Lilly's Lovely Random Banter #87

[Korith]

Humbug! I'm talking about perceived time. The actual flow of time can be left to it's own devices. Were perceived time to have moved at that rate, I'd be done now, or at least not as bored.

[Penguinizer]

Meh, I'm tired. I need to find 5 more plant samples (from a list). Otherwise, standard weekend...

[Gitman00]

So I just got a new tattoo on my left arm (I'll post a pic in "You" if I ever get a digital camera). Unfortunate side effect: Since I'm deploying next month, I've got a lot of vaccinations to get, and I have to get them all in the non-tattoo arm. Yesterday I got typhoid, anthrax, and smallpox. If anyone's interested, that anthrax shot burns. Not only that, but it's a 6-shot series, and that was just my first one.

Ah, well. I guess that's what I signed up for when I made Uncle Sam my boss. Not that I'd trade it for anything!

[Logic]

One reason I avoided tattoos at the injection sites was to avoid exactly what you are going through Gitman.

[Nomrom]

At least typhoid and smallpox aren't that bad though. Another bad one is yellow fever. It burns pretty bad. I hate those shots that come in series like that. I had to get three rabies shots just to go down to the Dominican.

[Hoggy]

I hate tourists.

Work was easy until 9, when everyone and their mother decides pub is best place to be. I end up working until 11 (shift is meant to end at 10) and have to go in very early to finish up tomorrow.

Hate tourists. GTFO my Boscastle plz kthzbai.

[SDF]

Then maybe you shouldn't work in customer service :P

I find it a bit funny they still give the smallpox vaccination.

[Mr. Moon]

You know what I don't get? More and more often, I'm finding threads started by people who clearly have not read the rules. And people who should know better actualy post there. It's like they're asking the mods to just ban them now.

[Nomrom]

Then maybe you shouldn't work in customer service :P

I find it a bit funny they still give the smallpox vaccination.

Yeah, correction I didn't get the smallpox vaccination. As far as I knew, it had been eradicated. I didn't even know they still gave it out.

[Gitman00]

I find it a bit funny they still give the smallpox vaccination.

From the handout I got:

...The world's last case of naturally occurring smallpox was in 1977. Routine vaccination of the American public against smallpox ended in 1972...
...Some people should get the vaccine because they work with smallpox or related viruses in laboratories. Others are being offered the vaccine so they can assist in responding to a smallpox outbreak. Smallpox virus is kept in two approved laboratories in the United States and Russia. There is concern that terrorists may have obtained the smallpox virus and could use it as a weapon.

I guess they just don't want to take chances. I'm no epidemiologist, but it seems to me smallpox wouldn't make a very good weapon, since it's only spread person-to-person.

EDIT:

You know what I don't get? More and more often, I'm finding threads started by people who clearly have not read the rules. And people who should know better actualy post there. It's like they're asking the mods to just ban them now.

Any specific examples come to mind, or just a generalized gripe?

[Mr. Moon]

Yeah, but it spreads like fire, and gets all over everything. Blankets, doorknobs, hands, etc. Good luck not touching anything.

[SurlySeraph]

Moon's right. I haven't been here nearly long enough to start griping about how things were in my day, but - Hey! You hooligans get off my lawn! I admit that I'm one of the "people who should know better" than to post on those threads that she mentioned, but... uh... hm. How am I going to tell them not to do that anymore if I don't? Oh, right, the mods can do that for me. Uh... Hey, I said get off my lawn! In my day, if I went on someone else's lawn... *trails off into incoherent rant*

[Nomrom]

Yeah smallpox would make a very dangerous weapon, because it spreads so easily, and almost no one is vaccinated against it, so most people who come in contact with it will get it.

On a happier note, I'd been lurking in the playground for at least a year and half, and nothing seems that much different to me, except for different people. Maybe I had to actually post to understand.

[SDF]

A significant portion of the adult population of the US is vaccinated, I know my parents got the shot (or rather shots) The problem with using it as a weapon is that you have to get a strain first. The only remaining samples are at the CDC in the US and a research lab in Siberia, both under heavy, round the clock guard. It's probably easier to find an unprotected nuke somewhere >_>

[Skippy]

Yeah, I found two yesterday... I'm selling them at Ebay, $5.99 each, plus tax and sending...

