Ed took me to the clinic where Dr. Dick was less than helpful. He gave me shit for leaving the house and said that I have “some kind of flu”, then told me to go home and stay there until I stop being sick.
Good thing I got dolled up for the clinic visit by putting on pants, the jerk.
The entire universe is conspiring against me.
I had an annoying little tickle in my throat all day yesterday. It felt like I swallowed a hair or something, and it was lodged in my wind pipe and poking me every time I spoke. I didn’t think much of it – I swallow hair all the time – and went about my duties for the day.
Then I read about the outbreak of Swine Flu at PAX. I’m a paranoid person by nature, with a severe case of hypochondria and a misplaced sense of melodrama – naturally that tickle in my throat wasn’t something easily explained away by the cats sleeping on my face, I had nerd-borne piggy sniffles! I’ve been SWINE’D!
I thought back over my weekend, remembering each and every sickly face that glanced my way. Strangely, it wasn’t just a horde of anonymous unwashed masses that appeared but people near and dear to my heart: not only had I been exposed to bacon lung at PAX, I spent quality time with sick people!
Ali was just getting over an awful cold. Shan was deep in the throes of a nasty sickness. Josh was manly and stoic, but still showing signs of having caught whatever viral yuck Shan was carrying. I had been literally surrounded by sick people all weekend long: was it any wonder that I was probably mutating the H1N1 virus into the next strain that’ll spell the end of the world?!
I’m sick. My throat is killing me, I have a nasty cough out of nowhere, I’m nauseous, and I ache all over. I know I should go to the doctor to find out if I really do have hamthrax, but I don’t know that I could get myself there. All I want to do is crawl back into bed and moan dramatically (silently; it hurts to talk). This sucks.
And what of my incredibly tight September schedule? I’ll admit that my first concern wasn’t for my health or that I may very well be Patient Zero for the K1ML1 virus that kills millions, but that my being sick would mess up my training schedule that took me weeks to arrange. I don’t have TIME to be elbow deep in the Aporkalypse; I have a schedule to maintain!
.. then the BossBoss told me we were pushing the launch date out by two weeks because one important piece hadn’t been programmed properly.
I’ve made up my mind; I’m keeping my baby schedule – but now I have 10 more days as a buffer. I feel less bad about moving today’s training session (especially as it means I won’t be breathing all over my subjects all day, spreading the other white flu), but I need to get better and get things back on track. I hate being sick. Up yours, swine flu. If I have a fatal case, I am going to be SO PISSED OFF.
Swine Flu has officially been confirmed at PAX, and people are advised to see a doctor if they have any symptoms. I’m fine, personally – I don’t have time for swines therefore I will not get any – but if you’re feeling icky and you spent the weekend licking nerds, take care of yourself and radio for a medic when you’re down.
Today was the first day of my September from Hell, so updates for the remainder of the month will be at worst sporadic; at best late and brief. Here is a perfect example: my next training session begins in 9 minutes and I have to pee and I’m out of ice cubes.
As I mentioned in the post below, I have 5 PAX Prize Packs to give away – check the Facebook Fan Page for contest instructions!
omg so busy
PAX 2009 was:
PAX was A+; would buy again.
We were at the event for about 6 hours on Saturday before bailing – the lure of a Built Burger BBQ at Doug and Ali’s place was too strong and delicious to resist. It was a very full day though, and even though we were beat after just six hours, I could have easily spent the day there if I had planned things out better. For starters, I had no idea that the passes for the evening’s concerts were handed out to the first several thousand people through the door each morning – so even if I had made plans to see the MC Frontalot and Jonathan Coulton shows, I wouldn’t have been able to. Next time, Gadget, I will make a plan and see the shows and panels that interest me.
We spent most of our time in the Main Exhibition hall, trying out new games and people watching. There were so many strange nerds around – some normal, some unfortunate, some clearly on some sort of day release program. I wished I had a stable internet connection and a computer; I could have just live blogged what I was seeing around me for three days straight it was so surreal.
A third day of PAX seemed a little over the top, but we went for a few hours to do some last minute things – get some more swag, buy new mice, and see John and Scott. We made a quick side trip to Archie McPhee’s so I could stock up on Random Things to give away, and after a couple hours of Sunday PAX we hit the road. We were home by 6pm, and enjoyed a leisurely evening knowing we still had a full day off ahead of us.
In retrospect, staying up until 3am was a bad idea but they were showing a Bones marathon on Showcase and I love that show. I used the time wisely though, going through the huge pile of swag we brought home from PAX. The thing is, I can’t or won’t use most of it – so I did the only logical thing: I made 5 piles of random awesome, and I will give them away via the Fan Page on Facebook. Check there later today for what you’re going to have to do to get a PAX Prize Pack!
