Welcome to Canada HBO!!!!

Finally! Home Box Office Network has come to Canada. For some reason the government wouldn't let Canadians get this in their homes, even if they wanted to pay for it. The government wants us to watch such goodies as Corner Gas and the God awful Rick Mercer.

I had discovered HBO when I was in Mexico in the late 90's.

Albeit it's called 'HBO Canada'... And you can't get it as a single channel, only as part of a premium pay package like The Movie Network or Movie Central... And it's required to comply with federal CanCon regulations and devote 25% of overall air time, and 35% of prime time, to Canadian content...

But they promise the schedule will include the full HBO lineup.

So far I'm not dissappointed. We spent Saturday afternoon watching four back-to-back episodes of Real Time With Bill Maher. Great show for the most part. Like the old Politically Incorrect show it's a mixture of pundits, intellectuals and clueless celebrities. (Where else can you see Salman Rushdie trying to make a point and cut off by Hollywood flake and conspiracy theorist Janeane Garofalo.) Maher himself is out there in certain aspects. He thinks the USA is down the toilet. "We don't manufacture anything anymore." He thinks there are too many rich people taking money away from poor people. I find myself shouting at the screen: the fact that Bill Gates has $60 billion doesn't take food out of the mouths of orphans... Anyway. Any show that has you shouting at the screen means you are engaged. (Again, why did the Canadian government block me from watching this?)

Best quote from the block we watched was from Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. (Editors note: I usually hate Kruggie. Also, I'm paraphrasing, I didn't write down the exact quote.) "We buy lead poison laden toys from China and in return they buy fraud securities from us."

For plain fun, I thought this clip was funny Palin - Mommy & Me. (Keeping in mind that now that I'm not drinking Republican kool-aid, I can enjoy this joke.) This episode aired right after McCain announced Palin as his running mate, so this is joke is a bit old now. And of course it's pre-Tina Fey.