Two Reasons Not to Move Here

1. People around here pronounce words the way Americans think all Canadians pronounce words. "Canadian rounding" is an actual phenomenon, but it just means that we make a distinction between the vowel sounds in the words 'lousy' and 'mousy', whereas Americans generally pronounce them the same. But in Nova Scotia (and especially in the Valley) the rounded 'ou' goes beyond a slight rounding and over the edge into long 'o' territory. For instance, they really say "oat and a boat". Some other actual examples:

"Are you looking for a punch in the moath?"

"Don't be such a doting Thomas."

"Get off the coach and get some excercise."

and my favourite, from when Alison worked for a call answering service,

"Send a doctor — I've got the goat!"

2. Halifax has a large park right in its middle, called the Halifax Commons. As the name suggests, it is a piece of common land, paid for by taxes and available for general recreational use. It is covered in grass and baseball diamonds, the latter of which are occupied, according to a schedule worked out with the city, every Sunday over the summer by my softball league. Many other leagues use them at other times, and any Haligonian schmoe who feels like starting up a game when they are not in prescheduled use is welcome to.

However, in the past couple of years, the municipal government of Halifax has figured out that this park is a great area for putting on large rock concerts. They book a huge name act (usually well past its prime), fence off the entire park, and charge an astronomical admission fee, thereby making not a modest profit. The Commons, having been thoroughly ruined, is then unusable for sporting events for the rest of the season.

Because this strategy has met with such success, this year Paul McCartney is coming in early July, followed by KISS on the 18th. That means for two months of our very short summer, eight very frustrated teams will be scrambling around the city, trying to find places to play out the softball season we've scheduled with the city. And I'm not even counting the Ultimate Frisbee people.

Worse still, it means that on July 18th all residents of Halifax and many of the surrounding area will be crammed together on one large field of mud and garbage, pumping their fists in the air and yelling, "Shoat it! Shoat it! Shoat it oat load!"

Seriously, stay home.