Get real! Down here Canada is just a source of bad weather. If there's a story a month on the tv or in the newpapers it's a miracle.

I would normally expect my Canadian friends to keep me plugged in to what's going on up there instead with-holding crucial information then chastising me over the fact that I don't have it! But Nooooooooo! They have to ridicule my attempts to share what meager information I do have.

I get to watch Dan Rather, rather than Peter Mansbridge. My daughters play softball, not ringette. I need to have a Zip instead of a postal code. I renew my tags instead of my plates. My money is vomit green, not all colours of the rain-bow. I file taxes with the IRS, not Revenue-Canada. I pay Social Security, not CPP. Unemployment is less than 2%, not 12%. I get to watch elections, not vote in them. I have a visa, not a passport.

I pay directly for medical care, through the nose for cereal and get to deduct my mortgage interest. I think that hot-dish is revolting, Fargo was so close to the truth to be scary, and can't understand why people should be allowed to walk around carrying guns.

I believe football fields should have end-zones 20 yards deep, that colour is spelt with a U, that no one writing for any of the local papers ever got past grade 9 and that FOX and ESPN have no business televising hockey games.

My name is Larry, and I am an expatriate!