Wednesday 7 January 2004

Pic of the day: Logo of my new Norwegian journal. The text means "linguistically striped". However, in Norway during WW2 it was common to refer to collaborators as "striped", those who more or less silently sided with the invading power. I guess I am doing that with English. Then again, English is good; German is bad.

Health & new journal

My hand and arm are much better than in November. As well they should be, since that was Novel Writing Month and I overdid it from the start. I won't do that again! Overdo it from the start, that is.

It still hurts after an hour or two with grouping in Dark Age of Camelot. Solo play is fine, and even duoing with my other character isn't too bad. But group play is stressful and it needs typing. You have to coordinate attacks, formulate strategies, and generally look alive. Paladins in particular are the masters of tactics on the battlefield, and I have found it impossible to group without typing too much. Almost any typing is too much when I am tense, which I tend to be during pitched battles even if it is only a game. (I also tend to tense up at work, but I am not supposed to write about work.) The obvious solution is to not group, but it is hard to say no when they keep following you and mewling "inv plz, inv plz".

Also extended sessions of Civ3 can cause some pain. It has the opposite effect if I play just a little, since I play it on a different machine that uses a pen instead of a mouse. The problem is that, especially with the new expansion, it is hard to play "just a little". Instead it tends to become "just a little more" and suddenly I have been crouched in my chair for hours, ready to pounce. This is not good for shoulders and arms either.

Overall though, I am better. Rejoice with me you my friends!

The pain in my lower right side also comes and goes, but it is not all the time now and is not nearly as intense as it used to be. I am not sure why it came and why it went away and whether it will be back. But the doctor was supposed to call if it was anything serious.

I still haven't got the flu, and I would prefer not to get it at all. I notice that Relenza, the medication to treat influenza, has not been such a great hit. Even though we have way too little influenza vaccine – indeed, the whole world seems to be short on vaccine this year – we still don't see the virus killing medication used much. Perhaps there is a shortage of it too, it has only been around for a few years.

I remember scientific magazines trumpeting neuraminidase inhibitors as the end of influenza, more or less. Evidently either the side effects are too much for common use, or it's too expensive, or people (like me) don't see the doctor unless it is chronic or life threatening. The flu is rarely life threatening except in the elderly and those with a weakened immune system, and these are generally not in the forefront of medical technology. And the doctors don't seem to push it too aggressively either. One reason may be that you have to take it during the onset of the flu, and when most people see their doctor it is already too late. Ideally you should have these lying about at home so you could take them within hours of the first symptoms. The trouble with this is that the first symptoms of influenza are exactly like the common cold, unless you're a medical expert. Perhaps even then. And the side effects are too severe to munch Tamiflu or inhale Relenza on a regular basis. Or I would probably have done so ... I sure do with vitamin C.

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In totally different news, I am pleased to inform my many Norwegian readers that there will be a Norwegian LiveJournal by yours truly starting Monday January 12th. I know this for certain because I am finishing this entry that Monday... -_-*

Blackened kylling will not be a translation of the Chaos Node or of my belated teen angst furry LJ, Porcupine Days. Rather it will be about the more purely Norwegian aspects of my life and surroundings, such as the Norwegian language itself and Norwegian politics, culture and topics of the day in our sparsely populated subarctic kingdom.

Norwegian readers will be happy to learn that you can set the LiveJournal text (the one not written by me but the system) to Norwegian Bokmål if you don't like English. Then again if you really don't like English, you are probably not reading this ...