The internet blew up last week following the surprise (and tongue-in-cheek serious) premiere of season three for the hit Adult Swim cartoon, Rick and Morty. Though the show premiered on April 1st, the content of what the show discussed – that is, the fabled szechuan sauce that was retired from McDonald’s menu in the late 90s – is gearing up to have some real world consequences.
In the show, the main character Rick (an alcoholic, mad scientist) admits that the Pandora’s box for all his crotchety and time travelling behavior was the discontinuing of McDonald’s szechuan sauce. Since then, he has been on a mission to bring the sauce back into his life.
For those of you not familiar with the Rick and Morty universe, you can check out a clip from the most recent episode here for more context:
But for those of you who either don’t trust the ‘suits’ behind the Golden Arch or can’t wait for McDonald’s to re-release the szechuan sauce (some Twitter followers speculate 2018 might be the perfect time to re-launch the sauce, as Disney’s live action Mulan will also be coming out in 2018), here’s a video tutorial that can show you how to make a homemade, copy-cat version:
Toys R Us Canada has a great FREE Family Events in April on Saturday including fun make and takes, product demos, giveaways and more.
Visit your local ToysâRâUs store to take part in the exciting promotions and activities your kids will love. All events are offered In-store only. While quantities last. Giveaways and make and takes are limit to one per child. Events recommended for children ages 5 years and up.
Today: Saturday, April 8, and Sunday, April 9, 2017 Â from 11am – 1pm
LEGO CITYBuild Your City Of Tomorrow
The LEGO City of Tomorrow Team is coming to a ToysâRâUs store near you. Join ToysâRâUs to help build an amazing City of Tomorrow!
Hereâs the upcoming event on April at 11am:
Sunday, April 22, 2017
“Play Day Event”, Join ToysâRâUs for a Play Day Event & celebrate Earth Day!
The Home Depot Canada has a new list of workshops! The The Home Depot Canada today FREE workshops includes: Build a Bunny Basket. Kids will learn how to build a Bunny Basket with easy to follow step-by-step instructions.
Kids’ projects can be painted in-store. Please dress appropriately for painting. FREE Hands-on Workshops designed for children ages 5 â 12
The Home Depot Canada FREE workshops is valid today, Saturday, April 8, 2017 â 10:00 am to noon.
To book your slot at a workshop, contact your local Home Depot location.
The Bank of Canada has unveiled a new commemorative $10 bill/banknote to mark the 150th anniversary of Canada. This is only the third time ever in Canada’s history that a commemorative banknote was created!
There will be 40 million notes printed. The bank says they will enter circulation on June 1, 2017.
2017 has been a tough year for retail, and the latest chain to fall victim of failing to compete against e-commerce giants like Amazon is Payless ShoeSource. In a statement from Payless CEO Paul Jones, the company officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, saying that they will initially be closing between 400-500 stores.
Payless has over 4,400 stores in 30 different countries. However, the cheap-shoe model, initially a novel concept that brought them great affluence, is no longer enough to differentiate the Kansas based chain from other internet companies that offer equally if not cheaper shoes.
In a statement to the press, Payless’ CEO said that â[it] was a difficult, but necessary, decision driven by the continued challenges of the retail environment, which will only intensify.â The company has also said that they plan to take on “aggressive” changes to their setup in order to confront their e-commerce competitors.
Not only are we the second largest country by land mass, but according to a report put together by U.S. News and the University of Pennsylvania, we are ranked as the second best country overall.
In a review of 80 different countries with more than 21,000 people surveyed from 36 different regions, Canada was calculated to be the second best, with an overall ranking of 9.7, followed shortly behind the number one spot, which was secured by Switzerland for the second year in a row with a perfect 10.0 score.
The U.S., not surprisingly, has fallen a great lengths. In 2016, they ranked in at number four, but this year they have fallen to seventh place. Most people in the study cited the recent election of Donald Trump and the 2016 election as influencing their overall ranking of the country, citing the “toxic tones” as influencing them to lose respect for the typically perceived powerhouse.
