Life imitates "Pandemic"

Unless you're living in a vacuum, you've probably heard about the recent swine flu outbreak. I was playing the board game Pandemic when I was visiting Pasadena, and I can't help thinking about the various abstractions in that game as I read some of the current CNN articles. There is also an xkcd comic strip about it, and I think somehow that making light of such things is necessary as a mechanism for some people (like me) to cope with serious things like this. I am traveling to Salt Lake City in about 3 weeks, so we'll see where things stand then.

Sometimes I wish the world were less "interesting". At least there's escapism.