Tangentially related, I'm just getting over bronchitis, and among the various prescriptions my doctor gave me, the best was Histussin HC, which as best I understand it is like a heavy-duty version of Robitussin, but with Vicodin.

Since the venue allows smoking, I'll probably take some before we go, so I'll be on the Tussin while he sings The Tussin. Fantastic.

Note: This second part is about bathrooms and toilets. It's not graphic, but if you're squeamish, you might want to give it a pass.

So, at work, they've repalced the normal toilets with the auto-flush kind you normally see at airports and rest stops. Now, I've long been a fan of that sort of automation, and am happy to see it being used in the company bathrooms, as after thirty-odd years of using the toilet, some of my coworkers still haven't picked up the concept that you need to flush when you're done.

I'd never really thought of the long-term effects of the auto-flush, and now that I have, I'm not so sure it's a good idea. My problem is that the auto-flush isn't augmenting the normal flushing system; it's that it replacing it. I was a little horrified the other day to discover that once I've used the facilities, I've started simply walking away, confident in the fact that it's going to flush for me. That's a bad precedent in a world where most toilets don't auto-flush.

It's also throwing me off because auto-flush toilets are usually coupled with automatic sinks and driers. In our case, we just have regular sinks, so I usually stand there with my hand under the sink for a good two seconds before I realize it's not going to turn itself on.

I like the idea of automation, and when I was younger, I actually looked forward to aiports because they had all that cool automation like the automatic bathroom or the moving walkways. It's just that it occurs to me that maybe it's not such a good idea to train people that you don't need to worry about flushing.