Just blogging along

Have you ever broken your tailbone?? If you have, you don't have to read any further. You know exactly what I am going to say! Stop reading right now and do something else.

OK, so I fell down some stairs at work last week. Just my luck, I'd say. Why me - again?? Anyway, I don't know what happened except that I fell, twisted my ankle and somehow managed not to put any weight on it. Instead I fell down the stairs (thankfully, there were only three steps) and landed on the lower part of my back.

My back didn't hurt at first. I was more worried about my ankle as I have twisted it more than once before. After about 15 minutes, my ankle stopped being sore, I could put weight on it, and that's when my back started nagging me. I called my doctor, got some codeine (to be taken in combination with paracetamols - tylenol for the US guys) against the pain and cyclokapron to stop the bleeding in the muscle tissue.

I got to work from home for a few days - my boss is quite flexible - and by Friday I could handle the pain without the painkillers. Come Monday I went to work. Big mistake! By the end of the day I was not able to sit normally and Tuesday morning I called my doctor.

She wanted to have a look at my back and by the time she was finished, the conclusion was that I had damaged my sacrum/tailbone. Let's just say tailbone to make it easy. It makes me think of a song by Sting: every breath you take. In my case it is every step I take, I feel the pain. Every time I want to sit down, I feel the pain.

I am on heavy painkillers to be able to sleep at night, and during the day, I sit on an inflatable "doughnut" and soft - very soft - pillows. The pain is still very much present, but I take long breaks during the day. I go for walks as this eases the pain. After sitting on my "doughnut" for a while, I have to take a walk for about an hour.

My "doughnut" just deflated. I wonder if it gave away due to my weight or if the "fuse" popped. I'll soon find out. Anyway, I hope for you that you never break your tailbone or sacrum for that matter. It really sucks!! (pardon my French.....)

Do you feel like going back to the good old days of ascii art? Click the picture to find out how to "asciirize" your own pictures.

Ever since the first time I tasted whisky, or perhaps I should say whiskey, I have been afscinated with the taste of it. I used to think the Scotch whisky was the best there was, but that was until I discovered the Irish liquid gold. They are usually softer than many of their Scottish counterparts.

Some years ago I attended a party where some of the guests were drinking whisky - Glenfiddich - while commenting that they would like to taste a single malt some time in the future. I couldn't help but wonder if they knew what they were drinking. (Glenfiddich is a single malt whisky.)


You might wonder why I am referring to Whiskyweb. For starters, it is one of the most informative whisky sites I have stumbled upon. It has information about the history of whisky, facts and figures, it tells you how the liquid is made, and it has a section by Mr. Michael Jackson (no, not that one), writer of Malt Whisky Companion. Browse the 3rd edition online at Wisky Web.

Now for the Irish whiskey. One of the sites to visit is Whiskeytours which features the Bushmill, Jameson and Midleton distilleries. Just like Whisky Web, the site has a "How Whiskey is made" section as well as virtual tours. Check out Jameson's cool lounge and write your own fantastic fable.

For a more indepth "course", you should have a look at Classic Whiskey or Malt advocate.

Enjoy your liquid gold - with or without ice.

For some time now I have been hooked on Neopets, a virtual world on internet. The site has millions of members, and is suitable for young and old. I have been a member for almost a year now, and I enjoy the effect it has on me. It takes my mind off of work for a while.

So far, so good. My Neopets have been adequately cared for for a long time, but a few days ago I discovered StumbleUpon, and it is keeping me from my Neopets. Even worse, it is keeping me from Blogging Along.

I find myself spending a lot of time updating my alterego's webpage. Actually, it is done automatically whenever I click an icon on the toolbar.

Basically, it's a place to store links, but it is also a search engine and a commuity all in one. I hope the server never crashes, because I have collected quite a large amount of links that I can access anywhere.

Why don't you give it a try? If you don't like it (give it a day or two to do its work), you can easily deinstall the toolbar. There is no spyware or spamming involved, but I must warn you: It's addictive!

For some time now I have been trying to avoid using Internet Explorer because of security reasons. I switched to Netscape and lived happily with it for some years. Unfortunately, Nestcape seems to be stuck on version 7.1 for some time to come. I was hoping to see some updates or at least some betas. I guess just like Internet Explorer, Netscape has entered hibernation mode.

Today I downloaded the latest and greatest version of Mozilla. The current version is 1.7.1, and except for not being able to add the sidebar icon to the toolbar, it rocks! Several issues have been solved since the "Netscape version" was launched (Netscape is based on version 1.4), and I am able to watch Norwegian TV without having to switch to Internet Explorer.

Mozilla has a built-in popup filter, cookie manager, tabbed browsing, and best of all: it's fast! Have a go at the Composer html-editor as well. If you want the lighter, stripped down version, go for Firefox instead. It has popup blocker, tabbed browsing and cookie manager, and is only about 4 MB in size. If you like, you can install Thunderbird which adds email functionality. It includes features such as spam filter and spell checker.