Yes I am Canadian

Lately I've been in contact with people from the around the world, from places as close as the U.S. (The border is only a few hours drive) to New Zealand (That's as far away from here as you can get), either through Instant Messenger or leaving comments on each other's blogs but I have been communicating with people around the world.

Now I've been thinking what would it like to live in these places and what would it be like to be a citizen of another country like the ones that the people who read this blog are from and then it occurred to me that they may wonder the same thing about being Canadian so I'm going to tell you.

Being Canadian can be many things, a Canadian who is from Newfoundland (or a newfie) is different from a Canadian from Ontario or Alberta or the Yukon. Canada is so big that we have many different cultures within our borders. The country is so that there are 6 different time zones. One of them being Newfoundland and that one is a half hour difference the Atlantic Time zone (I find it weird too but it’s a newfie thing).

Though there are some things that all Canadians share like the love of Hockey, a Tim Horton's donut and the CBC. While the official sport of Canada is suppose to be lacrosse (who came up with this idea?) Hockey is the sport that Canadians gather around the television to watch on Saturday Night with Hockey Night in Canada.

Hockey Night in Canada has been part of Canadian Culture for so long that people use to listen to the game on CBC radio before CBC Television even existed. However even to this day, it seems that CBC English always has the Leafs, and CBC French has the Canadiens (or Habs, I can't explain that one either).

That's another thing; we have 2 official languages here, English and French, and let me tell you that it has caused problems over the years. Quebec is a province that primary speaks French and they feel they have the right to protect their culture so much that they have a sign law that states all store signs have be in French. Now that sounds anti English to me. In fact once I meet I woman in Orlando who told me of an experience where she was in Quebec City and she was lost and no one would help her because she wasn't speaking French. Its stuff like this that makes me embarrassed to be a Canadian. This attitude from Quebec has been so bad that they have had referendums on separating from Canada. Well if all they can contribute to Canada is being rude to U.S. tourists, then don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Quebec is the spoiled brat of Canada.

Canada also means being a peace keeper. Canadian forces have participated in every U.N. peace keeping operation since the concept was created (by a Canadian). I take pride of the fact that we are known for this a well.

Being Canadian means many things, were polite and we try to look out for each others and we don't tolerate racism. In fact, promoting racism is considered a hate crime and is illegal. Now I've had the "free speech" argument before about this, and we do have the freedom of expression but we also have to be responsible for what we say. We can't just should fire in a crowded room and not answer for it if it’s not true and causes a panic. We have to take responsible for the people hurt by the stampede if it’s not true.

Being Canadian is more complicated than others may believe and its proving to be more difficult to put into words that I thought, so I'll continue this another time. Perhaps I'll talk about what being an Albertan or a Calgarian is about the next time.

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Its about time I said something about the Hockey Strike

Alright if your not Canadian or from one of the hockey hotbed in the U.S., then your not going to care all that much but this has to be said and I'm going to say it now.

THE PLAYERS ASSOCIATION IS RUINING THE NHL. Now it would be obviously to a monkey on a rock that things need to change in the NHL when over half the teams are running in the red. Gary Bettman and the rest of the NHL has made several efforts to try to solve the problems and the NHLPA has just sat on their asses and figured that they would bully the NHL into another agreement that would hurt the league even further.

Now there are people who are blaming Bettman for these problems, by claiming that they expanded into too many markets but I then why are established teams like Buffalo and Montreal having such difficulties.

I mean Montreal is the to the NHL what the Yankee's are to Major League Baseball. The Canadiens history are filled with legendary players like the Maurice (The Rocket) Richard. Ken Dryden and of course Guy Lafleur. To others who are not hockey fans, theses names may not mean anything but they are the hockey equivalent to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle. These are baseball legends and they all played for the Yankee's and If suddenly George Steinbrenner said that the team was broke. People who be asking questions as well. Well I'm asking what is happening at the hockey rink that legends were born.

