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Welcome to Your New Home!
This last year has been an unrelenting shit spraying firehose attached to a never ending funnel of green apple splatter at a memorial service. I think Henry David Thoreau said it best, ‘fuck 2020 right in it’s big fat ass.’ Now, i’m not the wordsmith he was, but i tend to agree.
But, we’re in the home stretch. will something happen at the very end to make it seem more worthwhile going into 2021, or will this be the turd on the diarrhea sundae? of course, i’m talking about the upcoming election. Wherever you stand politically, you’re either bound to be relieved, or unbelievably po’d. i’m not taking sides, and i would hate anyone to think i was getting political. All i will say is that this year has been rough all around, for a variety of reasons. I hope that going forward, we can keep our chins up and meet new challenges with a bit more grace than our personal detractors would expect from us. like i said, i’m apolitical, i just hope for the best for you all.
Not everyone knows this, but i’m actually canadian. which is like being an american, but like…. one hill over. watching from afar. So, i would hate to tell anyone how there policy views should be informed. it’s not my place after all, and it would be presumptuous for me to act like it was. But, with how everything is shaking out, a lot of people are bound to be upset. i noticed google reported that searches in the states of ‘how do i move to canada?’ were at a record high, stoked by fears over how people at both ends of the political spectrum might react to not getting their way. And here’s the thing……. that’s cool. Come on by. i got a cold case of beers in the back fridge.
but seriously, that’s fine. i mean, there’s obvious immigration ironies here, given how accepting immigrants has become a hot button topic down there, but for me? I don’t mind it. and don’t get me wrong, i don’t mean ‘so long as you agree with me, you can come’. i mean, whatever. if you’re a jackass, you can’t come over for beers, but you can still move to canada.
do you know how freaking huge canada is? i mean, it’s about as big as the states…. but it’s so empty! and i’ve only seen like….. 0.00002% of it. that’s how much there is. i guess the states is pretty empty is some places too, but not to hear some people go on about it. but there’s every chance that if you move to canada, you could live your whole life here, and we’d never run into each other, even once. that’s how big it is. A couple rules though…. we have free health care. now i know that might seem strange to you, but you’ll have to just live with not getting a massive bill to have open heart surgery. oh, and our flag isn’t ‘everywhere’. and it’s not sacred. i don’t own one, and i don’t know anyone who does. what else… what else… you can have guns… i think… no one does. well, i mean, not at the mall. other than that, come by, get a job, pay taxes, that’s the whole drill. tell them i’m sponsoring you. if they give you any grief at the border, call the guy a hoser, and throw a timbit right at his toque, eh?
I took one of the last flights out of Montreal before the airports shut down and I have two observations, 1 the bathrooms wee empty but the lines at the sinks were just as long (think about that) and 2 – Canada is Really Big – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOM-TmZBzZo – is a little song I once sang about it (not original to me) and it’s actually quite a bit larger than the states.
haha, that was pretty good.
Well back before the genetic apocalypse I used to travel to Canada once a year for a conference (and then extend the travel out several weeks for fun). If you’re in Ontario or Quebec maybe we can have that beer sometime.
yeah! for sure. once the viral apocalypse is over maybe. haha. i’m in toronto. it’s not ‘too’ bad here, but new restrictions are starting to be applied cause of the 2nd wave, and god bless em, the people who just think that wearing a mask is a bridge too far.
I’m a Toronto native actually, and I finally dragged my wife up there in January. That’d be great. You me, Jason, and the wife on the chocolate version of the “Taste of Toronto Tour” – I am already salivating.
My relatives in the Old Country were happy it was among Europe’s best in the first wave, but now … well, it’ll never get as bad as Belgium’s world-beating death rate (or New York’s, which was twice as high), but it makes us NortAmericanos look really awesome/fortunate.
Thanks for the invite, but naw, I gotta stay here and do what I can for my grandchildren. My kids are pretty much a lost cause, but so was I at their age. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, like any dumb, suffering animal. Sometimes you wish the world would end, but it never does.
no, you just have to hope that on a long enough timeline, things bend towards the just. i’m more disappointed that people don’t learn from history. i remember thinking as a kid ‘ok, we did a holocaust, but, we got that out of the way, and now we’ll never do that again!’ which is naive, but hopeful.
so, good luck with the grandkids. i think all kids have that spark of fairness. most kids i knew were obsessed with what was ‘fair’. that can either be nurtured, as a concept that extends past them, or snuffed out, so that they only see it as it pertains to them.
