24th Nov 2009
Firsts
I went for my annual *cough* check-up today (which was 3 years in the making, but who’s counting?). Decided that I should take advantage of all of our commie-pinko-socialist healthcare and all that. Up til now, I’ve been rather ambivalent about getting the H1N1 flu shot–I’m not in the high risk group and I never get flu shots. Doctor had other plans. Doctor made me get an H1N1 flu shot. This being my first flu shot ever, I have to say I’m not a fan: my arm (particularly my shoulder) is really freakin’ sore and my elbow is achy. I think I have swine flue in my elbow. But, I know one or two people who went through the H1N1 itself though, so I guess as long as this goes away and it works, it was a good thing.
Apparently, I have the blood pressure of a teenager. But as I’m chronologically more challenged than that, I get to do a series of more tests to check that I’m not falling apart at the seams or something.
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In this, my month of firsts, I also purchased winter tires for the first time. As far as winter tires go, you’d think that all Canadians have them but that’s really not true. I learned old skool: you learn how to skid and how to control you car and pump your brakes. Which is another thing: ABS is stupid. I don’t want a car telling me when I’m pumping and when I’m not. I KNOW when I want to pump and the damn car should not be making those weird shuddery noises and popping the brake when it feels like it. It’s unnatural. Anyway, the tires. So far, I’ve noticed that braking feels different and winter tires are noisy. Of course, we’ve had a gloriously warm November so far, and now I think I may have jinxed us to getting eleventy feet of snow because I decided to purchase winter tires for the first time in my life and now my car has ABS AND winter tires, which is the equivalent of saying “Hey, Mother Nature, please pelt me until I am wimpering in submission for the arrogance of these modern inventions.”
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I also got switched to “smart hydro” today (being hydroelectricity, not hydro=water–I was very confused for the first few years of home ownership as to which is which). Basically, they’ve got winter and summer “sweet zones” where you pay less money for electricity usage as well as prime zones for usage, and you pay more for prime usage. With the new meter settings, they now track usage hour by hour. I think this is a pretty good concept, and someone like me, who can be flexible on when I’m doing laundry and so on, has the ability to probably save some money on my previous bills. Or it would be, except for the fact that I get my brand new gas fireplace in a few weeks, and since it uses some electricity to get the pilot going, and I will most definitely run that baby during prime hours, I’m probably not coming out ahead. And I don’t care. Fire. Book. Scotch. Seriously… life will be good.
Inoculation arm! Damn inoculation arm. I had hoped it was just me, but I’ve been hearing from more then Andrew that the H1N1 is a bad one.
Please tell me it won’t get worse tomorrow. It’s my mousing arm!
The big problem that I have with snow tires is that most of the “modern” ones, the ones designed to give you better traction on ice, etc., all wear out quickly if you drive them on nice bare roads. A friend bought a set of those fancy tires a few years ago, and they only lasted one winter, because Toronto doesn’t really get winter, and so there was rarely any snow or ice on the ground.
Is your hydro provider actually using the smart meters, or are they still just in the ‘installation phase’. I’ve had one of those smart meters for over two years, and as of my last bill, they still weren’t smart metering me.
Yeah – I heard that about winter tires. Much more reliable that we’ll have snow in Waterloo, though :)
Hydro guy left a leaflet saying that my next bill is the first “smart” bill. I should do my laundry at 6am a few times and see if it makes a difference.