Quebec medical students screwed

It sucks to be a Quebec medical student right now. Due to the refusal of Quebec specialists to teach medical students in hospitals and in their offices, many of the 3rd and 4th year internships have been cancelled, perhaps even causing 4th year medical students not to graduate this year. The specialists are taking job action due to the lack of negotiations on new physician salaries in Quebec, as they are approximately 40% lower than their counterparts in other provinces.

From a personal perspective, I'm curious to see how this will play out in the CaRMS match this year -- will the Quebec students still enter the match even though they aren't graduating? It'll be interesting to see!

The story can be found here.

Brock learns a new life skill

So I was cooking dinner tonight in the apartment that I'm staying at in Kingston when all of a sudden the power went out to the whole apartment. I had seen some "brand new fuses" a few days ago by the front door, so I thought, hmm, must be a blown fuse. After searching the apartment for a good 15 minutes for the fuse box using my cell phone as a light, I finally gave up and walked downstairs into the basement in the hopes of finding what I was looking for. Indeed I did find the fuse box for the apartment and found two fuses -- not knowing which one was blown, I removed both and replaced them with new ones. Lucky for me the power was back on when I returned to the apartment. I will now not run both the microwave and the toaster oven at the same time......it seems not to like that....

On a completely random note, my first pre-New Year resolution is to lose 2 inches off my waist by my licensing exam in May.

Brock's Holiday Deal Guide: Coupons, Deals, and Promotions

I'm not going to put all the deals in separate posts, so check back to this post for all the latest updates.

(Last updated Dec 3, 2006)

Dell.ca

• Save an additional $50 on select systems when you spend over $699 with coupon code 1W1RK0X2H6RMCB.
• Save an additional $100 on select systems when you spend over $1099 with coupon code1D4WXJF4ZJT9WG.
• Inspiron 6400 notebook $949 with Intel Core Duo

RONA.ca

• Get a $10 Gift Card with the purchase of $100 or more

Bestbuy.ca

• Preferred customer customer sale, online from Sunday December 10 at 6PM EST to Monday December 11 at 10AM EST

Weekend excursion to Port Franks

I went to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins this weekend in Port Franks, Ontario at their cottage. I left on Friday and drove on the 401 for most of the trip. The posted speed limit is 100, but I would say the average speed that people were going was around 125 to 130 km/h. I rented a Hyundai Accent from Enterprise Rent-a-Car for $14.83CAD a day. Can't beat that. It only cost me around $55 in gas for over 1000KM of driving. Not too bad!

On Friday we watched the Oilers beat up on the Chicago Blackhawks. I don't get cable here in Kingston, so it was nice to watch some hockey. On Saturday the whole family attended the local spa and I got a massage. I had never had one before, so I didn't really know what to expect. I think I might like a deep tissue massage. I need more pain for more gain. I also wasn't a fan of the massage oil, especially when they massage your scalp and behind your ears. However, all in all it was very good. We then had a big US thanksgiving dinner, which was awesome. My cousin, Chris, and I then went to Yuk Yuk's in London for the 10:30 p.m. show. The show was quite funny and was very, very busy. London was also very busy (at least the part that we drove through.) Seems to have quite the nightlife!

I then drove back to Kingston on Sunday. It took me about 5 hours to get home with a stop for lunch and gas. I also stopped at Loblaws in Kingston for a few groceries. To my suprise it was quite a bit more expensive than Superstore is in Edmonton. Odd.

I get tomorrow off from work and I'm planning on finishing up all my CaRMS personal letters and then my CaRMS application will finally be complete!

My cousin posted some pictures on his website here of the weekend.

Wireless internet in Kingston General Hospital

I love the wireless internet in the hospital. It makes my PDA even more useful. Wicked!

The Beatles -- Free listening to LOVE

If you're a fan of the Beatles, you'll want to check this out. You can listen to the new CD "Love," which, of course, is the Cirque du Soleil show featuring all Beatles music. You can listen to the entire CD here: http://www.thebeatles.com

Off to Kingston

I'm currently sitting on a VIA Rail train headed towards Kingston. My journey started this morning as I left the Edmonton International Airport bound to Toronto. Before I left I had a Deluxe Breakfast Sandwich from Harvey's – it has both bacon and sausage on it. As much as I love meat, it wasn't so good.

I flew WestJet to Toronto. They had the TV's in the seats, which was nice and made the 3 and a half hour flight go by very quickly. I watched an hour of That 70's Show, some blackjack, and that Flavor of Love show. Wow. What dysfunction.

I arrived in Toronto 5 minutes early and proceeded to take a bus shuttle from the airport to the train station. It was much cheaper than taking a cab ($13 one way). I arrived at the train station at about 3"30 p.m., and my train didn't leave until 6:35 p.m. So, I once again ate at Harvey's having their Mushroom Swiss Melt. It was actually pretty good. I haven't had Harvey's hamburgers in a long time. It's nice when you get to pick everything you want. And I want lots of pickles. MMMM.

With about 2 and a half hours to kill, I wandered the train station until I found a plug in for my laptop so I wouldn't kill all the battery. I finally succeeded after looking around for about 10 minutes, and began playing Civilization Conquests. That game always kills time quickly, and before you knew it it was time to go.

