Freeday 12 November 1999

"I've sort of promised to be at work on January 1st"...
Pic of the day: Screenshot from Master of Magic, again, my favorite of the week. Hey, just call me Millenium Man. :)

Woke up this morning to the clock radio singing, in a quite beautiful female voice, a song I have never heard before. The recurring word was "barnemenneske" - child human. Yes, it sounds awkward in Norwegian too, but having a voice like that helps. (Supposedly the singer was called Yvonne something or other. Nobody I know.) The line that somehow penetrated my sleep was "afraid to go from 'I' to 'we'". This was repeated several times through the song, and I thought, no, I am not afraid, it just did not work that way. I was still rather dazed and did not get much context, I must admit.

I also feel somewhat vindicated that I'm not the only one to think childhood has its drawbacks too. Especially when it goes on and on.

Then again, I have forgotten my childhood. Well, not quite all of it, but most. I don't think there are enough memories left to fill one single day. But at least a few more return each year. Today for the first time since my childhood I remember one trip with the class where we looked at different fungi. Of course I only remember glimpses of it, but it's still a bit more than nothing.
(Is "fungi" a valid English word? I see it in Scientific American all the time, but it sounds sort of strange in other contexts. Like, pizza with fungi?? Is there a difference between those and mushrooms?)

I'll snip further references to my childhood today, as I have more than enough memories of today to preserve!

For instance, the happy theme of payday! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, again the dough is flowing. Suddenly my empty bank account is filled to overflowing through the generosity of my employer. To quote the popular band Dire Straits: "Money for nothing and the chicks for free."

Not surprisingly, I've been paying bills. I still use Telegiro, since the Netgiro requires me to actually send in a form by snailmail. Since when do I lug around envelopes and ... uh, Briefmark ... stamps? Postage stamps? Small adhesive pictures that people in the old days put on envelopes as an incentive for the postal workers to carry the letter to the right destination. That and zip codes. That was, of course, before the @. Nowadays, going postal is something different, and my only zip codes are the labels on my Iomega Zip cartridges.

So I'm still paying my bills by phone. I hope I get them all this time. I've sort of stacked the bills a couple weeks, after our shopping orgy Oct 18th at the South Coast Trade Center. Man, that was great fun. Oops, I should probably not lead people into temptation here. Listen, you know that earthly things can not really satisfy your soul. While spiritual progress bestows true happpiness, material possessions can only give a superficial jolliness.
But right then, Superwoman and I decided to settle for a day of superficial jolliness. With friends like her, even superficial is good.

Today I also managed to buy a used Doc Savage pockedbook for kr 5 (ca 65 cent). Now, it wasn't new. And it was in Danish. Then again, written Danish is not terribly different from Bokmål, Book Language, the dominant written form of Norwegian. Originally a compromise between the Danish of the ruling class and the Norwegian speech of the natives, modern Book Language is more Norwegian and less Danish. Yet it is close enough that it helps when reading Danish. Spoken Danish, on the other hand, is nearly incomprehensible to many Norwegians, myself included.

How do you feel about getting a millenium leaflet in your mailbox? From the government? It started with a greeting from our nice and popular prime minister, and worked up to the assurance that the police and other (unspecified) government agencies would stand ready to handle any "chaotic situations" and uphold law and order.
I guess it means that I've spent too much time with Americans when I did not see this as unconditionally wonderful. Actually, it probably is. Especially since I've sort of promised to be at work on January 1st, testing the computer system. I have to admit that I would prefer not to have to shoot my way through the rioting mob to get to my workplace.