Happy Orange Gnome

Every year, for about the last five years, people in the media have been predicting that, come flu season, there’s going to be a bird flu pandemic and it’s going to infect 99% of the world’s population and 50 billion lives will be lost.

And every year, more people die from getting hit in the head with a coconut than from the bird flu.

My ultimate summation? THE BIRD FLU PANDEMIC ISN’T COMING!

But, Laurel, the last flu pandemic was the Spanish Flu in 1918. Aren’t we long overdue for another one?

Hey, I haven’t seen any bubonic plague pandemics around here in a while, either. Isn’t it about time for another one?

Pandemics don’t run on a schedule. Life is far too dynamic for that. The next pandemic could be a 1000 years from now. It’s really hard to tell how and when a virus is going to mutate.

Also, wasn’t there some sort of really big war going on, when the Spanish Flu happened, that might have had a lot of countries’ governments a little too busy to deal with the flu?

I heard that in humans the bird flu has a 70% mortality rate. Doesn’t that worry you!?

First of all, yes, about 70% of the known cases of people with bird flu have died, but I suspect that the vast majority of actual cases is unknown and most of the people that have died from bird flu are from developing nations, where just about any disease is likely to kill you.

Also, in most of these cases, the disease was discovered postmortem. Most people that were infected with the bird flu, probably survived and just thought it was the regular flu (the symptoms are practically the same), so they weren’t put in the statistics.

So what is the actual mortality rate? I don’t know, but it ain’t no 70%. I suspect that it’s actually pretty close to that of the regular flu.

It’s the morbidity rate that you have to be worried about and right now, it’s at about 0.000000001%.

If there isn’t really anything to be worried about, at the moment, what is all this fuss about?

1. It makes good television.
2. People stocking up on Tamiflu and shotgun shells boosts the economy.
3. Deep down, everyone wishes that everyone else was dead. We want the pandemic to happen.

And, yes, I am a doctor, so I do know about these things.

Sooooooo…. For the last fricken two months, just about every male that I know has been ranting about fucking Halo 3 and how it’s going to be “OMG, THE BEST MOTHER-FUCKING GAME OF ALL TIME!”, because it’s going to have “FUCKING LASERS AND FUCKING SPACESHIPS AND THESE FUCKING ALIENS THAT SHOOT FUCKING SHIT OUT OF THEIR MOTHER-FUCKING FOREHEADS!”

I really don’t understand the kind of fervour that dudes exhibit over this kind of thing, or the fact that they seem to think that I should feel the same way.

I’ve seen fucking aliens shoot fucking shit out of their mother-fucking foreheads before. It’s really nothing new.

Maybe, it’s because I’m a girl and am, therefore, genetically predisposed to being excited that there’s going to be a MOTHER-FUCKING HARVEST MOON ONLINE! AND MY FUCKING PUMPKIN PATCH IS GOING TO PWN ALL!

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Hola, las gordas! Here’s an update on my crusade to let the world know that big is beautiful, fat is fabulous and that you don’t need to be a skinny bitch to be valued by society.

This past weekend, I was at the mall looking for some new clothes (nothing in my size *grumble*), when a bunch of teenage boys started making mooing noises at me. I was too much woman for them and they couldn’t handle my engorgeousness, so I just kept on walking and ignored them. Ignorant people like that just aren’t worth my time.

And you know, I don’t really mind that much being compared to a cow. At least a fat cow provides a valuable service (milk), whereas a skinny twig just lays around being useless.

I kind of feel bad for those boys, though. Society has cultivated in them an unhealthy archetype for what the perfect woman should look like and someone should tell these boys that that kind of body is unachievable without starving one’s self.

Starvation isn’t beautiful. If it were, then Buddha must have been pretty fucking hot during his ascetic phase.

What was beautiful about Buddha though, was his self confidence. My obesistas, if you only have a little more self confidence, then I’m sure lots of good guys will become infatuated with you. The good ones can always see the greatness inside of you. You shouldn’t bother with the bad ones.

Well, here’s to another week of good meals, good fun and good self worth. Au revoir!

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