A Person Wrapped In Sheets

Yesterday, me and Lee-Anne were coming back from a community barbecue and we walked by someone wrapped in sheets, lying with his face in a pool of viscous yellow fluid. His location seemed strategic, as it was beginning to rain and he was under a bus shelter, surrounded by bags filled presumably with his possessions. Kitchener has its share of homeless people, as I've explained in my posts about our two encampments. I generally don't like to draw attention to someone's struggles, but this guy seemed in an unusual state of disrepair. Lee-Anne asked if we should check in on him, and I agreed we should.

I asked him if he was okay. He said that he was cold and asked us to please help him. In my head, I inventoried what we were carrying to see if there was something we could give. We had leftover food from the barbecue, but no clothing or anything to help keep warm.

I asked him what his name was and he told me. I won't repeat it here. It was a common name, but in the off chance it could be identifying, I'll leave it out. I asked him if he needed to go to the emergency room. The bus shelter we were at was directly in front of a hospital. Seemed an opportune place to have a medical emergency.

He managed to say that he'd just come from there but they hadn't done much for him. He said he was thirsty and asked me to get a bottle of water from one of his bags. I took out the bottle and was going to hand it to him but he opened his mouth. So I unscrewed the cap and fed him the water by hand.

After several mouthfuls he vomited, the contents the same consistency as the fluid pooling around his head. He kept asking for help, for us not to leave him, and saying that he was cold. I told him that we didn't have anything that could warm him, and asked if he would be okay with one of us checking in at the emergency room. He agreed.

Lee-Anne went in while I stayed outside with him. When she returned, she said that they told her that he would have to either walk in or we would have to call 911. I remember this rule from when I went to the emergency room. Someone collapsed outside the door and a nurse told him he'd have to walk inside if he wanted help.

Seemed silly to call 911 directly outside the hospital but this guy was not going to be able to walk there himself, close as it was. Even with support, he seemed unable to endure it. We asked for his permission to call, and then we did. A paramedic showed up before we'd finished reporting his symptoms.

She questioned him a bit and we learned that he was suffering from withdrawal sympotms. This surprised me a bit, as I would have guessed that he was overdosing. After some persuading she was able to get him into a seated position and helped him put on a sweater. She also helped him drink some more water but he vomited it back up again. 

Another paramedic showed up and gave some background. Apparently he had been admitted to the ER but had been discharged after he became violent. They'd called the police but they never arrived, and they contacted several shelters but apparently he'd been kicked out of each of them for similar behaviour. 

Seeing the state he was in, it was difficult to imagine he'd been physically capable of violence earlier in the day, or of traveling to the emergency room in the first place. Eventually they agreed to send him to another hospital by ambulance.

That's it. That's the story. I don't really have deep insights or any kind of moral takeaway at the moment. We'll likely never know what his fate was, but I hope he doesn't get kicked out of that other hospital, because it sounded like the very last place willing to provide him care.

Occasionally it occurs to me that, living close to a hospital, we are in close proximity to a lot of human suffering and death. I remember seeing someone being wheeled out of an ambulance with paramedics applying chest compressions. Having my own First Aid training, I know that the chances of someone surviving after requiring that level of intervention are slim. Weird feeling to witness someone probably dying.

19 Days of Independent ADHD Living

When Lee-Anne was in the hospital for her intra-cranial observation for 19 days, I was left to my own devices. Between the two of us, she was in a much more uncomfortable position. Still, as someone with ADHD this was an opportunity to see if the independent living skills I'd acquired over the past few years would hold up without the presence of a partner. Results were a mixed bag.

As far as recreation goes, I wrote two main blog posts, as well as 1 recipe and 1 review. I didn't do any painting or reading though.

For health, I didn't do any strength work outs. I didn't even try. I figured I'd be challenged enough keeping track of things that it just wasn't a priority. Besides, me and Lee-Anne got into a bit of a routine together. It wouldn't be fair to her since she was confined to a hospital bed. I met my walking goal one week but not the other.

I surprised myself by doing well with dinners. Despite having a cooking blog, it wasn't originally a passion of mine. I used to put off eating until late at night, and then binge whatever would shut down the hunger pains quickest. My struggles with weight came from apathy toward food, not a love of it. Gryphood was a measure to make cooking more exploratory and interesting.

Lee-Anne's absence actually turned out to be an interesting opportunity to experiment with meals. I usually don't take too many risks when cooking for two, because if I take a chance and it doesn't pan out, I'll be making her suffer through the botched product. While I was alone, I got to do some stuff I wouldn't otherwise have tried. 

For example, I wanted to see how simple and easy I could make cream of broccoli soup without it losing its identity. I narrowed it down to only four ingredients: stock, milk, broccoli, and corn starch. It also didn't require many measurements, as it used a 1 litre milk carton and a tetra pack of stock. It tasted more like a warm green smoothie than a soup, and I wound up adding carrots, celery etc. the day after.

