It starts here

Any Canadian who watches TV knows the Canadian Tire Guy. He is a bearded fellow who likes to brag about the latest Mastercraft gadget from Canadian Tire. But until today, I had no idea that there was such an undercurrent of dislike for him. I won't say I was surprised to learn this, but I was a bit taken aback that Macleans dedicated over two pages of its print edition to deride him and generally insult his manliness.

A quick google search on the subject reveals others who feel more or less the same way.

Watching Montreal Canadiens hockey Saturday, I discovered a French Canadian Tire Guy, also dicussing the merits of the solar-powered generator. He lives in the same house as English CTG, he and his neighbour have the same shirts as their English counterparts, but he has no beard.

A love/hate relationship

After a year away from real Canadian winter, yesterday was a perfect example of how winter can be so great and so depressing at the same time.

First, the good news: NHL hockey is back. One of the perks of settling in for the long winter, for sure. Then, the bad: An early October snow-storm.
Both are things I missed out on last year in Holland (although I suppose everybody else missed out on NHL hockey as well). To be fair, we did get a brief hint of winter in Amsterdam. But the novelty-act-winter of last March was a bit different than the prelude-to-six-months-of-cold we got yesterday. At the very least, those flurries should make for an interesting ultimate game tonight.