Amy Winehouse Skin Disease Update

So, Amy Winehouse, the healthiest woman in the UK, recently got diagnosed with the skin disease "Impetigo", which explains those bumps on her face she's desperately trying to cover up with layer upon layer of make-up. I think the ridiculous eye-shadow she wears is also supposed to draw attention from the sores on her face. But, what exactly is impetigo? Let's drop some knowledge on you:

Impetigo starts as a red sore that quickly ruptures, oozes for a few days and then forms a yellowish-brown crust that looks like honey or brown sugar. The disease is highly contagious, and scratching or touching the sores is likely to spread the infection to other parts of the body as well as to other people.

Does anyone need any other reason to put this woman in a padded cell? She's toxic. Don't let her touch you if you see her coming down the street. Unless you're wearing a haz-mat bio suit. That's the only safe way to interact with Amy Winehouse now. Oh, and apparently, impetigo makes you stand like this as well.

Getting Sick Sucks

I've been under the weather for the past couple of days. It all started Tuesday evening, when I felt a pin-prick of pain in the back of my throat. Wednesday morning, it was a full blown sore throat. Even though, I washed up and headed to work. Thought I'd pop a couple of DayQuil's and man-up. Around noon, the mucus was free-flowing from my nose. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I was excused from work, and headed home. There, I was laid up pretty much most of the day. Which is not the best position when you have a nose that is constantly running. Eventually, I dragged my ass to the couch and played some "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" on the X Box 360. Sitting up actually made my nose feel better. Videogames do have curative powers.

That night I spent tossing and turning. I could not get rest, even with the NyQuil and the Tylenol Severe Cold medicine my wife ran out to get at around midnight for me (she's a saint). Somehow, I drifted off to sleep, waking up a couple of times during the night to hock some mighty disgusting luggies that almost made me vomit. Every time I swallowed, I swallowed phlegm.

Thursday morning came around, and while the mucus had pretty much solidified in my nose, now I felt like there was a mass of hard bronchial phlegm blocking my esophagus. I phoned work, and while I was giving the receptionist the bad news, I couldn't help but notice that I sounded akin to an 80 year old woman on 2 packs of unfiltered Malboro reds a day. Or . . . Tara Reid. That kind of raspy sounding voice. So, I found some generic Tussin in the cupboard and took that, along with some more DayQuil, and tried to get some more bed-rest.

I started to feel better later that day. I didn't have that pressure in the middle of my chest and my sinuses did not feel like they were close to the point of exploding. So, today, Friday, I make it to work. While the mucus is not free-flowing like a couple of days ago, it does make it hard to talk on the phone. I'm utterly congested, and my voice keeps cracking like a 14 year old going through puberty. That, and I keep coughing up hard, green, guacamole-looking chunks of phlegm. So, I've been trying to handle mainly e-mails, because that way I don't have to hit the mute button every couple of seconds so that the client doesn't hear me trying to handle my coughing and snorting to clear my nasal passages.

Hopefully, I will start feeling better sometime during the weekend. Next week promises to be fairly interesting. A change of schedule and a new opportunity might be coming my way. I don't want to talk about it too much. I tend to jinx myself. I'll keep you posted.

BAFW - Truant Officer Edition

You know who you are. You cocksucker. You're not at work and we're all paying for it. And on a Tuesday when you know we're understaffed already. What the hell kind of a "team-player" are you? And even though you take 1 call per hour because of your fondness of remoting into a customer's computer, that doesn't mean that our workload is light. We're fucking dying over here. And tomorrow, you'll stroll in at noon (if you do decide to show up) and smile at us and joke around like the last couple of days never happened.

You know what . . . Fuck you. And your PC doctoring ways. Don't even ask me to plug your site on my blog mofo. God I'm so pissed off. Here's a New Year's resolution for you. Show up to work more often.

Unless your intestines are leaking again. In that case, get well soon. But that's the only reason why I would show any degree of sympathy towards you. We're stuck here breathing the poisonous mold. So should you. Jack-hole.

Happy Holidays - Now with Bonus Eye-Swelling

When I woke up this morning, I didn't feel bad. Kinda great actually. Well, for a Monday, I'm guessing that not wanting to kill the world (maybe just South America) qualifies as great for me. I get some breakfast, nothing out of the ordinary, get washed up and dressed, and head out to work.

One hour into it, I have to take my morning whizz. After doing so, I'm looking at myself in the mirror (who could resist really . . . not even me) while I'm washing my hands, and I notice something not quite right. The area just below my lower eyelid looks a bit on the puffy side. Like some sort of allergic reaction. It looks like bee-stings actually.

So, I head back to the office. You know, the one that has the rampant mold problem that is being handled by the one air purifier and I show both my supervisor and manager (who, by the looks of it, are having a pretty terrible time themselves . . . minus the eye swelling). They ask me to walk over to HR so I can be their poster boy for what's wrong with our office. I march my steadily swelling ass there and, of course, they're all in a product meeting.

I tell my supervisor that I'm going to take a quick ride to Long's Drugs to get some Benadryl'ish medicine. Maybe the anti-histamines can bring the swelling down. I get some, take it, and now that I'm sitting here . . . typing this, my head feels all swimmy. But my eyes still feel swollen. I haven't check them in a bit, because I haven't had to take a leak yet.

I don't know why they haven't fixed the problem yet. They had a whole weekend to go in there and fix this shit up. I had to miss work on Friday and I used up my last sick day of the year then. If I have to go home today, because of this eye-swelling condition, I'm most likely going to be out a day's pay. I don't want that. And while I might get the day off paid, that's like wishing I won the lottery when I don't actually play it. We're talking longshot here. These are the people that give out promotions and then don't give raises for said promotions. Take that into account.