Saturday 25 September 2004

Pic of the day: Having twin toddlers is probably even more backbreaking than an office job. Luckily, I am very very unlikely to test this myself. I leave that to my Sims.

Sims: 1 -- Real Life: 0

The returning reader will have noticed that I spent much of the previous week in a haze of playing Sims2. If I had been a Sim, people would have seen the Sims2 icon floating above my head. The sequel has even more symbols for various interests, and the Sims can often be found randomly thinking about their interests as they go about their daily tasks, especially if anything has happened that relates to that interest. For instance after Lucy Burb fell in love with Nemo Vrimoen (a single little caress was all it took), she wandered around thinking about engagement rings. This was kinda cute, as they were both still early teenagers. More worryingly, she would occasionally think about baby pacifiers immediately afterwards. Actually that was almost certainly just a random outbreak of her life choice of Family Aspiration, the path chosen when she became a teenager. But I think she could be glad her thoughts are only visible to her guardian angel, and not to her parents...

The Elder Statesman of online journaling, Al Schroeder, had the mantra "write about what interests you", as opposed to guessing what the readers may want to read. So obviously I am writing about the Sims. Then again, I wouldn't be shocked if most readers found my Sims more interesting than they find me. After all, time passes quickly in the Sim world, and big events happen regularly. Some events will definitely never ever happen to me at all, such as having twins and having to quit the job to take care of them. And I'll never have my teenage son fall in love with the neighbor girl, if nothing else because I don't have a teenage son...

***

In marked contrast to this, I bought another trackball on Thursday. (I think it was Thursday.) Now I have a trackball and a pen tablet in the bedroom with the games computer, and a trackball and speech recognition in the living room with the writing computer. Mice do unspeakable things to my arm, but the new trackball has a mouse wheel in addition to the trackball itself. Sims2 makes good use of the mouse wheel for more exact zooming in and out. And by switching between two different input devices, there is less chance of my arm cramping up and hurting like mad.

Oh yes, also in real life I went to the dentist on Thursday! Now that's one thing that the Sims never do. (Then again if you only live for 70 days, you have to skip some details...) I had two small cavities, possibly three, close together between two of my front teeth. So he took them all in one operation. The new plastic materials have a color that is virtually indistinguishable from natural enamel, so there is no reason to not fix even the front teeth as soon as something is beginning to go wrong.

***

Today I decided to take an unnecessary walk again. For the past week I have walked as little as possible, to not put extra pressure on the toe where I have a cut. I checked it again today, and the cut line is still clearly visible but there was no inflammation anymore. I walked around the neighborhood, enjoying the freedom of movement. I am not surprised that so many office workers end up in disability retirement. It may seem that they have an easy time, with no heavy burdens to carry. But sitting is a form of torture, I realized. It is just that we are socialized to accept it.

Almost from the first time we open our eyes, we see chairs and people sitting in them. So we grow up believing that we are born to sit in chairs. This is not exactly the case. It is not the worst thing we can do to our bodies, but sitting still for an extended time is pretty hard on the muscles, especially in the back. If we had come from a culture without chairs, we would clearly have perceived it as torture. I am reminded of a saying I heard at the office: "The only correct sitting position is that varied one." And let me add, it should be varied with not sitting at all from time to time. At work I do this automatically, since so much of my work consists of moving around in the office building and looking after the computers and people who work with them. But at home it would be all too easy to spend 16 hours in front of the computer watching the Sims.

Oh, and the toe began to hurt again in the evening. But I still think it was worth it.