I Has The Plague!

I've been sick as a dog for the past five days, thanks to a nasty viral infection that has taken up residence in my ears, my sinuses and my lungs. I was out of work Monday and Tuesday, went to the doctor, got medicine that screws me up just about as bad as the virus, dragged my ailing carcass out of the house for a miserable day of work on Wednesday, and am feeling just the slightest bit better today.

On a slightly ironic note, while I was home, I watched a movie that dealt with a deadly virus that decimated Scotland in the near future. It was called "Doomsday" and was a mix between The Road Warrior, Escape from New York, Resident Evil and other such "dark future" kind of movies. They stuck them all in a blender and the resulting goo was actually not bad.

There have been a lot of end of the world (or at least, of humanity) type stories floating around lately. I'm also reading a series by Terry Brooks that deals with a near future where our race is on the verge of extinction. It's got pretty much every type of disaster possible bringing humanity low. Ecological collapse, biological warfare run amok, nuclear terror and for the final blow, an invasion by demons and a secret enclave of ancient elves that may hold the key to humanity's last hope for survival. I have to give snaps to Brooks ability as a writer on this one. He manages to not only make the whole thing believable, but highly engrossing. The characters are vivid and the setting is fascinating in its stark and dismal portrait of a world lost to chaos.

Seeing all these stories makes me realize that my troubles are fleeting and insignificant compared to how bad things could be. We really have it pretty good, even with the economy being what it is right now. Our lives are filled with small annoyances, but for the most part, we get to be pretty comfortable and safe. We don't have to worry about fighting for survival every second of every day. We don't have to be hard, tough, bad-ass survivors. We just have to come to work when we are sick as a dog, knowing that in 8 hours, it will be over and we can go home, eat a nice supper and collapse in front of the tv for the rest of the evening. At least, that's my plan. The Apocolypse can bloody well wait.