DEADLINE open thread. Have a party.

I have a friend who used to live in my apartment complex who once had a deer go through his living room window. And Ithaca has deer like rabbits. Between that and the college students*, we are so effing screwed during the Rising, no matter if we, like Berkley, also have our share of the eccentric.

* Seriously, I was present and working as a grader for H1N1. At least the students were good about following instructions about not turning in hard copy assignments and/or showing up when they got sick.

I got H1N1. At PAX. 60,000 gamer geeks in a single building for three days: you can imagine how fast THAT spread. And there I was working one of the booths and talking to hundreds of people.....

yeaaaaaaaaah.


You probably would not be surprised how often I've found myself thinking about that little episode while reading these books. ;)

I can understand. I've never been to a con of more than a couple thousand, unless you count the time I went to the American Astronomical Society's meeting. (Academics do know about con crud -- any time someone is reported as sick, we all get a bit nervous and careful about washing hands. Thankfully, most of them have the sense to stay in their hotel rooms.)

At this point I look at conventions of a couple thousand people and think, "Aww, what a cute little con!" ;) And I haven't even been to Comic-Con....

The allusions to it in Feed sure made me snicker, though.

Having been to many academic conferences, we're not always _that_ careful. Academic con crud has gotten me more than once.

Eeeeexactly.

I got a damn good laugh out of that reference in Feed, believe me....