Canada
Dan’s from-scratch perogie recipe
Jan 11th
There’s nothing quite like the joy of cooking, and one of my favourite treats would have to be perogies (or pierogi). Perogies are very common in Saskatchewan where I grew up, due to the large Ukranian population, so much so that I was very surprised not to find them when I left Saskatchewan for other provinces.
It’s worth noting that perogies are, in the local Canadian Ukranian dialect, called pyrohy (hence the name), but that in standard Ukranian, they are called varenyky, and that pyrohy actually refers to a different dish entirely. This can confuse people originally from Russia or the Ukrane, since we sound like we don’t know what we’re talking about, and that’s fair enough. I mean, if you went to Moscow and someone offered you pancakes but served you toast, you’d be confused too.
Now, without further ado, my no-fail, from-scratch perogie recipie. Enjoy!
You will need
- Nothing! It’s from scratch!
Directions
- First, you will need to get a job. You can often find these in the local paper, or check Craigslist. Work the job for 2-50 weeks until you have saved up about $1500-2000. Be aware that this may take longer than first planned due to unexpected expenses, bills, lawsuits, or pregnancies.
- Buy a stove. I suggest a halogen or gas range, but electric will suffice in a pinch. These can cost up to $1000 or more, but you may be able to find a deal in your area, so again, check Craigslist and don’t be afraid to be frugal.
- Buy some cookware. I suggest buying a set. Copper cookware conducts heat very well and looks great, but any cookware will do.
- Buy some utensils and place settings. You can get both for about $100. In a pinch, you can substitute a single bowl for the place setting.
- Buy a package of frozen perogies. My preference is Safeway-brand potato and cottage cheese, but again, this is a matter of preference. I recommend against Cheemo, and not just because of the obvious Chernobyl jokes.
- Boil water in the largest pot from your cookware set.
- When the water is boiling, add as many perogies as you think you can eat. Stir them a little, and then leave them in until they float.
- Once they’re floating, give them another minute or two, and then take them out. Place them into one of the bowls you’ve purchased.
- Enjoy!
Update: Credit where it’s due; clarification on ‘pierogi’ vs. ‘varenyky’ lifted from the Wikipedia article on pierogi.
CBC fails basic accessibility
Dec 25th
I don’t know if I’m supposed to give them extra credit because it’s the holidays or something, but CBC has managed to put together one of the worst forms I’ve ever seen, as far as accessibility goes. Maybe no one there ever tabs between form fields, but for people like myself, and for thousands of Canadians with disabilities preventing them from using a mouse, this form is nigh-unusable.
I’m not sure how the problem came to be – I haven’t looked at the HTML and don’t care to – but I know you have to go pretty far out of your way to get the browser to skip entire blocks of form fields.
I discovered this when signing up for an account with them and trying to progress past the Email field. Now, admittedly I have seen forms that were completely messed up, where tabbing took you to an apparently random box, resulting in a connect-the-dots, family-circus ordeal, never knowing which field you’ll be required to fill in next (and not having ‘Password’ and ‘Retype Password’ one after the other is jarring), but never anything that completely skipped over two thirds of the form.
Seriously CBC, get with it. You’ve been so good with new media, but you can’t get a simple form right? That’s sad.
Amylie – Mes Oreilles
Nov 12th
The latest Single of the Week from iTunes Canada. It’s French (in case you care about that), but it’s catchy, she’s got a beautiful voice (for my tastes). Great song, and it’s free so download it and give a listen. The snippet doesn’t do it justice.
Fido Adventures
Nov 12th
Today was a big week for me as far as the iPhone goes. I’ve had issues with both Fido and Apple that necessitated a call (for the former) and a Genius appointment (for the latter).
If you haven’t been to the Fido website lately, you won’t have seen the changes – and they’re dramatic. The entire look and feel has changed. After updating their website when the iPhone was launched, they’ve thrown all of that away – and taken the plans with them.
In an effort to compete with Koodo (warning: ugly) and Solo, the no-frills carriers run by Telus and Bell respectively, Fido’s plans have been completely redone. How redone? Well, you can now get no-frills cellular service for $16.95 after tax.
