you'd be looney to refer to it as 'monopoly money'

October 2, 2007 under Canada, finance

Big Loonie in Echo Bay, Ontario
For the second time in my life on this planet, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar!

Many people don’t care. But for me, it’s a small victory. You see, on many an occasion in the past 12 years, I’ve been the only Canadian in a room full of Americans. Americans are good people, don’t get me wrong. So good that I married one (love ya, Chickypoo 🙂 ). But their education system, media and government keep them uninformed/misinformed about the world beyond the United States’ borders (and sometimes about the world within their borders too). So when in the situation of being the lone Canuck in a group of Yanks, I usually have to field ribbing along the lines of this:

“$10. What’s that in Canadia[sic] dollars? Like $10000?. Hardy har har.”

Or I love when they parlay it to metric forms of measurement like this one:

“The speed limit’s 100 kilometres per hour, huh? What’s that in American? Must be 2 miles. Heh.”

These days, the currency that they refer to as Monopoly money is now officially worth more than the indistinguishable US greenback. But 100 kilometres is still 62 miles 🙂

PS: It would’ve been nice if the loonie were strong like it is now back while I was a university student in the US. Darn my luck, I guess.

PPS: Yes, in my experience many Americans often refer to Canada as “Canadia”, “Canadiana” or something else other than its name of the past 140 years. I don’t know why – see the US education system/media/government perhaps.

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don't look a day over 120

July 1, 2007 under Canada

Happy 140th birthday to a certain 9,984,670 km2 of awesomeness!

Canada flag

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iPod buying power

January 19, 2007 under Apple, Canada, Money

apple iPod Nano
It’s Friday, so let’s enjoy a laugh followed by a “huh?”. The Commonwealth Bank, a large Australian bank, has used the 2nd-gen iPod Nano as a measure of currency buying power. Using a consumer product to measure a country’s buying power seems strange, but C|Net reports that this is the case.

The Commonwealth Bank has determined that it’s very costly to purchase a Nano in Brazil, but it’s much more affordable (comparatively) here in Canada than anywhere else in the world. Here’s the breakdown from weakest purchasing power to strongest:

  1. Brazil $327.71
  2. India $222.27
  3. Sweden $213.03
  4. Denmark $208.25
  5. Belgium $205.81
  6. France $205.80
  7. Finland $205.80
  8. Ireland $205.79
  9. UK $195.04
  10. Austria $192.86
  11. Netherlands $192.86
  12. Spain $192.86
  13. Italy $192.86
  14. Germany $192.46
  15. China $179.84
  16. South Korea $176.17
  17. Switzerland $175.59
  18. New Zealand $172.53
  19. Australia $172.36
  20. Taiwan $164.88
  21. Singapore $161.25
  22. Mexico $154.46
  23. U.S. $149.00
  24. Japan $147.63
  25. Hong Kong $147.35
  26. Canada $144.20

So while this might show how one country’s currency is undervalued against another country’s currency, it probably doesn’t take into account any special pricing that Apple may set for each different country. So what should we get out of this? Along with a high quality of life, standard of living and quality beer, does Canada also enjoy the strongest purchasing power in the world? Or does Apple just really love the Great White North? Either way, I hope the same holds true for Samsung and Panasonic‘s line of LCD and plasma HDTVs? 😉

Apparently The Economist did a similar comparison of buying power using McDonald’s Big Macs 20 years ago.

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let's make a 2006 tetralogy

December 31, 2006 under Baseball, Basketball, Canada, Football, Hockey, Sports

2006 NHL MVP is Joe Thornton from London, Ontario.

2006 NBA MVP is Steve Nash from Victoria, British Columbia.

2006 MLB American League MVP is Justin Morneau from New Westminster, British Columbia.

Let’s get Green Bay Packers kicker Jon Ryan from Regina, Saskatchewan voted in as an NFL MVP this year so that Canadians are MVPs in the 4 major North American professional sports leagues.

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remembrance day

November 11, 2006 under Canada

Especially for the Canadian troops currently kickin’ terrorist ass in Afghanistan.

Canadian Poppy

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happy canada/chico day!

July 1, 2006 under Canada, Life

139th and dirty-30! 🙂

Canadian flag and Kris Cecconi in a big chair.

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vote!

January 23, 2006 under Canada, Election, Politics

Today’s the day. Vote in the federal election! We live in a democracy and it’s your duty to do so.

Now I don’t want to influence your vote – you should be able to make up your own mind. Don’t listen to stupid slander. Paul Martin is clueless. Jack Layton rocks a porn ‘stache. Stephen Harper is creepy. Yada yada. Read up on what each of the parties stand for and ignore TV and radio commercials. Maybe some public opinion would help? Pat dishes plenty of it gets even deeper on Matter and Media.

I’d really like it if the MP that you vote for belongs to the same party as the MP that I’m voting for 😉

But that’s your choice.

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