Wednesday 15 March 2000

Pic of the day: Some days are like that. (Screenshot from The Sims. The digicam is still offline for a few days, I'm afraid.)

Last night I was totally tired and went to bed at 22:30, after playing Civ2 a little on the old computer. I woke up at 05:30, and decided to get up. Seven hours is usually enough sleep for me. And the flimmering in front of my eyes that I have had the last couple of days is almost gone. But it is not likely that I am going to get up this early for the future. It is probably just a fad.

My life consists of fads, as you may have noticed. One week I write about international politics and economics, then suddenly it's all about Daggerfall or Civ2 or women or music. Lately I have written about The Sims and about my own exciting life after my portable computer crashed. This trend seems to continue today ...

Today I bought a new monitor. Yes, this is the monitor that I wrote that I would buy in 1998, when I complained in my first diaries that my monitor could only display blue and green, not red. This was in the autumn 1998, before my current archives (the older ones are lost). By then I had already grumbled over my monitor for years. In particular the fact that it could not display 800x600 or higher graphics. This means that modern games typically would not run at all. (And when some did, you could see how common the color red is as a component in other colors. The monitor simply used black instead.)

So, today I bought a 17 inch Panasonic. Yes, I could get a decent 19 inch monitor for that price - ca $500 - but my desk does not really accomodate that big a monitor. This one is already going to be a squeeze. Then again, so was the price. I had to use my credit card. Well, actually I did not have to, but I had to if I wanted to be sure there was enough left on my Visa card for the rest of the month. It's four weeks till next payday! Presumably there will not be any clothes shopping that month.

Once I had bought the thing, the question was how to get it home. In fact, that is still the question. I was pretty long in my arms when I got it into the office, on the other end of a long street. I had to take several stops along the street to rest my arms. I am not a weight lifter, and the overly large and bulky case did nothing to help. I wonder if I should take it out of the case and carry only the monitor, or if I should take a taxi. Not having a car means that there should be lots of money for taxi. But of course, that's the money I use on stuff like this.

I also cut my fingernails today. (No, I do not chew them.) I left the thumb nail on my right hand a bit longer, though not as long as it was. Why do I keep a long thumb nail on one hand? I'll tell you something, and you decide if you can believe it.

Our workplace has a toilet; in fact, it has more than one, but this is about only one. This toilet is designed in such a way that you flush it by pressing down a knob on top. This has been defect for a while, I'd estimate a year or two, though it might be more. If you press the knob down, it stays there, and the water continues to run through the toilet. Instead, you must lift the knob, which is an alternative way of making it flush. There is a written sign on the toilet saying that you have to do this, which is how I found it out. However, when I come to use it, I often find it with the knob stuck. If I have a long fingernail, I can pry it loose without having to go for the toolbox. Handy.

This is not a factory. There are only office workers here. Presumably all of them can read Norwegian, as they are all ethnic Norwegians and make a living by doing office work in Norwegian. Despite this, it seems to be just too hard to read the sign telling us to lift the knob. And the fact that it does not work when you do it, and that it does not work the next time you do it, and so on for a year or two is not enough to impress on every mind the usefulness of obeying the written text even when no one is looking.

Such people I am computer user support for. And you wonder why I rarely write about my job? ;)