Tuesday 4 May 1999
Pic of the day: This resident of Grayidge, Tulune (from the game Daggerfall, of course) has the honor of fronting the (*gasp*) theme of today's web journal: Justice for the Losers!
Least surprising newscast from Norway today: "Foreningen Rettferd for Taperne" (Justice for the Losers, Associated) is in dire economic difficulties. The state is blamed for not having paid them enough money.
I may have associated too much with Americans, but honestly I can't imagine how becoming a registered Loser would improve your financial (or other) prospects.
On a related topic, I'm sorry to say that my favorite Norwegian comic strip, "Toccata & Fuge" was slaughtered by the other readers of Larsons Gale Verden, a Norwegian magazine centered on Larson's Far Side but featuring some related comic strips, Norwegian and international. Oh well. To my alien^W foreign readers, who probably have never been exposed to the beauty of "Toccata & Fuge", it's somewhat similar to Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds' Second Chances. Cutesy cutesy drawings (T&F always in Sunday colors) and centered on Extremely Marital Affairs. But T&F is so cutely drawn that it approaches the essence of cuteness, the platonic cutesy ideal if you want. All in my somewhat atypical opinion.
More justice for losers: As for the trip to Oslo, which my job has cheerfully asked me to make, there is one more slightly annoying fact. Namely, that I can't afford it. Yes, that's how it is: One is supposed to first make a trip, then some time later get the money back along with some coins for food etc. It so happens that this trip is the day before payday, and this month I've spent everything except some money for food. (In addition to the highly voluntary Oslo trip some days ago, I also prepaid a couple bills.) So either the Lord will provide, I guess, or I have to steal a hundred bucks plus some. Oh well. This could prove interesting. Perhaps I should just stay at home and fake it ... I'd be shocked if I don't know more than the guys who are supposed to present this stuff for us. It's computer related after all. But there will inevitably be details (most likely stupidities introduced into the system by the bureaucracy) which I would miss out on...
Yes, I know, my pride will be my downfall, unless something else manages to trip me first. The lusts of the flesh, or something. Lusts of the pork, perhaps. These last few days I've been more hungry than usual. I wake up hungry, eat a little breakfast, and then at the workplace I eat breakfast again. (There's a Norwegian song about the grey sparrow which also has this habit. I trust my Norwegian readers remember it. That's a fairly good description. And then he eats breakfast and breakfast and breakfast again... I'm eating like a sparrow, people.) Tonight I even got thirsty. That's a sensation I very rarely have experienced in my life, unlike most humans. One reason may be that I tend to drink quite a bit of my food, namely milk and yoghurt. I have to be pretty thirsty to drink bare water, but tonight I actually did that. Excessive physical cravings seems to be the order of the week. Luckily the full moon effect should be receding soon.
At least I'm not pregnant, unless the Prophet is returning soon. (Actually I suspect this superstition about the Prophet being born of a man is a retcon to explain the baggy trousers that many moslems wore for practical reasons in days of old. So please, o believers, no fatwa on me, OK? I've found out by experience that when people quarrel about religion, everybody loses.)