I also got another shot at making Philly cheesesteaks, which I'd done a subpar job with once before. For some reason, a lot of the things I wanted to experiment with were really dairy heavy.

We usually keep a weekly meal plan on a white board in the living room and I surprised myself by keeping up with it. However, while I did a decent job planning what I would eat, I didn't do as well with when. Usually we have dinner around 7:00, but while she was gone it would often take until 10:00 before I got around to it.

I was drinking too much at first, but corrected myself after a bit.

I did pretty well cleaning dishes and changing the cat litter. I didn't do either every day, but I didn't let things get too out of control either. I managed to take out the recycling and trash each week.

There were a few home projects that never seemed to get done while Lee-Anne was around, and her absence was frankly an opportunity to tackle them. I'd been meaning to season my pans since the new year and I finally did it. My cast iron stuff was easy, but I also have a weird steel wok that apparently needs to have it done as well. Because it has wooden handles, it has to be done on the stove top by rolling it around until each part of it turns dark. Very awkward and labour intensive. I'd done it once after we got it, but after rereading the instructions I realized I'd only seasoned the bottom last time. One coating took me several hours, and I was supposed to do it like three more times. I realized it would take the equivalent of a work day dedicated to only that one pan, and since it needs to be rolled around on the stove top it's not like you can ever leave it alone. So I figured it was fine with just one coat of seasoning.

There were a few decorations that we'd been wanting to put up, but Lee-Anne would overanalyze and talk us out of doing it. Sometimes it's easier to wait until she's gone and let her change things after the fact, which proved to be the case this time around.

One of the pieces was that thing we had at our wedding that everyone signed. It was sunflower themed.

The other thing I put up was a picture of Regensburg that my Great Grandfather brought from Germany

Apparently he worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in World War Two. He was Camp Director of a refugee camp, and this image depicts a place near where he stayed. It's an etching with watercolour applied over the print, done in 1940 before the town experienced any damage from bombing.

I also started our wedding album while she was gone.

As far as work goes, I forgot to set up an online meeting that I'm responsible for twice in a row. I forgot to fill out my timecards twice in a row as well. However, I actually corrected my punctuality a bit. My work starts at 8:30 for staff, but 9:00 for members.  Because there isn't much happening in that first half hour, and I think because my first position had 9:00 as the start time, it's been difficult to reprogram my brain to think I need to be at work for the earlier start time. While Lee-Anne was away, I put up a little calendar in my office and started recording the time I got into the building every day. I guess seeing the patterns in front of me had a good influence, because I have gotten a little better.

All in all, I managed to function. The place probably wasn't as tidy as usual, I forgot a few things, and I didn't get as much exercise. But I think I did a passable job of taking care of myself and I managed to take on a few initiatives that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

Garden 2024

This Spring has been petty much perfect. Lots of flowers, greenery, and rain. I've been reading a book called The Hidden Life of Trees, so I thought that maybe I'm just more focused on foliage than usual. But a coworker of mine said that this is the prettiest Spring she's seen in Canada, so it's not just me.

Pictures likely don't do it justice

Also, I saw this heron on a house

It's been good weather for barbecues. Recently we had our first one of the year. I may have mentioned it, but two Christmases ago my mother in law got me a charcoal chimney. At first I really struggled with it, because I thought that you were supposed to only put paper in the spout. You're actually supposed to fill the gap beneath the grill and light it through the spout. I actually got pretty good at getting the coals going with an extremely minimal amount of awkwardly placed paper.

Another thing that will make barbecues easier this year is that we have lawn chairs now. We've only had one chair that I think belonged to the person who lived here before us, so it's always been a bit of a discussion whenever we're outside about whose turn it is with the chair.

Other new additions to the backyard include an oriole feeder, which my grandma sent us, and we got a three-tiered planter

I've mentioned it before, but because the soil in our backyard is so gravelly, we mostly resort to pots and planters. When we were cleaning the ones we used last year, we noticed that most of the weeds we were pulling were actually lettuce! This is hilarious because we completely failed to grow it last season. It just came a year late! Lee-Anne wanted another crack at growing it, so that's what we have on the bottom row.

In the middle we have Brussels sprouts. Wildcard pick, as we've never tried them before. They are my favourite vegetable. My oma likes to tell a story about the first time I tried one as a child and how enthusiastic I was. They are supposed to be notoriously reviled by children but I've always loved them. I enjoy bitter tasting food in general.

Apparently they grow tall but their roots are wide, not shallow. They're supposed to be planted a foot and a half apart, which the planter allows, and they only need to be as deep as the pot they come in. They might look weird, but hopefully they grow healthily.

Top row is a variety of herbs. Kind of like how we found lettuce this year without intending to, we also had mint. Difference is we've never planted mint, but apparently it grows like a weed. I don't remember all the herbs we're growing.

