I only went to an acupuncturist once. He stuck needles in my arms and wrists when I was having painful repetative stress injury from overvociferous web publishing. And he looked at my tongue. Turns out the color and texture of your tongue can signify your state of health.

So just imagine my shock when I looked in the rear view window on Monday and saw that my tongue was bumpy and green! "Ew! Frog tongue!" Jane cried out from the passenger seat.

That was the same day that I woke up with a itchy feeling in my throat and the beginning leakings of a head full of fluid. It was the start of a cold alright; now full blown into achy dribbling distracted staring at the sunshine outside feeling cold inside but all jammied up in my red secondskin and wondering.

Since then I've been laying low, sleeping more than eight hours a night, drinking Traditional Medicinals (care for a free sample?). Usually in a situation like this I make chicken soup. Instead we visited the Vietnamese noodle place down the street that has been taunting us with its signs since February, only opening this weekend. Heaping bowls of salty meat-broth and rice noodles for two: 12$.

Illness has me moany and kinda useless. I'm not too quick on the uptake; instead of writing, I spent today formatting and reinstalling software on Jane's computer. Ritual purging - cleanse the system, cleanse the body.

I'm hoping to squelch most of this illness in time for travel. Finally after almost two straight weeks of being at home we're leaving Oakland for Los Angeles to attend E3 - a video game trade show where hundreds of prolific digital dream peddlers set up a fantastic spectacle of sales and speculation. I'm moderating a panel on game markets in Asia, Thursday morning May 15 at 9am.