It just started to hail - so depressing. I have a day off today so went to visit my dad. It was his 84th birthday yesterday. Laurel and Ryan were there yesterday so I went up this morning. Afterwards I went down to Yorkville for a wander. It didn't perk me up the way I thought it would so I came home.

Everyone in Toronto is freaking out about the H1N1 flu shots. There's so much media hype, they're doing an awesome job of whipping up flu-frenzy. There's rationing and a pecking order for innoculation. For awhile they talked about how jealous the US were of our stockpile (hoping to fire up some twisted sense of national pride maybe?) then reports of people being turned away from clinics giving a cachet to anyone who did get it. I'm glad Ryan's grown and I don't have to make a decision on innoculation of a toddler. I wouldn't do it - partly having been in high school during the last so-called swine flu epidemic but also because of a long history of medical blunders - thalidomide comes to mind.

An article in one of the US papers today indicates, "Swine flu vaccine safety will be monitored for side effects and deaths by a U.S. panel using data from federal health plans for the military, the poor and the elderly, and from clinical trials, health officials said Monday." Well, that's reassuring.

Other items in the news; as of October 26th 2009, no more talking on cell phones while driving for Ontarians unless it's hands-free and using speed-dial. Of course, there are still a lot of people doing it, but that won't ever change. California imposed a cell phone ban as of Jan1 2009 and TMZ has caught the governator's wife, Maria Shriver, driving around in her Arnold-sized SUV, talking on a hand-held phone numerous times. More recently she was filmed putting on make-up. Now that's a law they need to impose!