Day Three Hundred and Fifty-Eight - Talking To Americans

Apparently many people find many Canadians to be quite funny. And it's true - in the pantheon of mainstream comedians - a lot of them are Canadian - per capita it would seem that we are a much funnier lot than our neighbours to the south. I don't find many of them to be all that funny [Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, etc.], but generally speaking what's left up here is even worse. One of them, Rick Mercer, is kinda like the Canadian Jon Stewart...only, yeah...not so much. He had a show or a few specials called Talking to Americans, which was a bit like the Jay-Walking segments on Leno wherein he would approach Americans [in the USA] and ask them questions about Canada and other things and try to embarass them. While I don't have too much experience in watching this, it was spectacularly unfunny.

My ET today is also spectacularly unfunny, although not unlike that concept. Today I talked politics with an American. I'm reasonably sure this is the first time this has happened [in a face-to-face kinda way]. This came about as a result of our Symposium, which is an international conference on autism that is put on by the place where I work. Anyway, this guy stopped by our table and seemed a little sheepish about being an American, although his southern accent was a bit of a giveaway. He soon was voluntarily talking politics and his fellow Americans and his background. And while obviously we shy away from talking politics while @ work, he was so insistent @ sharing his beliefs that I was able to just smile and nod and not give too much away [though obviously I was dying to]. While I have obviously been actively following this election, it was a really different experience to be speaking with a regular American guy - as opposed to the normal conversations I have shouting @ the talking heads on CNN...

[also he challenged my stereotype of the "typical" white, middle-aged southern guy - so shame on me...]