Archive - Sep 2005

Grrrr... this really gets me. I hate the state of wireless competition in Canada. The main form of competition is in the form of deals for first time subscribers - and this is simply because the company can pretty much lock you in once you've become accustomed to your cell number. Recently the companies within the industry said they'll get around to number portability in 2007. 2007!! What the heck! Why so long you ask? Well, you see, these companies claim it's complicated and that it will take that long to get it figured out.

Yikes... It's now really less than a year til I turn 30. Oh well, I guess the one thing you can't really stop is time...
Anyway, my 29th birthday has come and gone with little fanfare - just the way I like it. Meghan treated me amazingly, taking me out for a little walk up to the Luskville Falls, then serving me a picnic dinner. It was exactly the quiet night that I was looking for :)
We then went home where she unveiled some birthday carrot cupcakes which were scrumptuous and gave me a sweet framed photo of the two of us and some tickets to the NAC this Friday.
Like I said, all in all, it was a great day :)

There are a lot of things that lead me to believe that the title is true, but this is certainly one of the more disappointing and upseting ones. More than half of Canadians seeking treatment at hospital emergency rooms are there for less-than-urgent conditions, a new report said Wednesday.- Globe and MailI'm not going to say I'm perfect, I've been to emergency a few times in my life... I've had something removed from my ear, tried to have something removed from an eye - it turned out to be an infection, and had my chin stiched up. Maybe only one of them was really an emergency... The article's stats show that there are about 14 million visits per year to the nation's emergency rooms, and that the number has been fairly constant the last few years. What would happen if we could cut the half of visits that aren't necessary?  Think of how much better things could be...

Okay, so Bob Chiarelli apparently made some statements today about high gas prices and their impact on city budgets. Grr!! I figured this would happen. My big beef with this isn't that I think they're lying about increased costs, but how about the fact that they're forgetting that they are getting increased revenues at the same time?

Municipalities will be getting a share of fuel taxes that the federal government has promised them. It should be incumbent on them to demand an accelerated/increased set of payments since the federal government will now have an increase in revenues in this area.

Now, I'm not going to say that getting involved or not with the U.S.A.'s missle defence program is/was a good idea or not. But what I will say is that people like Mr. Cellucci saying that he "predicts the decision will come to be seen by historians as the wrong one for Canada" is just ridiculous. I suppose he might have said that John Diefenbaker Canada made the right decision by cancelling the Avro Arrow and embracing the American's silly BOMARK missles.

Man... seeing/hearing what's going on in New Orleans makes me happy to live in a country where you would think there wouldn't be extreme violence (like shooting at military helicopters trying to evacuate people!) when there was a natural disaster. I mean, looting is understandable, but a cop got shot in the head yesterday!