Health Care Nightmare and more....

So I had no choice but to go see my doctor today as he had asked me to come see him last week. I was sick about a month ago and missed a week of work due to the fact that I was about this close to having bronchitis for the 4th time in my life. After having not been to see my doctor in about 4 years (probably closer to 5), and feeling like crap for a few days, I finally caved in and went to see him.

He gave me a week to rest and asked for blood in return!!! Well, no, he asked for me to get my heart ECG'd and do up some blood work. The reason he wanted to see me this week (last week actually) was to tell me that my cholesterol is "dangerously high" which means a total diet change coming for the next month. No more red meat (no steak, no burgers, no hot dogs....I didn't know you could classify hot dogs as "red meat" but sure....and no more french fries) until it comes back down to a manageable and safe number.

Enough about my health issues, the biggest problem I have is that with regards to 2 trips to the doctor, i spent a total of about 7 hours waiting to see my family doctor for a total of around 8 minutes. Nevermind the fact that he has been my family doctor since before I was born, nevermind the fact that he only takes walk-ins, the biggest issue i have is with people who go to the doctor over the smallest of issues and then create artificial wait times like the ones I have experienced in my only 2 doctors visits after 2005.

It's bad enough that we have a shortage of family doctors already but when the ones we have are treating  people who have happened to have thrown up the night before because of the possibility that they MAY be sick, that's kind of when we know that there is a problem and it's not really a shortage of doctors, its the way our doctors are being utilized. I spent over 7 hours waiting because of people like that.....


Some sad news (But really, not altogether that surprising considering) in that Whitney Houston was found dead on Saturday night. She died because of a lethal does of Zantax and booze (which was also the title of the mocking song made up by the Dean Blundel Show....maybe a bit too soon but it was actually a funny bit this morning on the show). It wasn't really that big a shock given the fact that she has been fighting her drug addiction for years. She had been in and out of rehab clinics for most of the last 10-15 years trying to control her addiction to the point where she could be a permanently functioning member of society. Unfortunately, her demons ultimately got the better of her. She was 48 years old when she died on Saturday.

The biggest news of the night was the way Adele stole the show. I will admit that before Sunday, I had no idea what she looked like and the only thing I knew with regards to her was that she has a couple of decent songs. I learned by watching that 60 Minutes feature on her about her throat issues and where the inspiration for her songs came from. I admit, before the show on Sunday, the Grammy's, that I was pulling for her. She won pretty much everything you can possibly win and her performance was amazing. This should be a lesson to the Lady Gaga's of the world; you don't have to be a freak and dress up like a moron to be successful on the music industry. Your VOICE should be enough. Another great thing; The Foo Fighters won a couple of Grammy's....that was cool. Rock and Roll LIVES!!!!

People are in such a rush everywhere you turn that its getting to the point where being rude is kind of the norm now, especially on our roads. Just in the past week I have seen some of the worst driving you could imagine. City of Mississauga buses running red lights at rush hour (twice, once at Highway 10 and Dundas and the other at Erin Mills and Dundas), people rudely cutting others off without realizing the reason why some one may have been going a little slower and almost causing an accident (today on the way home, I'm giving someone some space on the highway to change lanes in front of me, a guy driving a truck with a trailer attached, and this absolute prick jumps out from behind me, nearly hits me as he dashes in front of me and nearly sideswipes the truck and trailer as well. Had he actually hit them, it would have caused at least a 7 car mash up with ME right in the middle of it), and even some blatant reverse racism (3 black kids in a car honking and yelling at an old white man who was stopped in front of Shopper's dropping his elderly wife off at the front door. He had his signal on and they could see the old woman getting out....I doubt they would have been acting that way if the old man was black).

Little things like this seem to be on the rise lately and its quite disturbing that not only are our traffic laws being violated with impunity but that people feel they can do, say and act in whatever way they see fit on the roads and our police officers seem to only give a shit when our speed is anywhere near 50 km/h over the speed limit. We need to take the quotas away from police officers and have them focus on the actual infractions being committed instead of the sheer volume of infractions they supposedly see. Fat chance that will happen though as with cities fighting for every dollar within their budgets, the easy cash grab of a traffic ticket will be seen as guaranteed revenue for our police services and, if anything, those quotas might go up to help keep cops on the streets.

Speaking of city budgets, there is a story in the Toronto Star about how many kids baseball leagues are now suffering from sticker shock after the City of Toronto stunned them by asking them to (gasp) actually PAY to use city parks for their games and practices. GASP! News flash to all the people in Toronto but you SHOULD be paying for using the parks. Adult leagues have been paying through the nose for years to use city parks and it's a little unfair that we have to subsidize kid league when we barely get enough parks to even RUN our leagues. I have been playing in Mississauga all my life and we have never had ANY city field reserved so that we could get practice time, we have businesses in the surrounding areas bitch and complain and call city parking enforcement on us and we even have bogus complaints filed about us with the city by a-holes who whine about supposed swearing they allegedly see.

The league I play in has been around for more then 2 decades and yet we have had an on-going feud with the city over what parks we can use and we have had to fight just to keep the ones we have because kid leagues, that barely use the parks as it is, want to take the one major field we use (and keep immaculate throughout the summer) for themselves. This change in the way Toronto (and Mississauga) charge kids baseball leagues is LONG overdue. I'm sorry but in Mississauga, we have some leagues that have been allowed to reserve several diamonds for all 7 days of the week despite only using them for 2 of the 7 days (1 for their weekly game and the other for their practice day). It's asinine and its an embarrassment and it's about time it was changed.

It was leaked out late last week that one of the Election campaign promises made by that liar Dalton McGinty
with regards to all day kindergarden, may be among the very first of his promises broken as an independent report being released this week would call for the province to save their money and opt not to fully implement the program. Get ready Ontario. You were the ones that voted for this creep to stay in power so now you will have to live with this kind of "leadership" for another 4 years. This is also the man who could quite quickly quell all the rhetoric and back and forth bickering going on at Toronto City Hall with regards to their transit problems by stepping in and going one way or another, but he instead has opted to waste time (and money) by letting the situation linger while damaging Mayor Ford more and more with each passing day this situation is unresolved. Great job guys!!! You picked a real winner!!!

Then again, the other option, Tim Hudak, was a mess and really didn't do enough to earn the trust of the people of Ontario either. Clearly, this past provincial was a battle of attrition fought between a couple of men (and Andrew Horvath was in there too for the NDP, but no one votes NDP in the Ontario elections anymore right? You can thank Bob Rae for that....) neither of whom really deserved the job. I was shocked to learn that this past weekend, Hudak was able to retain the role of PC Leader in the Ontario PC convention. Most of the other positions (including provincial party president) now have new people elected but somehow Hudak is still the leader of the party. We can only hope that he grows into the role more then he has shown so far.

That's all for today. If anyone has any suggestions for me with regards to meals, feel free to comment and let me know because without burgers, steaks, whole cheeses and french fries, I feel like I won't have a clue what to eat....HELP!!!