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Vice Blog

CANADA - I MISS THE USA

I was living in Washington DC for the past 6 years and now I'm back in Canada. I thought coming back was going to be great, but actually I'm not that impressed. Medicare stinks, for one thing. Healthcare is not useful if it's impossible to find a doctor because NO ONE is accepting new patients, and everyone's politeness looks like thinly-veiled aggression. It's very pretty here and I don't mind putting an extra "U" in words like "favour" and "neighbour" but something about Canada makes me kind of nervous and depressed. Seeing shit like this reminds me that I probably shouldn't complain, but I miss the USA, and here's a list of some of the things I miss.

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TELEVISION
I'm sorry, but Canadian TV is awful. At least these days it is. Kenny vs. Spenny was good, but now it's in America and we're left with crap like this. Robson Arms? This is so bad that even though someone says "I want to suck your balls" in the first 30 seconds I can't watch it for more than a minute. And then there's Little Mosque on the Prairie and fucking Corner Gas. Why is all the TV produced in Canada so terrible? Why are the actors so bad? Is it because they're all under the delusion that they're in a British play and any second now the critics are going to call their show a "romping good time"?

AMERICAN SMALL CITIES
In Canada, a small city is Edmonton. In the US, a small city is Albuquerque. I like Albuquerque  a lot and have enjoyed getting drunk at the Atomic Cantina on several occasions, whereas I would be totally okay with never going back to Edmonton ever again.

BOFA
I thought I hated Bank of America but it's worse here. When I opened a bank account the guy told me he was going to put every single cheque I deposited on hold for seven business days. When I asked him why, he told me it wasn't personal. It wasn't personal until he told me it wasn't, and now it is. I hate them. When BOFA fucked with me they at least had the courtesy to tell me that the reason they didn't treat me well was because I had no money. That made sense.

AMERICANS
It's so passive aggressive in Canada that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING. Please be more direct.

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THE NEWSPAPERS
The last time I picked up a copy of the Globe & Mail, about half the articles were written from the first-person perspective, which is okay for a short story, op/ed, or column about gardening, but not for an entire newspaper. It's like the Globe & Mail is 100 different staff writers' diaries. Except that would actually be interesting.

ACCENTS
"Tew" for "two", "over thur" for "over there" VS. "dat dem der" and "one, two, tree".

OTHER THINGS I MISS: Utz chips, miles, and fahrenheit, AT&T (I never knew I had it so good), The Pug on H Street, driving to Virginia for cheap smokes.

THINGS I LIKE WAY BETTER IN CANADA:
There's more garbage removal. It comes twice a week!  Also, unlike in DC, my downstairs neighbor has not been shot with a handgun seven times in his chest while driving down our street with his girlfriend.

A-RASH