It's over. God help us Cubs fans.

No, that's not powerful enough...

YAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

(pounding head against desk)

Well, crepe. Nice way to end it, though... Jose (Update: oops! Not him, but Juan ) Uribe went into the stands to catch a foul ball, and then makes a bang-bang play for the third out.

Congrats, White Sox. Dammit.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So there I was, at work on Tuesday, shuffling paper from one stack to another stack. It's 10am.

By 1030am, I was in an ambulance, oxygen mask on my face, a siren screaming in the background, four paramedics talking medicalese over my stretcher-bound body, my heart going about as fast as one of last year's F1 V10s, yet them not being able to get either a pulse or a blood pressure... and the words 'heart attack' being thrown around.

By 11am, I'm in the ER, and everything is almost normal again, but there's a lot of concerned looks from the medical staff anyway.

By 12noon, they're x-raying my chest, and pumping bag after bag of potassium and magnesium into me.

By 3pm, I'm overnighting.

By 12midnight, I've been stuck for blood tests and IVs 10 times (the final total would be 15).

At 6am this morning, they were echocardiogram (ultrasound, basically)'ing my heart.

At 12noon, I was discharged with a prescription for a betablocker and informed that I have a congenital heart defect that's actually quite common (1 out of 100 people have it as well). What does it cause? Pounding heart, beating ~200bpm.

Guess what I DIDN'T have? A heart attack. Guess what my symptoms were? Heart attack. If I had waited, if it WAS a heart attack, I'd be dead. Because I didn't wait, I got out of it alive, and my heart undamaged.

But it could have killed me if I had waited just as sure as a... well, a heart attack. The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, if you overstress it, you can "pull" it. Imagine pulling a hamstring, but it's your heart... think that might kill you?

Instead, I'm alive and able to blog about it.

Here's your lesson for the day: IF YOUR HEART IS DOING SOMETHING ODD, CALL YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY NUMBER IMMEDIATELY.

Don't drive yourself to the hospital. Don't have someone drive you. Let the ambulance do it. Let the EMTs work on you while you're there. Because otherwise, you WILL DIE.

And I don't have enough readers to lose one for something like THAT.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:36 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Oh, hi. Wonderduck here. I've been quiet for the past few days because I've been on vacation. Yes, just taking it easy for the first time in almost 2 years... and just in time, too.

See, the Duck U. Bookstore's manager is going on maternity leave in a couple of weeks, and I'll be in charge whilst she's gone. So I needed this break, and really, REALLY wish it was another week longer.

But all good things come to an end, or so they say. Coming soon, the F1 Update! End-of-the-Year Awards Show!

And you guys, thanks for reading!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One thing they never tell you about in Blogger School: comment spam.

The Pond just got hit by 25 different spambots. I wound up going in, deleting the spamcomments, then banning the IP addresses.

If by some coincidence one of my real readers suddenly discovers themselves banned, please please please let me know! I'll unban your IP immediately... but I have to know about it to do so.

You can find my e-mail address over there on the right-hand column.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So I take this "What kind of cute animal are you?" test. Answer about 30 questions, not knowing what kind of animals are available (except for Pixy Misa being a bear cub), press the button to find out what I am...

...and this pops up:

You Are A: Duck!

Found in many lakes and ponds, ducks are a common site the world over. Known for their famous quack, ducks tend to congregate in flocks or go off on their own in pairs. As a duck, you may seem friendly at times but will not hesitate to bite if someone is bothering you. Your ability to swim and your your short temper are some reasons why you are a duck.

You were almost a: Bear Cub or a
Duckling
You are least like a: Mouse or a ChipmunkCute Animals Quiz

As I say, how come I'm not surprised?
Quack.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hopefully Fernando Alonso (either one of them, if you read that particular post) had fun the past week, because yours truly (as opposed to Jarno Trulli) has had a miserable one.

First, the teeth were pulled Monday afternoon. Thanks to the Momduck for taking care of me while I was doped to the gills, by the way! I know I was goofy (okay, goofier) there for a while.

Tuesday, I come home... but stop by BlueBoxStore on the way and pick up a new monitor for my 'puter. I'd been using an 10-year old CRT from work for the past year and I realized that a) the upper-right quarter of the screen was blurry, and b) everything had a yellowish hue to it. So, new monitor for me, and it's a doozy... a 19" CRT for under $100 (that's 77.42 nurburgrings for my British reades). So I get home, turn on the computer, and discover that my graphics card had just coughed up a lung and died. Visible scan lines on the screen, everything having a "drop shadow" that extended horizontally as far as the screen would go, and most ominously, a quiet buzzing noise from the computer case... all of which is why I haven't posted much this week, except for really brief things from work: it was hard to look at my computer!

Wednesday, I actually went back to work, and boy, was THAT a mistake. I spent the day high as a kite from vicodin... luckily, I didn't have to do anything that required precision, like count money. Or walk and chew gum at the same time.

Thursday, we had inventory at the Duck U. bookstore. The less said about that, the better.

And this weekend? Homecoming for Duck U... and the Return of Alumni. Of course, I worked today (saturday), and will be working Sunday as well. Weekend? What's that?

So, yeah, I suppose it's not as bad as, say, having my home washed away by a hurricane, but it hasn't been a good week. Hopefully, I'll post more as we get closer to Suzuka!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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