Hi there!
I'm Lady Pennywhistle – or Lady P, or LP, or Pennywhistle, or Penny, or Yael (which is my RL name), or whatever takes your fancy. And this, as you may have noticed, is my Personal Space. It isn't a remarkable Personal Space by any means – it's a bit too long, and probably quite boring at times – but I happen to like it.
So, welcome. I hope you like it too.

In real life I live in Jerusalem. At one time I used to stay, here on h2g2, in The Hitchhiker Hotel (at room number three on the first floor), and work as the Hotel's waitress/barstaff at the restaurant and the bar, but those places are hardly active anymore. Still, you can drop by and say hello, if you want to - and don't forget to leave a tip!

I can also be found sometimes in my bungalow, but again, old thread. It's probably best to just scroll down and leave me a message.

Other places where you may find me

(an excellent excuse for me to stick a whole load of badges on the page)

I have to admit that these days, I actually no longer hang around most of these places. But the links are still good, you should check them out.

• The Geographical Entry Society, which is a sort of society whose members try to increase the number of geographical entries on the Guide.

• The Language Thing, another society, whose members try to learn and/or teach languages.

(Not so hard to follow so far, is it? )

• The Monty Python Fan Club... I no longer participate, but I used to have a lot fun there, trying to drive people nuts.

• The MotMV (Masters of the Multi-Verse) - not very active, only partially, but I still go there; I think that officially I am Third Brigadier General In Charge Of Special Intelligence Operations, Unintelligible Jokes and Making Coffee, or something like that, but usually I'm just trying to drive people nuts.

Masters of the Multiverse Pirate Ship Crewmember Lieutenant

MotMV	MotMV
Masters of The Multi-verse	Masters of The Multi-verse

• CHOPPERS (The h2g2 guild of superheros) - seems to be quite defunct now. I used to be their Resident Villain... well, Resident Vaguely Villain-ish Entity, anyway. Which basically meant I'd be trying to drive people nuts.

• The Nighthoover thread (what do you mean which one? THE Nighthoover thread, the one that started it all!), where everybody is already complete nutcases so I just join in the general madness.

• And in real life, I can still be found sometimes at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, although I have already officially finished my second degree (MA) in Translation Studies, which I'm very excited about. But I'm still around, now doing a Hebrew teachers' course at the Rothberg International School (well, I take my time updating this page, so it actually depends on when you read this... the course is until June 2009). After that, no idea.
  A long time ago I also used to work in the Asia and Africa Department of the National Library, which I really liked, but they got their student-hours cut, so I don't work there anymore. Kinda trying to work as a translator nowadays, although it's not always easy to get work.
  Anyway, don't go to the links, they're quite boring. Unless you want to come study Hebrew in Jerusalem! I might end up teaching you... for better or for worse.

Some Facts

(a.k.a. the more boring bit)

As I've mentioned before, my name is Yael. If you're an English-speaker you probably don't know how to pronounce it, but it's really fairly simple. The thing is that the two vowels represent two different syllables, so it is not pronounced 'Yale' or 'Yell' or something like that, but 'Ya-EL'. It's actually one of the commonest girl names in Israel, and only when I'm abroad (or on h2g2…) it becomes unusual, even exotic. But such is the life.
As I have also mentioned, I live in Jerusalem, which is one of the most amazing cities I know (I've been in the process of trying to write an entry about it ever since I got here). I've been living here nearly my whole life, and for the major part of that time I've been living in a tiny little neighbourhood called French Hill, on the north-eastern edge of the city. And since I still don't make enough money to rent my own place, I still live with my family, which has its ups and downs but is usually very nice (although, honestly, I gotta get a decent job and move out already).
What else? First of all, before you ask - yes, I did go to the military. It's compulsory, and I'm not a trouble-maker sort of person, so I enlisted at 18 and did the one-year-nine-months all girls have to do (boys do three years). I wasn't in anything remotely like a battle position though, just a nice little desk job, which was pretty good actually. Made some great friends there too. But I'm very happy to be a civilian again - which I have been for... oof, a long time. I think I've stopped counting, really.
Oh, and if you want to hear a weird Jewish story involving Egypt, Italy and Brasil (yes, I know it's supposed to be spelt Brazil in English, but it's Brasil in Portuguese, and besides I have a thing against the letter Z for some inexplicable reason, so there), ask me about my mother... No, this isn't a trick question! Jeez. Why would I tell you to ask me a trick question?
Well, that's all I can think of, really; if there's anything else you might want to know, just go ahead and ask.

