Thursday 14 December 2000

Pic of the day: It's rather chilly in here now.

Nonsense songs

As I was finalizing my entry about the connected society of ubiquitous computing in the year 2020, I discovered that I was writing hazily. As the great artist said (was that Tegner? It was certainly a Swede), that which is murkily spoken is murkily thought. Until the haze dissolves a bit more, then, I shall have to postpone the thrilling conclusion to the future of wearable computers. :)

I spent part of the evening playing hot computer games. That is, games that make the computer hot. My apartment is getting colder despite the floor heat being on. (Electric heating cables in the floor of most rooms.) I guess I could turn up the heat, but it's more enjoyable to heat with computer games. :)

This is where I should have that indoors bike. Of course, I could probably get the same effect from dancing. Since I'm too lazy to dance, I'd be too lazy to work at the bike too, but it would be interesting the first two evenings.

***

My vacation started today! Woo hoo! Actually, that's because tomorrow I have an appointment with the doctor who is to remove my suspicious dark spot on my back. Not knowing how much he'll cut, I don't know how painful it will be afterwards. So just to be sure, I take a few days off. I had plenty left. And a good thing too. I feel quite tired. And it can't be a good sign when the voices in my head are singing nonsense songs at the end of the work day. Today one of them was singing about jumping up and down and shouting "Ants! Ants! Ants!". Quite a catchy melody, though. Wonder if I've heard it before or if my brain just made it up?

This is certainly not the first time my inner child is singing nonsense songs. They do that rather regularly, when not kept an eye on. One of the favorites through several years is about a stupid poodle dog. I am not sure if any of my coworkers have heard me sing it aloud, but it can't be far from it.

I've noticed with great interest that small children feel free to sing things that they would be ashamed to say. I guess it is a tradition in our culture to sing all manner of foolishness. Listen to some of the more popular songs on radio. Not exactly Einstein. (Well, except "I don't want to grow up". I hear it's in Norwegian translation now, by Skrujern.)

Well, to be honest I don't even know what's popular songs these days. I don't find the time to listen much to radio, what with my computer games and my diary and the forums and the comics and the magazines and the occasional book. And on top of it all I sometimes have to think at work, otherwise I could listen to the radio there. But when I turn on a music channel, it is usually some unbearable noise, or something grating or boring or jarring. So I leave the sifting through music mostly to the younger generation. I look forward to meeting my "little" friends for Christmas and get the highlights on new music. Light knows where they get the time and patience to listen to all the music - it's not like teens have much of those otherwise ...

***

Paid a stack of bills. There's still some money left. And the credit card, of course. "Finally a bill you can throw away". I am cordially invited to wait until January with paying. I don't know if they send this to everybody, or if they just realized that I just might pay it all off and they wouldn't get any interests. The whole system is based on the assumption that you are desperate or stupid or both of the above, and will buy more than you can pay. Usually this is an accurate assessment.

At work today, the old former employees were invited for lunch. The few and proud who actually survived to get their pension, rather than fleeing ship to get a better job while there was still time. Some of the current workers who had been there the longest (and worked together with these people) were also at the lunch. I was not, though I have worked with all of them. I was not very social then, and I am not now. Luckily they had bought in too much food. There were cakes filled with raisins. The cases were on the dry side, but the raisins were delicious. I was certainly not the only one who appreciated the leftovers - squished raisins were scattered far away along the floor. No need for dinner tonight!

You wouldn't believe it, but the national broadcasting here in Norway was all excited about the US presidential election. It's finally decided, sort of. While almost everyone rooted for Gore, of course, our government now states that in Bush we trust. Well, they can safely do that; because unlike Gore, Mr Bush probably doesn't know where Norway is, nor that it is a nation and a member of NATO. His tenure will be a very interesting experience for the whole world, I dare say. But it's not like we didn't see this coming from a mile off.

But the news also held a real surprise, at least to me: They're about to build a salt power plant on the west coast of Norway. It will generate energy from the chemical difference between saltwater and freshwater. (Probably some osmosis stuff.) The thing that shocked me was the scale of it: They plan to supply 8000 homes with power from this plant. I thought it was just a test. But this is serious. If it works, and with all the freshwater and saltwater on this planet, we could have a major supplement of energy.

And since my own energy is pretty much run out ... a good night to y'all!