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so who exactly paid for all those medical procedures? Your medical insurance, or your company's group insurance? Or do you mean all these would be free as well if it's someone that had no insurance? I think no one here doubt the efficient of the US medical system.... for the rich and/or insured ppl. It's what would potentially happen for ppl that dont' get accepted by insurance becoz of their conditions/illness and ppl who downright can't afford insurance. And what's ur back problem btw? That sounded bad...

I'm just hoping it won't be pouring rain and shooting lightning on Saturday. As long as the weather is good.... anywhere that has water looks good

I like the Canadian system more as opposed to US's. I'd think I'm somewhat unbiased as I'm not born nor raised in Canada Let's assume what the OP said about the US system is true.... that it "takes care of virtually everyone usually".... ok. But still... "virtually everyone" is not really EVERYONE-everyone... and "usually" means sometimes it's not even "virtually everyone". It sounds like I'm just picking the words... but really, if just 1% of ppl don't get treated.... that's alot of ppl we'r talking about. And let's say if u do get treated promptly... yet u get a huge medical bill, or ur medical insurance goes up in magnitudes afterward, ur life will be severely affected no doubt. I can't imagine going bankrupt while trying to recover from (or suffering from) any serious disease will be very fun. And if ppl can't pay... the US system just "writes it off"? I duno... but I think it's never easy to get anyone, any companies, anything to write off bills in this world. How far will ppl need to dig be4 the bill will be written off? Use off all the savings, sell off houses, sell off any valuable possessions? What happen to the ppl's credit history after that? In Canada, at least u'r sure everyone will get treated. If you'r rich and don't want to wait, you can always pay out of ur own pocket to get tests done, in Canada or down in US. BTW, I duno if I'm just lucky or what... but I had a MRI done in April... I only waited for 3 weeks (or maybe less... forgot exactly). And my case definitely wasn't urgent either.

Good someone is actually willing look into it So far, I don't think we really have any technology or new energy source that can replace oil at all. Claiming hydrogen fuel or bio-fuel as the next new energy source is like saying re-chargeable batteries is a new energy source. And u know what's the irony? How do industries generate hydrogen these days, you think? It's not by electrolysis obviously as that's inefficient and expensive. Instead, hydrogen is extracted from a chemical process using....... da da da ..... fossil fuel and natural gas! Same with bio-fuel... commercial farming depends greatly on pumping fertilizers... and where do fertilizers (nitrogen) come from? nitrogen fixation using hydrogen, fossil fuel and natural gas! You'r not gona go independent of oil energy by switching to other energy forms that are also dependent on oil. All these do are just going around in circle and end up using the same existing energy sources we have been using already. lol so true

Where u get that idea from, I'm curious...

Ok sometimes government stuffs can indeed be stupid.... But in this case.... seriously... there's the expire date/year right on the front of the card..... & who cares about the pattern of the card..... & there's magnetic strips on credit card, debit card, health card, driver license too.... even with debit card that we maybe using for multiple times each day, it can easily last more than 3 years, while the outdoor card may never be used even once in 3 years if you'r lucky. Much to do about nothing?!

ok maybe i'm not a Leaf fans... but what do those have to do with the Leafs?

I usually fish near a lock dam 10min from home. I haven't even bother to fish yet this year, as the only fish I'm interested (aka that I know how lol) is the larege mouth bass. There are some occasional pikes that I've seen/heard ppl caught but it's not as easy, to me anyway. And yeah I've seen ppl fishing for bass as well. Last time I went there for a walk, a guy on a boat went up near shore into this ~50ft wide channel... and caught a bass... and started chatting to a random guy on shore about "i just got another 1-2 bass in the same spot within 5min.... lota bass holding here.... etc etc". He did release that bass he caught.... altho he looked kinda fishy to me... the way he let the hooked fish in the water for like a whole minute, while he's not looking at the fish at all but kinda looking around everywhere... seemed very weird. Was he intentionally "targeting" bass? perhaps, hard to prove tho. And be4 ppl jump all over these incidents with the "no speak english" & 'white bucket" comments... at least in my case that dude obviously speaks english and he's white Caucasians.

