Saturday 30 June 2001

Pic of the day: Screenshot from Cultures demo. There probably won't be any more of them.

Complain, complain

"It is as natural as breathing" we say, and it doesn't get any more natural than that. Yet more and more people find it hard to breathe. Asthma is becoming more and more common.

I suffered from asthma all through my childhood, and was terrified. To this day, any minor affliction to the respiratory tract warrants a near panic, while other problems are taken less seriously. This is worth mentioning because my subconbscious knows it, too, and will gleefully attack my breath if I don't live up to its unspoken expectations.

Today I woke up snapping for breath. Much as I'd like to sleep a little longer, I just had to get up. My throat was a bit clogged, but nothing I could not cough up easily enough. Still, throughout much of the day I have had some problems (most of them imaginary, no doubt) related to breathing. Most notably, there is the pressure on my chest which I sometimes get as a sign of unidentified inner conflict. It might just be the stress from playing Cultures, though ...

***

The Cultures demo did not live up to my expectations. It is way too similar to Settlers III. There are certain differences, particularly the women. The only way to get new workers (or soldiers) is to have your women marry and live in a house, then tell them to have a boy or girl. This also necessitates a prolonged visit by the husband, behind closed doors, before the stork flies by with a baby. Then you have to wait while the baby grows up. No new babies till the first one has reached puberty. (14, it seems.) Luckily these people don't age, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. But growth is not very fast from the start.

Despite this being about a Viking tribe, the "culture" is not the Viking culture but another entirely. The idea of women who only stay at home and breed and make dinner ... well, it is way way off. It wasn't like that then, and it isn't like that now. Norse women would do farmwork, spinning, weaving, pottery, even tracking and hunting sometimes. All while popping out a child every three years or so. And Norwegian women are still "superwomen", working more and having more children than most of their European cousins. Cultures do indeed have long-lasting impact.

Why one would make a game about Vikings and then use the culture of 1950es America is quite beyond me. But that said, the game is cute. If I had the choice between it and Settlers III, I'd take Cultures. But I already have Settlers ("Serf City" for you Americans, I think) which I got from a friend for translation services. (The sum is too low to be taxable, if you wondered about that.)

Anyway, I found the game needlessly stressing and it's good to be out of it and play quiet evening music while writing at my own pace. I was a fool to spend so much time on it, but there you have me. Curiosity is a human trait, and one of the better ones generally.

***

I grew sleepy during the day and tried to take a nap, but once again respiratory problems cropped up. For some reason, it feels like the windpipe is being compressed when I lie on my side. Again, this is a mental problem most likely. As long as I am awake, I can dispel it by pure reason. But when I let go of thought to embrace sleep, it returns with the force of sense. Probably it's just an enlarged tonsil or even less, but it kept me from really sleeping. I balanced between sleep and wakefulness for a long time, quite uncomfortably.

In the evening, my hands were prickling, kind of like vibrating, the feeling you get if blood circulation just is coming back in a limb. Also a bit uncomfortable. I use to get this if I drink coffee (more than half a cup) or cola (more than half a liter), but chocolate can also trigger it. Evidently I am more sensitive to alkaloids than most humans, though luckily less than dogs. To them, chocolate or anything containing coffee or tea is deadly poison. Which is just too bad, since dogs like sweets. Leave your chocolate cake in a safe place!

Anyway, I decided to just let it run its course. There wasn't much else to do, except panic. And I'll reserve that for worse. There is certainly much worse to come. Great comfort, don't you think? :)

***

"Complain, complain, that's all you've done
ever since we lost!
If it's not the Crucifixion,
then it's the Holocaust!"
"May Christ have mercy on your soul
for making such a joke
amid these hearts that burn like coal
and the flesh that rose like smoke."

Leonard Cohen, The Captain

That's certainly another perspective.