Even though we have more space to plant, I still got too many. To be fair, I only overshot by one pot and two tomato cages. I got four Early Girl tomatoes, which had some success last year. For a while, I didn't know you needed to "pull the suckers off" (I hate that phrase), so my tomatoes would often develop late in the season. They wouldn't properly ripen and I'd wind up eating lots of fried green tomatoes. Knowing the technique and having a specific breed that develops earlier allowed us to get a crop last year, and hopefully we do a bit better this time around with two additional plants.

We've got two trays full of peas, which is one more than we had last year. I think we planted them alongside the cucumbers, lettuce, and radishes last year. We're not trying for radishes this time. I've had one good experience with them and two bad, which kind of makes them not worth the risk.

Cucumbers are still in a tray, but they're not sharing with anything else. I think I slightly prefer zucchinis, but they didn't have them at the nursery we visited. That was the case last year, but I think we were late to start a garden then, whereas I felt we were pretty punctual this time.

I got some seeds for local wildflower. I'll need to buy an additional pot for them. Their express purpose is to encourage honey bees. It's a common error that people think they can plant any type of flower for this. It's important to grow local breeds, and supposedly what I've got should meet that criteria.

We have a special love of sunflowers. For this reason, we reserve for them the one part of the backyard where we've made the effort to dig up and replace the soil. Last year I sprinkled cayenne pepper on the soil to discourage squirrels, but they still got to them. A coworker suggested that we toss the seeds themselves in cayenne before burying. I did so, and then added some on top of the soil as well.

Last year, I had to build multiple mesh barriers and weight them down with rocks. In the end, we wound up with more flowers than I've ever managed before, so let's hope we see similar success.

Goodbye Spice Rack

After the completion of this blog post, I will be saying goodbye to an old culinary companion: my college spice rack

 

When I was in college, a friend of mine asked for some help carrying things out of her sister's house who was moving. As is always the case, people accumulate way more than they realize, and the act of needing to lug everything to a new location brings to light how much a person doesn't need. So she was in the process of reprioritizing her needs, and one of the things she decided to cut loose was her spice rack.

When she offered it to me, a buddy of mine who was also helping, burst out laughing. From his perspect, apparently my eyes lit up and I fell to my knees, laying my hands at the sides of the rack. I was mesmerized by it.

I don't remember it quite being like that, but I can believe it. As I gazed at those bottles, a whole new world of spice was opening up to me.

For context, by the time I got to college, despite having done Katimavik and having had food prep responsibilities during my rounds as House Manager, I still didn't have many life skills. Back then, my most reliable skill was bread baking, likely because baking generally comes with more guidance than cooking does. I would also always have someone helping me, even if they were similarly inexperienced.

During my college stint, I wasn't beholden to a schedule, |I was relieved of the pressure of providing for a household, and had to balance health and finances with the school workload. It wasn't a conducive environment to best utilize my culinary skills.

But I was trying. I had reverse-engineered the college cafeteria stirfries, eventually swapped out the noodles for rice when I found that was cheaper, and eventually started cracking eggs into it, making it a sort of fried rice. My newfound ability to make large batches of relatively healthy, cheap, and not-disgusting homemade food established me as the house chef among my similarly-inexperienced roommates. I could make fried rice and homemade bread, I was king.

But I still had no access point to the mysterious world of spices. When I laid eyes on this spice rack, a whole new reality opened up before me.

The two spices that were most unfamiliar to me at the time were tarragon and coriander. I would go out of my way to find both of these, because even though I didn't know how to use them and I had a limited budget, the investment was worth it to complete my collection.

We would do stupid things with spices. One of the most easiest and most affordable foods as students was frozen prierogies. You could get them for $2 per kilogram. This was amazing at the time, and if you can believe it, during the present-day crazy grocery inflation, those prices remain true at the time of this posting!

Anyway, we would fry up some prierogies and mindlessly experiment by throwing spices on them. We would have spice competitions with prierogies as the canvas.

When I moved the first time, the entire rack made it to the new location intact. But as someone who was helping us carried it to the new kitchen counter, one of the bottles fell out. I was upstairs and heard a crash. When I asked what broke, the person simply said "spice". Jokingly, I said "It better not be tarragon" because that was the one I felt most useless as well as costly. It was tarragon.

In the second move, corriander was lost. Somehow, the two spices I found most unfamiliar were the ones that didn't make it all the way.

Despite the fact that they were my least utilized, I still complained incessantly about it. I think this isn't even my first blog post about it. My family would make fun of me, but when I showed them the jars with their personalized, engraved leaves, they understood. My grandparents tried to offer advice on rebottling, but it proved impossible. As a consolation, they gave me some of their spice bottles, which I still have and have no plans of losing.