Ha! We banned the word “fair” when our daughter was young because what matters is right and wrong, and what the teacher does for one kid may be what the kid needs, and doing the same for another may not be right.
yeah, my parents tried to do that too, but i don’t think fairness is a taboo concept, it’s more about how it’s applied, like you say. the idea that everyone getting exactly the same treatment isn’t fair, or else we’d all be getting insulin rations whether we want them or not. but n cases where the playing ground is even, kids know when they’re getting a raw deal.
Oh Canada … you’re really big, the world’s second largest country, in fact.
I’ve still got my Canadian citizenship, actually, but I am dual because I naturalized as a minor.
Immigration Canada works rather differently than ICE, formerly the INS does and did … it’s a lot more open about wanting to maximize tax revenue, for one thing, which makes a good deal of sense, but NAFTA and new NAFTA both allow for TN visas, which can easily be renewed yearly for professionals in all three countries, and includes salesmen.
yeah, we have our own border situation, and while i think the average person is pretty welcoming, border guards are not. i think it’s one of those situations where if you think of yourself as a hammer, everyone else is a nail. that’s more a statement direct at ICE though. watching a few docs about them has left me with a disappointed feeling.
but good that you have dual. it’s certainly makes like easier if you need to make decisions later.
I have had good experiences with Canadian border people.
Except for those two particular times, of course.
(Long story, but the airport person one time made me boot the laptop *into graphics mode* so she could look around the directories. (By default, it does not, you have to do startx.) Now, if I know my way around enough to do that, I know enough about how to partition hard drives, don’t I. But never mind the facts.)
In any case. if you’re already retired. Canada doesn’t need you unless you have a ton of assets, I think it was $6 million the last time I looked. I have been quite ruthless with searching the couch cushions but I still wind up a bit short.
they went through your pc? that’s not right. i think border people have a crazy amount of discretionary authority to mess with your life. i think we’ve all been there at some point, and it leaves you feeling a tad violated. you shouldn’t have to learn new skills to get around bullying.
Living outside Seattle, hey, if you come over, I have fresh roasted coffee. Sounds like a cliche, but it isn’t. I roast my own coffee. I’d send some to you, but the thing is that nowdays home-cooked food is a no-no going across the border. Yes, the coffee is fantastic.
As for health care, I remember some years back a story about a couple living in Minnesota. They had saved up and retired, then found out that both of them had something terminal that would suck all their money down the drain with medical expenses while they died in the hospital. So they decided to write a will giving their assets to various charities, and then committed suicide.
As for the election and this presidency, it’s just been nuts. I bought a “no hope” “it will all end in tears” hoodie. I want a genuine “none of the above” box on the ballot. If “none of the above” gets 51% of the vote, then the US gets no president, and the parties have to go through the election process again. All laws would have to pass with a super majority, as they would otherwise be considered vetoed by default. So much for constitutional fan fiction.
haha, yeah, i don’t think that’s going to happen. plus, i feel like trying to dis incentivize people from the process is part of the new strategy. the only way to win is to play. sadly. as for the coffee, good coffee would be wasted on me. it’s just one of those things i can’t tell good from bad. glad that you enjoy it though.
i never heard that story, but that’s intense. and sad. i mean, there’s more than just those 2 options. but i suppose it’s more meant to be a tale of how people can feel frustrated with the choices they are offered than an actual retelling of events. when i see stories about people draining their life savings because of some unforeseeable health situation, it’s seems all so avoidable. but the people who are all in against free health care seem to feel like they’re ready to roll the dice, and see if they can beat the system. feels like the best thing about free health care is the peace of mind you get. but whatever. i’m not preachin’.
Thanks for the invite love, but I got a few loose ends to tie up here before I abandon my post. One day we may stop by for a beer.
fair enough. and yeah, that would be nice. but i get how people have lives where they lives, and can’t pack up when things aren’t going their way, which is why it always annoys me to hear when people say ‘if you don’t like it so much, leave.’ it’s just a crappy invitation to bail on your whole life so they have you not around, with your probably legitimate concerns.
I gotta say, that really sounds nice. Living in Russia, there’s the same sense of territorial grandeur, only difference being that apart from 2-3 major cities, every single town in the country is drowning in mud, corruption and poverty.
Major ones only have to deal with rampant corruption at least.
mud or corruption…. not sure which i’d rather. we have both here, just maybe not in the same quantities.
We in the U.S. are proud to do our part to catch up to you!