I've actually never ridden on a train to go someplace relatively far. It's quite nice. Lots of leg room, there's wireless internet on here, you can use your cell phones, and you never have to turn off your electronic equipment. NICE. The only bad thing is that the train stops quite a bit at all the little towns along the way, but the 2 and a half hour ride is a lot better than the 9 hour bus ride. If you're wondering why I didn't just fly to Kingston, the return flight was $1400, while a flight to Toronto + train ticket was $250, because I could use my airmiles for the flight and only had to pay for the taxes and train ticket. As you might have read from a previous post, Airmiles didn't have any flights to Kingston for the whole weekend apparently. I'm using my airmiles credit card a lot less now knowing that the chance of them having the flight you want is NOT good. Go Starwood Mastercard.

On another note, my letter to the editor was published in the Edmonton Journal today in response to a letter criticizing the amount of teaching physicians give medical students. Unfortunately you'll actually have to buy a paper to read it as it's not published online.

MedShow Cancelled again.

MedShow is cancelled once again. There goes our grad fund.

Da Vinci Code Movie

Watched it. Sucked.

New Dell.ca Coupons

Here are the new Dell.ca coupons and offers:

Save an additional $50 on select systems when you spend over $699 with coupon code 8G934QQ5VJ083H.

Save an additional $300 on select systems when you spend over $1299 with coupon code ?H$0Z1N9J0GRTH.

Inspiron 6400 notebook $999 with Intel Core Duo

Dimension E520 desktop $729 with 19" monitor

New Clearlycontacts.ca coupons -- good until October 31, 2007!

Here are some ClearlyContacts.ca coupons that are good until October 31, 2007!

They are:

CCAFF15 - $15 off orders of $150 or more
CCAFF20 - $20 off orders of $200 or more

There's also free shipping on any order over $99.

Here is the updated price list:

Acuvue Products

• Acuvue Advance - $27.99
• Acuvue - $19.49
• Acuvue 2 - $19.49
• Acuvue Oasys - $39.99
• Acuvue Toric - $69.99
• Surevue - $20.99
• Acuvue Colors Opaques - $41.99
• Acuvue 2 Enhancers - $40.99

Bausch & Lomb

• B&L 2 Week (Soflens 59) - $19.99
• Optima FW (Soflens 38) - $22.99
• Soflens 66 - $21.99
• Soflens Toric - $39.99
• Soflens One Day (90 Pack) - $54.99
• Soflens One Day (15 Pack) - $17.99
• Nike MaxSight - $67.99
• Optima Toric - $85.99
• Soflens Multifocal - $57.99
• Purevision - $59.99
• Purevision Toric - $69.89
• Purevision Multifocal - $69.99
• Optima 38 SP - $38.99

Focus Products

• Focus Night and Day - $65.99
• Focus Dailies (90 Pack) - $51.99
• Focus Dailies 30 Pack - $22.99
• Focus Monthly Visitint - $29.99
• Focus Monthly Softcolors - $42.99
• Focus 1-2 wk / NewVues - $20.99
• Focus 1-2 wk Softcolors / NewVues - $36.99
• Focus Toric - $50.99
• Focus Dailies Toric 30 Pack- $33.99
• Focus Progressives - $44.99
• Focus Dailies Progressives 30 Pack - $29.99

Freshlook Products

• Freshlook Colorblends - $39.99
• Freshlook Colors (Opaques) - $36.99
• Freshlook Dimensions - $37.99
• Freshlook LiteTint - $19.99
• Freshlook Radiance - $35.99
• Freshlook One-Day - $21.99
• Freshlook Toric - $49.99
• Freshlook Colorblends Toric - $67.99
• Freshlook Colorblends Singles - $12.99

Anyways, check them out. I'm sure you'll have as good as an experience as I had with them!

US Election Results

I was glued to the TV last night watching the US elections. I still can't believe how close a lot of the races were. It makes for exciting TV watching the races go back and forth. In the end, it appears that the Democrats will indeed control both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

I'm happy to see the Democrats do as well as they did. Although I don't agree with them on some issues, I do agree with their social values and I hope that they bring in a balanced budget and eliminate their huge deficits. It's not fair to future generations who will have to make up these shortfalls.

Back from Calgary

I got back to Edmonton from Calgary today. I had a great time on my elective at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.

In other news, Amanda and I have booked our flights for our May vacation. I got some $100USD discounts from eBay (cost me $30US for $200US in discounts), so a net discount of $170USD. All in all, it was $700CDN per person for all of the flights with the discounts applied. Not too bad considering a return flight from Edmonton to Saginaw is $782.....make you wonder how airlines price all of this stuff out eh? Three destinations are cheaper than 2....

Our flights break down like this:

Edmonton to Orlando on May 14, 2007
Orlando to Saginaw/ Bay City / Midland on May 22, 2007
Saginaw/ Bay City / Midland to Edmonton on May 28, 2007

We're stopping off in Michigan on the way home for 6 days for my cousin's high school graduation (and my other cousin's university graduation.) Should be a fun two weeks, considering the week prior to it is my licensing exam!

Income Trust Buster

Effects from the new tax on Income trusts:

• Thursday, November 1, 2006 7:00A.M MNT - The Canadian Dollar is down one cent in morning trading from yesterday's close

More to follow....