I have had the patience of a Sith Lord in exile, but finally, all my appliances, including my insanely expensive Vermont Castings barbeque, are finally working.

The manager at Calgary Home Appliance was kind enough to send over a replacement unit after only 3 failed repair attempts. The delivery guys who brought it in told me there was a BBQ cover inside the unit for me (it was all wrapped up and I couldn't check.

"If it's not in there, just call the store and they'll have one for you."

After I unwrapped it, I was overcome with complete not-surprise at the total lack of BBQ cover contained inside the grill.

I have to return a quick-connect doohickey to the store anyhow, so I'll update you on whether I get my cover or not.

The good news is that all the burners light, crossover, and heat up perfectly. In fact, with them all on high the thing gets so hot that it doesn't register on the thermometer (that's over 600°F)!

My favourite BBQ trick it to leave all the burners on high for a few minutes after I'm done cooking. This chars any food bits stuck to the grill and makes scraping it clean dead easy.

Now all I need is my furniture, and I can have my housewarming party! Watch for your invitations in early November, 2009!

Last night I watched "SiCKO," Michael Moore's new movie about universal health care. I can be skeptical and believe that the scenes were selected to exaggerate the superiority of foreign systems over that of the United States, it nevertheless makes a compelling case against privatizing the well-being of a nation's citizenry.

Moore takes a long-overdue look at the corruption of the health insurance industry (which seems to have started when Nixon made a deal with Kaiser-Permanente, now the largest HMO). I heard the stories of people-- now dead-- who had been denied potentially life-saving care because of cryptic exclusions in their insurance contracts. I learned about "pre-existings," or conditions that you had before you began your coverage; not only will most insurers not cover treatment of these pre-existings, they also won't cover future ailments that could potentially result from this condition. Most terrifying, in some cases, insurers can refuse a claim if they can suggest that you should have seen a doctor before your coverage began, and that doctor would have diagnosed you with the pre-existing condition. Do you hear that? In other words, if you don't have evidence that you were tested for every possible illness that you could have imagined that you might've had before you insurance began, those conditions can be labelled as pre-existing on a retro-active basis.

Canada gets its share of kudos, but even we could learn a thing or two from France, England, and even and Cuba. While we have basic universal health care, we still lag far behind many other countries.

In France, not only is all health care free, but doctors make free housecalls. New mothers can get a personal care worker for two days every week, for help with everything from baby care, to laundry, to meal preparation. Many more social programs are highlighted, but in the end, France comes off as a beacon of civilization.

Even Cuba shames the United States. Moore took sick 9/11 rescue workers there, heroes who can barely afford their meager treatments back home, and they received free, top-notch care in that enemy territory. At one point, a woman broke down in frustration when she purchased drugs that cost $120 in the US at a Cuban corner pharmacia for 5 cents.

After seeing this film, it's hard to understand how any civilized country could justify leaving anything as critical as health care to private interests. It reminded me of a book by Joseph Heath called "The Efficient Society" that prescribed very clear conditions under which market forces would fail to provide efficiency to customers. Among the top two? Insurance and health care. Which is why the idea of private health care insurance should make you sick.