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

Bastak (noun)
Any modern artist you’d like to punch senseless for being a pretentious git.


Bedale (verb, Archaic)
Of comely young maidens, to skip and traipse through the woods, singing “Fa-la-la” in the desperate hope that a passing handsome woodcutter or hunter will fall for it.


Bellingham (noun)
The kind of celebrity the media tout as being beautiful, when it is painfully obvious that said celebrity is a sad, emaciated, repellent, and dismally bubble-headed waste of cytoplasm.


Churston (noun)
The kind of dance performed by the elderly at wedding receptions. It starts out as a dance that was popular in their youth, but quickly devolves into a muddle as they realise they’ve forgotten most of the steps.


Diredawa (noun)
The kind of dreadful conversation instigated upon seeing an elderly relative for the first time in at least one year. The conversation must have two or more of the following components to qualify as a diredawa: 1) A list of who has died in the time since your last visit; 2) A list of who has been ill in the time since your last visit; 3) What has gone wrong with the elderly relative’s own innards in the time since you last visited (this is known as “The Organ Recital” and 4) Aren’t prices / children / television programmes terrible these days? Diredawas have been known to last for anywhere up to three and a half hours.


Dudinka (noun)
The precise moment when you first catch yourself using words that make you sound like an old fart (for example: “When I was a kid...&#8221, marking the start of a long, slow decline into becoming like your parents.


Guragon (noun)
Any horrible comic television character you despise, such as Victor Meldrew, Hyacinth Bucket, or Patsy and Edina, because they remind you of one of your actual relatives, and of whom people think you have an irrational hatred, when in fact it’s a perfectly rational hatred because you actually have that kind of person in your life and you can’t turn them off.


Kyle of Tongue (noun, Psychiatric)
Irrational anxiety caused by wondering whether or not the ox tongue in your sandwich is tasting you right back.


Malta (noun)
The one Malteeser in the packet which is either bizarrely chewy or tooth-chippingly solid.


Prignitz (noun)
A critic who instantly decries what is popular just to be bloody-minded and to infuriate people.


Twante (noun)
A critic who always has to drag sexual subtexts into everything, especially where inappropriate.


Vegorritis (noun, Medical)
The condition of being swollen with intestinal gas after switching to an all-vegetarian diet for the first time.


Voorst (verb)
To make the V-sign at people on the television whom you dislike.


Wankie (noun)
A critic who is quite blatantly spouting a load of polysyllabic cobblers in an effort to appear intellectual.


Wichita (noun)
The kind of loud, pushy, obnoxious American tourist who proclaims everything in a foreign country to be ‘quaint,’ and engenders anti-American sentiments across the globe.


Weedon Beck (noun)
The type of person who is jealous of those who are even bigger sci-fi geeks than himself.


Woonsocket (noun)
The missing vital attachment of a socket wrench that shows up soon after you buy a replacement for it.


Yetholm (noun)
The kind of elderly gentleman who insists on wearing a tweed suit, waistcoat, trilby, and tie while on holiday in the height of summer.


Zyyi (noun)
The jumble of letters you produce when filling in the last clue in a crossword, which indicates that you’re not as clever as you had first thought.

Any way I (or someone else) can delete this thread? I hit 'Post' instead of 'Preview,' with quite a few transferral errors. Thanks.

No, I'm afraid threads can't be deleted, except by the Editors. It's still readable though.

I'm really busy at the minute, but when I get a few minutes, I promise I'll get this up-and-running again.

BTW - it's probably worth making a catchy nickname for yourself (just hit the 'Preferences' link), unless you're particularly attached to your U-number. It makes you so much easier to recognise

B

Okay, I'll try that name-change thing you suggested. Thanks. As for this post, I found out too late that computers always turn "smart quotes" from word-processor programs (where I do all my liff-creation) into gibberish. The other version of this is the "correct" version with quotation marks and apostrophes where the gibberish is.

Enh. Sometimes I think the Luddites are onto something....

Most hootooers, after a while, find you can't beat Notepad for composing entries and long posts. There's no dodgy conversions then.

B

Good advice, but unfortunately, I don't have Notepad on my computer.

Are you a Mac user? My comiserations.

If not, download Notetab at http://www.notetab.com/

B

No, PC. It's just that the computer I got at Dixon's had basic word processing, basic image scanning / enhancement, and internet capabilities. And that's all I really need. I've got the bare-bones, factory-installed MicroSoft Works (Windows ME). Any further expenditure on software upgrades just seems like a waste to me.

I'm still trying to figure out how to stop a "Why Go Pro?" ad popping up every so often for QuickTime Pro. I don't want it, $35 is too much to pay for it, and I went all the way up until 16 May 2002 without ever seeing a single "Attack of the Clones" trailer because if it meant going online and spending $35 to do so, forget it. That, and none of the theaters around here put any trailers for it on any of the movies I went to see. Not that it mattered. The Sith are patient.

Right:

The new, updated entry is at A846065, and I have slowly started adding the new submissions. Be patient!

Please note your name in lights under *written and researched by*

B