on life & other inconveniences

The 2010 Spinetingler Nominations have been announced and the poll is live. Be sure to spread the word and vote for your choice in every category.

Plenty of other stuff, too. A video interview with Kelli Stanley, review of Justified, the continuing Conversations With The Bookless interviews, and later today an article on one of the biggest debuts of the year that’s already being cited as the read of the summer. Do I agree, or is this proof of what’s wrong about throwing six-figure deals at unproven authors?

Lots going on over there, so be sure to spread the word and check it out!

It is my pleasure to welcome guest blogger Stephen D. Rogers today. Stephen will be discussing the opening line of the short story, OFFICER DOWN, from his new short story collection, SHOT TO DEATH.

So begins one of the 31 stories contained in SHOT TO DEATH. Within that beginning lurks the ending to the story and everything that happens between the beginning and the end. Or at least it seems that way to me.

I don’t know who this Dent is yet, but he assumes he can’t be speeding. The pace of his actions and the sentence that describes them leads me to believe that Dent’s not driving slowly just so he won’t be stopped and nabbed for a different crime. In this sentence, anyway, Dent strikes me as someone who simply drives under the speed limit as a general rule.

In New England, speed limits can drop from 40 to 20 mph in a heartbeat, which means Dent’s a careful driver, a careful person. He doesn’t get flustered when he sees the flashing lights behind him. He calmly checks his speed (before, I assume, pulling over).

Does he pull over? Perhaps he flees. Why then check his speed? So he complies with the flashing lights and pulls to the side of the road.

With a name like Dent, he’s probably not all shiny new. He’s been around, taken his blows, and survived.

Perhaps he’s a retired officer being taken to task by an eager rookie. That gives me some opposing and opposite characters. Perhaps the rookie has been sent to track him down. Perhaps he’s needed again specifically because he’s retired and thus out of the loop.

All that remains is the writing.

For a chance to win a signed copy of SHOT TO DEATH, click on over and submit your completed entry.

Then visit the schedule to see how you can march along.

And then come back here to post your comments. Phew.

Stephen D. Rogers is the author of SHOT TO DEATH and more than six hundred stories and poems. He’s the head writer at Crime Scene (where viewers solve interactive mysteries) and a popular writing instructor. For more information, you can visit his website, www.stephendrogers.com, where he tries to pull it all together.

For two years, Brian and I had our cell plans with T-Mobile. The plan we were on doesn’t exist anymore, but we paid upfront for our service every month, such as it was. The phones were cheap and mine routinely froze. Of course, T-Mobile didn’t care. The coverage was spotty, with frequent drops, and when we moved house the coverage was practically non-existent. I always found it rather odd that I could receive voicemails and text messages when I couldn’t call out or send a text message to save my life.

But all of that is rather minor to my complaint with them now. Our two-year plan was up, and after getting nowhere with any valid issues we did have with the phones/service, I wasn’t sad to move to another company. I now have cell coverage throughout the whole house - yeah! - and am already addicted to my Blackberry.

So, I’ve moved elsewhere. Why still be pissed at T-Mobile?

Well, remember I said that we paid at the beginning of the month for our service? Complicated as it was, we started our plan on March 16. Our re-up date with the phone starting our new monthly minutes was the 20th. But the payment for the upcoming month was debited from my bank on the 13th. We have to wait until the 16th to cancel our plan, which means we’ve already paid for the next month. There were certain advantages to that. We never had to worry about random, unexpected charges, for one thing, but when canceling it’s a bit of a pain. Okay, it’s annoying, but a phone call should correct that and we’ll get our money back… right?

Nope. We’ve been informed that we have to wait 60 days to call them and get our money back. Now, imagine you bought a DS from WalMart and it didn’t work and you went back and gave it to them and then they said, “Okay, in 60 days come ask for your money.” You’d flip out. Why the hell should you have to wait to get your money back?

I can appreciate it might take a week, ten days, to process the request… but 60 days before you can even ask? That’s a total load of BS.

I’m fed up with companies that walk all over their clients, that have completely unfair business practices and shit service to begin with. Sure, someone who works for T-Mobile is probably going to vow to never read my books now, but I don’t care. You buy my book, don’t like it, you can return it and get your money back the same day. That’s fair. T-Mobile is beyond ludicrous and I’m sure the reason for the policy is the hope that people will forget and never get their money back.

And that’s as shady as it gets.

Last week, I had the flu. I’ll be the first to admit it was bad. After two days of Trick emptying his stomach into buckets, he was finally holding food down.

And the bug had passed to me. It wasn’t kind. On Monday night I passed out twice while being sick. I cut my head open, and gave myself a black eye.