Doing PhD in biochem.... What I want to do... I have no idea. As long as I can finish up that stupid degree and get out of here. Any job that pays well (ok, at least decent), I dun care anymore. Things that really suck, in no particular order: - friends/ppl around think "oh my, u the only ppl i know that do PhD, damn u'r smart"..... while at the same time I kinda hate doing it now - 1/2 of the friends are getting married, buying apt/house, popping out babies.... and yet I'm still "in school" - makes little to no money - ppl asking "so what exactly that u do"..... if I actually try to explain what I do, 1/2 the time ppl won't understand, 1/2 the time they don't really want to know - parents, even after all these years, ask "so when do classes start?... when'r ur holidays".... hello, I've said it a gazillion times, I DON"T have classes nor school holidays,... I'm doing research!!@#$ - parents asking.... "what exactly that u LOOK (yes they like to use the word "look") at in lab?".... same as point #4 above.... - parents/relatives/friends asking "when'r u graduating"..... gosh plzzzz don't remind me anymore, can I have a somewhat less depressed weekend not having to think about this..... In, retrospect, maybe I should have gone for a doctor (MD) degree instead.... it's more difficult to get in, but I think it's easier to finish.

i duno... u left something out in a public area for 2 days.... shouldn't be surprised it's gone The person(s) who took it may think s/he's doing a good thing by taking away the junk that somebody was too lazy to remove after fishing.... who knows.

3a) Fleury got away with an interference just be4 the goal there IMO... when Wings dumped the puck into Pens zone and Fleury got all the way out of his net to along the end board trying to block the Wings forechecker from getting to the puck. 3b) Zetterberg had the puck in the neutral zone and couldn't clear/shoot the puck (net was empty I think?) as the puck kept bouncing over his stick due to the bad ice. If the goalie was being superman like Fleury did, eventually someone is gona scored, off a stupid mistake, a lucky bounce etc, even if their team isn't doing jack.... and to me that's exactly what happened there with Pens. They got a chance (oh wait, 3rd chance) off a stupid mistake by the highstick... AND a good bounce in their favour and scored... And that leads to: 5) During that final PP... Pens left pointman's shoot missed the net completely and was gona bounce over to Osgood's right side... the whole Wings PK unit looked/shifted/collapsed to the right side, naturally.... only to see the puck bounced off the linesman's butt and reversed its direction going back to the left side AND landed right on the stick of Malkin, who hadn't done a thing whole game. That 1 second of bouncing puck pretty much was the main reason why Sykora got opened up in the left slot. I'm not a big fan of Detroit nor Pitts.... but I'd like the better team wins... which will be Detroit from what's been shown so far this series... by a mile and then some. Being a Canucks fans myself, this is all too familiar... when the whole team don't show up to play and it's all the superman goalie (Luongo) keeping the game close. I can't even count how many Canucks games I've watched this year that it's basically Team Luongo vs opponent Team. It's sad. Yesterday's Game 5 was exactly that for the Pens.

Good game Wings!!!

\..

That will not be the future. Hydrogen & Oxygen..... sounds free.... but no, not really. Where do u get the hydrogen & oxygen? From electrolysis of water. What do you use to electrolyse water? Electricity. How you get electricity? By burning gas & coal and what not. So in reality, all hydrogen is really another form of transporting energy, it's NOT a new energy SOURCE. Same thing with all these "bio-fuel" that is make from corn or whatever. It's stupid. Sure it's cleaner. But it's not another new energy source at all. To grow corn what u need? Fertilizers. What does fertilizer come from? Oil. Not to mention all the machinery and labour, all of which cost alot of energy, to grow and maintain the crops.

well if towing isn't what u'll need, I'd definitely go with a mini-van in Odyssey. Roomier, and for sure better gas mileage, and IMO cheaper (if consider the same kind of options). Yes, it's tough to go from 4wd back to 2wd... from Rav4 to Civic for me.... even the Honda dealer was like "woh that's pretty rare for ppl to go back". I got stuck in snow on driveway maybe couple of times a winter in the Civic.... never got stuck even once for 5 years in Rav4. But I'd gladly take couple of inconveniences a year for 50-60% better gas mileage these days in a heart beat.

