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I Start Fires!

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2003-01-21

Piggy's specs were nicked at: 1:43 p.m.

"Mr Landslow ... I've done it again."

Well, I didn't mean to leave the two of you who read this thing dangling for another entry, but it appears I've done it. Honestly, I had nothing fun or funny to write about so I simply didn't bother. On-the-fly ramblings peppered with the F-word don't usually appear here; they're over at my Livejournal. This here Conch is for deep, meaningful excursions into the human mind and the triumphs of our race are recorded here. Like the time Santa burned up his beard. God surely felt pride in his Grand Creation that day.

So let's have some fun. Go read An American's Guide to Canada. The author is an American who moved to Canada some years ago. When she was asked by his family and friends back home about what it was like to live among hockey-playing polar bears, this was her response.

In particular, How to Tell You're in Canada is fun. Here are a few:

* Everything is labelled in English and French.

Kind of an obvious one. Through osmosis, I have a moderate French vocab.

* Milk comes in plastic bags as well as in cartons and jugs.

I covered that in another entry I don't care to hunt for. David and I buy our milk in bags, since we consume vast quantities of it (although that has changed since both of us find our stomach doesn't take as kindly to milk as we'd like).

Tom Greene once took a chainsaw to a bag of milk. After that was a doll. The bag of milk was funny, but the doll was classic; it just got sucked up into the saw. Like a vaccum.

* Restaurants serve vinegar with French fries.

Canada has the weirdest holdovers from its British heritage. This is one of them. Resturants have bottles of vinegar on every table, and all major fast food chains dole out packets of vinegar along with the ketchup and relish. When my mom visited New York, she asked for some vinegar with her french fries, and the waitress looked at her like she'd asked for a slice of the moon.

* The CBC's evening news anchor is bald and doesn't wear a toupee.

I could swear to God that this used to be untrue. I thought he did have a toupee, once. Everyone says I'm whacked. I must be imagining things again.

* Lots of people run around in clothing from Roots.

I think they have Roots in the States, though. If I had my way, we'd all run around naked. That's how interested I am in clothing. But Roots has gorgeous stuff, really gorgeous stuff. Also EXPENSIVE.

* The big mass-market beers are Molson and Labatt, and they're a lot stronger than US beers. Molson Golden was recently reintroduced to the Canadian market, but I hardly ever see anyone drinking it -- I get the feeling Molson ships most of it to the States and tells the Americans it's good.

No comment. Except American beer tastes like club soda.

* Mountain Dew has no caffeine.

Neither does Crush or Cream Soda or anything that's not "cola" coloured like Coke or Root Beer. It's illegal to put caffene in non-cola beverages here. I don't know why. Jolt Cola also used to be illegal here when I was a youngster.

* Coke and Pepsi use real sugar instead of corn syrup.

So that's why American Coke tastes as sweet as a virgin pixie's behind. My teeth screamed that night I drank it.

* There are billboards advertising vacations in Cuba, and Cuban cigars are freely available.

A lot of my American friends get a kick out of that one. Culture shock! Culture shock!

* People give distances in times, not miles.

I think I have an explaination for this one. My parents, and millions of Canadian parents like them, were forced to change from the Imperial to Metric in the midst of their lives. They never got a total grasp on Metric measurements, including kilometers. So maybe they took to measuring in "time" instead (ie, "It'll be about half an hour 'till we get to your grandmother's house.")

Myself, I use a combination of the two systems. I measure distance in miles, length in meters and inches(?!), weight in pounds, temperature in celcius, and body temperature in farenheight. Kill me.

* Canadians tend to use British spelling. They write about "colour," "cheques," "theatres," and so forth. Most use the American "-ize" rather than the British "-ise" verb ending, however.

I'm trying to break out of the "ize" thing, simply because I want to get published some day. If an editor gets a mixed script, he'll murder you. It's either British or American spelling they want ... none of this Canadian hybrid crap.

* In Ontario, you can buy beer only at the Beer Store (formerly known as "Brewers' Retail").

I know more than a few American convenience store workers who have to deal with drunk customers staggering in to buy beer. They appreciate the idea of the Beer Store very much (the law covers all alcholic bevarages, but you usually buy wine at the LCBO in Ontario).

* Movie theatres have one night a week, usually Monday or Tuesday, where they charge matinee prices.

I didn't know this wasn't the case in America.

* There is no mail delivered on Saturdays.

BOO-URNS! BOO-URNS!

* "Lieutenant" is pronounced "leftenant."

Since Canada isn't exactly the Land of the Militant, most Canadians grow up without knowing this. I say "leftenant" simply because my younger brother used to be part of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and that's what I got used to hearing. The Canadian military is still strictly British in its customs and terms (they even fly the Union Jack instead of the actual flag in many cases), and if you carry over anything American, you're going to get laughed at and/or beat up.

* Most Canadians will tell you that the last letter of the alphabet is pronounced "zed." Sharon, Lois, and Bram, popular children's entertainers, make it a point in their performances of "The Alphabet Song" to say "zed" instead of "zee."

You'd better say "Zed" in school, or you're going to hear it from your teachers.

My dad once pitched an alarm system to Bram from The Elephant Show. Bram went with the competition, so now my father immediately says "Prick" whenever he sees the performer on TV.

Gosh, wasn't that swell. There's more, but I'll save them for the next entry. Watering down the soup makes it last longer.