Monthly Archives: April 2009

You’ve Reached the End of the Internet


I can’t remember how long ago now, but there was a commercial for something unrelated where a man was surfing the web with his family off camera making all kinds of normal nuclear suburban pod-like noises. As he surfs, a message suddenly appears informing him that he has reached the literal end of the Internet. He stares, puzzled, and then prepares to click again when the screen warns him, 

“Go back, now.”

Startled, he gets up and heads off-camera to rejoin his family.

For a while now I have felt that perhaps I have reached the end of the Internet personally, but I can’t say positively yet.

Def-Con 5 – Swine Flu Pandemic is Nearly a Go


So the latest word from the WHO (that’s the World Health Organization) is that we are inches away from our first global flu pandemic since 1968. One that has all the makings of a 1918/Stephen King version of Grim Reaperness.

Giddy yet?

I think a trip to the pharmacist to make sure I am loaded up on my asthma meds for the next little while is in order for tomorrow. I’ve been to the grocery. Cupboards and freezer are good though we could do with a few more things: personal products, paper products and the like. I am torn on cash. ATM’s would surely continue to work in the event of quarantine but is paper money a good idea in times of pandemic? I think the hygiene issue comes into play when handling currency, don’t you?

Oh, over-reacting, am I? Not like there is flu stalking our little burg, right?

Yeah, that we know of.

Thing about flu is that you can’t see it until its right on top of you. People from Canada travel to Mexico during the cold weather without much thought. It’s close and it’s cheap. Rob was remarking this morning that the Edmonton Airport was still flying people back and forth from Mexican destinations without any real safety precautions at all. Unlike the Americans and the Asians, we are not yet taking people’s temperature as they step off the plane.

There hasn’t been a reported case here – yet, but there hadn’t been any in Iowa when I read the Des Moines paper yesterday and today there are 150 possible cases. And that’s a pandemic, people. We all look fine until we are not.

But as I told Rob a little while ago as we chatted after lunch, as is our norm when we don’t see each other over the noon hour,

“We are going on vacation next week and if we come back to roadblocks and people in surgical masks – at least we’re well rested.”

A Writer by Any Other Name


I never liked my last name as I was growing up. It lent itself too readily to the bullies and the inevitable jokes about the pronunciation when I was in junior high and high school.

“Did you say your name was COCKS?”

And I would cringe and spell it for the idiot but the damage was done. Read Full Article