I would move only once more. Initially the tradition of losing a piece of the rack per move would not be repeated. However, it now appears that this move will be the end of it in its entirety.

You see, I have become far more versed in the world of spice than I had been when I first met my spice rack. It was becoming apparent that my new needs exceeded the limits of what it could offer. Even coriander was not a stranger to me, although I could only ever find like, one recipe for tarragon and I think I only made it once.

I would default to scrounging through shelves of bagged spices more often than I could turn to the support of my rack. Through lifestyle changes, being responsible for regular cooking for my then-girlfriend now wife, and my increasing proficiency due in part to my food blog, I had evolved and had witness to this development. My increasing need for a more efficient system was reported to my now-mother-in-law, and one Christmas I was gifted with a more extensive rack.

From six spices to 24. Even at its hayday of eight spices, the old rack simply cannot compete. Also, the new one is from McCormick, a popular brand with glass bottles at every grocery. So if one breaks it can easily be replaced, and if there is a more desired spice, it can be swapped out. The versatility is immeasurably better.

And with limited kitchen space in our basement apartment, I was eventually confronted with the fact that the old rack is just too bulky for its utility. I'll miss the engraved leaves, the unique, irreplaceable nature of it, and the memories that it evokes of my rooky days as a home cook. But sentimentality alone does not justify its continued existed on our now-crowded kitchen counter.

So farewell, old spice rack. You guided me to the world of spice, inspired me to experiment and research. You fulfilled your purpose in bringing me to this point, and I won't soon forget you. 

Watcher Entertainment

Before I begin today's topic, I want to briefly mention that Lee-Anne is safe at home after 19 days in the hospital. I won't go into it much more, as I don't intend for this to be the type of thing where I share every intimate detail on the blog. But since I let you all know what was happening, I thought I should at least mention that we got to the other side of it safely.

Anyway, let's get into today's discussion.

Probably my biggest guilty pleasure is Youtube. I don't do much in the way of social media, I've always been hesitant to engage with new technologies. I didn't have a cell phone until I went to college at the age of 22. When I got one it was a flip phone, archaic even then. The only platform I use for communication is Facebook, which got big while I was a teenager and is now known as the platform for old people. I scroll Reddit, but haven't posted anything there for years. I've got an Instagram I barely use. I briefly had an account on Twitter, which I believe has now been deleted for inactivity, and I don't use any of the doppelganger platforms like Threads. I've done two stints with Snapchat on request of others, but the app is now deleted. I've never been on Ticktock. I don't do Twitch, Discord, Tumblr or anything like that. My preferred way of communicating online is Blogger. 

The only predominant video platform I use is Youtube. While still successful, even it's developing a reputation as being for old people. This is due to the fact that it promotes long-form media instead of skits, and because it uses horizontal display. This makes it better for laptops and desktops, as opposed to Ticktock's vertical display, which is better for smart phones.

But Youtube has been keeping relevant. It has short-form vertical display options called Shorts, and its algorhythms have become sophisticated enough to curate individualized pages that maximize engagement.

I'm a big critic of algorhythms. I don't think they have the best interests of their consumers in mind, and I think that a big part of the polarization we're seeing in society today is due to being immersed with content designed specifically for ourselves. It's been proven, for example, that Youtube doesn't just push stuff that it thinks you'll enjoy. It also does it for things that you will hate. This is because people are perverse and will give attention to things that shock and horrify. This often leads to suggestions of people that you will resonate with, as well as poor representations of people on the other side of the issues you care about. This reinforces personal bias and leads to the opinion that everyone that disagrees with you is crazy.

This isn't a new phenomenon. When I was a kid, my mom told me that "the news" should be called "bad news" because it wasn't an accurate representation of the experience of life. It just covers the worst elements of it. 

What is new is the level of sophistication that media companies have in their ability to target people. Back in the day, we had a term called "click bait". This was when an article or video would present itself as something it wasn't, because even though they knew it wouldn't satisfy the consumer, it would cause them to click on it, which was the metric for which companies determined success. Nowadays, that isn't even necessary. With autoplay, the "click" is determined by how long you look at it, and this impacts what the algorhythm will offer you. It's "observe bait".

As bad as that is, there are reasons that I often prefer Youtube over traditional media. For example, despite being much larger in scale than it used to be, the people developing content are still relatively small and feel more down to Earth.

The other day, I asked myself, "If the algorhythm were to disappear, which channels would I still watch?" I pondered that, and decided on a handful of channels that I might visit if I needed a quick dopamine hit, but ultimately wouldn't follow or bother to keep up with. I found there were only two channels that I look forward to and keep their upload schedule in mind.

The first one is NFKRZ, which is hosted by a displaced Russian immigrant who escaped his home country at the dawning of the war with Ukraine. This is a small-scale production that mostly consists of him talking to a camera. He does his own editing and other than his girlfriend occasionally filming when they're outside, he doesn't have any real help. I don't have any special passion for Russian politics or culture, but this is just an introspective and humble guy navigating a complicated life journey.