[Midnight Son]

I just bought myself a webcam. Now everyone can see me while I sit around in my skivvies.

Okay, so that doesn't really happen that often, but the thought makes me giggle.

[Nomrom]

Actually, the number of missing nukes is kind of frightening. One of the guys at the machine shop I work at actually used to build nukes. He said their factory had like four unaccounted nukes while he worked there.

[Logic]

Actually, the number of missing nukes is kind of frightening. One of the guys at the machine shop I work at actually used to build nukes. He said their factory had like four unaccounted nukes while he worked there.

If that is an American Factory, I say "Only 4?"

If Russian, I say "Wow! You guys kept it in the single digits!"

If Chineese, I say "Wow. You must of had an off day."

[Lord Herman]

Just after the Soviet Union collapsed, factories in Russia often found themselves unable to pay their employees in cash. They therefore resorted to paying them with the goods they produced.*

"Sorry, Vladimir, we're out of cash again. Here, have a nuke instead."**


* True story
** Probably also a true story

[Eldpollard]

Now I'm picturing soviet Russians in a shop going "Got change for a nuke?" Hardly ideal.

[bosssmiley]

I just bought myself a webcam. Now everyone can see me while I sit around in my skivvies.

Eeeewwwww! Time to raze the Intarweb methinks.

[Gitman00]

A significant portion of the adult population of the US is vaccinated, I know my parents got the shot (or rather shots) The problem with using it as a weapon is that you have to get a strain first. The only remaining samples are at the CDC in the US and a research lab in Siberia, both under heavy, round the clock guard. It's probably easier to find an unprotected nuke somewhere >_>

Well, the vaccine is only good for 10 years, so unless they were vaccinated after '97 (highly unlikely), it doesn't count.

[Dragonrider]

I just read "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. I was telling my brother about it, and he was like "There's NO WAY that could happen in modernday times! The only apocalyptic even that's really feasable is a nuclear disaster!" (Yes, he deals in absolutes) (and for those not in the know, "Doomsday Book" deals with the Black Death in 1348 and a new virus in 2050-something, among other things.)

I was like "Uhh...you get a virus with a short incubation period and a high mortality rate, you got a problem."

I had to bring Mom into the discussion because he had virus mixed up and thought that you could cure it with antibiotics. They do say that a flu is coming that will have that kind of effect on this country, and every year there's a huge thing in the media about some new flu that could have a devastating effect on us...so far it's all just been hype, but I'm sure it's coming.

We've never gotten the flu shots, though, because half the time it's for the wrong strain anyway or there's some problem and they never do what they're supposed to. My mom is one of those kooky anti-vaccine people. I mean, we got all the main illnesses, plus every meningitis vaccine known to man because that's Mom's nightmare disease, but I have a history of bad reactions (Hep A to go to China I had a fever of 106 and throwing up all night) so we avoid anything that's not strictly necessary.

[North]

So if theres a small pox is there a more deadly bigpox. Or maybe largepox. Or itsaglandularpox?

[Rex Idiotarum]

It's small compared to Chicken, Cow, and MonkeyPox, so methinks.

[Captain van der Decken]

Just got back from a two-week holiday in Norfolk. Which just happened to coincide with a 'mosquito invasion'. Gah.

Monkeypox? That almost sounds fun.

[Cruxador]

Since the conversation is about viruses, did you get West Nile or Avian Bird Flu (as opposed to non-avian bird flu)

[Dragonrider]

My tennis coach got West Nile. Lost 25 pounds (this guy had NOTHING to lose, either) and almost died. Actually there was a guy in our area who DID die of it...

Only about three cases in the state, though, I think. And all of them got it in Idaho. darn you Idahoans!

[FdL]

Cute subject we got us into :p

Such is the unpredictability of Random Banter.

[Penguinizer]

It's kinda like language arts at my school once. We started making a sentence about a broken can. And ended talking about mad cow diseas : \