Wednesday 20 October 1999

Comic

Pic of the day: While on IRC, I accidentally was pointed to Microsoft Chat, which (at least on my machine) defaulted to comic book mode. Here starring Corvin, Al and Frippy.

I loved this program. It made me happy. Of course, it is likely to do unspeakable things to my phone bill, since we don't have free access here in Norway but have to pay more than $1 per hour. (Reminds me that I should look into that cheap NetCom competitor.) On the bright side, I am given to short (but repeating) fads, so this too will pass. In a week or two I may have largely forgotten it.

...

So today at work I got a call from some engineer who wanted to replace all our faulty network switches. Actually one one of them was faulty, but they wanted to replace them all anyway. This meant a few hours extra time at workplace for me. I'm not crying in my chocomilk. I am a bit in the red on my time account, so a lazy afternoon and evening keeping an eye on the hardware guy is pretty much ideal.

To further heighten my mood, the shop in the cellar under our workplace had svele today, fresh and soft. (For the uninitiated, svele is a very small, thick, airy pancake. When made right, such as these, the surface texture is quite similar to soft skin, and you want to kiss them as much as eat them. Mmm.)

Apart from that, the evening was fairly tame. I've filled in forms for Gallup. Yes, more forms, to further distort their statistical sample of the Norwegian consumer. From several pages of foodstuffs, the only who made it to "5 days or more a week" were yoghurt and chocolate...

...

In the used literature shop, I was offered the hardcover Norwegian translation of World's Best Science Fiction 1970. It was reasonably funny. People, I regard you all as friends since you read this without puking and sending me the puke in the mail. So let me give you one friendly bit of advice: Don't EVER write fiction about the Near Future. Not even if you're a famous writer. Trust me, or buy a 30 year old sci-fi collection.

Speaking of which, I see that now even Bill Gates thinks people in the Near Future will access the World Wide Web through small graphic mobile phones. And the Nokia boss (if memory serves) thought that really soon now more people will access the Net through mobile phones than PCs. This is what happens when you select your nearest subordinates based on their ability to smile and say "yes".

Speaking of middle-aged well-to-do males with a keen sense of realism, the guy from the employers' organization here in Norway comes to mind. After much deliberation, he has concluded that paying nurses more will lead them to work less, since they can do that and get away with the same money. As a better person than me would have said: "Tee hee hee." At least by this logic we can expect not to hear any more stupidity from him in a months time, when he next needs to spend a day at the office.

(Despite the above, I just won my first election in the game 3rd Millenium on what the newspaper described as my centrist policies. Yay me!)

...

OK, time to make cartoon chat, cough a while and go to bed. May you all have peace and true love!


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