h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Maybe it is the subtle design of life that as we age and must surrender so many of our pleasures in the interest of good health, that surrendering to the Reaper will become an easy thing to do. It is so wrong that we have to diet for weeks to lose a couple of pounds, then we indulge ourselves once, and the pounds are back on. "As easy as falling off a log." Why is it easier to fall than to stay on? There is only one way to score a bullseye, and an infinite number of ways to miss. We are playing craps with the dice loaded against us. On we go, carrying the banner with the strange device, "Excelsior", trudging up the hills that have no end.
And yet we love it!

I guess that would be the best answer to living, forget the eternal way of things, just love the moment! Ah, if I only could. Hamlet's soliloquy came to mind as I wrote that. Calm acceptance, or fierce opposition? I suppose we does what we can and what we can't we don't.

I reckon religions only really need one commandment, 'Do NO Harm'. All the rest come with escape clauses. 'When I was a child, I thought as a child'. What a pity we have to grow old and cynical. But if we don't, there are so many barstewards ready to take us down.

How did I get on to this stuff?

I am a pond. A calm surface with with water bug thoughts skittering around. An ordinary, pleasant enought pond. But if you take a stick and stir the bottom all manner of grubbiness is brought to the surface. Even I do not know what lies in the depths.

I'll think about it tomorrow!

The Rice-a-Riso was a bit of a disappointment. I followed the directions but the rice was still a bit hard.Still, it filled a gap and did no harm.

A beautiful piece of prose you wrote.
Difficult to follow.

I have to agree re diet, I feel that all I need is to be within sniffing distance of a cream cake and it goes to my hips.

Been eating some very healthy stuff this last couple of days and hubs says he feels better for it. His blood sugar has gone down, quite a lot that makes me feel we must be doing something right.

We have found several companies in America that make vitamins and supplements for pennies a pill. They even put them in a pot with your own label on. You can even make up your own supplements, like garlic and cinnamon in the same pill. Yet here in England there is nothing like that.

None of us is perfect, I am sure that if you stir any of us up you will find a few nasties at the bottom.

Instead of clam chowder, which I figure is a little rich for hubs, I made some French onion soup, even if I do say so myself it is bluddy good.

Back to the vet tomorrow, the dogs eyes are not getting any better, still sticky in the morning. I still think it is jumping head first into the duck pond. Yesterday he jumped in and a younger much smaller pup jumped in too. The little fellow was a little concerned, our dog got hold of him and pulled him out. Very briefly our lad was a hero. That is until he got home and put mud all over the sofa.

Well, it looks like I have been sold a pup again. A very expensive pup.
The blood test result was a disappointment. The only good thing (that blasted Email notifier snail just screeched on to the screen and scared several lifes out of me) was that the count had not increased. I can only say that if it was not for my painful legs I am feeling sort of younger than I have been lately. So I will put my mind in neutral and coast along for another three months when I am due to see the urologist again. My local doc. reckons it would be an OK thing to do. They call it watchful waiting. I'm a great one for waiting. I usually wait that long that nothing gets done. Well, whose life is it anyway?

I'm sorry about your dog. Maybe you ought to get underwater goggles for him.

Had a little bit of rain today. It is very patchy. Some places got quite a bit. Old Pluvius must be a bit mad at the moment. Did you see all the ice on the orange trees in California?

The Email was from a bloke called Karl who sends little factoids every now and then. Today it said that the old number of the beast, 666, has now been found to be wrong. Some other experts have reinterpreted the writings and come up with 616. Have you noticed that whatever you have been led to believe, sooner or later some new expert (as apart from an ex-spurt) will pop up and say we have been led astray.

Well, the only thing you can be sure of in life is death. Even taxes can not be relied on. The really really rich people never pay tax.

Lew mate. IT HASN'T GOT WORSE.

Maybe the zeolite needs more time. Hey I just read that Glucosamine takes years to make a difference. You have only been taking it for a short time. Lets be positive here IT HAS'NT GOT WORSE. Lets celebrate that fact.

Funny you should mention ex-spurts but I have just read that they are having a row about what diet is best for us. Claims that fats and proteins are bad and carbs are good may be wrong maybe carbs are the enemy. Best thing to do is eat what you fancy.

All I know is that when man roamed the earth and lived in caves there was no bakery or sugar. So I imagine he ate meat and any veg that he could get his teeth into. (Including his wife on a Saturday night)

I try and imagine how our bodies should work and can only come up with the answer that sugar and salt are probably not so good. Processed foods such as white bread, cakes, biscuits and white flour products should be avoided and their granary brothers eaten instead. We should drink plenty of water and that should be it.

