What I have learned

I am used to being made fun of for various reasons. My big mouth gets me into trouble all the time, I grew up with 3 brothers who tormented me and I tend to move alot without knowing much about the area I am moving to. This post revolves around the last one. My alternate title for this post was "How to speak to a Canadian". Over my short 27 years I have lived in Utah, Texas, Georgia, Washington state and now Canada. Through each transition I have been forced to quickly learn the local lingo, culture, good and bad neighborhoods, traffic rules, strange laws, etc. For those of you who have lived over sees you are perfectly entitled to laugh at me right now, don't worry you won't offend me.

My biggest transition so far was when I moved to Canada (once again feel free to laugh). I am laughed at on a daily basis by co-workers, clients or friends regarding something that I either don't know (and according to them I should know), my "funny" American accent or the fact that I am doing something drastically wrong. For instance here is a short list of things I have heard in conversation and had NO idea what they were - ringlette, garberator, toque, pop (not referring to soda), two-fur, and remember this entire post.

The most recent thing that my friends love to give me a hard time about is the fact that I don't know who the "famous" Canadians are. I knew about Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne and a few others, but I guess that wasn't good enough. Canadians take great pride in their born and bred celebrities. So, this week I have taken a bit of time to learn what other famous people are from the great white north. My advice to you would be to keep a few of these names in the back of your mind in case you find yourself conversing with a Canadian. (The weather is another great thing to talk to Canadians about) - Below is the list I came up with:

Musicians and Bands
Alanis Morissette
Anne Murray
Avril Lavigne
Barenaked Ladies
Bryan Adams
Celine Dion
Chantal Kreviazuk
Diana Krall (from my town - Nanaimo) This is where most of the taunting started, because there is a street downtown named for her and I guess I have never noticed it.
Estella Warren
Joni Mitchell
Leonard Cohen
Matt Dusk
Michael Buble (from Vancouver)
Neil Young
Nelly Furtado (from Vancouver Island)
Nickelback (from Vancouver)
Our Lady Peace
Rage Against the Machine
Rush
Sarah McLachlan
Simple Plan
Paul Shaffer
Shania Twain
Sum41
The Crash Test Dummies
The Guess Who
The Tragically Hip

Actors, Actresses and Comedians
Pamela Anderson – “Baywatch” (from Vancouver Island)
Will Arnett – “Arrested Development”
Dan Aykroyd – SNL, “Blues Brothers”
Neve Campbell – “Party of Five”, “Scream”
John Candy – “Blues Brothers”
Jim Carrey – “Dumb and Dumb”, “Truman Show”
James Cameron – “Titanic”, “Terminator”, “Aliens” director
Dean McDermott – actor, married to Tori Spelling
Kim Catrell - Samantha on “Sex in the City”
Michael Cera – “Superbad”, “Arrested Development”, “Juno”
Shenae Grimes “Degrassi”
Elisha Cuthbert – “24”
Shawn Ashmore “X Men” movies, “Smallville”
James Doohan - Scotty on "Star Trek"
David Elliott James - "Melrose Place", "JAG"
David Foley – “News Radio”
Michael J Fox – “Family Ties”,“Back to the Future” movies
Brendan Fraser – “Mummy” movies
Ryan Gosling – “Notebook”, "Remember the Titans"
Tom Green - comedian (remember that horrible MTV show?)
Phil Hartman - SNL
Jillian Hennessy - "Law and Order"
Joshua Jackson – “Dawson’s Creek”, “Fringe” (from Vancouver)
Margot Kidder - Lois Lane in "Superman"
Kristin Kreuk- Lana in “Smallville”
Evangeline Lilly – Kate on “Lost”
Norm Macdonald – SNL, “News Radio”
Howie Mandel – “Deal or no Deal”
Rachel McAdams – “Mean Girls”, “Notebook”
Lorne Michaels – creator and writer for SNL
Colin Mochrie - “Who’s Line is it Any Way”
Rick Moranis - "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"
Mike Myers – “Austin Powers” movies
Cameron Mathison - “All my Children”, “Dancing with the Stars”
Sandra Oh – “Grey’s Anatomy”
Ellen Page – “Juno”
Matthew Perry – Chandler on "Friends"
Jason Priestley - "Beverly Hills 90210" (from Vancouver)
Keanu Reeves – “Matrix” movies, “Speed” movies
Ryan Reynolds – “Definitely Maybe” (married Scarlet Johansson not far from where we live)
Seth Rogen – “Knocked Up” “Superbad” (from Vancouver)
Devon Sawa – “Now and Then”, “Final Destination”
William Shatner – “Boston Legal”, “Star Trek”
Martin Short - SNL
Scott Speedman – “Felicity”, “Underworld”
Donald Sutherland - "M*A*S*H”
Kiefer Sutherland - 24
Dave Thomas - "Strange Brew", "Grace Under Fire"
Jennifer Tilly – “Liar Liar”, professional Poker Player (from Vancouver Island)
Alex Trebek - Jeopardy game show host
Shannon Tweed - Playmate, Gene Simmons girlfriend
Nia Vardalos – “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”
John Vernon - "Animal House", "Dirty Harry"
Michael Wincott - "The Crow", “Alien”
Thomas Cavanagh - Ed on “Ed”
Eric McCormack - Will on “Will & Grace”
Victor Garber - “Alias”, “Titanic”

