Fashion Police

The summer is over - trees turn yellow, the weather turns cold, and U of C undergrads turn up for class. Now I understand that university life is all about sleeping late and turning up for class in your pyjamas, but there are limits. Please consider yourselves warned - purple tights and sparkly gold flats, knee-high socks worn with calf boots and just-above-the-knee shorts, and ugg boots as outside wear are not cool. Shudder!

Stupid Alert

This may become a new feature - the top 3 stupid things of the week;

In 3rd place - the guy on the train this morning with his bike wedged sideways across a whole door. Obnoxious of course, and pretty stupid given that train doors open inwards! Fool!

In 2nd place - the City of Calgary, for completely blocking pedestrian access over the trans-Canada highway so that I had to walk along the middle of the road to get to the bar. Of course I could have just gone with the (probably safer) drink and drive option. Also for blocking the exits from a series of pedestrian pathways I use every day, but failing to put up detour signs. Halfwits!

In 1st place - the person who, upon being told I was almost finished reading the new Harry Potter book, proceeded to tell me the biggest spoiler of them all (ie/ Harry's ultimate fate). Aaaggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Death by asthma inhaler

Cornell researchers just released the results of a study of salmeterol, one of the drugs in the asthma medication Advair (Seretide in Australia). Their analysis of 19 trials shows that salmeterol is probably responsible for 80% of asthma-related deaths in the US each year!!! That's 4000 people per year, in a population of around 295K.

I've been taking Advair for years, but this might be the end of it for me. For the record, the steroid component of Advair is available without salmeterol.

Roadwork rant

After 11 months of living in my apartment, the landlord finally decided to do some maintenance on the car park. Such a shame, the enormous frozen puddle at the entrance was such fun in winter. I appreciated the puddle a lot more when I remembered how the local birds like to play in it.

By some strange coincidence the city of Ithaca chose the same day to fix some of the potholes on the street outside. So there was no street parking, and I was woken by the sound of asphalt being ground off the road. Fantastic!

Julie vs/ Earth

Today I bought Ventolin for the first time in the US. Actually, here it's called Albuterol, and it comes in a funky white inhaler. iVentolin perhaps? But I digress. I took the first dose, and was struck by the strange flavour, something I haven't tasted in a long time. It finally hit me, it's the taste of the old CFC-containing propellant, which was phased out years ago in Australia. Even though Ventolin has been available CFC-free for five years, some manufacturers are still making it the old way. So much for saving the planet.