This week, I was asked what the doctor said when I went to see him, and I was baffled. Why on earth would I go to the doctor for the flu?

Now, I was pretty sick, but I still didn’t feel the need to go see someone. Maybe if I’d still been passing out on Tuesday… but not over one night of passing out. I’m not the first person to get hit with a bug that’s kept them out of commission for the better part of a week, and I won’t be the last, but I knew what I needed. Rest. Fluids. And Pepto Bismal.

It helps that we have a few nurses in the family… but it also helps that I have the Canadian health care mentality. Unlike some of my American friends, I do not instinctively think I should run to the doctor for every little thing. I go to the doctor when I absolutely need to. Perhaps less than I need to. I don’t remember the last time I saw a doctor for myself.

With the raging health care debate in America, it’s impossible to turn on talk radio without hearing people trash Canadian health care. The media has dug up every possible negative story and milked it for all its worth. We don’t want to be like Canada. That’s the proclamation. Heavens, you’d think that Canadian health care was killing people at the rate of the black plague, the way some of these people talk.

And the misinformation is incredible. This week, it was about our Prime Minister going to Florida for medical treatment. Only problem was, Danny Williams isn’t Canada’s Prime Minister. And when you can’t get those facts wrong, it’s hard to take the rest of your points seriously because you don’t even have google-able, basic truths right. It’s the kind of ignorant statement that makes many roll their eyes at naval-gazing Americans.

Here are a few basic truths.
1. Canada’s health care system isn’t perfect. The American health care system isn’t perfect either. You will need to leave this earth to find one that is.

2. The medical needs of different countries are not the same. That stands to reason. Canada is the second largest country in the world, geographically speaking, but has a tenth of the population of the US. The need to transport patients over large distances is a reality. However, in other countries - say, Luxembourg - it’s pretty safe to say they don’t have the same transportation issues at play.

3. Everyone will feel differently about health care if they’re the one who’s sick.

Canada’s health care system isn’t perfect. It has failed people. But so has the American system. This isn’t about saying one is inherently better than the other, but it is about a fair comparison. I don’t say that I love Canadian health care and mean by it that all other health care systems suck. I also don’t mean that I think it’s flawless or that there’s no room for improvement.

But I love the fact that when I was seriously ill, I could go to the doctor without worrying about how much money treatment would cost me. I loved the fact that if I was in a car accident I didn’t have to worry about waking up in the hospital with a huge bill that would bankrupt me and keep my kids from going to college. I loved the fact that the small amount of money I paid for health care - because it isn’t free, most provinces have a health care premium you have to pay, depending on your income - ensured I would always have access to a basic level of care.

I’m personally not opposed to two-tiered health care. Hell, no matter how much some Americans want to delude themselves, they have two-tiered health. There’s free care for the poor through Medicaid. And they don’t just get free doctor visits; they get free prescriptions too. We know. When we assumed full custody we moved the kids off their mother’s coverage - medicaid government hand-out - and on to Brian’s plan, but before that happened we had a phoned-in prescription, and through their mother’s coverage it was free of charge.

I actually don’t think the current health care bill solves the right problems in the American system, and I feel very uncomfortable about it. The main reason I feel uncomfortable is because the politicians don’t seem willing to play by the normal rules and are changing voting procedures in order to get the bill through. That makes me nervous. That’s not democracy. And that makes me wonder how bad the bill is, if it can’t pass on its own merits.

I also don’t think you can fix American health care without a fundamental shift in the philosophical views of many Americans, and that will be a long time coming. A large percentage of the population wants minimal government involvement in their lives, and they don’t want the government interfering with health care.

For my part, with the Canadian system I know there was abuse. But there’s abuse in the US. A big part of the bill targets medicaid fraud. There are those who feel free health care is an entitlement. And there are certainly those who go to the doctor more for a social visit than anything else.

In the US, people also have the view that if they’re paying for health care, they may as well get their money’s worth. If you want to be tested for something, why should you be denied if you’re paying? In Canada, you have to earn those referrals to specialists for some legitimate medical reason.

Neither system is perfect, but at the end of the day, one thing I know is that if I’m in a car accident on this side of the border, I’m screwed financially. And sometimes, it’s hard not to think of the irony that the US is the presumptive leader of the world, setting the standards for other nations, when it’s a country that can’t even take care of the most needy within its own borders. Those who are seriously ill are least able to work and afford medical coverage, and it becomes the burden of the families to care for them. I never really worried about that in Canada. Now, I realize if I get sick here, I have to hope and pray my family has enough sense to let me die rather than incur the debt of my medical bills.