We have had so much wind the whole of Europe is suffering. No I didn't see the ice on the orange trees. I will have a look on the news. The world is going mad.

I have just had an email asking me to enter a competition for Australia Day. I am supposed to think up a recipe for the celebrations. What do you reckon? Something very Australian. That is rather like asking a chef to cook something very British

Today dog seems a lot better. He really does not like the wind, I suppose it messes up his smells and he feels confused by all the noise. He seems to think that he must protect us but when it is windy he is not sure where the danger is coming from. Well that is my psycology for his miserable looks anyway.

Glad you are having a bit of rain. Hold onto your hat you might find an English cow in your back yard it is so windy.

'All things in moderation.' That should be another golden rule. Of course the big trick there is to know how much is moderate. Salt, for instance, is a vital necessity. Primitive man used to travel for miles to barter for salt. Our native people are expert at finding beehives, usually in tree trunks. They also run banksia flowers through their mouths to suck the nectar. These things are, if not essential, at least highly desirable. They also dig up a special ant nest. These ants gather nectar and feed it to special ant members who store it in their abdomens. They look like little globes of honey. Insect life is ingenious.

The Hovell Pile is sounding its fog horn. A mournful noise.

While I am not happy with the results of the blood test I am not despairing. I will keep on for a time and see what happens, but I have to be realistic and realise that miracle cures do happen, but they are very rare. I have already exceded life expectancy, especially for an unmarried live alone male.

I don't think there is such a thing as Australian cuisine. Up until WW2 it would have been the same as yours. With the influx of immigrants it became cosmopolitan.'Throw another prawn on the barbie' is ocker but hardly original. Food is food, it can be cooked in many ways, but the ingredients only vary by what is available locally. Mud Crabs, Moreton Bay Bugs,(another crabby sort of thing) and I suppose Kangaroo meat would qualify, but it is only animal meat. I hear we are exporting our ubiquitous meat pie to USA now, but a pie is a pie is a pie. Ours is most famous for squirting gravy all over your shirt when you bite it.(it is a hand held meal during spectator sports). In Sydney, and I think Adelaide, they have what they call a pie floater. A pie served on a plate surrounded by sort of mushy green peas. I have never had such a thing so my details might be off a bit. Same with baked potatoes. I did have one once and it was delicious but I can't remember what it was filled with, but it was topped off with grated cheese. Probably had chopped ham and onion as well. It was a meal in itself.

Little Kanga has had a retching morning. Fur ball trouble I guess. She is so hard to do anything for, it is frustrating. You think it is hard treating a dog. Try a little animal that is as fast as lightning, equipped with razor sharp claws and a brain to match.

Baked potatoe my favourite food. Filled with butter and cheese, or with a large dollop of my famous chilli.

The East Enders that is the people living in the east end of London enjoy pie, with mushy peas and eel gravy, that being the juice from the eels when they are cooked to make jellied eels. Something of a delicacy in the East End even the rich and famous East Enders are supposed to have their jellied eels flown in to Florida etc.

I have found kangaroo meat in several places, tried it and as you say it is meat. Your pies sound like our pies with just a little more gravy. We make pies out of anything ground beef and onion, steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, beef and ale the list goes on and on.

I expect to have you around for some time yet. I have not made my millions and I am sure I want you to be the first to know when I do. Looking around at the Zeolite product again and it does seem to be a detoxifier, kind of a body filter for getting rid of nasty stuff. I am sure that is not the way the scientist call it but hey ho that is my understanding of it.

I don't use salt or sugar now. I find using a nicely flavoured oil, lemon or lime juice a bit of vinegar makes food taste very interesting, I am surprised that hubs is taking to his new way of eating so well, he was very much a meat and two veg type with loadsa chips with everything, but he is bearing up well to being given salads and pasta.

As I think I have told you before, my hubs grandmother lived to be 99 she had her breast removed when she was 80 because of cancer. His mother had a full hysterectomy when she was 24. (Hubs is adopted) smoked all her life and is still doing well but breathless and 79. She is mentally an old lady as she lives in the past.

She would never use a computer and she gets most of her information from the tv. Since we have been around she has brightend up considerably and is now more adventurous. She bought me some fruit tea the other day saying it was something new she had seen in the supermarket.

We have had about an inch and a half of rain locally. In some places they have had floods. Never rains but it pours eh! I bet the fire fighters wont be complaining.

I saw some of the pictures of your breezy weather. I think Gaia is trying to tell us something. Stand by for some quakes as She tries to shake us insects off Her hide. It is not bad when we can sit snug in our safe little land,(Oz, that is) and tut tut about other peoples distress. Well we do have an occasional upset further north but Victoria is not very exciting.

