Thursday 5 October 2000

Pic of the day: If this picture looks familiar, it is because these things happen again and again. Whenever there is serious rain, the road washes away. And then after the rain, someone fixes it. And then after a while, it rains again ...

Things happen

Much as I like to chronicle my own inner thoughts and stuff, I think I should mention some of what's on the news today. It puts things into perspective a bit, I guess.

In international news: In Belgrade, Serbia, 300 000 citizens have assembled in the streets to overthrow the old government. They are burning the TV station (always a good idea, if you ask me, but preferably they should let the workers out first) and have also stormed the parliament building. Police and/or military are making token resistance, probably trying to decide which side to support.

Before the western world cheers too loudly, it should be noticed that the opposing presidential candidate, who won the election, has publicly accused comrade Slobodan of being a spy for NATO.

In the USA, the presidential election is still a way off, but the first public debate between the two realistic candidates has been broadcasted. The world is watching. The world thinks Gore is a nerd and Bush is a jock. This may not really be all that important - even someone such as Bush still should have the intellect to choose good advisors. And he may even listen to them. One shivers at the thought of what the Clinton government would have been if the man had not had the good grace to rely heavily on people more competent than himself.

***

In national news here in Norway: The state budget (which in our case also happens to be a national budget, since we have only one state, much to my dislike). To sum up the budget: Brandy, meat and car fuel will become cheaper. Electricity, public transport and medical aid will become more expensive. Sales tax will be extended to services. A new tax on employment, 1.5% of gross pay, regardless of whether or not the company turns a profit. The already bloated public sector will of course be excluded.

Åge Korsvold, leader of the major insurance company Storebrand, was forced to leave his job at once after the press had revealed his dubious and sometimes illegal stock option deals. Ironically, the thing that finally felled him was the fact that he had helped give a leading job in the company to a woman who was carrying his child - which no one else knew at the time. Funny how some things are the same across continents as well as millenia. As the godless heathens say, "love hurts".

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Against such a dramatic backdrop, it can't really be all that important that I bought some Gucci Rush (for Men) perfume. OK, it costs more than SW's perfume. But it smells incredible ... I've literally not smelled anything like it. Mostly it smells of freshly cut wood. But very fragrant wood. Anyway, it's not like it's going to start a riot. Well, at least nothing I can't handle, I think. Nor is it likely that I shall have to leave my job in disgrace because of it. (Not that I would mind, if I got a golden parachute of $3,000,000 too...)

Speaking of leaving my job: Today was the day of changing telephone central at work. The warning bells should have sounded when the two guys called to say that they would be half an hour delayed - and then were more like one hour delayed. And yes, they were delayed again here. First one thing went wrong that they couldn't figure out, then another. Poof goes the vain hope that they would actually be finished by 22 (10PM) as estimated. I was home a quarter to midnight, and by then they had but back up the old central, as they did not get the new one to work.

***

Oh, and my imagination has been running again. On my way to the bus this morning I started to lazily speculate on a more down to earth form of magic fantasy. It was caused by recently reading Margit Sandemo's new magic romance fantasy novel, crossbred with a casual comment by Al Schroeder (of Nova Notes) that fantastic literature for adults tends to be set on other worlds, while fantastic literature for children seems to make our own world fantastic. If that is the case, Sandemo would be classified as writing books for children. Most Americans and then some would say "Perish the thought!" because her romance novels can be pretty graphic sometimes.

So I thought lazily about what would a fantasy novel of mine look like if it was set in a world vaguely like ours. I decided that the main character (or point of view character) would be a male, because I don't really know much about women. I then decided that there must be a magical woman. And suddenly the ideas just started to flow. As long as I kept thinking on it, new ideas just kept trickling into my mind. Cool!

Of course, I'm likely to be ashamed of this when the fad is over. I mean, does this blurb sound like me: It was his first day at the college. But when the girl in front of him turned around and their eyes met, his life would never be the same again... (Actually there's a good reason for that, but you're not likely to ever know. Hopefully I will feel better in the morning.)