Book Now!

Once in a blue moon I’d like a break from Marvel movies, and the uncomfortable couch we have in our living room, and go out and watch something quirky.

Luckily we have a cinema in town that plays films outside the mainstream. Unluckily, said cinema has a website that abandoned a utilitarian approach for yet another largely indecipherable WordPress theme.

Who knew that to answer the question, “What films do you have appearing over the next month?,” you would have to “Book Now!”.

The Buzz attempts to fill the gap, but they only feature a partial list.


But who is counting

I’ve written upwards of 35 short stories for kids since winter, or I guess episodes might be more precise since some are multiple parts.

This weeks story is in two parts – a listener asked for a story about being different at school. So I wrote about Fuzzy, who is a fox from Kensington attending The Stratford Academy for Cats and Dogs. Being a fox and not of financial means he is not initially accepted, but goes on to help them win an art competition over last years winner Birchwood.

I’ve written about this theme in the past and many of our listeners seem to identify with it.

For me it’s good fun to do something that I have no background or talent for, other than having a great imagination and the desire to one day put the silly stories in my head to paper.


Pod Stats

Podcast directory stats and their mysterious algorithms provide an interesting window into who is spending more on podcast discovery.

A show appearing out of no where means a company has released a huge sum, and then because for so many companies content is a feature, the show will slowly fade. Then someone else will have a six figure budget and the process continues.

Our move to our new host has had some interesting side effects. The design of their stats interface has serious problems, to the point of being unusable. There is some interesting data contained within, but its hidden behind an almost indecipherable display. Why can’t American companies just do what the Chinese do and copy the best fitting example of a competitor?

The result of this poor UI is that I spend far less time worrying about numbers and more time on … anything else.


My apologies

After living a lifetime in places where you taped your windows shut and enjoyed machine filtered temperature controlled air, it was a relief to return to a northern climate where you cooled your house by opening a window. Except for our bedroom.

In the summer it could be 21°C outside, 23°C in our living room but 28°C in our bedroom. And the temperature would rise from there.

So this year we bought the loudest air conditioner I have ever witnessed, the portable kind since there is some ordnance against in window air conditioners, no doubt to avoid air conditioners falling down on peoples heads like the rain (something that I never heard of in earthquake prone Taiwan).

When we installed it last night I remarked that this would spell the start of the wettest and coolest summer since we returned. And sure enough it’s rainy and cool this morning.


Changes

I’m sitting in St. John at the Second Cup drinking putrid coffee trying to stay awake after a sleepless night. We are here yet again for another few sessions at the Aquatics centre.

I’m supposed to be writing a story about a mouse who is jealous of a dog’s life but when I am tired I am more open to procrastination.

Thursday we signed an agreement with Redcircle for non-exclusive distribution for 3 of our podcasts. If we were more marketing savvy this might warrant a press release, or something similar, but this paragraph with have to suffice. All change entails some risk but the terms and the platform that they gave us makes this an important opportunity. So far the switch has worked seamlessly and the redirects are working as they should.

This agreement also means we are also obligated to publish our funky science podcast, which was a fun experiment for us, and which we have been trying to relaunch for almost 2 years (I can’t believe I have been doing this for that long). There will be less beeps and bops, fart noises and such in this season, and it will focus around Bernice and Papa Bear working on science homework before bed. Bernice and Papa Bear are characters that I created for Sleep Tight Stories, and which I hope to have in print over the summer.


Note on Groceries

The photos above were typical shopping carts for us prior to returning home 4 years ago. At that time fresh protein sources were so cheap, whole chickens were less than $3CAN, that we fed our dogs better than what we sometimes ate ourselves. Feeding them whole chickens or chicken half’s was cheaper than imported processed dog food.

That was the pinnacle of our healthy diet, plenty of greens, good fats, delicious fruits and meat and fish. We would have salmon for breakfast and dinner. Bread was not a staple but a treat, like ice cream. Everything was fresh, and organic out of necessity, as food wasn’t as clean there.

When we first arrived back home I couldn’t understand why, with the exception of lobster, seafood sourced from the Atlantic, particularly salmon, was more expensive here than in Taiwan. But then you could get a PEI lobster sandwich at the movie theatre in Hsinchu for the same price as a bucket of popcorn here.

When you walk into a grocery store in Canada, if you are concerned about the food you eat, you stick to the outside of the store, and avoid the aisles. At RTMart in Hsinchu, the whole foods were all in one square boxy area, though later they got clever and added freezers of processed food just before the checkout aisles to increase profits. At the Superstore, which we started going to because they used to have the best prices and “in store” specials, now has resorted to putting Twizzlers, crackers, and other garbage amongst what used to be the fresh meat section (fresh fish is not a thing here). I took this initially as an ominous sign that real food was not available, but I’m starting to now think it’s just another ploy to get people to buy more high margin crap.

We used to plan our meals for the week, both for convenience and to make sure we were eating well. When food is affordable, you can plan, but now that the price of food has increased exponentially for our family, I go and buy the cheapest protein sources available and start from there. A couple of us have changed our protein sources somewhat, Camren in particular eats more plant protein, which is a good thing. But I think he would agree that eating salmon or steak is preferable to pea or pumpkin seed protein powder.

For the most part, our diet has changed for the worse, and the 20+ lbs I have gained since coming here is in part evidence of that. Some changes are inevitable, there will be no more bowls of sweet mango, sliced guava, lizhi, or bags of thick skinned oranges. The variety of “greens” has decreased somewhat.

Whenever Taiwanese friends would tell me that they left the US because they didn’t like the food, I would try not to show my astonishment at their choice. We live in a region where you can get almost anything you desire, for a price, and yet I am slowly starting to come to understand their point of view. It’s not so much that we can’t get a bowl of delicious beef noodles (you can’t) it’s that fresh food is expensive to the point of unattainability.

I tend to exaggerate, but first COVID, and now yet another insane war in Europe is making it more difficult for families to afford fresh food – even potato chips are overpriced.

Unfortunately, no place is immune to inflated food prices, and I understand the cheap protein sources we used to buy in the past are no longer as cheap today.


Saint John Redux

We are in Saint John again, this time for Canada Games trials. Camren is trying to join PEI’s swim team to compete this summer.

Swimming as a sport is not something I completely understand, and not just because I myself can’t swim, but due to its extremely technical nature. Also, at the amateur there is often a disparity in skill levels which makes the races, less of a race.

It’s interesting to watch Camren progress through all the training and effort he puts into everything. With 6am CrossFit classes, 5 swimming practices a week, work, school and even a social life, he is the epitome of grit. If the people of my generation don’t succeed in destroying the world, I see a wonderful future for him.

As we are here for 4 days there was no way we were going endure the hotel experience we had last time. So we booked an Airbnb which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, in places like Charlottetown I see STR’s as a contributing factor to the housing crisis and the decline of the downtown. On the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind that this experience we are having is far superior to any hotel we could have booked. I don’t see hotels in this part of the world stepping up their game anytime soon.

I noticed this the last time we were here, but uptown Saint John is sketchy as hell. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt I had to be aware of my surroundings. In Charlottetown your greatest concern is cars vs. pedestrians/cyclers, especially monster trucks. I almost got hit by one of those tanks last week at an intersection crosswalk when he couldn’t see me and I am 6ft too short.