(The Monarchs beat The Sharks 4-3 in OT)

Sorry for the delayed post, I'm a jackass sometimes.  I get so caught up in vacations sometimes that any sign of work usually repulses me to the point of near regurgitation... and we all know that that is never good.  What I did promise was to give you a look into the city of Winnipeg, Canada.  I will now present you with the qualitative differences I noticed between us and our top hat (Canada).  

1. Winnipegers seem to be kind and optimistic (maybe because it is a mass Mennonite city but I'm not sure), something that average citied American's aren't usually cited for.  I've never been so overwhelmed by someones happiness until I arrived in Canada, even the bank teller was psyched out about having me as her customer who wanted to exchange US$120, she gave me all denominations of the Canadian dollar (loonies being 1 dollar coins and toonies being... 2 dollar coins... the rest of the coins matched our American ones essentially, just with Queen Elizabeths face on them).

2. In Manitoba, yearly car inspections occur only during the time of purchase but the minute it is sold it must be inspected.  In 18 states + D.C. have annual car inspections.  Why it matters?  It is important to have routine safety check ups so that Toyota-related incidents do not go undetected for extended amounts of time, cars maintain a visually bearable appearance, and you can catch amateur/rotten car thief's. 

3. They have a 2 dollar coin, we don't.

4. Winnipeg is more culturally diverse than your average American city, mind you I have no statistics to back this up, but from what I was able to absorb through my retinal receptors there were multi-cultural shops and people everywhere.  I actually ate a Bison samosa at some Nepalese place, go figure.

5. I'm assuming that because consumer taxes were slightly higher when I was in town that they pay a lot more than we do for universal healthcare, trade (imports), education, and city maintenance (but who knows, 70% chance that I'm more than 50% wrong).

6. Winnipegers seemed to be more individualistic and less affected by media propaganda/manipulation.  This contributed to their down-to-earth ways/straightforwardness... one person told me I looked like I haven't slept in weeks while another told me I looked handsome as a movie star, both quite sincere thoughts which I am glad they shared to my face to be honest :).

7. Canada goes by the metric system.  Gas in Winnipeg is 95 cents per liter, and my newly met buddy's car has a 60L tank (diggididamn), the speed limit was 60-90 km/hour in most places... so around 40-70 m/hour here, and the temperature is in celsius (OMFG).

8. All the pot in Winnipeg was ridiculous, I don't think that shwag nor mid-grade exist in the these parts.  Purple stuff.

9. There is a lack of scene and commercialism in Winnipeg, a marketing redoubling of effort must be made to possibly provide a stronger argument for more city development (I did see some but it was mainly residential units).

and 10. The cold is cold, all ye in the U.S. that complain about cold are vageenas.  When I was there I felt spring kicking in, but a week before I arrived there were recording of -7.7 degrees centigrade (18 degrees fahrenheit) temperature... I would've been experiencing some cryonic shit.

10 1/2. I just remembered that the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior labels for high school and university students does not exist in Winnipeg (and I'm assuming Canada in general), it is just 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade.

Overall I had a great, chill time with my old buddy Sandy (whom I grew up with in Singapore and shared many experiences with) and his friends (Andrew, Bonn, and Marc) up at University of Manitoba... which interestingly enough has a school student population of about 50,000, which makes it the second largest city behind Winnipeg in the province of Manitoba... 'twas a good time guys.

That's that... until I can muster up some more observations that I can share with you fellas.
Sounds good, aye?