RevTadd

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder is an outstanding book. It's about a non-fiction book a team of computer engineers at Data General in the late 70s. Data General had been a leader in computers during the 16-bit era, but had fallen behind during the transition to 32-bit and the book is about a team who were effectively tasked with betting the company on developing a new computer to put them back on top. The best thing about the book is that the author was actually a journalist who had spent the year working in Data General's office and living with the team, so the book has a feel to it almost like your reading a documentary.

I'm an expat living in Australia and travel back and forth 2 or 3 times a year (excepting during the covid days where I went nowhere for 2 years), but I've never had Australian customs check my laptop, phone or any other device. Not saying that it is something that doesn't happen, just that I think this is a pretty low probability event you're getting worked up about.

I'm an American expat abroad (almost the same age, though not in Canada). Ultimately going abroad is a very personal decision that needs to reflect your own particular circumstances and preferences, but below are few thoughts from my own experience for your consideration or rejection.
 
Visa - getting a visa will be the key consideration. If you happen to work for a large professional services / tech company / similar company (e.g. KPMG, Accenture, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley), getting a work visa as part of an internal transfer can be almost trivial (and was my experience). If you don't work for an international company then getting a temporary work visa (especially one with a pathway to permanent residency) can be exceptionally challenging and will depend on a lot on your own circumstances, where you're wanting to go, and whether you have any particular set of skills for which you can secure a visa with or otherwise get an overseas employer to sponsor you for.
 
Location - Again, your own preferences for location should be the deciding factor, but I would generally recommend going to a larger, more metropolitan city (that has a decent amount of international and / or domestic migration). In Canada, I think this would mean Toronto or Vancouver. The reason being from my perspective is with going to city like Calgary or Montreal, most of the people you meet will have been born in that city, went to school / uni in that city, and worked in that city and its just a bit challenging making new connections when everyone you meet already has large existing 20+ year friendship groups.
 
Healthcare - I think its well understood globally the state of American healthcare, but you'll want to do your research on healthcare before moving over, as other countries universal healthcare programs don't always extend to non-permanent residents. For example, in the country I'm in now, I don't (yet) qualify for the government healthcare program and have to get special expatriate health insurance instead, which annoyingly enough is about 1.5x as expensive as the health insurance I had in the US. My circumstance is a bit atypical though and I knew it was going to be the case (and I can't really begrudge the government for not placing a political imperative on reducing health insurance premiums for a population of relative well off foreigners who can't vote). If you have special healthcare requirements, or expect to have healthcare needs in the future, just be sure to do some research ahead of time.
 
Lifestyle - One thing to note is in terms of your lifestyle, moving abroad won't necessarily mean much of a change, unless you actively choose to to make it so. That is, its very easy to settle into the same sort of work / life patterns even if moving to a very different city or country and you may find your day to day life is largely the same, with only a few differences at the margin. If you're not looking for a significant lifestyle change, then it may not be something to worry about, but if you are, then just keep in mind you need to change your lifestyle / habits, your location won't necessarily do it for you.

Depending on what exactly you're after and assuming you live in at least a small city, I would just go to a tailor where you live and tell them what you want. A lot of tailors will do custom dress-making and while what you want clearly isn't a dress, its the same sort of skillset to make and they will have access to fabric you need (or the ability to acquire it).
 
*I've been envisioning you wanting something like a party shirt or a button-up shirt with some unique / wacky design perhaps as opposed to printed design. 

Depending on what exactly you're after and assuming you live in at least a small city, I would just go to a tailor where you live and tell them what you want. A lot of tailors will do custom dress-making and while what you want clearly isn't a dress, its the same sort of skillset to make and they will have access to fabric you need (or the ability to acquire it).
 
*I've been envisioning you wanting something like a party shirt or a button-up shirt with some unique / wacky design perhaps as opposed to printed design. 

There was a time when people said the same thing about automatic elevators without human attendants; I doubt even 0.5% of the population these days has any issues with riding elevators. Full self-driving isn't quite ready yet today, but in as soon as 5 years from now I wouldn't see myself taking any more risk getting into a self-driving car as I do in about half of the ubers I take.

@Stagea, Thanks, that's all really helpful.
 
As far as your points above:
1. I'm generally a fan of a clean and uncluttered set-up, with everything that can be out-of-sight. In terms of room acoustics, that's on definitely on my list of things for the space, I'm planning to set aside some separate budget for room acoustics and furniture, but I'm still figuring out some of my aesthetic plans there at the moment.
2. My music taste is a bit eclectic (or perhaps tasteless rather) with everything from blues to german gansta rap. I usually cycle between new genres on about a monthly basis. I rarely play loud music, think more relaxing to music in the evenings with a gin in hand rather than a house party 
3. I'm more looking for a good reference sound given the mix of things I generally listen to
4. I don't have any brand preferences, in terms of form factor, I was thinking likely integrated as opposed to separate components given preference for a cleaner / less cluttered set-up with bookshelf speakers, but I'm not wedded to this and would consider a range of options
 
I think something like the NAD M10 V2 was probably about what I had in (my very uninformed) mind so I'll look into it. I had also been reading up on the Cambridge EVO 75 / EVO 150, but wasn't sure how those my fit with my use case. In terms of speakers, there are a couple of good specialist audio shops near me, which I was going to check out for sound preference once I had a better understanding of what I am wanting. 
 
I definitely agree on planning upfront and avoiding buying twice. I generally like the mentality of buying once and for life wherever possible, though that's sometimes easier said then done.
 

Thanks all, it seems like Amazon Music HD is the preferred option for hi-fi streaming, so I'll give it a try. I had heard the Spotify Hifi announcement earlier this year, but it seems like Spotify has gone radio silent on it ever since so it remains to be seen what the service will actually be like.
 
As far as equipment set-up, my goal is to have a quality set-up for music listening for my study / home-office (about a 3m x 3m sized room, so small but not overly space constrained). In the back of my mind, I've been tossing around a price range of something like US$5,000 - US$7,000, but that's not based on any actual knowledge of what I may be able to get for that amount.

You could potentially just get a wireless 10-key number pad and then remap the keys to left click / right click / other using autohotkey?

Agree, white chocolate. All other chocolates are a mistake

Agree, white chocolate. All other chocolates are a mistake

I mean from a literal perspective everything that exists has chemicals in it.
 
In terms of energy drinks though, I like Redbull Zero and can't stand any of the others.

=IFERROR((MATCH($C$4,$E$4:$E$10,0)<>0)*1,0)
Where C4 is the value your looking for and E4:E10 is the range. If it is 1 the value exists in the range, if 0 it does not.

I use the Core G3 case that Fasauceome mentioned. While I personally really like aesthetic, I'll admit it doesn't really make a lot of logical sense (what's really the point of a case supporting an ATX motherboard if it limits you to one PCIE slot and an SFX power supply). It probably is your best bet as far as compact + ATX + window if that's your requirement though.

Investment banker
 
This is my life: