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House is Sinking

Lets start this off with, I have some great friends. Recently Joj' (5'1 Perspective [DIY maker. Started with wood based decorations then moved onto some other materials and projects. If you like crafty stuff I would strongly recommend giving her site a browse.]) and her husband went on a trip to Iceland. About a week after they got back into Canada I found a bag of Nordical (a taste of Iceland) Fish & Chips Salt & Vinegar (potato chips and dried fish) in my mailbox (Joj' and her husband have always been super supportive of the blog and wicked thoughtful with chip recommendations). What a pleasant surprise. The packaging for these is awesome, it's faux newspaper artwork. 40g bag of chips with 10 grams of protein. Sodium is off the charts with 30% of your daily in 40g (37.5% converted to 50g), fat ain't too bad 11% per 40g (13.8% per 50g). They smell a little fishy, but not aggressively. At first glance I didn't think there was fish in there, but upon closer inspection there were white circles in the bag that are the thickness of thick cut crisps. I popped one in my mouth, almost a smoked salmon flavour, not quite as smoky as that but it's that dry fish taste that you get with smoked salmon (though this is cod), I didn't get much vinegar flavour from the fish chip. I popped a potato chip in and got a nice light malt vinegar flavour. Both the fish and potato chips are relatively salty (as one should assume based on the salt content listed). Not much skin to be found in the bag, be that potato or fish. When I eat the fish and chips together the fish flavour overpowers the vinegar for the most part. I'm guessing that they need the high salt content to keep the fish good...but if they could drop the salt slightly and pump up the vinegar these would be a smash, and basically health chips. As is they're pretty good, but anything over a 40g bag might be a bit excessive. Enjoyably weird bag, if you're into fish (which I am). If you're not into fish and purchased a bag of these I would question your life choices in general.

I first heard about Bat Boy when they put out their Couldn't Keep Up 7" on Asian Man. Being that the band was noted as sharing a member with Spraynard (one of the ones that isn't named Pat) I was interested to say the least. Got the 7", but 7"s are hard to actually make a lasting impression for me. Shortly after Couldn't Keep Up, Mike Park started a Degrassi podcast (I'm in Love with a Girl Named Spike [fantastic podcast {I listened religiously through Jr. High and High then first season on TNG. Because TNG wasn't as much my jam I've fallen off a little bit}]). Pretty quickly into listening to the pod I realized that one of the co-hosts, Hannah, was from Bat Boy (and was fan who came to Degrassi through TNG and provided that perspective when recapping/commenting on OG episodes). Jump to 2023. Bat Boy is putting out their debut LP, Fun Machine (as I went to link it for this post I realized that it's not actually out until Oct 20th [somehow the albums were shipped and received prior to release, what is this, 2019?]). Fun Machine has a significant 90's alt rock influence, with some punk in there and great pop sensibilities. Introspective lyrics, somewhat fuzzy guitars and very present bass. Hanna's voice/delivery has a very Lou Hanman (Caves) sound to me. Great bouncy album with heart.

 Stay hydrated,

Marc

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