Monday 2 November 1998

Late last evening my upper jaw (or something thereabout) started hurting, on the left side. It definitely feels like some kind of inflammation, perhaps in the roots of a tooth. I hate it when I have infections this close to my brain (I live by my brain, in almost any sense of the word).
At work, we had trouble with some new time registration software that was bought to be year 2000 compatible. It would not recognize the serial port. Turns out that the numbering of the ports was changed from the previous version of the program, with no notice to us. They'll not get any payment for tech support on this one, that's for sure. In fact, there was grumbling about billing them for debugging their programs. As a programmer I am hardly surprised that such a small detail would topple things, though.
Did you know that around the age of 40, humans have a new "mass extinction" of brain cells, second only to the one during puberty? The reason why not more people take heavy damage from this, is that (like the previous one) it mainly eliminates connections that were unused. Also the fear center of the brain is reduced somewhat, or so I've read. Actually, some border-psychotic patients get better after this. But I am slightly worried that my creativity may be suffering from the onset of brain cell extinction. More probable however it's a lack of sleep, and too much entertainment.
Of course, this is only important if I'm not killed by rampant flesh-eating bacteria. (These are growing steadily more common in Norway, more so than in the rest of the world. They can kill you in a matter of hours.)