Athletes
Georges St-Pierre: UFC welterweight champion, 2008 Canadian Athlete of the Year
Jesse Palmer: NY Giants player, Season 5 “The Bachelor”
Donovan Bailey: former World's fastest man, Olympic Sprinter
Kurt Browning: 4-time World Champion Figure Skater
Bobby Lee Cripps: Baseball player
Ken Dryden: the 1st hockey player to win the Conn Smythe trophy
Wayne Gretzky: Highest hockey scorer in history; holds 61 individual NHL records (big surprise, eh?)
Scott Goodyear: IndyCar driver
Gordie Howe: 2nd highest hockey scorer in history (I got made fun of quite a bit for not knowing this guy, I guess he is a huge here)
Ferguson Jenkins: Hall of Fame baseball pitcher
Ben Johnson: Fastest man on drugs at the Seoul Olympics, 1988
Mario Lemieux: Hockey player, Scoring champion for 5 years (another BIG name here)
Bronko Nagurski: Charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame
James Naismith: Inventor of basketball (What? Basketball invented in Canada?)
Steve Nash: Plays for the Phoenix Suns (from Vancouver Island)
Bobby Orr: Hockey player, Won the Norris Trophy 8 consecutive years
Elvis Stojko: Figure Skater
Jacques Villeneuve: 1995 Indy 500 winner, 1997 Points champion, 1st Canadian to win
Mike Weir: Golfer, winner of the 2003 Masters (this is for my brothers)

Cartoonists, Inventors, Entrepreneurs, Media, etc.
Lynn Johnston - creator of For Better or For Worse
John Kricfalusi - creator of Ren and Stimpy
Todd McFarlane - creator of Spawn
Joe Shuster - co-creator of Superman
Jack Kent Cooke - owner of the LA Lakers, LA Kings, Washington Redskins and the Chrysler Building
Guy Laliberté - founder and owner of the Cirque du Soleil
Isadore Sharp - founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain
Jack Warner - founder of Warner Bros. Studios
Jay Manuel - fashion expert on America's Next Top Model
Steven “Cojo” Cojocaru - fashion correspondent on Entertainment Tonight
Scott Abbott & Chris Haney - co-inventors of Trivial Pursuit
Thomas Ahearn - invented the electric cooking range and the electric car heater
Joseph-Armand Bombardier - invented the snowmobile
Mathew Evans & Henry Woodward - co-inventors of the first electric light bulb
Reginald Fessenden - 1st radio-transmitted audio transmission, 1st two-way transatlantic radio transmission; also invented sonar
Sandford Sir Fleming - inventor of the system of Standard Time zones
Abraham Pineo Gesner - inventor of kerosene "Father of the Petroleum Industry"
George Klein - developed electric wheelchairs & microsurgical staple gun
Hugh Le Caine - invented the music synthesizer in 1945
Elijah McCoy - developed automatic machinery lubricator, the lawn sprinkler, the "Real McCoy"
Cluny MacPherson - invented the first general-issue gas mask
Peter Robertson - invented the Robertson Screw (the one with the square end)
Arthur Sicard: invented the snowblower in 1925 (go figure)
Peter Jennings - ABC news anchor
Daniel Negreanu – famous professional poker player
Joshua Slocum - first man to sail around the world solo

LDS Leaders
Nathan Eldon Tanner - Latter-day Saint apostle
John Taylor - Latter-day Saint 3rd Prophet
Merlin Lybbert - Latter-day Saint general authority
Hugh B. Brown - Latter-day Saint apostle