Words that you might see me using and wonder 'What the hell does she want?'

• Outsanity - One of the first terms I made up here, because I thought that if you can go insane you should be able to go outsane as well. It is rather hard to define outsanity exactly, but think about it this way: Insanity is simply lack of sanity. Outsanity is the complete opposite of sanity, which is the sort of state in which your sanity is swinging off the neighbours' chandelier trying to escape a herd of halfbaked molecular extravaganzas and the penguins just won't shut up about their siesta and you start to wonder why their words are green. Rather hard to explain, as I said.

• Ghost-moding (or ghost-mode) - The practice of going on h2g2 and just lurking about without actually logging on. This way you're in fact a ; you can read what people are saying, but you can't join in and they can't know you're there. It's less time-consuming than being logged on, but unfortunately still rather addictive.

• Meaningless noises - Things like Yay! or WHEEE! or Woo! or Hmf or Pft! or Ach or... well you get my drift. They don't mean anything, anyway. I just like them. Woo!

• Yeah, no - Alright… you see, the thing is that 'yeah' is sort of a filler word; so if I say 'yeah, no' (I do that too much, I think), I either just mean 'no', or I mean nothing at all and you can skip it and just move on to what I'm actually saying. Now that isn't too confusing, yeah, no?

• Zoola - Actually, I don't use this word very much, but I put it here because it's an excellent Hebrew word. Originally from Arabic, in which it means a sort of temporary shack or lean-to, but given a whole new meaning in Hebrew slang: it describes the sort of atmosphere that hangs around on those lazy summer days, when it's too hot to be doing anything and there's nothing to be done anyway, and you just sit in the shade and stare at the sunlight outside in this half-conscious state...
  It's a great thing. It's a great word.

A couple of things I have on my internet browser's favourites (besides h2g2) which might or might not say something about me

Fotki - My online photo album. Believe it or not, it has photos on it. Go on, have a look - and you can leave me comments there too, while you're at it. That way I can know people look at it and not feel like I'm being ignored…

And speaking of Fotki - azahar has an album of pictures people from h2g2 send her (yeah, I'm there too - there's one picture somewhere on page 13, and an actually recent one somewhere on page 17... um, the one on page 19 can be ignored, really). If you ever wondered about the faces behind the nicknames, here's the answer! Oh, and there's also a thread for it here. And for other sorts of random conversation as well. They seem to speak a lot about hair.

Haaretz - Online edition of the only normal daily paper in Israel (in my opinion anyway). This is the English version, of course.
This is no longer on my favourite menu, but I check it sometimes. Except we have a subscription for the paper, here at home, so usually I don't bother. But sometimes I do.

Cinematheque – My all-time favourite movie place. I have a member card which means I can get into all the movies for free, and where else could you get to see not only the regular commercial films but also things like films from Finland, or from the 1930s?
Also no longer on the favourites menu, but also a link I check sometimes.

IMDb – And speaking of movies, the Internet Movie Database is a great site for finding out everything you need to know concerning cinema and television. If you don't know it, you should - for the next time someone drops the name of an actor you've never heard of.Also not etc., you get the gist of it...