I am glad I got a computer. Frustrating and infuriating as it can be it is a wonderful instrument of communication and information. I intend to look up behemoth later. It was mentioned in something I was reading and I realised I had no idea what it was.

I just finished the Harry Potter book, The Half Blood Prince. It is an embarassment that a grown, a very grown man, gets weepy at the death of a fanciful fictitious character. Old Dumbledore was my idea of the sort of bloke to which we should aspire. I must have missed the previous book. Don't know how that happened. It is a constant annoyance to me when I go to the library and go to select a book and notice it is book three of five, and you can't find book one or two, and you know if you read it they probably wont get four and five.

There are so many things in life to keep a grumpy old man in good form.

Hussey just took a good catch. He was quoted in the paper as saying he is not a walker. He said it is up to the umpire to tell you if you are out or not. Hell, if you know you are out why do you have to be told? How can you be happy batting on when you know you were out? This is the modern way of being a good sport? They always mention Gilchrist as being a walker, and since he is the only one they mention he must be the only man in the team who does the right thing.

To my disgust they have renamed the South Melbourne Oval the Shane Warne Oval. Well, our national hero is a bank robbing cop killer, and a cop who 'grassed' on some of his corrupt colleagues was more or less pilloried and driven out of the force. As individuals, Australians, present company excepted, are the salt of the earth and if you need anyone to fight for you, you could not do better, but as a society there is an undercurrent of support for sleaze-balls such as certain cricketers who I shall not name, just in case. I suppose I come across as a po-faced prig but I do admire integrity.

Thus endeth the lesson for today!

Don't make me laugh, The Shane Warne Oval, oh dear, mind he was a fantastic cricketer but to name a place after him. That is a bit American they get all misty eyed about some bloke and name an airport after him and then find he had so many skeletons in his cupboard they have to change the name quietly and hope no one notices.

Still windy but quieter. 80,000 people were without current on Thursday and 12 folk died. You are so right. If you get a chance to see Ice Age The Meltdown you must. Talk about insects and crying about people in story books. I got sad because the wooly mammoth thought he was the last of his species and got very upset.

The film is very funny and worth a watch. I love those kinds of films. Ever since I went to see Lady and The Tramp I have been hooked for cartoons. Clever cartoons you understand none of your silly ones.

I loved Harry Potter, his films were also good and used actors that related to my imagination of them in the book. I too hate books 1 - 5 but worse is a tv programme that you are watching only to find out that you need to tune in next week folks to find out what happened.

In England the word cricket was understood to mean fair play, if someone did something not very nice, we would tell them that it wasn't playing the game or that it wasn't cricket. My husband was getting very upset about the Pakistani Team who he said were cheats and yet they were only suspended for 1 year. He doesen't think that they should be back playing when there are all sorts of rumours about match rigging and so on.

I am doing loads of research on herbs, vitamins and health products and have found that although they are useful, they just don't know enough about them to be claiming miracle cures.Zeolite is up there as is pomegranate basically they are antioxidants which clean out the system.

Football again this afternoon. Manchester United are back to the top of the table and hopes are in this house that they win the Premiership Cup. Oh what would we do without sport? To love it, hate it and generally sit back and tell others how to play it.

Blue skies this afternoon. We might be headed for some more hot dry stuff.

Unfortunately I think my biorhythms are on the down hill run. You can't have ups without downs, bubber it. Kanga is a bit off also. She is probably as old as me in cat years. I worry about her but there is not a lot I can do. Still she bounces back quite often. The feral tom should have died dozens of times but has recovered without any human aid.

In the paper today was an article about Shane Warnes interview by Parky. It was rather abrasive about his answers. Warney said that when he took A$5000 off the Indian bloke he did not know he was a bookmaker. Yeah! Right! Also said he was only 22 and naive. Actually he was 25 and thought he would get away with it. There were a lot of other things he could have been asked, like the money he accepted to give up smoking and the time he abused some kid for taking his picture while he was smoking a cigarette. But never mind, he is a sporting hero, which in Australia means he is untouchable. Anyway, enough about him. Also in the paper, Hussey's brother had a shot at him for not walking when he knew he was out. There is a chance Australia might have lost if he had, and we can't have that! And why do they call them heroes? What is heroic about playing games for money? I always thought a hero was somebody who performed bravely in battle, who carried on into danger in spite of being scared witless. I guess that is another word that has become meaningless thanks to our popular press.

You know, my grumpiness is starting to get on my nerves.

I feel quite grumpy about it.