Lastly, here are some pictures:
star trek online
no more tshirts
oh dear god no
craigslist cosplay: awesome
raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawr!
While my intentions were noble, the lack of a handy computer and/or reliable wi-fi or 3G access meant my posts were lacking in existence. I’ll make up for it though, by giving stuff away. Does that work?
I’m due to be at brunch in 45 minutes and I am naked and wet all over. Pictures and a recap post coming later today!
I probably shouldn’t have stayed up until 3am watching a Bones marathon on Showcase. I am tired.
The border crossing was nowhere near as bad as I had feared, but if we arrived any later we would have been in a world of trouble. As it was, we were in line for 30 minutes before we crossed into the US at 4:30pm.
I had to pee and we were both hungry, so we made a quick stop at my beloved Bellingham Target. I finally found a stand-alone DSi charger, and bought a bag full of paisley clothing to try on later and hope for the best. We piled back into the Mazdabator after a quick snack, and were southbound once more.
I’m so anal retentive when it comes to packing that I rarely forget things, but this time I did make one small mistake – I forgot to sync Evernote before I left the country. As a result, I had no access to any of the addresses or maps I had stored in preparation for the trip. We drove around Tulalip for a while trying to steal wifi, but eventually gave up and hoped my memory and super human sense of direction would prevail. It did – I was able to guide us to our location by simply guessing. We made it to the convention hall just before 8pm.
I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do much tonight, but I had two goals: get our badges so we could avoid the morning crush, and participate in an attempt to break a world record. I’m happy to say I was successful in both endeavors – getting our badges took all of 2 minutes, and we made it to the hall just in time to participate in the new world record of most people playing the Nintendo DS in one location. Hah!
After that, we made our way back to the car and headed towards Ali’s place. I hope to head out early tomorrow – my clothes are laid out (no pants, so dressing will be a breeze) and I have a cold date with a giant Jamba Juice first thing in the morning.
Strangely enough, the thing I’m most looking forward to is taking pictures.
How does one prepare for a video game convention? By making sure your affilliations are displayed loud and clear:
PC Gamer: My army medic bag has a Return to Castle Wolfenstein patch
DS Gamer: The above-mentioned bag has three player pins from The World Ends With You
XBox Gamer: Jet Set Radio Future hoodie (quite possibly the only one in existence)
Old School Gamer: NES Controller necklace; Pac Man lapel pins
I’m ready to throw down.
I took Thursday and Friday of this week off for PAX, but our plans changed slightly due to Ed’s coworkers beating him to the vacation request punch. Since he has to work today, I gallantly decided that I would wait for him so we could drive down together, even though it means missing the first day of the event.
I’m not so worried about missing a day – there’s a definite limit to how much “other people” I can take – but I AM worried about the fact that this is a long weekend; the last one before everything goes back to normal, and we’re going to try to cross the border at 6pm on a Friday night.
I’m packing rations and supplies for an army – we could be in line for HOURS. I hope that isn’t the case – I will be seriously grumpy and pointing tiny fingers at Ed – but there’s not much I can do about it, so I will cope. Admirably, even. I am such a trooper.
Even though my original plan of “leave Wednesday night” didn’t manifest itself, I opted to keep the Thursday and Friday I had already booked off work. For one, the craziness starts on Tuesday and I would like to be as rested as I can be, and for two I had a million things I needed to do before we left. So, instead of relaxing yesterday and today, I’ve been running around like a madman, being all productive and junk. This is not relaxing at all. I want a do over!
I did have some fun, though – I met Gina for lunch, and she is totally awesome. I’ve already invited her to my entire September calendar of events, so I’m sure she’s terrified of me and looking for an excuse to get out of being drunk with crazy strangers in the middle of hobo country, but it’s alllllll good. I also dropped off the Delicious Juice Bag o’ Mystery (yes I’m aware the name changes every time I mention it; it’ll get an official name soon) to August’s winner, Dale – he lives 6 minutes from me, so I thought I would take the scary route (I’m terrified of people I don’t know, yet look at me being all social with strangers!) and hand-deliver his present full of random things and the Voltron print.
There are four things left to do on my list, including a doctor’s appointment for a refill of sanity and an emergency cat food purchase. Then we shall hit the road for adventure!
I’m not bringing a computer with me, but I’ll have my camera and will try to update some variance of Twitter, Facebook, or the site. Full recap will be posted on Monday!
I forget – are pants mandatory for conventions?
Oh, and check out the back of my new business card:
i am a very sober woman
This’ll make people take me seriously as an Important Local Blogger, right? *snort*
Who was the genius that thought wrinkles and zits at the SAME TIME was a good idea?
Fuck that guy.
delicious juice dot com 