StormKnight

DGN @ City Club, Saturday, January 15th Come. Join us. Meet us. Hang out. We're not that scary in person, really. Leland City Club 400 Bagley Street Downtown Detroit You enter by going through an unmarked door on the First Street side of The Leland Hotel building just before the gated parking area on the side of the building nearest 1st Street. The club is at the top of the stairwell. (see picture in the link above in the DGN calendar entry) All are welcome. Come meet some of us weirdos. Saturday nights from 10:00 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Alcoholic drinks until 2:00 a.m., pop and juices served all night. Admission is $4 18 and up, 21 to drink with proper ID (no exceptions). No drugs, weapons, chains or spikes. Zoomable map to City Club. MDOT lane closures (The map isn't quite exact. The Ramada is located within the Bagley, 1st, Cass, Plaza Dr. block.) In case you don't know the "DGN Corner" is to the right of the bar. Currently theres a table, pillar and white couch there, impossible to miss. Come say hello. If no one is there, stay there, they will show up. More info can be found here: http://www.lelandcityclub.net

Just my $0.02 in this debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP4N27kbMdk

^ Mellow personality.

Getting used to being without my glasses...blasted astigmatic correction cylinders.

Happy Birthday!

*drum roll*

Topics merged. Will have to rely on my apartment's fitness center until things settle down.

Mr. and Mrs. Tideman from the soundtrack

Merry Christmas.

CNN article regarding the shortage of drugs. List of drugs in shortage. Clicking on the drug will give a precis on what companies have to say regarding their production and why. A couple have been recalled for production/contamination issues. Some have been short due to increased demand, or due to the lack of starting components. Quite an alarming amount is simply because of profit motives, i.e., there not much of a profit margin in making them. Morphine, midazolam, lasix, for example, are dirt cheap. Several of the companies have withdrawn their preparations from the market for undisclosed reasons. Many of the medications (epinepherine, amiordarone,) are used in codes, emergency settings, and pediatrics. Free market at work.

Still.

You are really dating us, man. lol

Thanks everybody!

Happy Birthday!

HAHAHA...ah, well. that was a fun time. I always make room for Queen.

OK, Spook just got me started on "Photo of the Book Collection." Not as heavy into the WW/WoD books as most, but I have some interesting ones. Row 1: Torg and all its supplements. The white area is all of the West End Games' (the company that produced Torg,) campaign publication for the game, The Infiniverse. All the novels for the game are on the far right, as well as two extra Drama Decks. Row 2. The binders contain every RPGA Network game I have ever run, including 2 GenCons. Car Wars, Traveller and Traveller 2300, James Bond RPG, Shatterzone, Paranoia First and Second Editions, Alternity (an old TSR space RPG.) Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium, none of this D20 crap,) Elric/Stormbringer, Vapmire 2nd ed, Star Wars (West End Games, the good one) The white-wrapped book is the D20 version I shamefully admit I playtested. GURPS and Toon by Steve Jackson. Card Games (starting from the top left. Car Wars first edition with its supplements, Illuminati and its expansion Y2K, Chez Geek 1-3, Marvel SAGA edition, Fluxx, and my dice (prefer Chessex.) My Highlander CCG. I usually played a Connor Macleod deck. The company tried to get a Ramirez persona card, but Sean Connery wouldn't have it. Top Row: All D&D and AD&D 1st ed books I have. Only hardcovers from 1st ed I am missing are Oriental Adventures and Deities and Demigods with the Cthulhu/Melnebonean Pantehons. Second Row: Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, Mostly by Games Workshop and Hogshead Publishing. I thought the last company that had it made it a bit unplayable. The two Chaos Books for the Warhammer Worlds (WFRP and WH40K,) Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned. Top Secret SI, Nuclear War, Down In Flames (which my LARP group used to simulate air combat.) Bottom Row: Ghostbusters, Masterbook, Earthdawn, Shadowrun and Shadowrun 2nd ed. (both books signed by Tom Dowd, creator,) Cyberpunk 2020, Bubblegum Crisis, The Babylon Project, Champions, Highlander RPG.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Link to malpractice by state year to year. This covers the top 3: Internal Medicine (which is about on par with the other primary care specialties (family practice and pediatrics,)) General Surgery, and OB/GYN. These rates are taken out of the post-tax income, so it is a sizable chunk of net income. Throw in the average student debt load and payments, and a lot gets eaten up. OB/GYN have historically had the worse percentages of malpractice per income...upwards of 70% of net income. If in a group (like I am,) or a hospital, the rates can be grouped to reduce the cost. Lawsuits, however big or small, won or lost, tend to be an automatic raise in rates. As far as I have been able to read, there is no discount for not being sued in a given time period (like car insurance good driver rates.) If I remember correctly, none of the actual "big ticket" reforms have hit the public yet. Per the report itself, copied from the text: "The decline may be due to passage of health reform, the continuing weak economy, or both." I was not able to find definitive answers to whether it is the reforms passage or the economy and cut backs in level of coverage that have been increasing out of pocket expenses (which the satisfaction rate survey didn't cover from my read on it BTW.) To assume one without considering the other without hard facts that one wins over the other is speculative at best, and spin at worst. Only information I found on EBRI about out of pocket expenses was regarding depending on plan here, which is based on data from and up to 2009, PRIOR to the enactment of reforms. I thought most of the recent hikes in out of pocket expenses were a combination of the annual hike in insurance rates and the fear of the reforms. If someone can provide information to the contrary, post links or hard references here.

Just to throw some references out there for discussion of health care in the US. PDF of US satisfaction/ dissatisfaction rate of the health care system for 2010. All quality improvement programs consider "Fair" and "Poor" rating percentiles as dissatisfaction and actionable. Please note the line at the bottom of this .PDF. "EBRI is a nonpartisan research institute based in Washington, DC, that focuses on health, savings, retirement, and economic security issues. EBRI does not lobby and does not take policy positions." Employee Benefits Research Institute's (survey source,) home page. Linke to total cost of healthcare in the US. And for disclosure on the physician side, since one is putting the information out there: Link to total number of active physicians in the US. Please note, though the site is the American Association of Family Physicians, the 100,000 is *all* active, practicing physicians. Physician pay by salary. The way the matching process goes for matching medical school graduates with careers, at most 2% will ever get near the specialties that generate the high end incomes due to academic requirements. Most liberal average I have heard about physician pay (most use 1099 (myself included,) if private practice or contracted,) is $200,000 pre tax. Myself at my current level (for full disclosure,) is less than half of that at most (depending on patient load,) with a school debt burden of around half of the average medical school graduate, depending on survey.

Well, there will be a chance for me to sound like this guy...minus the perpendicular mohawk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHOsPFM-F9c

OMG... I was a junior in high school when that picture was taken... *wanders off hobbling on a cane looking for his Geritol*

A wonderful Birthday. Christmas can take a side seat.

Happy Birthday, man!

Australia...better coastlines and less malaria. Childhood fantasy that you wish came true?