Tales of the Salty Bag

Christmas music is, well, can be pretty garbage sometimes. There's only so many renditions of the same old 'classics' that you can listen to before you want to smash your head through the wall. But when you can find good (original) christmas music, well, it's delightful. Everyone knows the greatest christmas song ever written, Fairytale of New York. I'm however not going to write about that Pogues classic. I'm going to let you know about an album I got a few years ago made by Connor Ratliff (comedian and entertainer extraordinaire) and Mikey Erg (musician who doesn't sleep); The Spirit of Ratliff A Holiday Soundtrack ep (the A side has Xmas Next year tacked onto the end and the b-side of the LP is Summer is Not XMAS ep). I first found out about Connor Ratliff through The Chris Gethard Show when he was running for president because he was 35 and eligible to do so. TCGS introduced me to Connor's sort of offbeat sense of humor (and I believe was his intro...

 Like they say, local [references] get you local work. A couple months ago a buddy of my made some salsa. It was a bit too spicy for his family so he asked me if I wanted a jar. Well, heck yeah. Homemade salsa that's spicy? Sign me up! A day later I was coming home from an errand and I found a bag hanging from my mailbox, inside was a jar of salsa with a homemade label, "Make your tits sweat salsa"..we'll see about that, we, will, see, about, that. When I opened the jar later that night I was met with an aroma that was a bit like, curry? It looked chunky and towards the orange side. Sort of looked like if a standard and a verde hooked up. There were lots of seeds visible, some white onion and a mix of green and red tomatoes. I could see cilantro up in the mix as well. My first couple tastes were straight from the spoon so that I could get the full flavour, untainted. There was a nice pepper heat, it's not an aggressive chemical burn, just a great flavourful pepper...

 I was going to post about some pretty localized and/or DIY stuff this week. But then I decided to push that for a future post. Instead I'll regale you with salty notes from my salty phone that's battery is being decimated by the latest iOS update.  Oh, here's a timely one from last week: I'm actually going to post about some limited time chips before they're lost to the ages (I'm pretty sure they're still readily available anyway). I'm on a streak! DORITOS LATE NIGHT BUFFALO HOT WINGS! LIMITED TIME!!! Doritos Late Night series of flavours have been hit and miss to be nice about it. I've posted on this blog about a few of their 'late night' flavours in the past. But the only thing that's really stuck with me about 'late night' is that it's often code for hot garbage. Did Buffalo Hot Wings live up to their older 'late night' bredren's bad rep? Na man, they're actually pretty decent. Going into this bag I had m...

2020's has been a rollercoaster to say the least. One of the highs that I've been able to find has been by way of mcenroe putting out the Peanuts & Corn 2020 Pod in association with Ugsmag. If you're into music history (more specifically the history of Canadian rap [for the most part within the prairies] then it is an absolute goldmine). Just over a month(?) ago mcenroe put up a P&C adjacent episode with soso . For the most part Sask rap is a pretty big blind spot for me, back in the Napster days I stumbled upon Isosceles, then as the years have gone by I've gotten into Def3 through Sweatshop Union which lead me to Factor and Kay the Aquanaut (that Side Road fam) but up until the soso podcast episode I was unaware of the Clothes Horse Records of it all. Well, let me tell you, I've been missing out, I'm trying to dip in slowly so that I don't overload myself with new music. mcenroe played Hungover for Three Days Straight from soso's 2005 tenth s...

I'm not sure if Sweden is a peculiar place or if maybe they weird up their exports sometimes to mess with people. Either way, my wife went to Ikea this past week and brought me back a couple bags of Ikea chips..(which are a product of the USA..but really, if you're naming your chips fleshlight..err, festligt [wait, that means festive? in english, I thought it'd mean something to do with chips] it seems like they're at least trying to front Swedish). Every so often I return to The Shape of Punk to Come to see if I'm finally down like a clown..Charlie Brown..with the entire album. Each time, before returning to it I tend to think that there's something about it that I just don't get or am not into (hence it not being in my collection). So, about an hour ago I threw it on. The first song is an absolute rager, and at 7 minutes (for a hardcore song) that's quite a feat. They maintain rager status throughout the album, throwing in different world sounds, funk...

 Billy Liar put out his debut LP, Some Legacy , on Red Scare last year. Some Legacy is full band punk rock (Joe McMahon's on second guitar, backup vocs..and produced the album) based around Billy's acoustic guitar. The music is mid to up tempo and somewhat bright, melodic with some harmonies..which is juxtaposed against Billy's fairly dark and dire lyrics. These are absolutely beautiful songs that when reading the lyrics come off as a form of therapy. Billy's gone through and, if the lyrics on this album are any indication, is still going through some real shit. Mental health is at the forefront of his lyrics, both his own and people close to him (noose is beautifully written and absolutely heart wrenching lyrics..backed by melody, harmonies and poppy music). The political and economical turmoil that Scotland is currently going through makes its way into the songs. This is an amazing album that if you want to take it superficially you can just bop along to the music..t...

 A fellow chippie? chipper? chip lover sent me an email last week recommending the Arriba Sweet Chili flavour, Limited Time Flavour, tortilla chips. As I should, I took C's recommendation seriously, but didn't find myself at a store to search for said chips. Coincidentally..and lucky for me..a couple days later my wife brought home some bags of Arriba guac and Arriba sweet chili chips. Yippiekayea. I was quite excited to try the Sweet Chili for a few reasons; I've recently realized my previous (unwarranted) bias against Arriba flavours was, well, wrong, the aforementioned recommendation, and Doritos Sweet Chili Heat is one of my go to's any day anytime. So lets crack this limited time flavour open (I'm actually reviewing these while they're still available, whoa). They smell like corn tortilla chips, the flavouring looks from afar similar to Doritos flavour that they're aping, upon closer inspection the flavouring is more granular with visible sugar. Once I...