Saturday 13 November 1999

Pic of the day: Glimpse of the new village across the river at Åros.
For some unknown reason, this view strongly reminded me of a chant from Stephen Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant":
For we will not rest -
not turn aside,
lose faith,
or fail -
until the Grey flows Blue,
and Rill and Maerl are as new and clean
as ancient Llurallin.

A nice mild autumn day. As I left the house to shop groceries, I noticed that it was mild. I changed to my spring jacket. In retrospect, I know I could have walked in my vest. I did however trust the calendar as much as my own senses, and so sweated like a horse. Well deserved.

During much of the morning, this old love song repeated itself in my head. Ironically, it goes like this: "Words don't come easy to me..."
The irony is that, as the seasoned reader will have noticed, this text describes me like "pitch black" describes the sun. So I changed the lyrics and set the song loose again to play in my head. "Words ... come too easy to me ..."
(Actually, I had expected it to be "easily" rather than easy, as this sure must be an adverb describing the way of not coming rather than an adjective describing the words themselves? But that would interfere rather heavily with the meter or rhythm or whatever it is called in songs.)

My Master of Magic spree came to an abrupt stop as the computer locked. It will do that at a certain point into the later part of the game. Which is also my favorite part. At this point I have built up enough troops and heroes and artifacts and magic to crush my competitors like lice. But I don't. To me, the game is not about crushing the competition at first chance. As long as they don't try anything fancy, they are allowed to live. While I explore every inch of the game worlds' surface. Clear out every dungeon and ruin. Occupy and tap into every node of magic energy. Build up all six of my heroes and dress them up with artifacts loaded with magic. Research every spell in all of my spellbooks. Only then do I cast the Spell of Mastery, sending my competitors into the void and assuming my rightful place as ruler of the world! MUAHAHA! Ahem.

I can't help but feel some sympathy for Bill Gates. People should be allowed to plot for world domination as long as they don't hire assassins, that's how I see it. There comes a point in a man's life when world domination is the only worthwhile goal. Though I can't say I've reached that point in real life ... I think I could still take a little bit of shallow pleasure from uncountable riches and hordes of fawning chicks.

Funny, somewhere in the back of my head they're playing another song now, but very faintly. I don't get more than snatches of it. "Dream, dream, dream" seems to be the recurring line. "All I have to do is dream"? Sounds vaguely familiar. Then again, I've spent quite a bit of the afternoon in bed, making up for a week with way too little sleep. I can hardly believe I haven't got my cold sores yet after a week like this. They use to come when I don't get enough sleep. So after overdosing on chocolate covered caramel, I dived in the duvets and settled for some prolonged passive pillow cuddling. I feel better now, but chances are that now I'm gonna hop around all night instead.

Have you dreamt that you were dreaming? Isn't that scary? Makes you wonder when you wake up ... am I really awake?

This afternoon I dreamt that I was lying on a really big pile of duvets. (I use the French name because I do not think any true English speaking person would be caught alive or dead wrapped in soft fluffy stuff. I, however, like a true continental, wallow in it.
Anyway, in my dream I was lying on my stomach across this enormous heap of duvet, so much of it that I did not even touch the ground, and I was looking left across the tiny lake. And there were footsteps approaching from the right, but I pointedly did not look that way. And I was lying at the side of the road, not quite ten minutes walk from where I live. And as the footsteps passed right by me, someone pecked at my window and I woke up and was not lying on a big heap of duvets, I was lying in my bed, and I found my knife which I have with me in bed but it was only a short "Fjording" knife, very short blade, not the long-bladed hunter knife that I use to have in bed.
And I looked out and the landscape was covered with a thick layer of snow. And then I woke up again, and it was dark in the room, the face of my clock was glowing, and it was quite hot, and my thick fluffy duvet was curled up in soft heap under me. Though it was not an enormous heap, just one measly fluffy duvet. And there's no snow, though there could have been for the calendar. And there were no footsteps either. My heart was beating hard, but I did not search for my knife, I just stood up and put on trousers and a shirt. Trust has to start somewhere, and right now I trust the metal staff that I have standing next to my computer.

Oh well. I guess that was too much information as usual. Words come too easy. Have a good night. Sweet dreams.