The other channel that I specifically go out of my way for is Watcher Entertainment, and while it's taken me a bit to get here, it's this one that I want to talk about. I usually don't bother talking about drama in popular media, but as I've just established, it's one of my two favourite channels, so I feel a certain investment.

Unlike NFKRZ, Watcher is larger in scale, more polished, with dedicated series', and more similar overall to traditional television. It's a company started by three personalities that got their start on Buzzfeed: Ryan Bergara, Shane Medej, and Steven Lim.

If you don't know Buzzfeed, they're probably the most notorious example of a media company that used clickbait tactics. On their Youtube channel, they hired a massive number of creatives that all competed to establish themselves. Eventually, most of the more successful ones felt they could stand on their own feet and set out on their own. This included the three founders of Watcher.

While on Buzzfeed, Ryan and Shane were known for their Unsolved series. This involved the two of them going to locations known to be haunted and trying to collect evidence of ghosts. If you've seen most ghost hunting shows, you'll understand that they are usually obviously faked. However, the thing that distinguished this particular show was that Shane was a skeptic. He didn't believe in ghosts and nothing throughout the series run would sway him. Also, the content and evidence was far more understated and subtle, giving enough to titilate the believers while allowing enough room for skeptics to maintain their disbelief.

This means that many episodes would be them poking around a dusty abandoned building, only catching a few bumps in the night that would leave even the believers unimpressed. During these shoots, the two guys would goof around with each other, as they put it "Substituting giggles for ghouls".

Fans that sided with Shane identified themselves as "Shaniacs" and those on Ryan's end were called "Boogaras". People that didn't identify one way or the other were invited to refer to themselves as "Shitfish". They tried to reel that one back a few times but the phrase stuck, with many people proud to call themselves Shitfish.

I'm a Boogara by the way. Originally that was the norm, but as Shane's presence continued to distinguish the series, it eventually kind of became the ghost show for skeptics.

Ryan offered the series a sense of grandeur, while Shane offered a sense of legitimacy with his scroutiny. Because the show was as understated as it was, when they did come across something legitimately spooky, it felt much more impactful. This was because they'd developed a sense of trust that other ghost shows just didn't have.

Kind of a wholesome aspect of the series was that, even though they avidly disagreed with each other and did a lot of mutual teasing, they still obviously respected and liked each other. It felt like they were modeling how people can disagree while still being friends

They also had a True Crime series that they backed away from due to the sensitive nature of some of the cases.

Steven's Buzzfeed series was called Worth It, which he co-hosted with a man named Andrew. In it, they would try three meals at drastically different price points and at the end decide what they thought was the most worth it at its given price. So generally there would be a fast casual place, a sit down restaurant, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It wasn't really a food critic show though, in that they never gave a bad review. Each location was vetted and they never went anywhere if there was a chance they wouldn't like it. It was just a feel good show about appreciating food and vicariously experiencing lifestyles that you wouldn't normally have access to, whether that be because of location or finances.

So these three guys split away from Buzzfeed and start their own channel, Watcher Entertainment. They all started as CEOs, but after Ryan and Shane's projects proved more successful, they took the helm as the lead entertainment while Steven adopted the position of sole CEO and did more behind the scenes work.

Steven's comparable lack of success was unsurprising to me. Probably more important than the premise of their respective series' was the dynamic they had with their co-hosts, and while Ryan and Shane had each other, Steven didn't have Andrew.

New shows that they saw have success: 

• Puppet History, a gameshow-inspired series based on history. Spearheaded by Shane, co-hosted by Ryan. Spiritual successor of Shane's short-lived solo project Ruining History
• Ghost Files, a spiritual successor to Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural, in which Ryan and Shane explore allegedly haunted locations in search of evidence of ghosts
• Mystery Files, a spiritual successor to Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime, where they dialed back the aspect of crime in favour of generally mysterious phenomenon
• Dish Granted, the only show Steven managed to get a little traction, where he tries to make the best and most expensive version of a dish requested by a guest in under 24 hours
• Top 5 Beatdown, where Ryan, Shane, and a guest list their top 5 choices of a given topic.
•  Are You Scared, in which Ryan reads spooky stories to try and get the better of his stoic friend Shane. 
• Too Many Spirits, where Ryan and Shane get drunk and read scary stories sent in by fans.
• Survival Mode, where Ryan and Shane play horror video games

They also have a couple of podcasts of moderate success and a number of discontinued series'.

My personal favourite was Social Distancing D&D. It happened during the pandemic, and was just the three of them and one of their behind the scenes employees playing Dungeons and Dragons over Zoom during the pandemic.

