Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Here's a trick to get instantly ready noodles that you can toast to desired crispiness. No boiling! No frying! (Slide 1) We start with soft tortilla shells. Use any brand you like. I often buy Casa Mendosa plain tortillas from the Real Canadian Superstore when they go on sale since they are really quite versatile. I do find that they are on the "barely cooked" side of paleness so I do like to toast them slightly no matter how I use them. If you have big shells, you can have longer noodles! Cut the tortilla shell into noodles. Ideally you have something like a hand-crank noodle maker  or spaghetti roller , but if you don't you can still get fairly even-width noodles. (Slide 2) Start by rolling up the shell. Then cut the cross section into the desired noodle widths. Make sure your knife is sharp since the act of cutting will compress them and they can become fragile enough where they fold. (Slide 3) Once cut, gently unfurl them, and you have ready-to-eat noodles. I l

Have you had a hamburger where they used a "brioche" bun? It was really tender and pillowy, and unlike firmer buns it didn't squeeze the burger out of the bun when you bit into it? If you like that kind of bun, you can fake it with plain bagels from the supermarket and one easy trick involving a skillet. I have had the best results from No Name Brand plain bagels from the Real Canadian Superstore but you can try it with any supermarket bagel to soften them up. Even if you aren't going for a brioche effect, it's a nice way to soften up old bagels without outright toasting them. When you put a bagel in the toaster, it toasts both sides and can come out like crispy, dry, toast. That's not what we're after of course, but you may also have noticed that the inside becomes softer, at least while it's warm. Same with slices of bread, except normally it's less noticeable because the slices are so thin. So what we're going to do is just toast one side o

Previously I reviewed T&T Layered Green Onion Pie , which felt quite pricey for just four pieces despite the weight. Then I remembered the easy paninis I was making with the cheap-great-value Pran Foods Plain Paratha  and the idea came to me to make my own "green onion pie". Get two pieces of frozen paratha ready. Each normally comes sandwiched by two pieces of plastic. Remove only one piece of plastic from each because they might thaw and become soft and sticky while you are working on them. (Slide 2) On one piece, spread your fillings. If you need to spread any sauce, this will be easier while the paratha are still frozen. (Slide 3) Cover with the other piece of paratha. Let them both thaw a bit till you can press them together. To further ensure a tight seal at the edges, you can press them down with the tines of a fork. Now you can use them right away or put them back in the freezer for later use. (Slide 4) To cook, we just seared them in a non-stick skillet without

Previously we talked about one of the common ways mobile games make money.  They create a problem and sell you the solution . Often the knee-jerk reaction is "that's not fair" or "that's a paywall", etcetera etcetera. Mostly these stances demonize making money and accuse it of being predatory. I'm not going to get into that can of worms. I do want to observe that often mobile games that create problems also offer inefficient but free solutions. Solutions that basically control your time , and the consequences of this. Let's look again at Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery and the example I showed earlier about mobile game monetization. In Slide 1 you see that I am currently in a task "Question the Suspects". I have 4h 42m 28s left to complete this task; if the timer runs out and I haven't done so, the task will fail and I have to start all over again. I have made partial progress but there's still quite a ways to go. This task requires

Previously we talked about mobile gaming and how it's very definitely a pervasive thing that "everyone" is into. Have no fear, this isn't a post to rant about gaming or shame you about how much you spend. Or what type of games you play. It's not going to be about "you". But just maybe it will reframe some aspects of mobile games in a way you didn't realize. Because mobile games sell a very different kind of product. So just to be clear, we're not talking about every mobile game or video game doing this. However, most games that are offered free-to-play do this in some form or another, in order to help recover their development cost. Even though you see a lot of cloned games, making those games -- even just making the art and sound to dress a clone up as another game -- costs money. And it's not wrong to make money to cover your costs. I'm not going to rant about that. I just want to point out that mobile games often sell you a very diffe

Have you played a mobile game? Whether you do or not, mobile gaming is very much a thing. Earthweb reports these 2022 mobile gaming stats: Key Mobile Gaming Statistics 2022 21% of Android and 25% of iOS apps downloaded are games. Games account for 43% of all smartphone users. 62% of people install a game on their phone within a week of owning it. 78% of gamers are Android users. The number of active mobile gamers worldwide is over 2.2 billion. 57.9% of the games played are puzzle games. More women spend money on in-game content than men. The mobile games’ revenue was expected to hit $76.7 billion by the end of 2020. Asia is the biggest gaming marketplace in the world. PUBG mobile is the top mobile game worldwide in terms of revenue. About 53% of internet users between the age of 45-54 years play mobile games. Only 37% of mobile gamers are men. Only 8% of mobile gamers are teenagers. But perhaps you will be more interested in the demographics -- people "just like you" are pl