Cold Storage

I think Ciana gets some credit on this one, tho' I can't recall the conversation specifically now. But I think it could interesting and possible useful to track the sort of outbreak of the common cold and flu. Something like a simple web form that you can fill out giving your symptoms, approximate date of infection, high point of the cold/flu and zip code. If enough people participated you could watch the movement of a cold over a map. While I don't think people could get the nitty-gritty of how (and from whom) they contracted said cold--a sick version of social networking--I do think that people could easily say something like "Yes, the worst day of my cold was August 5th and I started coming down with it August 2nd." And you could indicate this blossoming of colds by changes in color. I suppose what you would want to know too is when you see a large mass of color coded colds heading into your locality, at which point should you stay in doors and not go say, licking the can in the soups aisle of your local market. The data would probably get you something like, when you see the cold cloud a' coming you should probably not be enjoying your normal regimen of booty dancing at your neighborhood hyphy club. Similarly, however, one imagines that if you're in the eye of the storm so to speak, and people all around you at the height of their colds, you're probably in the clear infection-wise.

Even if none of this did any good, it would still be interesting to see in the post. To look back at the movement of colds and flus over the last season and see if they have discernible patterns of movement. Which by the bye would be terribly creepy to think about a cold moving like some pre-conscious being just waiting to hover up your poor nostrils. Which brings me to the second point. Way too many hypochondriacs would use this site and totally skew our data and totally freak themselves out and never leave there house. So in that sense it is a horrible idea. But I am not going to cave just cause those sickos can't control their worry-genes. Just saying, it is a cold. Get over it. You will get it. It probably won't kill you...unless it does.