The players are asking too much and their agents are telling them its ok. I mean Gretzky didn't make the kind of money they want and he's "THE GREAT ONE".

People are wondering how long this strike will last and i think that its going to last a long time or until the players association gets it through their thick skulls that the owners aren't caving in.

Now there are some people who will say that the teams are loosing money now, but now they're loosing less than before the lockout.

I do want a hockey season. I really do, but I want the league to survive as well and in order to do so, some changes have to come. I just hope that they come quick.

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The Sims have taken over my life again

Well I picked up The Sims 2 the day it came out but I haven't had the opportunity to play it. At least not till today. Actually I messed with the game a bit last Saturday but today I really got into it.

Needless to say I lost track of time and lost then entire day. Dammit, Dammit Dammit. I was not impressed but at least I had a chance to relax for once and I'm glad that I did.

Anyway I recreated myself and before you know it. My sim was having a better life than I was. Not so much as the career side, though my sim had some cash and some nice stuff but in the romance department. My sim of me is in a relationship and he's very happy along with Nina(the other sim). So my sim was having better luck with women than I was.

So I thought about it and I though that perhaps I should take some notes and trying some of the things he was saying but it was all in that sim tongue, which no one understands.

Anyway, my sim is happily in love and I'm writing this blog. (I'm dying here). Actually I choose to spend more time on my career and I have no regrets,(maybe some, I'll check with Dr. Cheryl). I still have time to find that someone, but for now, I'm enjoying the fact that I only have to worry about my owns concerns for now.

Anyway I got to get back to my sim. Maybe, I'll make him a dad.

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My blog hit the fan today

I don't know what the hell happened this morning when I was working on my blog but all of a sudden I was getting HTML errors like there was no tomorrow and I didn't know why. It all has something to do with the style sheet and It's Blogger's sheet not mine. So for a good part of the day my blog might have been unreadable as all the fonts got really tiny and the worse part was I had to go to work and I didn't have time to fix it until far later into the day.

So when I finally got the fonts fixed, i didn't have time to proof read the damn thing and there were spelling and grammatical errors on my top post. Arghh. But now, things are fine. At least I hope they are and I hope that this never happens again.

Oh on a totally none related topic. I got some of my Zip.ca DVD's in today. I got "The Cat in the Hat". The Mike Myers version, I've never seen it, and I got "The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog " Its even got the scene where Triumph goes to Quebec city and pisses of the French. We Western Canadian loved it.

Anyway I hope to have something more interesting to chat about soon. I don't want to have to resort to the cookie monster song.

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Who was the better Mr. Conductor?

Who doesn't remember Thomas the Tank engine? Well if your one of those people then I'm sorry to hear that you missed out on a pretty good show when you were a child. I still have pleasant memories of watching the adventurers of Thomas.

I also remember the show called "Shining Time Station". Now this was where we would meet Mr. Conductor, some kids and other people who would tell us about Thomas. Now there were two people who played Mr. Conductor during the run of the show. The first one was Ringo Starr and the second was George Carlin.

Now I was wondering who was the better one and I came up with some interesting thoughts. First off Ringo was a Beattle so the parents know him and think good things about him so parents would think he was safe. Parents would also know George Carlin and might be a little cautious about leaving their kids in from of the TV with this guy.

Then I was thinking, who would parents let babysit their children?Again Ringo seems like a good guy but I always thought there was something slightly off about him. Just look at any Beatles poster. Everyone else has a look on their face like they know the answers to all the world's problems but Ringo looks like he's trying to remember if he left the iron plugged in at home.

Now George is something even more interesting. First thing I would be concerned about is if he would decide to bring out some snacks like a glass of milk and some 'special' home made brownies. Then before you know it, the kids are screaming about 'The Man' and who knows what else is going on.

In all truth, I respect them both for their accomplishments. Ringo has done quite a lot as George is a very intelligent person who has also done a lot. I commend them for taking part of entertaining children and teach them some good life lessons (Like don't eat the brownies at George's place)

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