Saturday 8 May 1999

Pic of the day: Civ2, the pasta-killer. (There are two new Civ games out recently, by the way. One is a small step up from the current Civ2, the other is a sequel made by the programmers who originally made Civilization into a computer game. You'll find those guys at Firaxis, but my more than a year old computer can't give a decent performance to the new games, nor do I need them, since I'm not yet bored with the ones I have.)

Yesterday and today I was out jogging, quite carefully of course. Today it was a very light drizzle as I set out, and it increased to rain and wind. I found a small cave - little more than a hole, really, and waited for a while. But the rain kept, well, raining. The trip back was less pleasurable, with cold water blowing at my head. Gruff.

I thought I felt something in one of my toes, and when I came home I found blood stains on my socks. Sure enough, a little sliver of nail had cut up a neighboring toe. Not deep at all, of course, but a bit messy. Toes are bitches to keep clean, due to their position. I'll have to change these small bandages pretty often, I'm afraid. And no more jogging for a while - my heel is also quite red again. Too bad, I have still a couple jogging suits to show off. :)

As I had set my pasta boiling, I found out that I could play a few turns of Civ2. Next time I noticed, my poor spaghetti had been simmering for over half an hour! It was pretty loose, but edible. In fact, I could still eat it with a fork rather than a spoon. :)

Finally remembered to buy chocolate powder for the milk, today. It's tasty, but that's not the reason why it's a mainstay of my diet. I've noticed that if the milk is getting spoiled, it will separate and the small white grains of coagulating milk will show up in the brown chocomilk much earlier than they would in white milk. I hate to eat spoiled food - my experiences with that is generally not enjoyable. So I appreciate being able to check my milk visually before drinking it. And, it tastes better too! :)

Hey, it seems to be smiley day again! :)

TELE2, the cheaper phone company in Norway, sent me a letter warning me that I had not paid the latest bill. This is technically correct, but on the other hand I paid the previous bill twice, and it's a bit larger. I don't think they have much of a reason to complain, not to mention threatening me with discontinuation of business. On the bright side, there's no stampless envelopes in the mailbox with "we know where you live, and you'd better pay now to avoid any unpleasantness" like THORN did in a not too different situation. I have a rather relaxed relationship to bills: Sometimes I don't pay them on time, sometimes I pay them ahead of time, and sometimes I pay them twice or thrice. Usually it will untangle after a while.

This all leading up to telling that I did in fact apply for a credit card (Mastercard, it's called here) yesterday. Since my employer seems to expect that I have one, and since they botch and bungle when I don't have one, it's worth a try.
The credit card flora is much less dense here in Norway than in the US, where you can easily have a stack of different credit cards each with its own benefit, it seems. The deal my employer has made means that they'll pay a yearly fee if I make at least one business trip a year, which I tend to do; then the credit card company will automatically provide travel insurance if I pay for the trip with the card. Nice, particularly as this applies to all my trips, inland or abroad, not just business.
Well, it yet remains to see whether I actually get the credit card, or if my reputation as a dubious debtor precedes me. If they ask THORN, I'm pretty sure to be blacklisted for life. :) I was rather explicit in my complaint about their customer relations, I'm afraid...