Friday, February 23, 2007

Things That Suck About Canada

Until now, I've mostly written very nice things about my adopted country, so I figured it was about time to let loose some minor grievances. So without further ado, I present my list of north of the border grievances:

1. Liquor prices. Yellow Tail is a perfectly fine bottle of wine for $5.99 (wow, that's some serious rhymage). For over $12, it is utter crap. A bottle of regular old Jim Beam should never cost $24, and neither should the cheapest cases of beer in the store. I don't care if we ARE talking Canadian dollars - it still ain't right.

2. Wind chill. This is what spawned the formation of this particular List - the winters in Toronto are nearly identical to those I left behind in northern Indiana, except for the wind chill. The wind chill is evil, and it needs to be stopped.

3. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno, you hosers! NOT Delissio!

4. There is no #4, eh?

5. No VH1. Sure, MuchMusic pretty much consists entirely of recycled programming from VH1 and E!, but that doesn't help me when I want to watch the Flavor of Love finale with my friends back home. Not that I watch Flavor of Love...I mean...um...never mind. Also, all of my MTV shows are at least two weeks behind here. Not that I watch any of those either. What's MTV? Moving on...

6. No BBQ, no Chick-Fil-A, and no real Mexican food. Toronto in particular has loads of things going for it culinarily speaking, but is sorely lacking in these three areas. And before you Canadians reading this try to pipe in and say, "no, wait, I know a great Mexican place..." No, you don't. Trust me. You people don't know what good Mexican food is. It's not your fault, you just don't know any better. Same thing goes for real barbecue - I am more than willing to let you try to prove me wrong, but from what I've seen so far, I am appalled. I have stashed containers of leftovers in my suitcase and had the following conversation at customs:

"Do you have anything to declare? Carrying any alcohol, tobacco, or food items?"

"Just some cooked pork, sir."

I am willing to do it as many times as I must until the Canadian BBQ situation is rectified.

7. No real football. I've addressed this problem before, but feel it needs to be revisited. At this point, you've all either read or attempted to read my play-by-play of the Super Bowl. Responses to this entry have been as sharply divided as Britney Spears and sanity - and that split occurs precisely at the border. The Americans: "Awesome! Loved it!" The Canadians: "So, you...really like football, eh?" Sigh...they will never understand me here...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even I can't argue with you. I could give it a shot, but it would be second rate and I would lose.
Yet again, I tip my hat to you.
Side note- A case of beer is more expensive in Canada than the US, but we don't mind spending extra for beer that doesn't taste like dish water. That pizza thing, oppps, it's Canadian. Delissio was released first and then the American branding 'DiGiorno'. They were both formulated and are distributed by Kraft Canada.
I could go on but, I'm not that kind of guy.

Wahooty said...

I love how you say you can't argue with me, but then proceed to do just that. :)

Kraft Canada is a subsidiary of Kraft Foods, headquartered in...Northfield, IL (and now owned by Philip Morris, Inc., which NO Canadian would try to claim ownership of). According to my sources, DiGiorno was launched in 1996, and Delissio in 1998. And yes, I am a total loser.

And I've heard the dishwater argument before - yes, your cheapest beers are better than our cheapest beers, but for a dollar a bottle back home, I can get something a HELL of a lot better than Lakeport. The Beer Store doesn't even carry any of the good American beers (and yes, there is such a thing as good American beer) - I could have added that to my list of grievances, but if they did carry them, they'd charge far more for them than I can afford anyway (for those of you back home, they charge $40 for a case of Bud - I don't know anyone who would pay that).

Bring it on, man - I have faith in my convictions! Plus, you're way outnumbered here. ;)

Anonymous said...

I will admit I was wrong about the pizza.
In regards to the beer, not so much. I would be willing to debate this, but this post would go on forever.
I love being outnumbered, it makes victory that much sweeter. ;)

Wahooty said...

Ahh...one of my favorite sounds...a man admitting he was wrong. ;)

And I'm not debating the quality of Canadian beer - my point is strictly an economic one. I will say this, though - the bar markup is relatively small here, since bar prices are about the same as back home. I'm far more likely to opt to go out for drinks instead of staying in when it's expensive to have a drink at home too. :)