It’s that brand of ignorant knee-jerk patriotism your frat-boy antagonists exhibit that really makes me hate the 4th. That and the illegal fireworks that the police here won’t do anything about, BTW :P I’ll be trying to find my sound-proof booth so I won’t feel like I’m living in a war zone.

You don’t need to put on a big display to show your pride to others or rub their noses in it if they don’t share your views. I really wish Americans on the whole had a better handle on subtlety. Most just don’t get things unless you’re extremely blunt and overt about it. It’s tiring. Life is not a contest, so why make it one? Can’t we all just get along?

You know, you can study at the U of T without being a citizen. Might be a good way to get in to Canada so you can at least bide your time in a nicer environment while you go about obtaining citizenship. But you prolly already realize that. ;)

I’m still thinking about going back, just gotta get BF dedicated to making the transition easier for himself when the time comes. MN will be a nicer place to bide our time than Chi until we get to that stage.

yeah, but Winnipeg gets PLENTY of sun.

and sure, while -40°C in the wintertime isn’t unheard of in the slightest, it’s also not unusual to see a few hot, clear and humid 40°C-plus days in July and August when the air is just so.

the prairie is a climate rife with extremes. take it from me, having face-to-faced with a massive tornado, endured whiteouts galore, ice storms, subtropical heat waves, skeeters and lightning-encrusted gullywashers that make Seattle look bone-dry in late November.

o cool. i was slightly eyeballing winnipeg, so i figure i can deal with the flat terrain at least at first

don’t forget that Toronto is right across the lake from Rochester, NY, which logs in as the most cloudy major city in the U.S., right in front of Seattle by an average of one more day per year. meanwhile, Seattle has a couple more precip days per annum than Rochester, and it ranks at #1 in that list.

trust me. T.O. gets its lion’s share of greyness and bleh, too.

but tabernac! it doesn’t hurt to log some quality living time north of the 49th before i die, you know!

besides, i get so sick of the wankers on this side of the line saying asinine, defensive shit like, “but why don’t you like it here? why do you wanna live there, when you can do the same things here?”

last year, while sitting atop an ADM granary rail car facing downtown Minneapolis at dusk on Thursday July 4th, begrudgingly watched the worst facile downtown fireworks display alone (knowing in retrospect that Powderhorn Park’s were far better, as later informed me) while banging out an LJ entry with my red Visor Edge and folding keyboard (there’s an entry in my LJ calendar, were you to feel so inclined to peek).

nearby, there were these loserish frat guys breaking empties on the side of the rail. when they drunkenly hollered, “IT’S THE 4TH OF FUCKING JULY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!” at me, i just politely poker-faced a “i celebrate Canada Day. cheers,” back their way. the diminutive response ticked me off: “OH. SORRY TO HEAR THAT.”

all i could think was “fuck you, Biff,” but it wasn’t worth it. they went back to breaking bottles and disturbing the peace, annoying the low-key gay couple sitting to my left.

it didn’t help that twenty minutes earlier, i ran into a Green Party co-delegate of mine who had heard that GW43 had just shipped out 4,000 soldiers that day for a “prospective” raid on Iraq. it seemed so totally implausible at the time.

whee.