Friday, April 21, 2006

A Friday Afternoon

Here I am on a Friday afternoon, the sun is shining, and all is well with the world. I haven't written in a while cuz to tell the truth typing with a cast is a major bummer. In fact the cast itself is a major bummer. It really takes a lot of energy to get along with it. You are always asking people to help you. Ever tried to open a juice bottle with only one hand, cut a slice of bread... squished bread, lousy slice... fustration assured. Makes you appreciate having all the bits and pieces working. (OK Jazz, I know... I'm not always all there...duuuh what's my name and where's my lunch box? but at my age I'm allowed.) It has been so nice this week and my bike and inline skates are sitting there in the garage going "Take me out for a ride please, pretty please", soooo fustrating. Well at least I could have my morning coffee on the patio before going to work and sit here after work reading a good murder mystery knowing that the situation isn't permanent. Have yourselves a good weekend.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Cleaning up

It was once said that he who controls the information controls the game. Our Prime Minister has promised a massive cleanup of our government. He is even proposing a new law to do so. Now that is all well and good, except that he has taken the reforms to the Access to Information Act out of the package to send to a commitee. Now we all know that sending something to a commitee is the kiss of death. They will mull it over, gum it to death and it will quietly slip into oblivion.
Now can someone explain to me how you can clean up corruption if there is no transparency. How do you know where the corruption is? How do you keep tabs on what the government is doing if you can't get the information. The Prime Minister doesn't even want his ministers to talk to the press, much less give them information about what is going on.
So from where I sit it is business as usual. If the politicians want us to respect them, they should maybe let us see what is going on. If not it's still the same old book with a new dust jacket.

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On another note, I was reading about a Los Angeles cop who gave a $114 ticket to an 82 year old woman because she wasn't fast enough to cross a five lane boulevard before the light turned to red. There's one cop who really wins the booby prize for stupidity. Instead of giving her a ticket he should have blocked the traffic himself to give her time to cross the intersection.
It really makes you wonder sometimes.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Medical System...Thanks

Usually when you here about the medical system it is to complain or tell horror stories about the awful service/waiting list/hospital/employees etc. Well guess what? I'm not going to do that. Today I had to have minor surgery on my hand, nothing very important, just something that had to be done. Well the waiting period before the day surgery was very reasonable and when I went in to the Lakeshore hospital the service was courteous, professional and expeditive. The people where invariably nice, explaining everything that they were going to do and answering any questions I had. The surgery took place using a drip block (sort of like the dentist freezing your tooth) so they didn't even have to put me to sleep, so I was out of there in record time. The only inconvenience is the plaster cast that slows up my typing skills by 50% :o(
Thanks to the doctors and staff of Lakeshore hospital for their professionalism, courtesy, and humanity. It is greatly appreciated.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Of unused intellignece.

Spring is here and the daffodiles are coming out. At the same time road repairs are starting up again. Mind you, I have nothing against repairing the roads, lord knows that they need it, but it is the way they go about it.
Highway 40 is one of the busiest highways in Montreal and they are currently getting ready to start repairs, so they have deviated the lanes and made them much narrower. This of course slows down traffic. So far so good. Now comes the fun part. The city of Point-Claire in their infinite wisdom has decided to dig up the service road. They therefore have shut down one of the lanes. Now you would think that since they are repairing the highway causing major traffic congestion you would want to keep the service road open as an extra safety valve to help the flow of traffic, but oh no, instead they shut it down causing an even bigger snafu. Let me tell you that whoever thought that one up was really not the sharpest knife in the cutlery drawer or the brightest light in the Christmas tree.
As the saying goes...God must really love stupid people, he/she made so many of them.