Payday 12 January 2001

Pic of the day: The heroes are tired. (And this is not your father's Superboy.)

Depleted urbanium

So, I struggled to write. Not exactly to write. I struggled to write something that was me. And then some. Something worth reading. It didn't come easy. I wrote a goodbye to Bill Clinton, first President of the World. Perhaps I'll use that later. Then I wrote about Norwegian scandals. But it didn't sizzle - Norwegian scandals are always about money, usually tax money, not about sex like in other civilized countries. There's much to be said about Norwegian scandals ... but not today. Not on a payday. And not until it's matured in my brain. (Besides, I've just slammed my homeland once. Some variation is in order.)

On the bus home, I read an article about the new health scare, depleted uranium. I've already thought about that. But I liked the sound of it. Depleted. Yes. I like that word. Depleted. But first, let's get this uranium silliness out of the system.

***

Depleted uranium is indeed radioactive, but not intensely so. (As a rule of thumb, you can expect an isotop to be highly radioactive only if is is rare, because radioactivity tends to change the atom in the process.) It is however poisonous, and you should not hang out in a place where some uranium object has just collided with something hard at high speed. The dust is definitely unhealthy.

Radiation-induced cancer has a latency time upward of 5 years. This pretty much rules out the tiny radiation from uranium rounds in the case of NATO soldiers on the Balkans. What people seem to not quite believe is that healthy young men do get cancer. In fact, when you have tens of thousands of them, some are bound to get cancer during a couple years. There is really no way to avoid that. The question is, do they get more cancer than other young men with a similar stress level? There is nothing so far to indicate that they do.

While I question the wisdom of leaving depleted uranium lying around on the ground for hundreds of thousands of years, there are other more important things to do to protect NATO soldiers. Keep them from smoking, for instance.

***

While there's no uranium around the Chaos Node, I'm occasionally a bit depleted myself. Not least on Fridays after a full week of work. Not least if I've skimped on sleep, as happened this week. For some reason, I don't seem to get to sleep until 2-3 in the night again. This happens sometimes. Particularly around full moon, in my experience. I notice it when I get a cold sore, and I have at least one sore now. They come when I get short on sleep. It's not like I suffer from insomnia, really, it's just that I am wide awake in the night. Uhm, not sure if that made sense. I mean, I'd certainly be able to fall asleep at work, quite easily...

Besides my immune system, my creativity suffers too. I find it hard to write fiction, instead I prefer to play games. This week has seen quite a bit of The Sims, as you may have noticed. I sort of enjoy seeing the little people run around on my screen, and this group of 8 gifted Simsters makes for some particular challenges. After a few days of playing they have just recently begun to form friendships. That is quite interesting to watch. Jealousy is probably not far away. Oh well. At least that's not something I have to worry about in real life!

Just came to think of, in a few days it's my friend SuperWoman's birthday again. (I know exactly what day it is, but I'm getting cautious about revealing too much about my friends on the Net.) She'll probably have a party and stuff. But I, of course, am two countries away as usual. Lucky students. :)

Speaking of Super stuff, I recommend the portrayed issue of the comic Superboy, which I myself just recently read. (No 83, Feb 01.) In which our hero finds out that he is uncool and not in sync with the times. Oooh! Teen angst ensues. "You can handcuff a geek to the north pole, but that doesn't make him cool." And we get a word of wisdom from the real Superman: "People usually fall into ruts because they're running from something else." (Supes also sez, "Just say no to panty raiding", but you already know that.) But all is well that ends well: The Boy from Cadmus gets his groove back, and new slightly improved threads as well!

***

In utterly unrelated news, the scabs on my back is off. The larger spot is a dark red, I must admit I preferred the scabs. At least the skin around is not inflamed in any way, so I guess it's just the natural color of de-scabbed skin. Still, I put on a small sterile compress. If my friend had been her, she could have put on one of those small hand-warmed second skin plasters that I bought and she put on the small one. Oh well. She's not here. I am, and that is as good as it gets.

I may be depleted, but I'm not yet deleted. (Knocks wood and stuff.) Or in the words of the bard: "Come on, represent!" [1]

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([1] P.S.: Not that I really know what that means in youthspeak. I guess it can't be too lewd, though, or it would be illegal in the state of California.)