Over the course of four years, they managed to climb to three million subscribers, which is pretty successful. Recently, they announced that something big was coming, and set a timer for when they would go public with it.  Very much framed as something to get excited about.

So the timer runs down and a video titled "Goodbye Youtube" is released. It starts off with a reflection from each of them about their respective careers, played over soft piano music. Eventually, they anounce their next move as a company.

They're moving all their content onto an independent streaming platform. Members to be charged $5.99 a month, or $59.99 a year.

This is insane. They expect a monthly subscription for access to content that had previously been free. To reiterate, they are in my top two channels that I enjoy. I can afford $6 a month, and I never even considered subscribing.

I'm not alone, the fanbase has been united in disdain and confusion over the decision. Their dislike to like ratio on the announcement is about 80/20. As of this posting 70,000 people have unsubscribed. All the reaction Youtubers are covering the story.

The reason they cite for their decision is that as they are, they are beholden to advertisers. They would like to move somewhere they can cater only to fans. They say that they want to increase production value, that it's always been their goal to be a TV show, and that TV isn't suited for Youtube.

They did announce the spiritual successor of the Worth It series, called Travel Season. It is to air on their streaming service, complete with former co-host Andrew and cameraman Adam. They said that they will continue to release trailers and season premiers on their Youtube channel, but that all other content will be held exclusively on the streaming service.

It appears that there is a disparity between what they want to do and what their fans want from them. Almost all of their most successful shows have been based around Ryan and Shane hanging out and chatting. Their main draw is the parasocial relationship they offer, not their production value.

A parasocial relationship is when fans feel more closely connected to a public figure than they actually are. This isn't a new phenomenon. Way back when the show Cheers was airing, people tuned in to watch people interact in the place "where everyone knows your name".

There is a term called a "Third Place". It means somewhere that you go to relax that isn't home or work. Because of everything being monetized and the rise of home entertainment among other factors, these places are becoming more and more scarce. People tuned in to watch Cheers to feel like they were a part of that Third Place.

This is the case for Ryan and Shane, and of Steven and Andrew. We live in what is known as a "loneliness epidemic" which is impacting men especially hard. I'm not exempt. When I watched two guys with similar values banter, it was like I was vicariously experiencing part of the friendship. Remember when I said that part of the appeal of Youtube over traditional media was the low scale? That worked for them. Saying they need higher production to give the fans what they want is crazy.

As far as finances go, it's been pointed out that they've been fumbling pretty hard. They have 25 staff, which is apparently way higher than they need, they moved to an office in LA, and in general they've been spending exhorbitant amounts on set designs and other things that no one asked for or wanted. 

Despite that, their financial situation should be sound. You see, this isn't the first time they've put their content behind a paywall. They have something called a Patreon, which hosts exclusive content for paid membership. They have been relatively successful with this while still releasing free videos to Youtube. Now, the people that are already paying between $5-$25 for a Patreon subscription are only getting a 40% discount on the streaming platform. They also have a successful merch store and live shows in addition to their numerous ads and sponsors. It can be easy to forget how big these channels can be behind the scenes.

They said they set the membership fee at $6 because they wanted "Anyone and everyone to be able to afford it". First off, that is verifiably untrue. We are in a global recession and many people are living paycheque to paycheque. Some people are unhoused, but in our modern society where everyone has a cell phone and most have access to public WiFi, they'd have been able to access the free content but likely not the stuff behind a paywall.

But even for people that can afford it, why would they pay a monthly subscription fee for access to one Youtube channel? In our present climate, most people are paying multiple subscription fees already. They've placed themselves in direct competition with Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime etc.

But do you know what those places have that Watcher doesn't? A catalogue of classic films and shows spanning across decades, as well as original, exclusive content made by their platform. Watcher has four years of content, made by one team, with new releases once or twice a week.

I've seen other Youtubers show what the new Watcher streaming platform looks like, and it looks good. Like, weirdly good. It looks comparable to Netflix.

But the fact that it looks that good begins to feel a little creepy. Like, if you went onto Netflix and every show was done by the same three people, that would be weird right? If you clicked on your TV and it was the same three people on every channel that would just be... weird.

And how do they expect to grow the fan base? Usually, you attract attention to yourself on recomendation of a friend, or because an algorhythm suggested it, or because you saw it in a catalogue in proximity to other things you're interested in. No one is going to accidentally find them behind a paywall. I guess they're relying on word of mouth from the small fraction of people willing to pay for it, and otherwise just through trailers and season premiers on Youtube? I don't think it's doable.

They should have tried to just get a show on Netflix or some alternate streaming service with an established catalogue. And if they couldn't swing that, that should have informed them of their chances of making it as an independent streaming service.

Most of the backlash has been directed at Steven. I find this unsurprising, since he's the CEO so he'll be perceived as the one with the most decision making power. Also, Ryan and Shane's positions as faces of the organization have them primed to be sympathetic.