Web-comics - Updated: 11/4/2009
I have quite a lot of those... they tend to be quite addictive, as well as slightly contagious, since these sneaky comic artists keep doing guest-strips by other comic artists, and linking to stuff, and before you know it you're hooked to a whole bunch of those pesky little things. So my list changes every once in a while, as I discover a new one and decide I like it, or get rid of ones that stopped updating (or that I just stopped caring about). Currently, the list is as follows:
Sluggy Freelance – Probably the first webcomic I started perusing. It's a pretty old one, too (started back in 1997), and it has a couple of complex plots and sub-plots that get kinda dark sometimes, but still manage to keep a spot of funny in them. Is it not nifty? Updates daily, including weekends, barring special circumstances.
Wapsi Square - A nice little comic, also with some dark undercurrents and spots of funny throughout. The pacing is pretty bad in my opinion, though, so I now only check it out once a week, and catch up on a bunch of strips at a time. Anyway, if you wanna read it, you better go to the start, so you understand what's going on and who everybody is; could get quite confusing otherwise. Updates Monday-Friday.
Scary Go Round - A pretty strange comic, from the pretty strange land of the YooKay. Here too, it's better to start at the top, both in order to understand some of the goings-on and because the creator seems to have a tendency to get rid of characters along the way. The main ones are still there, sure, but some good characters just died, or got sucked through a portal to hell, or retired to Wales. Anyway, it's crazy and funny and I like it a lot. Updates Monday-Friday.
Girls with Slingshots - A nice comic, basically about the difficult (and often drunken) life of single girls... it can get annoying sometimes, and occasionally I find myself wondering why I still read it, but it can also be pretty amusing. Updates Monday-Friday. Usually.
Bunny - Another British comic, and perhaps unsurprisingly it's also quite strange... though it's more of the 'weird and inexplicable' kind of strange. And the art is pretty good too. Used to update daily, now just kinda randomly, but still often.
XKCD - Saying that this is a comic with stick figures would not only be incorrect, since there are a bunch of strips that show what a talented artist the creator is, but it would also make it sound simple, which it really isn't. This is probably my favourite comic at the moment. I don't get all the jokes (a lot of them involve math or science or such things I don't know much about), but it's still really good. Some great observations about life, some great jokes, and even some comics that are downright touching. It's all really really great, and definitely one of my favourite comics. Updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday, regular as a [insert geeky-sciency simile for being punctual here].
Rob and Elliot – Another crazy comic. It has remnants of a plot from time to time, but mostly it's just insanity, and it's a lot of fun. Updates irregularly.
Theater Hopper - Basically a movie-review strip, with a bunch of movie-jokes that I sometimes get and sometimes don't. Usually updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Joe Loves Crappy Movies - Another movie-related one. I often disagree with it, but after all he does admit he likes bad movies, so I guess I can't complain... anyway, it's usually very funny. Updates whenever.
Gunnerkrigg Court - Another British one, this time a more serious comic, basically about two girls at a boarding school, but the plot is fascinating, a bit dark at times but really well-done, and the art just keeps getting more beautiful. Another one of my favourite comics, lately. Please begin at the beginning, it is worth it. Updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, quite regularly.
PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper) - It is a comic about (American) grad-students. As a former MA student here, and an aspiring PhD student someday, I kinda relate to it. Sometimes. And besides, it's funny. They say they update Mon-Wed-Fri, but they never seem to, even considering the time difference (the infamous procrastination at work?), so I consider it as being updated Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday/Sunday.
The Order of the Stick - A comic based on the Dungeon and Dragons universe and gameplay. Good jokes, and generally a lot of fun. Over time, the plot has become a bit more intense; this is why I am linking to the first strip, because otherwise you might hit a spoiler of some sort. But this is definitely another favourite. While on that site, I sometimes also check The Battle for Gobwin Knob, another comic which is based, in a way, on role-playing games, but with vastly different style. Both comics update irregularly.
Kukuburi - A very interesting comic, with beautiful art and a great dream-like vibe to it. Updates seldom.
Dresden Codak - Another interesting and beautiful comic; the first ones are mostly separate gags (mostly based around science, so this is another good one for all you types out there!), but he has a strange and wonderful story arc called HOB, which is basically around transhumanism, but also, well, more. Just do yourself a favour and check it out. All of it. Updates seldom.
Mitch Clem's blog - Mitch Clem is a pretty cool guy who's into punk-rock (so I don't get a lot of his jokes, too). He used to draw a whole bunch of comics, like Nothing Nice to Say, San Antonio Rock City, My Stupid Life, and the incredible Kittens, but right now MSL is the only one that is somehow updating, and even that's on-and-off, so I prefer to simply check his blog because that's where he posts links to any comics he draws, as well as some other neat art stuff (mainly show flyers for punk-rock bands).
Copper - Oh, this one is just beautiful. Amazing art, first of all, and really... inexplicable atmosphere to it. Lyrical, kinda. I really love it. It doesn't update often, and I have to admit that the last strips I saw kinda disappointed me, but I still check on it from time to time to see if there's anything new. Some things are worth waiting for.

Now, before I leave you to catch your breath, here is one more comic that I don't have on my 'official' list (yet, anyway) but still check occasionally:
Multiplex - Yet another movie-themed comic; I guess maybe that's why I haven't officially bookmarked it yet, because I don't want to feel like I have too many of those. Anyway, this one centres around the bunch of people working at a large movie thatre, so you do get a slightly different perspective.
And that's all for now... I think.

*****END OF THE CURRENT UPDATE OF THIS PERSONAL SPACE; WILL BE CONTINUED LATER******

Dave Barry's Blog – Dave Barry is a Miami-based American humourist and an altogether funny guy, and his blog provides links to some of the weirdest things I've ever seen.

National Anthems of the World – Self explanatory, and very cool. Also, something with a similar idea behind it is the page of the Internationale.

