List of the 100 largest urban areas in Canada by population

Huzzah! Random article has blessed me with yet another list. This time, it's a list of the 100 largest urban areas in Canada by population. I hate to be snarky because Canadians are supposedly so nice, but it really should be the list of largest "urban areas" in Canada. 70% of these "urban areas" are less than 100,000 people. Nearly 50% of them are 50,000 or less.

Come on! I know it gets cold up there, but couldn't you do something cooler with all that space? Your 90th largest "urban area" is not much bigger than my high school (exaggeration to prove a point). The 514th largest "urban area" in the US is nearly twice that (thank you, Del Rio, Texas). Is city planning considered rude, or could you just not get those Degrassi kids to reproduce enough to fill up your huge ass country?

I'm sorry, Canadians. But you need a little bit of motivation. Get it together and get build some cities. I don't care if the rest of the world likes your laid-back demeanor--you're just like Americans but less douchey.

It's understandable. Now that I think about it, you are. You're the Ryan Reynolds to our Matthew McConaughey, the Will Arnett to our Jeremy Piven, the Corey Hart (not Haim) to our Corey Feldman, the Sebastian Bach to our Bret Michaels. (Okay, that last one was a stretch. They're both total bags of douche.) Need more analogies? You're the cast of Knocked Up to our Ben Stiller, the Rick Fox to our Dennis Rodman. Planet Earth basically thinks Canada is filled with Dana Carveys and Michael Ceras while America's filled with Spencer Pratts and John Mayers.

Wow. Americans suck. Browsing the list of famous Canadians made me realize that we really are dicks. Seriously. I'm sorry I doubted you, Canada. EVERYONE awesome is from your country. I mean, we've still got Jason Bateman, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart, Zooey Deschanel and a few others. But think about everyone else who's a major asshat. Probably American:

• Angelina Jolie? Why do you think she's got all those foreign kids? To cancel out her Americanism
• Tom Cruise? He'd like to claim he's an alien, but he's American
• Dane Cook? Bostonian (douchiest part of America)
• Oprah? AMERICAN! (read in Oprah's "favorite things" voice)
• Dakota Fanning? America's tiniest douche
• Elmo? American (and the biggest jerk I can think of)

Admittedly, Canadians like Eugene Levy and Howie Mandel do bring a high degree of suck, but it's not enough to cancel out the awesome brought to us by Michael J. Fox and Rachel McAdams. Although, in Canada, Mandel & Levy constitute nearly 2% of the population, which is why they were apparently exiled by the Canadian government (parliament? mounties?) and forced to take jobs where they look as American as possible. I mean, seriously. One's basically become the Screech Powers of the American Pie franchise and don't even get me started on the douchey banality of Deal or No Deal. Sickening.

But now that they're here in America where they belong, I guess it's safe to say I'd like to move to Canada. #97 on the list happens to be Owen Sound, Ontario (pop. 22,649). I'll fit right in. They'll think I'm their queen.

List of sniper rifles

Whoa. Badass. A gigantic sortable list of sniper rifles. I'd like to state for the record that I had no idea there were so many snipers out there...and also that I hope this post doesn't lead to a huge influx of readers who happen to be militant Henry Rollins fans and like to pretend they're paid assassins. But, if you've joined us today, WELCOME!

So, since I'm not into action movies, shooting people or guns, all of these rifles look pretty much the same to me. I shot an air rifle at camp once, but that's the best I've got. Sorry, I'm a girl. And, as we all know, it's not every day you see a girl shoot a gun. Unless you watch a lot of G.I. Jane and SVU. (Olivia Benson is so effing badass, BTW.)

Despite my ignorance, this whole sniper rifle thing is actually pretty timely. I just received via email a video of my little sister Pony (nickname--will explain some day) shooting a pistol...and crying! Apparently, while she and her friends spent Memorial Day up north*, someone's uncle (not sure whose) taught them how to shoot. Sound sketchy? Yeah, it looked sketchy, too.

So anyway, Pony was super scared to even hold the gun. She waited while each of the 7 other girls took their turns, pulled the trigger and shrieked when the gun went off. But when it was finally her turn, she had really worked herself up. She was in tears when she took it in her hands (probably not the best for her aim...or, you know, her stability with a loaded weapon). She finally made herself shoot and do the obligatory shrieking, but then she turned around quickly and revealed her cry face to everyone behind her. Awww. Poor Pony. Is it nap time?

Oh, PS. The girls were up there for a bachelorette party, so I don't know WTF they were doing shooting guns in the first place. At least they got the shrieking part right, eh?

*For those of you who don't know what I mean by that, "up north" refers to the woods of northwen Wisconsin and/or any area that's basically outdoorsy where you stay in cabins, go on boats, mingle with townies and drink a lot. I recently heard that Wisconsinites are like the only people who call it "up north," so I don't want any confusion.

Sweet Savage

The entry for hard rock band Sweet Savage so non-objectively refers to their heavy style as bolstered by "two guitars, thundering bass and powerhouse drums." Now, I'm no music expert (well, 11 years of piano and one song learned on violin), but I don't think those are very unbiased terms, crazy Wikipedia editors. Better log on and send them a death threat. (Seriously, our intern at work got a death threat from a Wiki editor for putting what they deemed "promotional" copy on our company page. Yikes.)

