’t be as extreme as on Saturday. While I suppose this warmer weather is somewhat good, it already means that wildfire alerts are in play in this province.
On a personal level, I bought some new shorts recently, so I’m prepared for the sun.
As I wrote about in my last post, I attended the studio opening at Great Northern Way this afternoon. I realize I didn’t take as many pics as I should have.
I did spend most of my time socializing and talking to people I haven’t seen in years and I even got to meet a co-worker that I’ve been working with remotely. That was really nice.
In general, I think the new space is clean, spacious, bright, and modern. It was also very easy to get to. I think I stepped onto a Skytrain around 11:45am and I was walking through the front doors at about 12:15pm. Because my commute is limited to just Skytrain, it’s a much easier commute than to the Burnaby studio, even though it’s technically closer to my home.
One highlight that may seem inconsequential to you but is interesting to me is that the studio has windows that open. Working at the Burnaby studio for so long, we’ve never had windows that open. That place is sealed up tight. The new studio has windows at nearly every desk and you can just crack open a window to get some fresh air. That’s so great.
As I mentioned before, I won’t be spending many of my workdays at the new studio. Most of the people I work with directly are not in Vancouver, so if I do decide to head in for a day, it’ll be for other reasons.
I spoke to some people who are already working there every day or plan to be there every day soon. Everyone has their preferences for what works best for them and I’m glad we have a choice.
I was supposed to get a tour of the new studio last week but it got postponed to tomorrow. I can’t remember the last time I was at any studio location. I think I was at the Burnaby studio more than two years ago now, either to pick something up or drop something off.
Anyways, I also have another incentive to show up tomorrow for the tour. We all got hoodies for the holiday season and they were sized really oddly. These hoodies were much larger than anyone anticipated. Most people should have selected a size down. I chose a medium, which turns out was a large for most normal clothing manufacturers. This thing hung off my body like a toga, it was so big. Long story short, a lot of people wanted to swap sizes and someone did the thankless job of figuring out who needed what size and who to swap with to get it. It’s pretty complicated. I need to give my medium to someone and then I need to go get a small from someone else. It’s not as simple as just giving your hoodie to one person and then just taking their hoodie. It’s a process.
Well, I’ll take some pictures and I hope it’ll be some fun.
I cooked a meal kit for dinner this evening and it was the easiest and fastest recipe to date. This kit was a “southern Califorian inspired turkey salad”. The first step asked me to pickle some jalapenos peppers, which I just skipped since I’m not a huge fan of jalapenos. So right there that saved me a ton of time and effort.
All that was left to do was to fry up some ground turkey, which I added some spice blend to. This took less than five minutes. The dressing consisted of some mayo, some added spice, and a splash of red vinegar, all whisked together in a bowl. I also chopped up a tiny tomato.
The kit had a bag of salad greens, which I plated, drizzled the salad dressing on, added the tomatoes, emptied the packet of guacamole I was given, and then topped off with the cooked turkey. The whole thing was probably ready in about 15 minutes and it was tasty. Clean up was simple too.
The month of April so far in Vancouver has been cold, wet, and rainy. It’s been unseasonably cold for April. The rain I could excuse but temperatures were at or slightly below freezing in places just a week and a half ago.
The forecast, however, now calls for sunny skies and highs in the 20s for Friday and Saturday. For areas farther away from the ocean, highs could be in the mid-20s. If this holds true, this would be an incredible swing for the month of April. A much more typical spring for Vancouver would see a more gradual and longer shift in temperatures as we head into summer.
The weather continues to act strange in the last couple of years.
About a month ago my employer announced they were gonna lay off 6% of the workforce. At the time of the announcement some of those layoffs had already happened but many of them were still to come.
On Wednesday, those lay offs continued. I am involved in a long e-mail thread with many people, trying to diagnose a technical issue. I was told one of the people in this thread was laid off and they wouldn’t be continuing the discussion nor offering any more of their knowledge to the problem anymore. One day he was helping us with this problem and the next, he’s just gone.
I’ve heard from other sources that a bunch of other people got laid off as well, so this was not a one-off thing. I have no clue how many people were affected today or if more layoffs will happen later until they get to the 6%.
I hope these people were given decent severance. I’m not even sure what the job seeker market is like out there. With all the other layoffs happening elsewhere, it can’t be that great.
I had some leftover cream from a meal kit and rather let it go to waste, I decided to put it in my coffee this morning. I don’t know what percentage of this cream was fat but oh boy, it must have been high. My coffee was rich and decadent. It was heavenly.
For reasons that are still unclear to me, I normally use 3% milk for my coffee but I think that needs to change. Going forward, I’m gonna use 10% half&half for my coffee. You can beat that richness of a creamy coffee in the morning.
Also, for those people putting in 1% milk in their teas and coffees, why bother? You’re essentially putting in tasteless white water into your drinks. Just save your money and don’t even use it.
At 1am after watching the first two episodes of Barry, season four, I realized that Nopewas also available for streaming. I’ve been wanting to watch that movie for a long time and the only thing stopping me was being a cheapskate and not wanting to pay for a streaming rental. It’s now available as part of the subscription to Crave, so my patience paid off.
Instead of going to sleep, I watched the first 30 minutes of it so far. It hooked me immediately. I briefly thought about just going for it and just watching the whole thing. That would probably bring me to around 3:30am. That’s late and I have a 9am meeting tomorrow. That’s too late and my morning is too early tomorrow.
The great thing is, the movie isn’t going anywhere, and I resume it tomorrow at a much more convenient time. The thing is, if I had won the lottery, I wouldn’t need to worry about work tomorrow. Hmmm… maybe it’s time to start playing the lotto again.