How far is it? - A fun little toy to find the exact distance two points on Earth (though it appears these places better be in the US). And while you're at it, you can also check what time it is anywhere.

Some poetry links – For those times when I'm trying to be an intellectual…
I guess the best place to start would be poets.org, the Academy of American Poets. The name is misleading – they have works of many poets, as well as information, books, and a whole load of cool stuff (well, they're cool for a like me). Check out their 'Listening Booth', where you can hear poets reading their works, including such big names as Dylan Thomas, T S Eliot, Louise Glück, Czeslaw Milosz, W H Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich and many others. Amazing!
More poetry archives I ran into are Public Domain Poetry and eMule Poetry Archives, which are both quite nice.
Then there are online resources like poetry.org or The American Poetry Review, which I'm always telling myself I should investigate more thoroughly;
And then there are some poets' sites that I bookmarked because I like the poems in them, and enjoy coming back to them occasionally – like Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Rabindranath Tagore, or Naomi Shihab Nye (who is also a friend). I try to remember to bookmark other poets I like, but usually I forget, so this is really just a very limited selection.
Many of these links I got from my great friend, and wonderful poet, Tabitha (Dragonfly)… unfortunately she's not on h2g2 very much now, but check out her blog!

Some word links – Well, first of all, you can always use a dictionary around… or even more than one. These two are pretty good (even though I wouldn't completely trust all the dictionaries in word2word – the Hebrew ones, for instance, are terrible).
However, language is a changing thing, and there are dozens of new terms created all the time; a great place to look them up is Urban Dictionary, where new entries can be created by anyone to describe anything (yes, including yours truly… look up 'outsanity' ). Of course, that means you can't completely trust it either, but usually there are a couple of definitions entered for every word/phrase, and you can sort through them until you understand what it's all about.
Two fun things are this and this (last link was kindly supplied by Count Zero).
And last, but definitely not least, is the Online Etymology Dictionary - paradise for language-nerds such as myself. Speaking of nerds, here's an example:

nerd
1951, U.S. student slang, probably an alteration of 1940s slang nert "stupid or crazy person," itself an alteration of nut. The word turns up in a Dr. Seuss book from 1950 ("If I Ran the Zoo"), which may have contributed to its rise. Adjective nerdy is from 1978.

Greenpeace – What can you say, they're good people.

B'Tselem - More good people.

Found Magazine – A magazine dedicated (how surprising) to things people find. An opportunity to look at other people's pictures and read other people's notes without feeling guilty about it.

Punk2Junk – Terri's site, where she's got some of her art. Terri can be found right here.

Just a few links that a lot of people seem to put on their space so I will too

(always a good idea to follow the herd)

The Post – h2g2's weekly newspaper, lots of good stuff.

The GuideML Clinic, Pictures, Smileys – if you're new around here these might come in handy. And the h2g2 archives and h2jargon pages can be quite useful as well.

Ask h2g2 - Serious questions, silly questions, games and random stuff.

– I have no idea what this is good for, but it looks cool.

Who's Online?

God's last message to his creation - Alright, not exactly, but this is something Douglas Adams had to say about h2g2, and I think it's important to remember, at least once in a while, what we're all really here for.

Vanity Corner:

If you enjoyed reading this, why not try some of the other things I've written?

There's Bus-Stop Logic, my first edited entry.
There are my five other edited entries which are slightly more informative – French Hill and A Very Brief History of Jerusalem, as well as Honesdale, Pennsylvania, USA, Amman, Jordan – A Short Guide and The Muallaqa of Imru al Qays and Its Translations Into English (What do you mean what is it? Well, read the entry then! .
The Amman entry is based on a trip I made there, and the travel log entry - after spending a long time idling in the Alternative Writing Workshop - has eventually wound up in the CAC Continuum
There's my brilliant theory about Why Wednesdays Are From The Devil. A little inaccurate, perhaps… well, okay, completely inaccurate, but still, it's a brilliant theory. Facts schmacts!
A slightly bizarre entry that had made its slightly bizarre way to the Underguide is my short guide about What to do when you are attacked by a camel. Read it, you never know when you'll need it!
And I am also a co-creator of the amazing nighthooverite collaborative story project 'Night of teh Hoover', which started out on the famous cancel thread, and now can be found here and here, as well as in the Post, under the (unfortunately) corrected title Night of the Hoover.

Alright, I'm done talking. Do you want to leave me a message? Look, I got one of these nifty guestbook-thingies you can leave a message in! Isn't it cool? Leave me a message!