Monday 21 February 2000

Pic of the day: Throw away all the papers - the picture! This is the 1986 collection of Byte Magazine (more or less). Not being read for more than a dozen years, I doubt they - or I - will notice the difference. Except that they no longer take up space in the food cupboard where I try to stash my spaghetti.

After yesterday's entry, I went out in the lunch break today to buy the CD "Kast alle papirene" by deLillos. I don't normally buy their CD's, this is the second I buy. There are two problems as I see it: They usually only have one good song in each album. And it is not all that good, either. One negative factor is the voice of their lead singer. One thing is that the guy has a voice that is too high for a man and too deep for a woman. Things like that happen. The problem is that it does not sound natural. It has that slightly mocking quality that you hear in children going "Nyah! Nyah!". I'm not able to quantify it, but it grates like nails on a blackboard. So the text and melody had better be good. Sometimes they are.

"Min beibi dro avsted" (my baby drove away), "Neste sommer" (next summer), and now "Kast alle papirene" (throw away all the papers). All of these hits by deLillos share two common qualities: Easy melodies, and true irony. Unlike sarcasm, true irony is ambigious. These songs are. You can appreciate them straight out of the box, taken at face value. Or you can hear them as mockery of the more simplistic mind. (The tone of voice certainly helps.) I must admit that I am uncertain myself where their sympathies lie. Then again, I am a misandrogynist. Misanthropologist. Whatever.

Money. I was going to write about money, and rightly so. Do you know what I had to pay for the CD on Hysj-hysj? Kr 189,50! That's $23 to you world citizens. Aargh! In an age of price stability, these relics from the red 70es continue to raise their prices as if we were still living in an age of cosmic inflation. This is how they attempt to improve their profit margins in the face of the MP3 revolution? Mind my words, this is going to backfire like the device of a mad scientist in the comic books. Because in the long run, the law is nothing more than codified conscience. More exactly, the law is that part of the conscience that we are willing to obey only if others do the same. And most people are not going to shell out twentyfive bucks for a song, I'm afraid.

I guess I could get CDs a bit cheaper by shopping on the Internet. Generally. But not when I buy like five CDs a year, and three of them while shopping with my friendesses. Perhaps if I bought more often, I would not notice the small prise hikes... I know when I got my first CD player, I would buy quite a few records. Because I sure haven't stolen them, and there must be a couple hundred of them lying around, or so it seems. Uh, that would be thousands of monies, wouldn't it? And now most of it is just lying there?

That's the way of the paper too, you know. I must have shelled out thousands of kroner - and even dollar - for all that stuff, and now it is just fit for throwing away. And computer games I never play anymore. Sic transit gloria mundi - thus passeth the glory of the world.

I wrote something here about the stock market. Actually I wrote a lot. I deleted it. It deserves an entry of its own. Let me just note that the stockmarket seems to have paused and perhaps is slightly sliding down. Wish it were so. Yes, I can see how people who already have invested heavily in shares, would want it to just keep rising. But it is a hopeless level to enter the stockmarket, for those who are not there already. At the current prices, the dividends will simply not be worth it, and you cannot earn money from it except by finding a greater fool to sell to. And if that is all you want, there is always multi level marketing, pyramid schemes and selling "Persian" rugs to nearsighted old ladies.

For honest people, there are better ways to rid oneself of one's money. Like buying overpriced CDs and paper-based magazines you're gonna throw away later.