Monday 24 January 2000

Pic of the day: When I had newly aquired the game Daggerfall, I used to practice my stealth skill by butt-hunting on the streets. I would duck down behind some none-playing character (like the ones shown above) and try to follow them smoothly, seeing how close I could get without actually bumping into them. I was confused that my character's stealth skill did not go up, even after hours of practice. Only later did I find out that stealth only rises if there are enemies present. Oh well. I think you would not find that to be a problem if you decided to try the same in real life.

Last night I played Civ2 and went to bed. I have a special savegame file, from the Mars scenario, that is particularly boring (because I have already won, just keeping the other civs alive as trading partners while I terraform the planet). When I can no longer stay awake, I save the game and crawl to bed. So also this time.

Woke up after a couple hours from shivering cold. I was in bed, it was not particularly cold, and I did not have a fever. Yet I was freeezing and had to get up and get lots of clothes on. In my dream I had been walking in snow of grated cheese. Cheese was melting on the ground, in my hair, everywhere. The lower in the terrain I came, even only a few meter down, the more melted the cheese was. Now my stomach was acting up again. I guess it may not have liked me lying down. After a while I got to bed again, still with all those clothes on, and slept poorly till late in the morning, when I went to work. Work was not so bad, surprisingly, I did not even come close to falling asleep there!

I am still careful about what I feed my stomach, but this afternoon gave it a real meal. No fat, except for a little chocolate and cookies, but some white flour softbread and a good helping of yoghurt. I have eaten little more than water and a few teaspoons of yoghurt now and then since Friday morning. I have to control myself to keep from eating more. And more and more.

No big surprise perhaps that I have been thinking today about how the great health hazards of our time are mostly lifestyle related. Obesity is a large and growing problem in the western world (and then some). Tobacco is still a growing business in the third world and the newly liberated economies. Pleasure drugs, foremost among them alcohol, destroy lives directly and indirectly. Not least by making people careless in the face of AIDS, a lethal STD. The slow plague is spreading wildly in Africa and Asia, but while it spreads slowly in the west, it still spreads.

Sometimes bad things just happen. But often it is our own unhealthy interests. Or those of someone else. Smoking in the presence of small children. Driving while drunk or high. Gambling for borrowed money. Sometimes you don't just damage yourself, but others who are innocent. I try to avoid that, at least. But it is hard to see yourself.

What I do know however is that I am ca 10% overweight. Not enough to pose a serious health risk in itself, but it helps contribute to the chance of various risks, like heart disease and diabetes. So ironically it may be that the stomach pain of this weekend could be one of the better things to happen to me, health-wise, for a while. If it is nothing serious, then the net effect is that I eat less, especially fat, and that may be just what the doctor ordered!

(Actually the doctor recommended a regular sex life and small quantities of alcohol. Oh well. You can't hit the nail every time.)

Rather than running around in the forest, I spend my evenings in front of the computer. I guess I still get some fresh air because I don't have a car, so I move around quite a bit on my own legs. But not enough to keep the fat away, obviously. Slouching in front of a computer may not be the way to do that. On the bright side, I like it here. There are all kinds of interesting stuff. E-mail, for instance.

Sadly, today my old e-mail account (online.no) is down, or perhaps it is just me. I have not been able to get any mail from it at all today. I hope this will be fixed, even if that means I will be glued here to reply to it. (Actually most of my mail is from mailing lists, so requires no replies. I only get a few personal e-mails, but I do appreciate them. And my netcom.no address is still up and running. :)

Oh my. I just fell asleep in front of my computer again. Right here. If it puts even me to sleep, it must be well and truly long enough!