Canada, however, ranked 9.6 for citizenship, 10.0 for quality of life and 8.5 for being considered to be open for business.
The other top ranking countries for the report included:
The golden nectar that you pour on your morning pancakes has just found another possible function, and no, this one is not some crazy food fusion that you’ll be reading about in food blogs for the next six months; this function is one that could actually help with your health, more specifically to decrease your antibiotic use.
Researchers from McGill University presented their findings at the American Chemical Society this past weekend. The lead researcher, Nathalie Tufenkji, said that she was inspired to test the efficacy of maple syrup in treating infections because of the tradition within aboriginal people in Canada having used it for some time.
In the initial tests, the researchers extracted the maple syrup’s phenolic compounds by separating it from the water and sugar in the compound. Next, the exposed the phenolic compound to well known bacteria in petri dishes. Initially, their results were not great.
The maple syrup, by itself, proved not to do much in the way of fighting against bacteria. But, when they combined the maple syrup extract with antibiotics and exposed them to known bacteria in a petri dish, the results were significant.
“What we found is that when we added the antibiotics with maple syrup-extracted phenolic compounds, we actually needed a lot less antibiotic to kill the bacteria. We could reduce the dose of antibiotic by up to 90 per cent,” said Nathalie Tufenkji in a report to CTV.
Researchers say that a possible reason for the maple syrup having a catalytic effect on the antibiotics efficacy is that the syrup could be making the bacteria cells more permeable, by breaking down the walls of the cells so that the antibiotics can begin doing their work faster and with less effort.
Another possible theory they floated was the syrup could be turning off the “pump” on the bacteria, which works to remove the antibiotics from the bacteria’s walls.
Whatever the reason, researchers are excited that they have found a natural and local (and delicious I might add!) solution to using less antibiotics to fight bacteria and disease causing bacteria.
Porter Airlines Canada has a new sale available now today! The Porter sale includes save on a variety of flight tickets, plus up to 25% extra when you use the promo code 1M2C2X at checkout. Book by 11:59 pm ET, Today, Tuesday, April 4, 2017. Travel by July 31, 2017. Up to 21 day advance purchase required. Some conditions may apply.
Two of your favourite brands, Starbucks Coffee Company and Panera Bread Company, are contemplating tying the knot in a business merger that would see the latter being bought out by the former, said some people who are familiar with the two companies in a report to Bloomberg.
Panera Bread is apparently shopping around for a buyer and among the top contenders is the big coffeehouse, Starbucks, in addition to Domino’s Pizza and JAB Holding Co. (the company responsible for such iconic brands like Krispy Kreme and Caribou Coffee).
Both Panera Bread and all of the companies reportedly vying for their attention have declined to comment on the merger, citing that it is official policy to not comment on “rumours or speculation”.
Across the U.S. and Canada, there are approximately 2,000 Panera Bread cafes.
Good news for those who want to redeem those Air Miles before yet another hiccup in the system. Starting tomorrow, you will be able to redeem Air Miles Cash in stores again, but with a catch. You are now limited to $50 per day, so no more redeeming for big ticket items if you save up your points. Plus, they no longer allow redemptions for gift cards. So if you are like me and redeem for a gift card to spend at lower cost stores, you may have to rethink your shopping plans.
Air Miles has also added a little more security to the cards but you still do not need a PIN to redeem.
Every AIRÂ MILES Cash transaction prompts an email to inform you of the activity and also provides instructions on what to do if you were not the one who used Cash Miles in-store
You must log in with your PIN to view your balance and not just transactions
A new easy card lock page that allows you to earn but not redeem can be found at airmiles.ca/cashlock
It may be seem like the conveniences of our smart phones have always been in our lives, but 2017 will actually mark the 10th anniversary of the release of the first iPhone. Apple has been planning this anniversary for some years, and to celebrate this landmark occasion they will be releasing what some have speculated as a wholly new iPhone X (or iPhone 8) this September.