Do you ever see Inpector Montalbano on TV.? I really enjoy that show. The Italian scenery is intriguing and the characters are only mildly eccentric. The beauty of watching foreign movies that are subtitled is that you do not miss any of the dialogue. My hearing has aged and I have great difficulty in understanding some actors when they get emotional, or most women, or children, who are the ones that get emotional anyway.

Hey, maybe you should call your herb meds Cookies Potted Potions. Might get some of the youngers interested.

I swear that certain times of the year are not good for us. It's almost like a haunted house, the walls absorb some kind of bad vibes and we pick up on them every time. With me now, it is November through to Jan/Feb time they were times in my youth when first my dad and then my first husband would get drunk and behave even worse than during the summer months.

Or maybe I could deal with it easier in the Summer months. Or maybe I suffer from S.A.D or maybe I am making excuses for being a miserable old bag during those particular winter months. It was just the same in the Caribbean, I still felt the opressive feeling and became quite depressed.

Maybe this is your time of year for feeling down. Maybe you don't have a time of month but a time of year Maybe?

I had no idea that Shane was such a bad lad. It sounds like an awful lot of his bad behaviour didn't get over here or if it did I certainly didn't hear about it. Anyway, I think I agree with you the word hero has lost it's true meaning. As you say it is when you do something even though you know you could die or worse. Saving another person, diving in to rescue your dog that is bluddy brave and heroic. Putting your cat in a cat basket for a visit to the vet that is bravery and damn it is heroic compared to playing cricket or football for loadsa dosh.

We don't watch anything with subtitles hubs says he cannot do two things at the same time i.e watch a film, understand it and read all at the same time.

Best wishes to Kanga who I thought was a young lady. I do apologise for calling him a her from time to time.

I can see where I might have confused you. Kanga is definitely a little madam. The feral tom is a cat that comes to my back door for a handout. Like all cats he is a character of firm attitude. He never fails to hiss at me to let me know he feels no obligation for the free feed. He must be a hopeless fighter as he is covered in scars and often fronts up with bloody wounds and swollen lumps on his head. The worst thing that happened recently was when he turned up with his right eye a mass of blood, a great lump of fur missing from his back and generally a filthy mess. I can only assume he was hit by a car. I almost gave up hope for him as he had trouble eating. But now he is almost back to normal though he has lost a lot of weight. It is amazing how a stray cat can survive all manner of problems while a pampered puss is forever being unwell. Kanga is better today fortunately.

I don't know about having monthlies or yearlys but each day can have its variety. As they say life is full of little ups and downs. For instance, the arthritis in my left hip has improved but now my right hip is playing up. I sometimes think about the old idea that the medicine men had where disease was the result of an evil miasma. I visualised this noxious monster floating around and soaking into unfortunate victims, causing all manner of misery. Well they give it more fancy names now, scientists are great ones for giving things names and thinking they have explained it by doing so. There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, amd who is to say that all these infections are not directed by some evil intelligence. Maybe not evil. Maybe it is poor old Gaia again trying to get rid of us annoying insects.

I think I need to get a life!

Glad to know Kanga is a girl, I thought I had been confused somehow. Your bloody visitor sounds quite a guy. He is obviously one for the ladies and probably gets into fights so that he can be top cat as it were.

Believe it or not some religeous zelot sent me an email the other day saying that wickedness brought about sickness and death. Pointing out how certain people had died or become inflicted with illness. I was so angry I sent back a real nasty answer, but I was appalled. Basically it suggested that homosexuals came to a sticky end and rightfully so as they were an abomination. They even mentioned the Kennedy family saying that the sinners and fornicators also got into God's bad books and look how it all ended in tears.

I reminded this idiot who sent it that he was supposed to be worshiping a loving and forgiving God and why did he try and tell people that God was really a being full of vengence and hate.

He answered that he was very sorry that he hadn't seen it like that and that he was sorry to have up set me so.

I wonder how a group of people can live with themselves thinking that way, and calling themselves Christians.

Bah Humbug.

Working hard on our supplement project. We have sourced a manufacturer in the States who seem to be just what we are after. We want to sell teas and creams and oils and such.

I don't know if you would consider giving me your address then I would send you one of our calendars that my hubs has produced. It has some really cut pictures of our dog on it. Also of course it is advertising in Oz. I will quite understand if you don't wish to put your address on here but I thought it might be a nice idea.

