Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

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...

I was recommended this by a friend who raved about how it turned out very nicely in her air fryer. It happened to be on sale (at a very mild discount) this week at T&T so I gave it a try. First impressions - Way, way, overpackaged. Thick box, lots and lots of plastic. Rather small, thick, and sturdy looking pies which really would probably have survived just fine with less packaging. Maybe it looks great, but this day and age when plastic is basically synonymous with pollution, it's basically inexcusable. At over $4 per package, it's basically over $1 per pie. If you look at the ingredients, it's really nothing too special and you can probably hack something similar with similar products sandwiching chopped green onion. The package shows a fantastic amount of filling but the reality (as usual with products that show you the contents only on the packaging) starkly falls short. That said, there's enough green onion to give it flavour, so you might consider that to...

A few weeks ago, Real Canadian Superstore started stocking Pran Plain Paratha in the frozen food section. The price has gone up since its first apperance, but it still seems like good value for a whopping 2400 grams and 30 pieces (originally $8.99 I believe, but now $11.49). If there's one thing I really dislike about the product though, it's the excessive plastic. Each piece of paratha is separated from the others by two sheets of plastic. That seems rather excessive, especially nowadays when plastic is basically considered pollution. I think something that might be done to at least reduce the amount of plastic is to simply alternate a paratha and a piece of plastic, instead of two pieces of plastic per paratha. I do try to save them all up and reuse, such as when I make burger patties or bread dough to keep them separated in the freezer. But the sheer amount does pile up. They are very easily prepared in a non-stick frying pan or griddle, and without needing any oil. There...

Just a quick update here on Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba . I still recommend the place for all the same reasons, but I don't recommend the Cheese Mazesoba. Went again for lunch with another friend, and I thought I'd try something different-weird. And cheese mazesoba sounded pretty weird. Except it wasn't. They certainly did not skimp on the cheese, that wasn't an issue. And when you see the picture or the bowl that's brought to you, you don't see any cheese at all. That's because the cheese is already pre-mixed into the noodles beneath, and you can see it very clearly in white stickiness all over the noodles. No skimping there. The big problem though is there simply wasn't enough cheese flavour. If you isolate the noodles you can faintly taste some cheese. Whatever they are using just isn't a very strong cheese. Which for me was not just a let-down but felt really pointless. Why have an ingredient that you're barely going to be able to taste and that...