As many of you know, my son Connor had an accident a couple of weekends ago and cracked his head on the wall in his bedroom. He got a head laceration so we had to take him to the emergency room.
We took him to the hospital, and this was the chain of events (skipping wait times) :
1) Sign in and fillout paperwork (5 minutes)
2) Initial triage which involved a nurse looking over his laceration, and putting neosporin and a band-aid on it. (10 minutes at most)
3) Treatment, which involved a doctor, a nurse, and an assistant putting 2 tiny staples in Connor’s skin to close the wound. (10 minutes)
Total time : 25 minutes
We just got the bill in the mail and the total cost? $1100
$1100 for 25 minutes of treatment. (We were actually at the hospital for 4 hours, but us sitting in the waiting room doesn’t cost the hospital any money.)
Luckily, we won’t have to pay that full $1100 after health insurance covers some of it, but it’s that insane pricing for services which makes all our premiums so high. That’s why my COBRA payments when I was unemployed were $1200 a month. The insurance company wants their huge profits, and so does the health provider. Until profit is taken out of health care, there will be no such thing as “universal coverage.”
I’ve got say, I’m impressed. I’m not much of a fan of the current horror movie “scene” and I guess that’s precisely why I liked Rob Zombie’s rework of the classic horror movie, Halloween.
Rob Zombie co-produced, directed and wrote this retelling of the story of Michael Myers with impressive results. Zombie could have easily gone the Saw/Hostel route with this movie, with ultra-gorey special effects, and long drawn out torture scenes but instead he created a version of Halloween that stuck close to the original with fresh twists.
The music was good as well. He kept the original theme by John Carpenter which was totally necessary, but also included a creepier version of “Mr. Sandman” which was also in the original film. The song “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was quite comical one scene. Tyler Bates’ musical score kept the perfect amount of suspense without you actually noticing the music, which in my opinion means the composer did his job perfectly.
There were many shots in the Zombie version that were homages to scenes in the original movie, and Zombie even used fans’ knowledge of the original movie against them by making them think they knew where a particular scene was going by keeping the scene true to the orignal, and then changing it at the last minute.
I’d also like to point out that Zombie is a pretty damn good director. He managed to create angles that maintained suspense, intensified surprise, and kept the movie pacing perfect.
If you’re a fan of the original movie, give Zombie’s remake a shot. If a movie snob like myself can appreciate it, you won’t be disappointed.
Erm, I mean 2010!
From the LA Times website :
Past Emmy winner “Futurama” got axed by Fox network in 2003 after five seasons, but it’s developed such a strong cult following since then on DVD and TV reruns that Comedy Central has picked up the show.
“A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox Television confirms that the cable net has ordered 26 new episodes of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s late, great animated series to air beginning in 2010,” reports Mike Ausiello at EW.com.
