A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

CONTINUING COVERAGE OF CANADA'S FINEST PRIME-TIME TEEN/TWEEN SOAP OPERA: Are you excited for The N's weekend-long DeGrassi marathon? I've been watching two episodes a day just so that I can whittle the impending TiVo armageddon down to manageable. And what have I learned about Canada?

1. Due to Canada's socialist tendencies, three out of five Canadian high-school students have been separated from their parents.

2. On a related note, there's something in Canada called "student welfare" where the government pays you to live alone as long as you keep your grades up. This program could have been extremely useful, say, in Seattle between 1985 and 1988.

3. As a corollary to the first two points, if you can't act and aren't particularly attractive, you have an inalienable right to work off your student welfare by appearing on DeGrassi.

4. Further to the foregoing three matters, because of Canada's excellent socialized medicine, every teen is required to undergo partial paralysis or severe head trauma before completing Grade 13.

5. Approximately 90% of the programming on The N is DeGrassi related.

Okay, that last one wasn't about Canada. But still, I defy you to find one minute of The N programming that is neither DeGrassi nor Fresh Prince of Bel Air.