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Time for new Status Update I think...Hopefully one that says you're feeling better!!

Three negative COVID tests - two midweek, one last night.  As it's been a week since the first symptoms appeared, the good news is that it's probably not Omicron.

However - and I've heard this from two different doctors - this year's 'flu shot appears to be largely ineffective against the variant(s) we're seeing in this neck of the woods.  It also doesn't help that the 'flu symptoms are incredibly similar to Omicron's, so knowing which one may actually be the cause of illness isn't definite by any means, even with testing since that's only a snapshot in time of antigens that may not have yet built up in large enough numbers to be detected.  This is why I ran myself through three tests in one week.

In any event, I'm still having the sinus pressure in the head, somewhat tight chest and minor difficulty breathing (no wheezing or potential pneumonia signs, though) along with lack of concentration, lethargy, and sleeping 14-18 hours per day.  Things do seem to be gradually improving, but man are they taking their sweet time about it

Thanks for the update and the info. Glad to hear things are improving.

@Corby per @GoldLeader Try new Nair for swamp-butt. You don't have to shav, just wipe the hair away.

Look at them girls with the Daisy Dukes on!

Nair for short shorts!

I am sorry to hear that; your recollections pretty much match mine.  Having said that, I do remember seeing the outward sprawl start in the '90s: depending on travel, how I was going to / coming back from University, or one of the family businesses (vehicle import / export to / from Ireland) meant that I was in or through there anywhere from two to ten times a year.  Only seeing the changes every so often really made them stand out to me.

Think my last trip through was in about 2007 or so.  Didn't really have time to stop as it was straight from the train to the boat with barely a breath in-between, but may have to plan a trip via Holyhead next time we're in that part of the world as my wife has never been to any part of Wales.

I used to get on the ferry semi-regularly with my mother to help her get as much duty free as possible before the EU stopped it. That was when the ferry stopped off at Dun Laoghaire. We'd walk around for an hour or so before heading back. Only been to Dublin once and that was in 1981 when I went on a school trip. Been meaning to go back for years. Wife's maiden name was O'Grady because of her grandad and she's never been over.

I was furious when they dumped the Dun Laoghaire crossing.  We lived South of Co. Dublin, and having to drive all the way in to get to the ferry added anywhere from another 30 minutes to an hour-plus depending on traffic.

And yes, the duty-free was a huge attraction   Cheap foot traffic passenger tickets were excellent for that.  If I was taking the train to University for some reason, I'd stock up with booze on the boat to avoid paying British Rail drinks trolley prices!

In 1984, I had aluminium shavings from under a circular saw flick up into both my eyes when I was cleaning the machine. It was horrible and I spent hours at the hospital as they tried to clean out my eyes. I got lucky with no lasting damage.

Long story short: 75% vision in left eye, 40% in right eye. No permanent damage, but will take a few days to heal. No contact lenses for a week and plenty of goopy things to drop into my eyes in the meantime - got one mean abrasion on the right eye. Lucky, all things considered, she said.

Ow! Hope you're able to recover soon. Glad to hear it's nothing permanent.

You have to wonder if the increase in immunizations also is related into the increase of allergies to peanuts and weird things like water.

Last time I had a flu shot, I was half dead in my bedroom with a flu like virus. Turns out it's just a side effect of getting the shot and should wear off in a couple of weeks. I'm still iffy on getting another one though.

That's what I got now from my flu shot from last week!  I feel like dog crap or actually the scum on the bottom of dog crap.

That's hilarious, I love the coalescence of avoiding taxes and suggesting extremely dangerous behavior!

Just remembered,  I made a delivery recently to a kid who'd bought a Brat.

@GoldLeader: nice.  Hope he appreciates it and isn't treating it like his ironic '80s purchase.

I hope you get better!  There is other ailments out there, so it might not be COVID, but a second test couldn't hurt.  Best of luck!

Appreciate the thoughts, everyone.  Just rebooked both of us for testing again tomorrow, so we'll see what shakes out.  We're being very careful about this as my wife had COVID last February when we still didn't really know what was going on, so neither of us wants to take any chances.  The most annoying part is that the symptoms are mostly-interchangeable with colds and the 'flu, and not everyone will have the same (or any) symptoms, so it's hard to tell what it is that I'm potentially dealing with.

The loss of smell and taste is what has me most concerned, though - I've been using increasingly-insane amounts of different hot sauces on things to try to get a read on where that one sits, and so far I'm getting a lot of heat with very little to no flavour.  Did manage to successfully mace myself with udon steam last night, though, so at least my eyes are working properly.

On the plus side, at work people who had it said their sense of taste went away but it comes back;  it just may take a while...

The worst for me is Star Soldier on the NES. Every single time I play that game I get the weird little tune from the first level intractably stuck in my head.

How about this one?

No problem. Just start singing the theme to "The Brady Bunch", and that will get it right out.

Well, at least they now know that they will have more than one person claiming downtime comp. That'll motivate them to a point.

ugh, i loathe having to deal with ISPs, whether it's for home networking or when I wore a business-related networking hat.  

I'm pretty well convinced that all of the major players have the same exact support model- CRAPPY.

Hope you get up and online soon.

14.55 and still down.  We're at about 55 hours of outage at this point, and neither my wife nor I can work as a result.

The ISP claims that service will be restored by 16.43, which seems oddly-specific.  We'll see what happens.