I can understand using Travel Season as bait to pull in an audience. All of the previous legacy shows proved wildly succesful when given their spiritual sequals on Watcher, and Worth It was like 50% of their legacy on Buzzfeed. As I mentioned before, the missing component was Andrew, but now they've got him, so it seems natural.

But it's been pointed out that it's a little offputting to ask for money from their audience, and then use that same money on intentionally overpriced meals. It was more palatable when Steven was just a guy who was sent to fancy restaurants by a faceless media corporation, getting his mind blown by food that he wouldn't normally be able to afford. But now he's the CEO of his own company and he's taking money from the poor to feed himself. It's a different vibe, you know?

Anyway, wow, I talked a while. Believe it or not I could keep going. We'll see if they wind up backtracking or if they push forward. I think all they can do is damage control at this point, but after they slandered their ads and sponsors, I don't know if that revenue stream will be as viable. I'm sure they've lost a good chunk of subscribers permanently already. Totally boneheaded move on their behalf

Total Solar Eclipse 2024

Yesterday we experienced a total solar eclipse. Apparently we get a couple every year, but they're usually situated over the poles, or they land largely on the ocean. This one spanned over a huge portion of North America, covering parts of Mexico, the US, and Canada. This included Kitchener, the city that I reside.

The word "total" got attached to this particular eclipse to emphasize its magnitude. Technically this word is a bit overdramatic, in that there were people traveling to see it. If it were actually total, it would have covered the globe. In fact, even we didn't experience a "total solar eclipse". Our time "at totality" covered about 90% of the sun. The closest place geographically to get the full version was Niagara Falls.

One of the more eerie aspects of this phenomenon is that it's only possible because the moon and sun are positioned the exact space necessary from Earth that they appear to be the same size. The difference in scale between the Earth, moon, and sun, and respective distance they are from each other is literally astronomical. This fact seems functionless, and the specificity of this aesthetic choice feels like a creative decision. It evokes a feeling of divine intentionality. 

The eclipse was treated very seriously by our local schoolboard. Initially, it was announced that schools would be open, but less than a week before the event, someone got cold feet and canceled the day.

I kind of get it. It happened at the most inconvenient time for us too. Our members typically leave between 3:00 and 3:30. The eclipse was supposed to start at about 2:45 and reach totality at about 3:15. So the perfect time to guarantee that all our members would be outside.

This is a problem because staring into an eclipse is dangerous. My initial understanding of this was that, it's not because the eclipse sends more damaging rays, it's just more tempting to look at based on novelty. Also, we're so used to avoiding the sun based on the pain of its brightness that without that sensation, people lower their guard. 

This was kind of true, but there is an additional element. When we look at the sun, our eyes contract as a natural protective instinct. During an eclipse, our eyes don't recognize the danger so they don't use this defense mechanism, thus making them more vulnerable to damage. So if there's even a little bit of direct eye contact with the sun, it will cause more damage than usual.

Our members have a variety of capacity when it comes to heeding advice about safety. Knowing that there would likely be a large number of them outside during the event, my boss made the precautionary move of ordering eclipse glasses.

My understanding of these was that they were an additional layer of protection, but that it was advisable to not stare directly at the sun. I was at a community centre earlier in the day it happened, and people were annoying me, saying they bought special glasses to look at the eclipse.

They turned out to be right though. The glasses expressly state that they are meant for sungazing during an eclipse, which it claimed could be safely done for up to three minutes. My coworkers were stating their intention of doing so, but I said that I would abstain from this behaviour. I have a legally blind wife and don't want to lose my status as the sighted partner. My optometrist, who is also my Father-in-Law, gave me 20/20 vision at my last appointment and I don't want to lose that.

Potentially the eclipse could be a great business opportunity for him.

Anyway, I tried the glasses on. It was just a big black bar over my eyes. I guess they're just super heavy duty sunglasses. I stared directly into a lightbulb and saw a little illumination.

All day leading up to the eclipse, it had been really cloudy. Miraculously, just before it happened, the sky opened up to give us full exposure.

Despite staying open, most of our members had opted to stay home, or go home early. We only had a few very sensible people with good survival instincts, which was a relief.

As everyone went out to sungaze, I initially held back. But when I saw strong positive reactions, I buckled and decided to take a peak through the eclipse glasses.

It was amazing! As the moon passed over, it turned into a perfect crescent sun! It was a flat shape without any glow. It really goes to show how bright the sun actually is, if I could barely see a lightbulb inches from my face with the glasses on, but I could see clearly a glowing orange fingernail during the eclipse.

I took some photos. I took some regular ones, and some with the camera lens pointed through the glasses. They don't look anything like what I saw with my eyes though.

Me, forgetting that my camera was in selfie mode

Direct shot of the eclipse

Through the eclipse glasses

Somehow, someone got a good shot of the crescent sun. Maybe my camera is just bad.