There’s been a number of rumours floating around the web about what features will be added, and what designs will be removed from this new iPhone, but what most people can agree on is that the new smart phone is going to be a chunk of change pricier than previous models. With the iPhone 7 Plus 256GB version already costing just under $1,000USD (or $1,309 CAD), it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the iPhone X to cost well over that. Particularly when you consider that one of the rumours that seems to be more or less confirmed by Apple is that they intend to have the LCD screen replaced with an OLED display – which is nearly double the price of the latter. We expect the price to be around $1,500 CAD based on current rumours. An OLED display eliminates the need for the backlighting that’s used in traditional LCDs, which would allow Apple to cut down on the thickness and weight of the display used in the device. OLED displays can also be flexible, but it sounds like Apple is planning to use a flat 2.5D display in the iPhone X/8.
Apple has yet to confirm any of these rumours, but some tech experts who have an ear of the designers in the Asia supply chain have been able to speculate about what we can expect for the company’s newest model.
Celebrate World Autism Awareness Day this year at Toys”R”Us. Today, Sunday April 2, 2017, locations will open one hour early for families to enjoy our Sensory Friendly Shopping Hour
In-store product demos and activities
No in-store music or announcements
Dimmed lighting
Designated quiet areas
Plus, the first 48 children to join the event will receive a FREE Magformers Rainbow 14 piece set.
Pfizer Canada Inc., the Canadian distributor of EpiPenÂŽ (epinephrine) Auto-Injector, announced a voluntary recall in consultation with Health Canada of one lot of EpiPen 0.3 mg (epinephrine) and one lot of EpiPen Jr 0.15 mg (epinephrine) Auto-Injectors distributed in Canada.
In Canada, the recall impacts one lot (5GU763) of the 0.3 mg strength of EpiPen Auto-Injector expiring in May 2017 and one lot (5GR765) of the 0.15 mg strength of EpiPen Jr Auto-Injector expiring in March 2017.
This voluntary recall is being conducted as a result of the receipt of two previously disclosed reports outside of Canada of failure to activate the device due to a potential defect in a supplier component. The potential defect could make the device difficult to activate in an emergency (failure to activate or increased force needed to activate) and have significant health consequences for a patient experiencing a life-threatening allergic reaction (anaphylaxis). The incidence of the defect is extremely rare and testing and analysis across the potentially impacted lots has not identified any units with a defect. However, the recall is being conducted in Canada out of an abundance of caution.
Pfizer Canada is committed to replacing recalled devices at no cost. Patients, healthcare professionals, wholesalers and pharmacists are being notified. Information is available on Pfizer.ca, Pfizer Canada Facebook page or EpiPen Canada Facebook page. Patients should keep their existing product until their replacement product can be secured.
Patients will receive an EpiPen Auto-Injector at their pharmacy as a replacement based on product availability. Pfizer are expecting additional stock to become available to meet demand in the coming weeks.
Consumers with questions regarding this recall can contact Pfizer Medical Information at 1-800-463-6001 between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. EST.
Cineplex Canada has released their new schedule. The Cineplex Canada Family Favourites Movies include:
Today, Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 11am the film Looney Tunes Shorts. Comedy, Animation, Musical, Classic, is the Family Favourites for $2.99 (1h 17m).
Hereâs the upcoming movie every Saturday morning at 11am for Cineplex Family Favourites at $2.99 each:
April 2017:
Saturday, April 8, 2017: The Land Before Time
Saturday, April 15, 2017: Hop
Saturday, April 22, 2017: E.T Extra-Terrestrial
Saturday, April 29, 2017: Sing
May 2017:
Saturday, May 6, 2017: The Lego Movie
Saturday, May 13, 2017: Heidi
Saturday, May 20, 2017: Storks
Saturday, May 27, 2017: Trolls
June 2017:
Saturday, June 3, 2017: Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
Saturday, June 10, 2017: A Dog’s Purpose
Saturday, June 17, 2017: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