I'm out of town for the next three days, so will hopefully have working connectivity at the hotel.  She'll still have to go to Starbucks or similar, but that may not be a realistic proposition depending on whether or not she needs to be here to answer the door for a tech.

@digdugnate: I spent a few years in WAN engineering, so totally get the frustration of knowing where the problem actually is in the chain but still being told that somehow it's your fault.  You have my sympathies on that one for sure.

@CPUWIZ: funny you should mention that.  I dated a goth chick for a bit when I had my first Brat.

Note the 'a bit' part; there was a significant relationship upgrade from her while I owned that same vehicle.  And that's nothing against goth chicks; that particular one just...  Yeah.

I know, right? ?

Was goth then...  Then I went Goth To Boss!

@Cebus Capucinis: my cheque for $1.5B is winging its way towards you as we speak.  You'll know it when it gets there; it's printed on a basketball.

Perfect! Just this morning I created a "think tank" to start lobbying Congress to make basketballs negotiable instruments. You've played right into our hands!

Flojomojo: nope, no caps. It was one of the main reasons why we switched over.

Suggestion for thrifty yet legit use of massive bandwidth: join EA Access on Xbox One. All the fancy sports games you can download.

^Yuck! Any good games though? Like Non Sports titles? haha...

No? Just me then?

Welcome to Vegas.

We used to quote that movie at work...

We finally had nice weather tonight!  ...and 47 for Christmas! (Today) ...Glad the extreme cold is gone!

Looked like this tonight:

Not my house, but up the hill a ways from me   just to show the amount of snow...(some left, but the roads are mostly clear)...

My camera really sux huh?  Maybe here's a better picture:

Maybe he's the one who took backin89's crack pipe and shoved it ?

I was more thinking Hello Kitty Bike, but probably too busy with work, to go through with that.

um wat

@ClassicGMR  I totally read that as mortgage too the first time!  I just thought OK I don't remember that in the movie but it's been a while...And I went on reading other Status Updates...Haaa!

I'm fairly sure he got a mortgage in the 2nd movie; that's one reason he needed to start fighting again.

Rocky didn't have a mortgage!  He rented, then he paid for his home in cash with his title bout winnings.

The only time I ever heard of crapping on pizza was DRAWN TOGETHER.  Funny episode.

That was exactly where I was pulling the reference from   The Comedy Central Animation channel on Pluto has been streaming the series again, and that gag was fresh in my mind as a result.

Good series, but 3 seasons was enough.  The movie was bad.

I got vaccine at the same time my brother-in-law did. I got a sore shoulder for two days, he got that and flu-like symptoms. Mileage does vary.

Yep - mom & I had the Pfizer shot on Monday.  No symptoms at all.  I'm really keeping my fingers crossed #2 is just as smooth but I'm saving up my sick days just in case.

Meanwhile, apparently 15 million doses of the J&J vaccine were spoiled due to "employee error".

Makes you wonder what they had claimed for insurance on that stuff...

They're giving you back a small, small portion of what they took from you in the first place.

And, annoyingly, the US is also one of a few countries that taxes income earned outside of the US above a certain point.  Ugh.

Haha, "thinking" is a bit tough on me, makes life unfun sometimes, 'specially Government stuff, but I never thought about the taxes that way, but that totally seems right to me.

Not saying "Right"/"Wrong", I suppose everyone has a responsibility to "do their part" to keep the country running, whatever their country is, even mebbe up to an interest free loan to the Government, tho again, that's "thinking", and my head hurts already, I just thought the new perspective was funny/interesting/on point.

↑ Agreed.

New Bill & Ted movie in 2020...

Totally bogus.

What brown and sticky?

A stick!

Life is a highway, and I wanna drive it all night long

GoldLeader: as a Jaguar owner, I approve of your comment entirely ;P

Can totally relate. Ours can produce this super pungent/acidic piss that besides making your eyes water, peeled paint right off the walls! :-(

We refer to this as the "poop punch".

Just thought I'd see who else was a fan of The Fast Show.

This week, I'ave been mostly eating taramaslata!

Love that show

Just now heard of it

Well those threads aren't going to start themself. 

Yeah, ain't that swell?  This is an exclusive status update.

I agree!*

*NOTE I am not employed by, affiliated with, or roommates/friends with VCS employees, and why are you suspiciously questioning my desire to put this disclaimer here?

@CPUWIZ: Yep, we've got everything on camera, so am not too concerned.  However, we did have one local set of thieves who were caught on video walking up onto someone's porch, taking packages, then noticing the cameras and debating whether they should put them back or not.  Finally, one of them (looking straight into the camera) says, "nah, these cameras are fake," and they all leave, taking the packages with them.

The arrest was made within a couple of hours of the homeowner getting the video to the police.

BTW: on the mailbox, I stuck a Z-Wave motion sensor in there and just have it send our phones a text message when the lid is opened.  Works great, and our cellco's email-to-SMS gateway works perfectly for this application.  I had thought about doing a camera as well, but didn't want to lose the space in the mailbox.

LOL, does anyone still use fake cameras?  Shit, I was thinking of a ESP32-CAM in my mailbox, but the Blink ones are really small and wireless.  Batteries last forever.

I love YouTube videos where they set up fake boxes to nail porch pirates...Stuff that sprays glitter /confetti/stink bombs then uses cameras to send back their reaction,  right before the sounds of a Police scanner, followed by an ominous countdown...I only wish it also busted them.