And speaking of differences between US and Canada, here’s a couple of products and/or services that just refuse to cross the border.
TiVo. TiVo is a DVR — a digital video recorder — which can record your tv shows without the hassle of programming the channel and time like a VCR. It records shows digitally onto an internal hard drive, so the recording quality is great, and it can hold (I think) around 30 hours.
For some wacky reason, TiVo isn’t available in Canada. Why not? Canada is one of the most wired countries in the world. You’d think that marketing it here would be profitable and easy. But no, when TiVo expanded, they expanded to the UK instead. Hmph.
Netflix. Netflix is an Internet company with a mail-order scheme for renting videos. Customers pay a monthly flat fee and can pick a certain number of DVDs, which are mailed to them. Customers can keep them as long as they like, then return them by mail for a different selection. This is a very cool concept… and it’s also not available in Canada.
I’m not a tv addict — I hardly watch tv shows at all these days — but these two things would be very nice to have. And that silly border thing shouldn’t keep me from enjoying them.
And if that weren’t annoying enough… as I surf the web, I’m constantly running into ads and articles about them. As if they’re taunting me. Taunting me, saying “You like these nice shiny things? Well no shiny things for you, stupid Canuck-boy! Ha! I spit on you and your country!”
Grumble grumble grumble, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.
Maybe I’m taking this too personally.