I’ve discovered these things called books

Have you heard of these things? They're like movies that haven't been filmed yet. But in all seriousness, I would like to kick my Grade 10 English teacher, Mr. Passmore, right in the balls. In school, I was always more of a math, business, accounting type of a student. I had no interest in literature or poetry or any of that shit. So I would really struggle to read any of the books in English class. They were boring, lame, and just seemed like a waste of time. And then when I did read the book, I was made to feel like I was an idiot because I didn't understand the symbolism. Well excuse me for not knowing that a red sky at night symbolized the end of an era or some bullshit like that. Who the hell cares? To me, the red sky at night symbolized the sun was going down. Apparently you can't take things literally in literature and if you do, you're a tool. So because of that, I vowed never to read a book again. That bastard had taken all of the fun out of it for me.

So since then, I've read, but it has always been as research for jobs, or projects, or jokes and stuff. To me, reading was not fun because I "didn't get it". In fact, from the time I was in Grade 10 until January 3 of this past year, I had not read a complete book, and I had never picked up a book as recreation. I read the newspaper, magazines and gossip websites, but never a book. Hell, if the book was that good, they'd make it into a movie and all would be right in the world. However, thanks to the whole Conan / Jay Leno fiasco and a book entitled "The Battle for Late Night" by Bill Carter, all of that changed. I was thoroughly engrossed in that book. It was interesting. It was very cool. I enjoyed reading that book so much that I even downloaded a Kobo Reader App for my netbook and my Blackberry and I've been reading tons for the past few weeks. Hell, I've finished about 4 books so far this year. In a month and a half, I've read more than I had in my entire life up until the end of last year. Most of what I've been reading have been bios from Comedians and Musicians. I guess I'm very interested in the subject matter, so it helps. I've found that it's actually not a bad way to unwind before bed. I wish I'd have known that before.

Anyway, if you know any good books I should read, let me know. I may just actually read them.

Adventures in Healthcare

So it looks as though the saga of my knee continues. Yesterday, when I was at the clinic being told I was too fat to get an x-ray, I was told that I should check out the hospital. So, I called the hospital this morning looking to book an appointment. However, the hospital will not my book an appointment from me directly, it must come from the doctor. So, I called the doctor to book the x-ray appointment for me, however the clinic tells me that the doctor who saw me yesterday won't be in the office until next week and that I should just go over to the hospital myself and visit the emergency room. You know, because a knee injury that happened a month ago is definitely an emergency. Wow, health care at its finest.

So, I load up the car and head out to the hospital hoping to get an x-ray. I walked into the emergency room and it looks as though it is an extras casting for the AMC show The Walking Dead. There are people littered all around the room with various fluids oozing out of their heads, moaning, crying, looking as white as ghosts. There are also a handful of men sitting around with various parts of their body elevated sitting beside a worried looking woman. I wonder who is making them go to the hospital? I'm also told that there is at least a 2 to 3 hour wait.

I end up talking to an EMT dude who refers me to a clinic just around the corner. I pop in and explain my knee situation to the doctor, who then pulls out his handy referral sheet to send me for an x-ray. When I see his referral sheet is to the clinic that I was going to yesterday, I say "I can't go to that clinic because I was there yesterday and am apparently too fat for an x-ray." The doctor looked at me with quite a sense of puzzlement. He said "you are not too fat for an x-ray. Sure, you are overweight. Yes, your knee is a little bit swollen, but that shouldn't be a problem." I then explained the situation that their table can only hold up to 250 pounds. Again, he looks at me with one of the more confused looks on ever seen from a human being and he said "but it is an x-ray clinic. They take x-rays. How can their table only hold 250 pounds? X-ray tables are huge." Exactly!

Although, to be honest, I'm not so sure I really trust the doctor. When he started looking at my knee, he seemed to be having too much fun poking around with the fluid on it saying "I can see that it is squishy. Look. It is all squishy." I am not a doctor. I do not play a doctor on TV. In fact, I do not even watch Dr. shows on TV. That said, I am pretty sure that squishy is not a medical term. Not exactly a way to instill confidence in your abilities there Doc. But, the upside, in 3 to 5 business days I will have wonderful pictures of my knee. Hopefully, I can keep it.

Danforth/Main X-Ray Can kiss my fat ass!!

