It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20’s that I think I started to pay closer attention to the news and somewhat started to care. Up until then I really didn’t have an affinity for what was going on in the world outside of my family and friends. Technically I was an adult so one would think adults should care about the goings on around the world but if it didn’t really affect me, in my mind I didn’t need to think about it.

I remember getting into an argument with someone from work at my first “real” job because I still didn’t have the cadence of being up to date on the news cycle in my mid twenties. To her, I should’ve known exactly what was going on in the world but in my mind, I didn’t really see much connection with what was going on other than with sports highlights and the weather.

I can’t remember exactly when I started to somewhat read the news daily but something tells me it had something to do with it being front and centre on social media, where you can’t miss anything even if you tried. And so when the Canadian government announced they would enforce social media companies to pay to share news on their platforms and the social media companies said NAH BRO, I laughed and figured the Gov’t Relations person at Facebook would be feverishly working with the Feds to fix this and we’d never know the difference.

But NAH BRO. It’s real - Canadians can’t see Canadian news on Facebook or Instagram anymore. Feels weird but now I’m back to my 20 something self thinking, do I really care? Also you can always still view everything on good ol Twitter..err X. Or just ask your American friends about Canadian news… LOL.

This week's issue is a 5 minute read:

🐔 KFC ya u know me

🧳 Travel hacks

👖 Y2K in Y2K23

Kentucky Fried Chicken not in Kentucky

The other night we had KFC for dinner. Oooo so exciting, I came to your newsletter to read about what you had for dinner. There, I said it for you. Very often (because I can’t say “every time”) when we eat KFC, my wife comments on how much better it tastes in Hong Kong. Generally speaking you can get the exact same food but it does tend to taste and look a bit different in HK. This all got me thinking, where can you actually find the best KFC in the world?

Luckily Jackie Tan spent 18 years of his life travelling the world trying KFC in 24 different countries to give us a decent, but heavily Asia weighted list of the best KFC in the world. Jacky even created a set of criteria that he follows as he orders the exact same thing every time he goes to a KFC - a 2 piece or 4 piece original recipe meal, depending on how hungry he is.

Now I bet all you care about is who ranked first on his list for the best KFC in the world. Well let’s start at the bottom of the list where he ranked Spain at 24 out of 24, followed by HONG KONG at 23/24. My wife reads this so she ain’t gonna be happy. The US ranked towards the bottom of the list too at #19 - how this makes sense, I don’t know? Meanwhile Jacky’s top three were Sri Lanka (3), South Africa (2), and Mongolia at number one. Mongolia of all places had the best tasting KFC according to this 18 year traveler of over 1000 KFC locations.

He didn’t eat KFC in Canada so does this list really count?

Useful travel things

Sometimes there’s no need to be creative with the headings of this newsletter. Sometimes you just need to give the people what they want - useful travel things. We did a mini out of town trip recently that required us to pack stuff to stay in a hotel. Because that’s what you do…you pack stuff…when you’re staying in a hotel. Nowadays, as a family of 5, we have to pack a bunch of things but that doesn’t mean we don’t have our hacks to make our lives easier. Below are a few things that you should also do, even if you’re travelling alone.

Bring slippers

Lord knows who or what has stepped on your hotel room floor. Does anyone ever take off their shoes immediately after entering their hotel room for the first time? Either way, you don’t want to have to walk around in your hotel room in your socks or shoes, let alone your BARE FEET. Slippers are such a good hack and if you stay in a decent enough hotel, they’ll give you a couple pairs so take those and use them for next time!

Bring bags of all sorts

We typically bring a garbage bag dedicated for dirty laundry if the hotel is somewhere we drove to and if we flew we’ll bring smaller plastic bags. This makes life so much easier when you come back because you can just dump the bags in the laundry without figuring out what you wore versus what you didn’t while you were away. We also tend to bring the big Ziplock freezer bags too. They’re good to throw toiletries in that may have exploded, random food that you may want to save, or just small things that are easier to store.

White noise

My kids all sleep with white noise. My wife and I do as well every so often. We tend to bring our own white noise machine(s) and just plug them in the room(s). The key here is to make your sleeping arrangement as close to your normal sleeping arrangement as possible to optimize how much sleep you get. If you’re like me then you can sleep on any hotel bed and be out like a light in a matter of minutes. But for those you sensitive sleepers who need some extra help, I highly recommend white noise.

Of course there are all the other obvious travel hacks like certain ways to fold/roll your clothes up, using miniature bottles for your shampoo and body wash, or things like hanging toiletry bags to save you counter space but I’ve always thought my list above was a bit more hacky as these are things I definitely either never thought to do in the past or always forgot about them altogether. If I had to pick my favourite it would probably be the slippers thing just because when you get into a hotel room, it’s usually after an extensive amount of travelling and the first thing you probably want to do is take your shoes off.

A rant: Y2K is back

I just Googled Y2K trends and now I’m seeing links about “how to style your Y2K fashion”. What do you mean, how to style it? Was this really a style trend that people wanted to bring back? Also, baggy pants weren’t a Y2K thing, they were a late 80’s all the way into the 2000’s thing. UGH.

Also, if we’re going to bring back Y2K “trends” then why not be holistic in the approach. When do we get to see Y2K-esk TV and movies again then? Bring back Mad TV, bring back American Pie, bring back Nickelback…HAHAHA sorry, I went to far. Let Nickleback stay in Alberta, or where ever Chad Kroeger lives now.

What the world really needs to bring back is Pogs. Remember Pogs? Remember all the Pogs and slammers you lost at school trying to beat other people for their Pogs and slammers? If you’re going to bring back Y2K fashion, bring back everything else with it and then let us sift through it like an old box of CD’s to decide on what we want to keep. Don’t just bring back baggy pants!

Also, I want to say this guy below is bringing Y2K back for real but I think he’s actually caught in a time warp.