hum, what are the 2 cars you have currently? which one is the "mistake" and which one u'r keeping? May help deciding which car to get now knowing what the other 2 are. For resale value, since u mentioned it, that would mean going with Honda/Toyota or any other "foreign" brand names pretty much. American brand cars (unless it's luxury brand) have crappy resale value. As for MPG.... do NOT believe in what the manufacturers say. Like those Malibu getting 40MPG, yeahhhh right. All of those numbers are from completely unrealistic condition, in lab, maybe no wind drag, "highway speed" is 70km/h, etc. Search online for some users-input REAL WORLD gas mileage database and see what the average ppl get. I used to have a Toyota Rav4 (01'-06' model). I think the MPG was supposed to be very good, forgot exactly what. But I had it for 5 years and my average was like 15-20MPG, mixed city & hwy (altho probably much more hwy than city). Duno if my Rav4 was particularly bad or what. I think the current model Rav4 is even bigger so I'm not sure how the real-world gas mileage will be. Altho in general, any 4wd will have worse gas mileage than 2wd that's for sure. So the 2wd minivan may be better than 4wd Rav4/CRV in terms of gas. I ended up selling the Rav4 in late 05..... after Katrina hit US giving the excuse for gas to go up to $1.33/L, and that soon after me getting rear-ended with a loose bumper, and that I might need new tires for the winter ahead... I traded the Rav4 in for a Civic. Civic 26-37MPG average for me, best 100% hwy mileage (on cruise control) was 45.4 mpg.... and yes I've actually been recording down every single gas fill-ups in my computer since 05

No, it's not. The bass season open date WAS bumped up FOR last year, and for last year only. This year the bass season is open on the 4th Saturday of June, isn't it?

I'd prefer having another NHL team in toronto... can u like move the Bills to Tampa or Anaheim to trade for their NHL team to here instead?

You can also see if there's any local email/web list that ppl may offer/take carpool. I've been doing carpooling for a few years, going from Kingston to Scarborough (GTA) Town Center on Friday evening and returning on Sunday night usually. We have a couple of email lists that ppl routinely offer/look for rides. The on-going price 2-3 years ago was $10 per person per 1-way ride.... then it had slowly gone up to $15 since the gas price hit 80-90c/L... and just the last month or so some has gone up to $20 with this ridiculous gas price. It's a decent "business".... on busy months (ie when university is in session) if I can get 4 passengers, $15@, both direction, that's $120 for the weekend. It's convenient for the passengers as I pick them up almost anywhere in town (Kingston) and they pay only 1/2 (or less) of what the coach bus would cost & save whatever bus/taxi cost for just getting to the bus terminus. Win-win

I use cheap mono backing, so I can use 1 pack of the braided line on 2 rods... saved some $$

That's almost the same me and my gf (she only fishes a lil bit tho) started out with... it was like $12 from CanTire. We used them for a few weeks and I gave them away to some kids online (FreeCycle.org). I then bought a Mitchell spinning combo, on sale in CanTire @ $35 from $60-70-ish... and after 2 weeks the rod tip broke while I set-hook on a "BIG" 8-inch bass . Refunded that one... bought another more expensive Mitchell (Outfitter something) combo on sale @45 from $90. It lasted for 1 season of average use... and the rod broke again when I got snagged. STAY AWAY from those Mitchell rods! Ended up buying an 7' Ugly stick for $60 I think (no reel) and put on the old reel from the broken Mitchell ... so far so good.

well I'm not a lawyer nor politician so I duno In any case, after Fall 2009 everyone will need one anyway...

Sometimes different Canadian Tires will have slightly different on-sale items (manager special if u will) besides the ones advertised nationally. The Kingston store near Cat.Center (I guess u'r in that one?) probably have those higher lb lines on sales. Like last season, the CanTire near Cat.Center has the "Wave" plastic lures on sale for $2.99 a bag for 2-3 months, while the CanTire in Kingston Center was (and still is) selling for $5.99 or something.

Nope

Well... it's silly but I actually took learn-to-swim lessons back during late-elementary or early high school.... I PASSED and yet I couldn't & still can't swim Another reason for me to learn to swim now is I now have a problem with my spinal disc causing pain in my whole right leg and the doc & physio both suggested I should try swimming (probably not so much as swimming is particular good for my condition, but more that it's the only exercise I can do). But on the flip side, this condition probably makes learning swimming now even more difficult for me (mentally perhaps) as my leg hurts just walking abit fast...