So yesterday, after what has been a few weeks with my banged up knee, I finally went to the doctor at a local walk in clinic. The pain is pretty much gone, but the fluid just doesn't seem to want to go away. So the doctor sends me to an X-Ray clinic across the street. I get there and wait about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I get in and they do an ultrasound on my knee. I guess the swelling is such that they wanted to see the sex of the baby I'm carrying in my knee. After that, they put me in a little a little cubicle where I wait for another 15 minutes for my X-Ray. After about 15 minutes, the lady at the X-Ray Clinic comes over and asks how much I weigh. I tell her, and then she says "Oh. That's going to be a problem. Our X-Ray table can only hold 250 pounds." AT AN X-RAY CLINIC? Are you shitting me? Look, I know I'm a fat piece of shit, but you're telling me that an X-Ray Clinic, place who's only purpose is to take X-Rays of people only has a table that can support 250 pounds!!! Unfuckingbelievable. She then tells me "you can try Toronto East General. They have a table that can support up to 500 pounds." I said "thanks. That gives me time to hit the buffet." By the time I lose enough weight to fit on their table my knee will either be healed or have fallen off.

Insert Witty Title Here

I love this time of year in hockey. All the trades that get done, all leading up to the annual snoozefest known as Trade Deadline Day! But if nothing else, it gives me a good reason to take an afternoon off work. Like I need a reason – "it's sunny. Well then I'd better take the afternoon off and enjoy it." "We're out of cheese. Well I can't work under these conditions."

I see that Ottawa sent Fisher to Nashville. He probably wanted to go there for his wife, country singer Carrie Underwood. Now maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it be funny, hilarious and ironic if the NHL moved Nashville to Quebec or Winnipeg? If you think Ms. Underwood didn't like Ottawa, imagine her in Quebec City. I'm sure she'll fit in nicely there.

The Leafs sent Versteeg to the Flyers for a draft pick that Burke is now going to trade away. Nice work Burkie. Nice work. I also hear that Kaberle is willing to be traded to Boston. Maybe with any luck Burke can trade Kaberle for the draft picks he gave up when he picked up Kessel. Then he can maybe trade those away to pick up somebody useful like Chris Chelios or maybe Gretzky.

What a “Lively” weekend

This weekend, I had the privilege of performing alongside Winston Spear and Dave Tsonos up in Lively. If you've never been to Lively, it's a nice little town just south of Sudbury. The show was part of the Walden Winter Carnival. The show was a lot of fun. Hell, anytime you get to tell jokes in front of 350 people who want to laugh, it's always a pleasure. Not to mention, I got to perform with Tsonos and Winston. I have seen Winston a few times and every time he never fails to deliver. If you've never seen him, get off your ass and do it. He starts his set with a hilarious dance and then moves nicely into very funny, clever jokes. I am amazed at how this man's mind works. It was truly a pleasure to watch.

After the show, Tsonos and I hit the "club scene" in Sudbury. We ended up at a place called the Night Club. What an original name! We get there and there is a band playing pop punk stuff like Green Day and Blink 182. Then they started to do heavy versions of Lady Gaga and other poppy shit. Hilarious and oddly catchy. But I would say the highlight of the night was the fact that attached to the Night Club was Sudbury's strip joint Diamonds. I have never seen anything like this before. The only thing separating the strip joint from the regular bar was a doorway that didn't even have a door. What a concept – take your date out for a few drinks and if things aren't going well, sneak into the strip club every once in a while to catch a glimpse of some naked ladies. I guess you'd hope she's not doing the same thing. Earlier in the night Tsonos was commenting that he never went to strip joints and it wasn't really his thing. Yet he was the one checking it out every 10 minutes looking for a show. I showed considerably more restraint and only checked every 20 minutes to see if there was a show going on. Sadly, we did not get to see any of the strippers do their thing, although I did catch a glimpse of one of the strippers – picture me in a bikini. Now you don't have to go to Diamonds. You're welcome.

With most road trips with comics, the best part of the trip is the car ride. Anytime you have 3 or 4 comics in a car for several hours on end, it can be very entertaining. I've often thought that it would make for a great TV show to rig a car up with cameras and just let the comics go for the length of a road trip. It would make for a very funny show. This trip was no exception. Some of the things that Winston was coming up with were unbelievable. Very funny stuff.

My next big show is in Bobcaygeon on February. 26. I don't know much more than that, but I'll definitely keep you posted.