Having signed up for their plans quite a while ago, and having two iPhones on my plan, my bill runs around $170 every month, and so I figured there was some room for improvement there. I was right, of course, but the difference was not as much as I had hoped. I can technically save money on my phone, but because I have a group plan, the cost on the other line would go up, and my total cost would remain the same (and I would lose 5.5 GB of data per month).
What they did offer me, however, is to trim the System Access Fee from my plans, saving me $15 every month – a reasonable change that I’m willing to accept.
The interesting thing here – they are not doing this for all of their customers. They will continue to charge you the SAF unless you call in and ask them about it. They can remove it, but there are conditions – if you are getting a discount already through some negotiating you’ve done before, you have to choose between that and losing the SAF, so if you’re already saving $7.50 or more then it’s not worth it.
If, unlike me, you aren’t on a group plan, you can probably save a fair chunk of change by switching. You also have the option, if you do less than 500M of data, of going with the $60 iPhone plan and adding unlimited incoming calls and caller ID if you want them (if not, you save even more!). There are various benefits and drawbacks you’d have to weigh.
So, if you’re a Fido customer, go to their website, check out their voice plans, check out their iPhone plans (just add any iPhone to your cart to see plan options), and see if there’s anything that will benefit you. At the very least, stop paying the system access fee!
Here’s a little table of what my options (for my first line) came out to.
| Old Plan | Change Plan | iPhone Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voice | $35 | $25 | $60 |
| Data | $30 | $30 | |
| Extras | $15 | $10 | $16 |
| SAF | $7.50 | ||
| Total | $87.50 | $65 | $76 |
Honestly, the only change that would really benefit me at this point would be if Fido introduced a 500 megabyte data plan for $10 (which compares favourably with their 6GB promotion for $30). They won’t do this, of course, because even people with the 6 GB plan are probably only using between 50-150 MB of data per month at most, so they’re making three times the money and providing the same amount of service. Perhaps once their network is built out and the instabilities are ironed out, they’ll consider more competitive rates.
For more iPhone fun, check out my same-day iPhone Adventures, where I exchange my iPhone for a new one, which probably won’t help me.
Vision Vancouver’s @PeterLadner Twatting
Nov 6th
So, here’s the story as I understand it:
Someone at Vision Vancouver decided that, in an attempt to be ‘hip’ and ‘edgy’ or whatever, they should register a Twitter account. The account they registered (now deleted) was @PeterLadner – the name of a Vancouver mayoral candidate. I’m a fan of light-hearted political parody in the style of @FakeSarahPalin, but what VV did was different – they essentially posted ‘parody’ using his name on Twitter.
How is this different? Well, for one, there was no clear indication that this was, in fact, parody. It was posted with his name, as though written by him, and there were no overt indications that this was, in fact, a fake – like, say, calling the account @FakePeterLadner. Anyone googling Peter Ladner’s name, perhaps to find information on the candidates in this election, would find Vision Vancouver’s words coming out of Peter Ladner’s mouth, out of context, with no indication that this is just a cheap political stunt.
Vision Vancouver, apparently in response to negative publicity from the Twitter and blogger communities (including posts by Gillian Shaw and Jenn Lowther), and an article on the Vancouver Sun website, has deleted the account, and recreated one at @PeterLadnerFake (which apparently was then deleted as well). Lesson learned?
Well, I wasn’t going to vote in the election because I’m new to the area and don’t understand the issues. Now I’ve learned more about Vision Vancouver, and I’ve decided that I don’t really want them around. Not just because of this issue, mind you, but others – like refusing to pay transit fares, even if he did eventually pay up. Seriously, if you don’t like the rules, then fight to change them, but don’t refuse to play ball because you can’t make your own rules up as you go. I’ll admit that I’ve run two zones on a one-zone pass (sometimes accidentally, sometimes not) but if I were caught, I’d pay the fine.
So, maybe I will vote after all. I haven’t decided for sure, and I’m not necessarily going to vote for Peter Ladner, but it looks like Robertson and his campaign are going about things the wrong way, and I couldn’t really vote for them after this kind of thing.
Oh well.