Wanna know something else that freaked me out a little today?
I'm reading Stephen King's 'The Stand' at the moment on my everlasting journeys to work and on page 165, there is mention of...SWINE FLU. "Government health officials emphasize that this is Russian-A flu, not the more dangerous Swine flu".

It's a given that I'm reading it as a giggle as I loved the miniseries and people give you funny looks if you wear your scrubs home on the tube and sneeze a couple of times - anything to get a seat, but the thing that gets me is that this book was written in 1978, with any additions made in 1990 (It's the complete and uncut version).
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 22:20, 7 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

hello becky,
swine flu and bird flu's have been around for a long time.
in fact there's a number of different strains of both.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 23:04, Reply)

Just to add some more info to this,
The 1918 spanish flu (the one famous for killing more people than the war which it followed) was an avian flu, and the first recorded cases of flu in swine (or at least of a strain being shared between swine and humans, though in this case we probably gave it to them) were during this outbreak.
The current H1N1 swine flu is a descendant of the 1918 flu (in as much as this applies to virii, since the genetics can get rather strange at times), though considerably less deadly (by a factor of about 50). The major panic is that it *could* mutate to become more deadly, and then we're buggered (this is what happened in 1918)
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Mon 20 Jul 2009, 23:25, Reply)

It is a very long book
Admittedly this thread could easily have survived without me saying that. However, it's such a long book I really do feel it is worth pointing out just how long it is, just in case there is somebody on here that doesn't know that it's long. Very long. Massive even. It's over 1,100 pages for goodness sake.

(The original version was 800+ pages, then Mr King decided that wasn't quite long enough and expanded/re-edited it a bit. It's the literary equivalent of the director's cut of "The Lord of the Rings".)

I salute you Becky just for making the effort to carry it to work and back every day. Enjoy.
( GarbageFan didn't know what to have as a board sig on, Mon 20 Jul 2009, 23:37, Reply)

Its a very long book
and especially when you get to the end and find out the whole thing was a computer simulation running on another planet where the people decided to research the effect of viruses on simulated worlds.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Tue 21 Jul 2009, 0:10, Reply)

You've just answered a question I never bothered to ask.
I've never watched the miniseries long enough to see the end and I never got around to reading the book. Consequently, I never knew how the story ended. Thank you for telling us all.
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Tue 21 Jul 2009, 5:31, Reply)

I read it
the full version that is, in one sitting.

My head felt strange afterwards.

Best bit of "Microserfs" - "Las Vegas is full of the sort of people who would have come to Las Vegas in 'The Stand'".
( I_Was_Mordred, Tue 21 Jul 2009, 1:05, Reply)

I remember watching the TV series
(Or was it a film series?) as a child.

Absolutely loved it. Would be tempted to read the book but reading has been put on the backburner as of late with sleeping earlier at night preferred, as I am so SO busy :P
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Tue 21 Jul 2009, 8:55, Reply)