Saturday 11 November 2000

Pic of the day: See there, at the top? man, it says. As if there ever were any doubt ...

Read my boxers

I'm still reading a select few free online comics, mostly with college topic for some unknown reason. (I didn't spend much time in college myself.) One of them is CRFH!!!, "college roomies from hell", a wildly exaggerated story of some young people's adventures. How exaggerated? Well, one of them has his arm switched with a tentacle and stays that way. Another is a were-coyote and his pet is a rock. A third shares half his soul with a cat. And there's a gun-crazy girl ... not just guns, either. Bazooka, grenades ... you name it, she got it. And famously, she has a T-shirt with the text "DIE!". When the going gets tough, she's likely to say: "Read my shirt!" And so this expression has spread among the fans. Recently the T-shirt unexplicably also turned up in one of the other online comics on Keenspot, to the amusement of its readers, who have now started to cite their various T-shirts.

My T-shirts are few and far between, and sparsely decorated at that. So perhaps people should read my boxer shorts instead. The text on the elastic says "man". Though I like to think that people will have noticed well before they get close enough to read. But just in case ... because you never know who's going to read your boxers.

***

After the "vacation", I've been sleepy much earlier than I used to. Often around midnight. Last night I was simply too tired, and went to bed shortly after midnight without even updating my journal! That's unusal. (Yes, I could have updated earlier, but I spent quite a bit of the day daydreaming about having a real friend, who did not just want me to do things, someone who liked me and would talk with me. It was such a nice daydream that I did not want to stop it.) I hope it shall not become a habit. Of course, I uploaded in the morning, after sleeping for about 8 hours.

Having a day off from work, all to myself, I decided to wash boxer shorts. This is something I usually do before I travel, and especially before I visit SuperWoman. It's just a habit, really. It's not like she reads my boxers or anything. But I had a load of them to wash right now, so I filled up the washing mashine. (The one with a secret opening to the dimension of lost and lonely socks - though I do not think boxer shorts ever go there.) Even though I shower regularly, I still take care to wash my underwear now and again. You never know who or what is going to sniff you next time! What with all these alien abductions and everything, one should do like the boy scouts and be prepared.

If I had superior technology, would I fly around kidnapping people, stripping clothes off them, pinching them and humiliating them? I like to think not! Those hairless pygmies must have some really big self esteem issues, I say, if they go on like that. If they were so sure of themselves, they could ask for a date or something. Wimps.

Of course, even if you're not singled out by aliens, there is always the risk of being rushed to the hospital. In which case you probably wish you had clean underwear. This has happened to me a couple times, last when I had the stress-induced heart irregularities. Before that, there was one mysterious event which the doctors thought may be a really small kidney stone passing through my system. I'm not so sure, but I do drink way too little water. From my childhood onward, I am rarely thirsty. I get my need for water covered by milk and yoghurt mostly. I consume those because I like the taste (chocolate milk - ummm!) not because I am thirsty. It does happen, so I know the feeling, but it is rare. I guess I am a prime candidate for kidney stones, then. But I haven't noticed anything before or since. It was all very strange. A nice young female doctor thoroughly checked my genitals too, but found nothing suspicious there. Oh well. At least my boxers were fairly clean and whole. (Not that it helped - I've never seen her again.)

***

In the evening, I played The Sims again. It's raining outside. The game is fairly slow now, the harddisk was almost full. I have cleaned out a program that I rarely use, and am defragmenting the disk now; it was still slow. Of course, since I have only 32 MegaBytes of Random Access Memory. Yesterday I saw a local ad for a HP computer with 128 MB RAM and 20 GB harddisk. Fast processor too, and DVD player and CD burner and 17 inch monitor. Ca $1500, which is not bad around here. I have only the best experiences with HP equipment in the past - it tends to just go on working until I do something grandiously stupid, like carrying it in a plastic bag together with an opened bottle of Cola.

Be that as it may, I don't really have $1500. I would have to borrow, which is not cheap anymore. By the time I'd paid it all off, $1500 would probably get me double the RAM, double the disk, and half again the speed. So, unless SuperWoman or Cutie needs the portable, I guess I'll stick with it. It can be irritating at times, but aren't we all?

As a gentle reminder of reality, I paid a stack of bills from my NetBank today. On the bright side, SkandiaBanken now pays 7.3% interest, which is added to my account each month. It's surely an incentive to not spend every cent as soon as possible. It's also an incentive to flee your old bank that pays you 0.5% interest on the lowest amount on your account, and slaps you around the ears with fees for paying bills, fees for withdrawing money, fees for having a netbank at all. Unless you're a dedicated masochist, you should take a long hard look at your bank. Most of them make their living by trusting you to be stupid. It is a bit sad if you prove them right, don't you think?

(I don't know about banks outside Scandinavia - you may have to check for yourself. But I'm more than a little surprised that there are still Norwegians who have not switched to SkandiaBanken. I'd rather get money from Swedes than give money to Norwegians, all things being equal - which they largely are, in this case.)

Well, virtuous deed of the day out of the way, I guess I can go back to daydreaming. Or perhaps playing Theme Hospital. I have not quite decided yet. Have a good night, everyone.