Canadian, Eh? Sorry Aboot That.
Here's another column I wrote for the Scribe. I got the idea when we had a completely inane discussion about whether or not a Canadian counted as a foreigner.
Canada gave us Celine Dion. Just to make it fair again, I think we should give them a few things in return, like our healthcare system, our violent crime rate, our education system and a big ol’ sack of crap. Recently in the Scribe’s office, I heard someone say that being Canadian is not “foreign enough.” I couldn’t disagree more.
People generally think of Canada as merely an extension of Minnesota, but with more French cuisine. I don’t think that’s fair to Minnesota. Or Canada. It’s a completely different country; they do some things very differently from the way we do them. So without the interest of international harmony in mind, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why America is, like, a billion times better than Canada.
The first reason is obvious: Mexican food. Our proximity to our friends to the south affords us some awesome food. Some people (most of them from Texas) think that we actually make better Mexican food than Mexico does. I don’t know about that, but I know for sure that you can’t get a decent tamale in Toronto.
Reason number two: morbidly obese people. I know what you’re thinking. “How could you possibly consider morbid obesity to be a good thing?” That’s easy; the fat ones make the rest of us feel better about ourselves. Oh, and they also keep kindhearted American businesses like McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme in business. That’s good for our economy, or something.
My third reason is quite simple. We know how to correctly pronounce the word “about.” All those Canadian hosers walk around pronouncing it “aboot” like an entire country full of illiterate hockey freaks. Hey, that reminds me of my next point.
In the last summer Olympic games, the United States won 103 medals. Canada won 12. That’s right. The state of Texas itself earned more gold medals than the combined number of all the
gold, silver and bronze medals won by our Labatt-Blue-drinking buddies up north.
There is one area in which I think I’d be morally remiss if I didn’t give proper credit to Canada, and that is comedy. Canada is, for my money, the funniest nation per capita in the world. Think about it. Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, John Candy, Tommy Chong, Phil Hartman, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Mike Myers, Dave Thomas, Will Sasso and Rick Moranis are all famous comedians and comedic actors. For a nation with a population of about forty, that’s a high funny-to-not-funny ratio. And that list was just off the top of my head.
I’ve developed a theory about this strange phenomenon of funny people coming from Canada. I think it develops in Canadian children at an early age when they discover that there’s nothing to do there but play hockey and pay taxes. In order to keep from going insane with boredom, they have to have a sense of humor. Otherwise, they’ll end up getting cabin fever and resorting to bestiality for fun.
Sadly, that last point only reminds me of yet another advantage we have over Canada. We have celebrities who actually live here. All the big-name celebrities from Canada have moved down to California. They realize that while it may be cool to be from Canada, it’s definitely not as cool to be living in Canada.
In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious who has the better country. Sure, we may have a staggering crime rate, and our citizenry may be very poorly educated, and I guess the smog problem in most major cities is kind of annoying, but dammit, at least we’ve got our trillions of dollars, our enourmous portions of food and our smug, holier-than-thou attitude. You can’t quantify something like that. Suck it, hosers.
Canada gave us Celine Dion. Just to make it fair again, I think we should give them a few things in return, like our healthcare system, our violent crime rate, our education system and a big ol’ sack of crap. Recently in the Scribe’s office, I heard someone say that being Canadian is not “foreign enough.” I couldn’t disagree more.
People generally think of Canada as merely an extension of Minnesota, but with more French cuisine. I don’t think that’s fair to Minnesota. Or Canada. It’s a completely different country; they do some things very differently from the way we do them. So without the interest of international harmony in mind, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why America is, like, a billion times better than Canada.
The first reason is obvious: Mexican food. Our proximity to our friends to the south affords us some awesome food. Some people (most of them from Texas) think that we actually make better Mexican food than Mexico does. I don’t know about that, but I know for sure that you can’t get a decent tamale in Toronto.
Reason number two: morbidly obese people. I know what you’re thinking. “How could you possibly consider morbid obesity to be a good thing?” That’s easy; the fat ones make the rest of us feel better about ourselves. Oh, and they also keep kindhearted American businesses like McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme in business. That’s good for our economy, or something.
My third reason is quite simple. We know how to correctly pronounce the word “about.” All those Canadian hosers walk around pronouncing it “aboot” like an entire country full of illiterate hockey freaks. Hey, that reminds me of my next point.
In the last summer Olympic games, the United States won 103 medals. Canada won 12. That’s right. The state of Texas itself earned more gold medals than the combined number of all the
gold, silver and bronze medals won by our Labatt-Blue-drinking buddies up north.
There is one area in which I think I’d be morally remiss if I didn’t give proper credit to Canada, and that is comedy. Canada is, for my money, the funniest nation per capita in the world. Think about it. Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, John Candy, Tommy Chong, Phil Hartman, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Mike Myers, Dave Thomas, Will Sasso and Rick Moranis are all famous comedians and comedic actors. For a nation with a population of about forty, that’s a high funny-to-not-funny ratio. And that list was just off the top of my head.
I’ve developed a theory about this strange phenomenon of funny people coming from Canada. I think it develops in Canadian children at an early age when they discover that there’s nothing to do there but play hockey and pay taxes. In order to keep from going insane with boredom, they have to have a sense of humor. Otherwise, they’ll end up getting cabin fever and resorting to bestiality for fun.
Sadly, that last point only reminds me of yet another advantage we have over Canada. We have celebrities who actually live here. All the big-name celebrities from Canada have moved down to California. They realize that while it may be cool to be from Canada, it’s definitely not as cool to be living in Canada.
In conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious who has the better country. Sure, we may have a staggering crime rate, and our citizenry may be very poorly educated, and I guess the smog problem in most major cities is kind of annoying, but dammit, at least we’ve got our trillions of dollars, our enourmous portions of food and our smug, holier-than-thou attitude. You can’t quantify something like that. Suck it, hosers.
posted by Vaughan at
1:10 PM
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