For those of you who weren't at SXSW this past week, you may not be aware of the hottest trend to come out of this once-a-year drunkfest: SouthByScurvy. Yes, 5 (or 9, depending how rockstar you are) days of partying left some most of us bringing home more than our schwag bags on the plane; we also came down with the most vile, most putrid, and apparently most contagious virus to hit the Geek world since MyDoom. Endless coughing (I pulled a muscle last night in my chest; thought I had first punctured a lung), sneezing, runny noses, fever, headaches, sore throats and more, you'd think we were all a walking Ny-Quil ad. In fact, we kind of are, except NOTHING seems to be curing this affliction, and some (read: me) are starting to (facetiously) wonder if this is the Beginning of the End. Like the alien species in an 80's sci-fi flick, it's gaining strength (and even has its own Twitter account!) and is now tackling poor, undeserving souls that didn't spend the last week or so putting nothing but Mexican food and alcohol into their sleepless bodies...you'd think it'd spare the innocent. But NO. As for me, I consider myself lucky - I managed to (thus far) avoid the fever and body aches, though my doctor today said I could expect to harbor this pornstar voice and pesky cough for another TWO WEEKS. Oh, joy.
Will this keep me from SXSW '09? You must be kidding? Who'd let a little thing like the plague keep me from having this much fun?
Rumor is it's all this guy's fault.
http://flickr.com/photos/aubs/2330168004/
Posted by: Vincent | March 19, 2008 at 08:16 PM
Makes me glad I was halfway around the world. No nasty infectious disease in Australia!
Posted by: drbrain | March 20, 2008 at 01:43 AM
Thanks for linking to our Get Well card!
Posted by: Jeremy Gillick | March 20, 2008 at 01:54 PM
Hi Aubrey,
I haven't met you, but I had heard your name a lot while at SXSW this year. I just wanted to thank you for blogging about SXSW Scurvy. It originally started as a Get Well card for everyone who got the flu at SXSW and Jeremy had the idea of adding a sign-up if you got it. And Jeremy's brother, Josh, did a kick a$$ job on the design. We're hoping to be able to track the disease and see what remedies make this SXSW Scurvy go away. It's horrible. I got it when I was in Austin and really didn't feel well the last couple of days. I feel bad for anyone who got this bad bug. Again, thank you for the blog post.
Have a good day!
Stephanie
Posted by: strimble | March 20, 2008 at 02:16 PM