As the saying goes, I've become sick and tired of being sick and tired. This time it's bronchitis and it's dragged on for a week now. It's worth thinking about why I should be getting sick twice in such a short time. I don't have a good answer right now. In the meantime, however, I'm staying home from work today. My co-workers don't need another day of my coughing in the office.

This isn't a good time to be missing work. I have a couple of tasks that are a bit behind schedule. These tasks are also holding up someone else's work. I can take the heat for missing my own deadlines, but don't like it when I make someone else's work more difficult.

I had bronchitis another time, several years ago, and had to miss work for several days. We were under severe pressure to release a product. My manager wanted to send a courier to my house so that I could finish a couple of documents. We get sick in the context of who we are. My manager might not have been so anxious had my work been up to date at the time that I got sick. It had been a challenging project and I often felt as though I wasn't up to the task. We did complete the project, though, and it was successful.

The BBC reports that web log readership is increasingly popular in the United States.

From the description of a software product that helps you develop online help:

"Product documentations are manage in some different languages by QuickHelp eBooks !!"

Originally written in German, the phrase made some detours on its way to English. It reminds me of the "All your base belong to us" phenomenon from 2001.

If you're looking for an interesting way to waste time, the Lost in Translation site shows you what happens to a phrase when it goes through several automated translation cycles.