In any event, let's just forget about that and talk about what actually comes to my mind when I see their name: Kevin Arnold. Yes, that's right. In honor of my dear dear friend Jessica Bloodgood's impending birthday, I'll dedicate this post to Fred Savage, her soulmate.

Now, over the years, Jessica has indeed had her fair share of run-ins with really exciting celebrities, including the time she nearly assaulted John Stamos at an airport and told him that she loved him.

But some of the better celebrity moments Ms. Bloodgood has experienced have come in the form of autographs. As a child, Jess had perfected the art of writing letters to her favorite celebrities, and actually got a response once: from FRED SAVAGE. I mean, if anyone's going to write you back, it's that guy right? The dream man of every 12-year-old girl on the planet, the consummate nice guy, the owner of the most adorable dimples ever (next to A.C. Slater, of course).

The headshot he mailed back was clever and totally rad: "Jessica: May all your years be Wonder Years." Wow. Be still my heart (as Jess herself would say). He actually wrote back! And probably from the set of "The Wizard" while he was testing out the big screen debut of Super Mario Bros 3 and hanging out with co-star and future wet dream of every hispter boy ever, Jenny Lewis. It was probably the best celebrity-being-awesome story ever told.

Until Jess got to high school.

By the late 90s, she was living a super fantastic life in Mansfield, Texas, and her then-boyfriend Matt visited her at work, ecstatic to give her a gift. "Jessica. Guess what. I was talking by the bookstore and GUESS who was signing copies of his book. Brandon Tartikoff!"

[Many of you may not even know who that is. But for folks like Jess and me, he was a veritable hero. Mr. Tartikoff was the head of NBC in the 80s and 90s and he was the man responsible for telling us about a "hit idea for the new fall season" on the Johnny Dakota Anti-Drug episode of the best television show of all time, Saved by the Bell.]

Anyway, Matt pulled out a copy of Mr. Tartikoff's memoir "The Last Great Ride," and showed Jess the inscription he "wrote" for her: "Dear Jessica: There's no hope with dope! Love, Brandon Tartikoff."

Awww. Sweet, right? Perhaps. If Jessica wasn't fully aware that Brandon had passed away FOUR YEARS prior. Haha oops. Nice try Matt. I love that he assumed Brandon would write "love" so early in their nonexistent relationship, too. Feeble attempt, but a treasured memory and hilarious story, nonetheless, right?

And at least Jessica still had her Fred Savage headshot. Although by then Jessica had realized that Fred probably hadn't written her back himself and some publicist probably did it. Seems that sweet Savage boy was more the thundering bass, powerhouse drums badass we would expect from something called Sweet Savage.

The Sea-Maiden

Hey, I'm back. And just in time for a weird Irish fairy tale. The Sea-Maiden paints mermaids in a much dimmer light than Hans Christian Andersen did with his beloved children's story, that's for sure. The mermaid in this shit is the bad guy. Or gal (ugh, I hate that word). The Wiki entry was really confusing, though, because this story was adapted by two different authors, and the plot summarydelineates the differences between the two versions while outlining the plot. In other words, I'm not really sure what happens in this story, other than the fact that the mermaid is a Rumpelstiltskin type. Sorry, mermaids.

I guess it's about time mermaids catch a bad rap, though. Their name obviously insinuates their beautiful fair maidenness. And they live in the water so they're extra awesome. I bet this is the only story ever where a mermaid is anything less than totally smokin' hot and fun. This story did for mermaids what Lindsay Lohan did for, um, well, herself. Y'know back at the turning point when LiLo was in "Mean Girls" and everyone--even Tina Fey the genius--said she was the next big thing. But then she decided she liked coke in her nose better than having acting jobs, which was quite detrimental to her own reputation.

Actually, since The Sea-Maiden is a pretty under-the-radar tale, I'm sure it didn't do that great of a job marring the reputation of the mermaid population. I'm pretty sure every guy I know would still say Ariel is by far the hottest Disney princess. Eh, now that I think about it, isn't it more like an ongoing toss-up between Ariel and Princess Jasmine?*

It's like in Pulp Fiction when they say everyone's either an Elvis person or a Beatles person--you can't like both equally. (The answer is of course Beatles. It's only acceptable to say Elvis if your name is Uncle Jesse.) Is a guy either an Ariel person or a Princess Jasmine person (or, if you're Garth Algar or my friend Skinny, a Bugs-Bunny-in-a-dress person)? And, by that logic, is a lady either a Prince Eric person or an Aladdin person? Maybe.

Personally, I find both dudes rather attractive (despite the obvious problem that they exist only on the cels created by those crafty Disney Imagineers), but I'm gonna have to go with Aladdin on this one. He was troubled and down-to-earth even though he was BFF with Robin Williams, a rug and a monkey in a hat. Eric, while conventionally hotter and more rugged, was, after all, a prince. And that means he's probably a bit of a douche.

Maybe not, though. I was recently fooled when I met this polo-clad, BlackBerry-weilding, finance-jobbed, rich-family guy that I was sure would be a total douche. Turns out he was actually rather normal and friendly. Maybe "don't judge a book by its cover" was the lesson we were all supposed to learn from The Sea-Maiden? It was either that or "mermaids are bitches."