I am ignorant of so many things to do with the computer world so that I do not know of reasons for or against putting my address here. Is it any better to give my email address and sending my snailmail address by that method? I just wrote a verse yesterday on paranoia and I have to say that this internet age does not make you feel secure. It seems as though there are idiot savants every where, electronic geniuses whose amoral pleasures, whose winking dreams are to mutilate or destroy this most marvellous method of communicating. Sand castle kickers of the internet world. (Grumping again!)

Hill with it! My address is Lewis Walker, 89 Jetty Rd. Rosebud. 3939 Victoria, Australia. My email is [email protected]

Chrisianity has long been the religion of hypochrisy. Perhaps the first hundred years or so they were genuine but then along came St. Paul and it went off in all sort of persecutory directions. As it is said, The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Oh yess...I'm the great....intender!

Supersonic great smashing. I will get a calendar out to you asap.

I shouldn't worry about putting your address on the site, after all I can't imagine anyone to fly over from Europe to hassle you.

I feel just the same, I trust everyone until proved wrong. On the whole I get away with trusting. My husband on the other hand is quite paranoid. He worries about everything and unfortunately he is very often right and it drives me around the bend as I am trying to make him see they are not really after him.

I am in a bit of a quandary now. Do I continue to comm. on this site, or use the email. As it happened I got censored on the last post and had to change a couple of vowels, as you may have noticed.

Jaberwock got stifled in his poetry conversation and has spat the dummy.
It seems obvious to me that I was censored by a computer program which gave me a chance to smooth over the offensive word(s). Perhaps Jab was wiped by someone complaining, which would blow my fuses too.

I wonder if spat is on the list of proscribed words. I'll hit the PM button and find out.

I have answered you email. I don't really mind what you decide to do. I must admit though you can speak your mind through email.

Do you realise we have been speaking nearly daily since June 2006. I am sure when I have the time I will read back on my life and have a bit of a laugh at how fed up I have been at times.

Whichever you like old friend will be alright by me. See you somewhere.

Just a little concerned as I haven't heard from you.

Don't wish to mother you, so I hope you don't mind a prompt.

I had a telephone call from a friend in the Caribbean last night he tells me that my Yahoo email has been sending back his messages. I wonered if this had happened to you.

I hope you are ok? Calendar winging its way to you as we speak.

Would you not know it. I sent, or thought I had sent, a lengthy email. I did get a message from the machine next day saying something had gone wrong, but as I had sent a couple of others in the meantime I thought the one to you was probably all right. I must look it up and see whether it is worth trying again.

Thank you for worrying about me mother. My own family have always been lousy communicators and in my later years I have become lazy also. This to and fro-ing has been good for me.

I just had the email snail scare the lights out of me again. I suppose I should leave the sound off, but I have a subliminal program playing while I play with the puter. It is supposed to do wonders for me. Well, I thought it was worth a try.

Well here I am again. After seeing another doctor I am certain that women are not kind. The men doctors don't expect me to leap around and bend my knees but this nasty little lass did. I had to become quite firm and say NO I can't do that.

It was -2 last night at around 10pm. Dog cannot understand why his muddy puddles are not soggy. Why they are hard and slidy.

I cannot believe that the Australians let our blokes win a match they must be getting tired of winning bless em.

We are almost up to the mark with the business the web site is almost finished, the business plan is on it's way it is just getting some product made now so that we can begin.

I do hope that you are ok, it seems a shame not to see you each day on the Freak thread I miss it.

-2 is a temperature of which I cannot comprehend. We sometimes get to 8c here in Rosebud, and that is cold enough for me. But extremes of weather seem to be the order of the day now. However we are living in a small instant of the history of the world so perhaps it is not so unusual really.

I enjoy reading Malabarista's entries. She seems so youthfully enthusiastic and energetic. I was never like that at any age. It is a bit like watching a puppy at play.

Poetry Poem have made a copy of my poems on a cd. I was surprised to see how many poems I had written. I have had a bit of trouble getting it to work but finally hit the right spot this time. Good for my ego.

Saw some of the Brit. and N.Z. game last night. Did not know who to barrack for, but I think N.Z. would have the better chance to beat Oz in the finals. But then a match between us and youse is always more interesting.

I think I wrote somewhere that we cannot feel another persons pain. This
makes us sometimes unfeeling or skeptical when we see someone moving with any difficulty. I am a long way from being incapacitated, but if I had felt the aches and pains that I now live with, when I was young, I reckon I would have given up the ghost there and then.

The only trouble with this line of comm., Freak that is, is the feeling of being watched. I realise it is only a comp. program that pounces on the forbidden words, at least I think that is all it is, but it is intimidating. I may still email now and then, especially if I want to show you a photo, or one of the jokes a friend sends me.

There is a lot of fun in the Iworld and hootoo is limited in some ways.