I was recently in Halifax Canada—a pleasant, clean and civil city, and overheard a cell phone user say, “I am bored.”  It struck me that for a region of one million people, Halifax is indeed boring, as is most of Canada.  As one wit noted, no one ever says, “Let’s go out for dinner. I feel like Canadian.”  If a nation does not have a cuisine, can it be treated seriously in looking at the good things of life?  Yes, there is Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, but as a nation, Canada is boring.  

But there are other boring nations, and there are some pretentious ones as well.  The Scandinavian countries are boring, especially Norway where people left that nation to go to the American Midwest for laughs.  The Dutch seem boring too, but the French are the Olympians of pretentiousness.  Even their soccer team engaged in a World Cup sit down strike.  The Chileans are also boring, as are the New Zealanders.  The Austrians are just rowdies—or a nation of rugby mentality players.  

Ok, what are the criteria for not being boring:

1.    Lots of real culture and entertainment.  
2.    Big culturally enriched cities with a historical sense of their nation
3.    People who are interesting and chose to migrate to their cities, not like Canada where their actors and novelists rush to the other side of the border, even Detroit.
4.    A minimum of educational television and radio.  What radio station is more boring in the USA than NPR?

These are my views.  I ask you to write in and give me your vote for most boring nation, and the criteria that you used.

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