I actually got good service from the Ontario Government!!

If you've read my blog recently, you know that I fell and banged up my knee pretty good. Another cool / gross thing that's been happening is I've had an accumulation of fluid on my knee too. It's like having grandma's famous jello growing on my kneecap. It's actually mildly entertaining just to sit on the couch and poke the knee to watch it jiggle. It has a different jiggle than my belly, which is probably why it amuses me so much. Anyway, the fluid was there for about a week and I finally decided maybe I should get it looked at. One problem – my wallet got stolen last October and I didn't have my healthcard. So, I head off to the local Ministry of Health to get a new one.

Well, apparently my card had been expired for a while because according to the Ministry, I was "VOID" in their system. In other words – I was dead to them. I know of a few people to whom I am dead, but I never put the Ministry of Health in that group. I thought we'd always got along relatively well. I paid my taxes, I didn't go to the doctor for every ache, pain or fracture. I thought we had a good thing going. Apparently I was wrong. I even asked the guy if I could get a rebate on my taxes because I was paying for something I wasn't eligible for. He wasn't amused and grumbled something to the effect of "it doesn't work that way, but nice try. NEXT!"

Anyway, the guy at the counter told me that I had to go to another office to get UNVOIDED. I get in the office and it's just crazy packed. I could not believe the crowds. The only thing that would have brought in more people was if Justin Bieber was doing an autograph signing. I checked it out, and I don't think he was there. Although if he was, his demographic is a hell of a lot different than I would have thought. I thought he appealed to the 'tween set, not middle aged people from all corners of the world.

I explain to the guy at the front desk my plight, and how I'd been sent there from another office, and out of the kindness of his heart, he gave me a priority ticket so I didn't have to wait in the full line. I was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes. Thankfully - because it would have likely taken me three hours to work through that mass of humanity. Another positive to come out of this, in the time since I woke up yesterday and picked up my temporary healthcard, the swelling has gone down considerably. Who knows, maybe even one day I might be able to play hockey again.

You gotta have dreams kids. You gotta have dreams.

Just another manic Monday

Monday started out just like any other Monday – slowly. I'd rather be sleeping or really anywhere else than slugging it over to my desk and trying to get motivated to work. But, things need to get done. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy my day job. Hell, I work for myself, I work from home, I'm slowly building a strong reputation in the mutual fund industry, people like what I do, I make okay money, I get quoted in the press all the time (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/rrsp/top-eight-picks-from-four-fund-watchers/article1897868/), and most days, I don't even need to wear pants. I do wear pants – usually short or sweats or something comfortable, but I don't have to.

The thing that I find about Mondays is that it's not that I'm particularly unmotivated, it's just that when you first sit down at the desk, look at the to do list, things get a bit overwhelming. Add to it the fact that I had a fun weekend performing at Absolute Comedy and now am back to the real world, Monday just seemed so tough. But then around 11 am, I get a call from one of the mutual fund companies I work with on a regular basis. The guy seemed almost panicked and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the Leaf game with him. He also offered to take me out for steaks. I said yes, and didn't want to tell him that he had me at free leaf tickets. Yes, technically they are free, but going to these games is still work. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. The companies like to take me to the games because they get me for 4 to 5 hours where we can talk mutual funds and other business. It's not all work, but it is work. You can't get hammered and start a fight with people, you have to behave and be on the ball for most of it. Again, not complaining, but rather stating a fact.

This game was the first one after Phil Kessel made his "it's just not working out here" and "Me and Ron don't talk" comments. I like Phil. I think he's a good player who can usually score. I also respect him as a person with the way he fought through his cancer a few years ago. But man, watching him play on Monday, he just looked bored. There were a few flashes of why Burke picked him up, but largely, he looked as interested in the game as the people in the platinum seats – as in not at all. But the Leafs pulled it out, it was a good game, and the steak was awesome. I'm still drooling when I think about it. But then again, I always drool when I think about steak. Mmm. Steak. If the rest of this post is full of typos, it's because there is drool stuck in my keyboard.

My knee is still filled with fluid. But when I went to go to the doctor to get it looked at, I realized that I still hadn't replaced my health card from when my wallet got stolen last year. So looks like today will be a fun filled day of dealing with government bureaucracy trying to get a replacement. We'll see how that goes. With any luck, it will actually be less painful than my knee. Today though, it actually feels like the fluid is draining. I guess we'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!