I got the outdoor lights put up on Saturday. It turned out to be slightly more involved than I anticipated. I had four strings that would only half illuminate, up from just one last year. I decided to bite the bullet and buy some replacements, which meant going to five different stores to get the all-white icicle style lights. It was about 82° out, too, which didn’t make it seem much like pre-Christmas weather.
I did get a lot accomplished this weekend. I had a list of eight or nine items and by the end of last evening I was able to cross them all off. I wrote my Storytellers Unplugged essay, which will go up in a week. Our new blogging software has a neat feature. I was able to upload the essay and timestamp it for 5 a.m. on December 17th, so it’ll go live without me having to get up on a vacation day to post it. Hopefully nothing wonky happens.
I also finally completed a decent first draft of the story in progress. It ended up at about 3100 words. Now I have to nitpick and worry at it for a week or so before I’m completely satisfied that it’s ready to dress up and send out of the house.
Amazing Race was pretty good last night. A lot of time dithering over flights, but it turned out to be a crucial part of the leg. The ones who left first ended up getting in substantially after the second lot due to delays, and the other team was really late arriving. Good challenges, good screaming bouts between couples. Decent tension at the finish line. And yet another elimination round. No one coming in last has been spared so far this season. I wonder if they’re planning more non-elimination rounds closer to the end or if they’re tightening up the season.
We watched Sicko, the latest Michael Moore screed. If you can accept that he’s biased, slanted, and not telling the whole story and that he’s mostly agitating and getting people talking about important subjects, his movie’s can be a real trip. There’s a wry and ornery sense of humour that helps balance the dire setpieces he created. As a Canadian, I’m pleased that he uses my native land as a shining example of socialized medicine, but I know that there are elements of truth in the counter-arguments. He refuted claims that people in Canada have to wait a long time for certain kinds of treatment, but it’s true that people often have to travel hundreds of miles to get specialized services and the waiting times can be lengthy for some treatments. Regional hospitals in rural centers are closing or amalgamating. It’s not as idyllic as he’d have viewers believe. I’m sure there are foibles about the NHS and the French system that he glossed over, too. Still, the underlying truth—that you can go to a hospital, stay for days, and leave without owing anyone anything—is real.
And the link to Hook-A-Canuck.com that rolled during the credits made me laugh more than anything else in the movie.