There were sun gazers coming out from surrounding houses and buildings. I'm not confident that everyone showed enough restraint to limit themselves to three minutes of exposure.

I thought it would get way darker than it did. I thought it would be like night during the daytime. Only at near totality did it drop to a dusky vibe. It got dark enough to trigger automatic lights. And it got colder! I didn't even think of that!

Overall, it was way more awesome than I thought it would be, but I didn't think I'd have the courage to engage with it. I only stole glances through the eclipse glasses though. Nowhere near the allowable three minutes.

I read a book called Staring at the Sun. It's about mortality. The metaphor is that death is something that is around us constantly and informs the way we live, but to look directly at it is painful. This is similar to how the sun illuminates the Earth, and we're aware of it but fear looking at it directly. The author makes it explicitly clear that while staring at death and acknowledging it is healthy if painful, he would never recommend staring at the literal sun.

Well, with eclipse glasses we can stare at the literal sun too.

Giant Food

Lee-Anne's doing okay. Me and her parents visited after she had the electrodes implanted under her skull. She was a little groggy from being put under and the anaesthesiologist said that she likely wouldn't remember her first interactions after coming to, but we visited her again the next day and she said she remembered us being there.

On her request, I'm going to cover a topic that she's wanted me to write about, but I've struggled with finding a way to express in an engaging way.

One thing about me that surpises people, and something I don't often think about, is that I've never been to Costco. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. As far as I'm aware it's just a bulk shopping centre. But for some people the Costco experience is something distinct. I'm told that it's chaotic, and I've heard from otherwise withdrawn people that they "get a little intense" when they go shopping there. 

My mother-in-law brought me there as a belated Christmas present. Going in, what I knew about Costco was that its gimmick is that you can buy things in large quantities. It's got a little restaurant area with suspiciously cheap hotdogs and enough people handing out free samples that you can fill up on them. Apparently they pay their employees decently and their brand, Kirkland, has a policy that none of its products can be released without meeting or surpassing the quality of its highest performing competitor. I don't know how they determine quality, but I can at least confirm that Kirkland brand toilet paper is really nice. A corner store near where I used to live sold it.

Going there, it was basically a warehouse that you could buy things from. Maybe that's part of the appeal for people that haven't worked factories. There were a few places that were overseen by employees, including some electronics and a jeweller. We could have gotten our wedding rings from Costco.

They had some pre-made cauliflower crust pizza shells that we've been gifted by others but haven't been able to find anywhere else. Weirdly, we weren't able to find ground or whole bean coffee. Only K-cups.

Being able to bulk shop at Costco is handy, as grocery prices in Ontario have been insane lately. I've got a full-time job that requires a post-secondary education, I live in a dual income household without children in an apartment with comparably affordable rent, and food prices are still scaring me. Higher end grocery stores like Sobeys and Zehrs seem completely inaccessible now.

My mother-in-law is a creature of habit and comes from an optometrist's household. She traditionally shopped at Sobeys, but has has converted to Wal Mart due to inflation. If they lost her, I have no idea who those stores are targeting.

And yet... should you adventure far enough into a Sobeys you'll find a gigantic sandwich for only $15! It's big enough that me and Lee-Anne can have it for dinner and have enough leftovers for another meal. I thought it would be a lot of bread and lettuce, but they don't skimp on the meat at all. Overall it's weirdly high quality. I don't know what's happening here, it must be a loss lead to just get people into the store.

Apple for scale.

We've had three of these giant sandwiches so far, one in each of the options they provide: classic, donair, and Cubano. 

The donair was good because the meat has the same spices as shawarma, just topped with a sweet sauce. I really want to like the Halifax donair, because then I could claim it as a part of my Canadian identity. But while it's good enough to be in the same conversation as other Mediterranean/Middle Eastern inspired foods, I still prefer classic shawarma, shish tawook, and falaffel. Better than Kofta though. In this iteration, having something that is typically in a pita on a sub roll felt like a weird choice, though.

I like the cubano best. The meat is less processed than the classic sub and the pickle gives a nice crunch.

If you go in further you will find they have an even more ludicrously huge bags of chips. I don't think you could get them at that size at Costco.

Giant sandwich for scale.

Another thing we found at Sobeys were these little Wintergreen flavoured tablets. I really like the taste of Pepto Bismal, the stomach relief medicine. Apparently this is divisive, with some people hating it and others loving it. I've tried a few things that people said taste similar, like strawberry milk, but it's just not the same. I'd long thought that the unique flavour I crave must have something to do with its medicinal quality. But someone mentioned that the flavour is simply something called "Wintergreen". Trying it, it really does taste the same!

Now I can eat so many candies that I upset my stomache, then relieve the pain with Pepto Bismal! Full circle wintergreen