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

Doin' fine, FC. Thanks. *takes a Y *
Yeah, I don't think I've seen much of you since the big party.
And this is actually my first time to the F&F.

It's usually tidier than this ..
*brushes numerous small white feathers off the bar*
.. especially at this time. The company is select, but of the best quality. Hic!
What brings you to the F and F?

great to see you round here... I didnt think I'd seen you here before! Its nice and quiet here at night. just me and Kes! and I am sorry about the mess, I'll tidy up before people start returning in the morn!

Don't worry about the mess. As long as the drinks are good!

I spend a lot of time at the café, but I wanted to try this place out. It's quite interesting... Seems like it has a real sense of history to it.

I think it's a fantastic place, and yes, it has a history - but that's only a problem until you've had enough drink to disable your flight recorders. Right now, this tends to be "quiet time", but it's a chance for a good chat, and for maintenance. here - have a towel and help dry a few glasses!

*grabs towel and starts to dry glasses*
Looks like the place was pretty busy earlier!
But I also like places like this when it's quiet.

Since I'm helping with the drying, perhaps you could help me figure out the drinks here. I realize that is a pint (?), but I haven't been here long enough to learn some of the others.

I'm still learning, but a Y is a stem glass - usually for champagne, and a is a cocktail glass, complete with stick, cherries and/or olives and/or mini-onions.
I've seen a |_D used as a left-handed variant of the (very useful when chinking glasses - it acoids getting your virtual fingers trapped). And of course, a c|____| is a large
No doubt visiting alcoholic experts will enlighten us further.
Your glass looks a bit empty - allow me.
*refills both s*
Time for a break. Cheers!

flutters around throwing all the rubbish into her void... next time i get so excited Kes, stop me! Menza will kill me!

hope to see you round again RB, I find it hard to keep up in the cafe, as so much happens, so I've lost a few friends.... I really need to pop round again for a cuppa!

*flies off giddily out through the door*

See you later, FC!

|_b cheers, Kes.
Thanks for the help on the drinks.
I've also seen the |_|, which appears to be a soft drink,
c|_/ which I believe is a pitcher
and \______/ kitty's milk bowl,
but I'm curious about

So do you keep the place going during the Aussie time zones?

Sorry - I forgot about the soft drinks - I seem to have a mental block about them. No, I haven't got the subtlety of the as opposed to the . I got into trouble for using kitty's bowl as a drinks tray! One has to be so careful!
Yes, I seem to have drifted into the +8hrs caretaker role. I expect I'm safe until they do a stocktake. The only bad part to the job is that I have to keep popping back to the RW, and I sometimes miss a customer's entrance. Yesterday two people came in, waited, helped themselves and left before I noticed. They were good, though - they left a note

*imagines the consequences of misusing kitty's bowl, shudders*
I'm really looking forward to meeting kitty, although I hope there's some cake handy when I do

So you're on staff here? Or just unofficial caretaker?

Entirely unofficial. The rate for the job is only $2 per day - that's all I could afford to pay them.
Sorry - ancient, bad and agonising jokes a speciality. You don't think it has anything to do with the lack of customers do you?
The powers that be appointed FC to try to deal with my jokes, but so far ....

Hey, $2 a day isn't bad! Do you have paid vacations as well?
*isn't sure if she'd have to pay less or more on vacation*

I suppose the lack of customers could lead to bad jokes. I've always found it harder to launch horrific jokes in a room full of people, although at least then you could try to blame it on the person next to you.

Being here IS the vacation.
Never thought of the lack of customers being the cause - I'd always assumed the jokes were the cause, and the lack of customers the effect.
Tried assigning blame to a customer once - her handbag then ate one of my shoes, so I haven't repeated the exercise. Lucky still to have all my toes.
Yes, this is a place with quite a history!

I've never trusted handbags They're scavengers... they'll eat anything. Ever looked inside one of them? All sorts of junk.

*finishes drink*
Yes, I can see I'm going to have to learn more about the history of this place. It should be enlightening.

It's been delightful, Kes. Thanks for the and the conversation. I need to be going now, but I'll be back.

See you later!

Morning, Kes. I'll have my breakfast now please. (That's a Guinness, Kes. No wonder you were serving me odd things. Methinks you need to find the Drinkies forum via my page).

Good morning, Amy. A it is.
*poured without quite enough time to rest, but not too bad*
A happy breakfast to you. First of the day. Cheers!
Thank you for telling me where the instruction book was hidden. I'll read it when I get a chance.
Anyway, a Mackeson and tomato juice with soda look a bit like Guiness - stangely greener (not redder). I suppose you noticed the taste - sorry - won't do it again.
What news this morning?

Oh, not a lot really. I've set aside an hour or so to finish off my article on Children's Programming Languages. I can rehash it for something at work so I can count it as a legitimate activity.

And I've taken the car in for its annual test. I'm expecting a big bill

And youself?

There's no such thing as a small car maintenance bill.
I read your page (en route to the Drinkies code - thanks) - now understand the Lego thing. Another triumph for the Improbability Drive. Back when the UK government was pumping BBC computers into schools, I set up a robot "lab" at St. Felix College (East Anglia), using Lego & Fischer Technik. Fischer had some neat sensors; Lego less so (back then), but you could scoop out a brick and fit photocells, opto-sensors & microswitches. We had robots rattling round the place. Most of the students used BASIC, but I got some of them onto LOGO - we had a cube of a turtle which "really" did what the screen turtle did - great fun.
I see from your note that life has (as expected) evolved. Nice to see you're continuing the good work. I went commercial (boo, hiss), but kept a huge train set that Lego donated in return for some friendly articles ... and it's still going.
May not interest you (you're probably well beyond this), but I devised a system where the train did "dead reckoning" of its position based on an opto sensor connected to a drive shaft, while the track reported "actuals" from photocells. We fed the differences back to the train routine, which automatically compensated for errors in the dead reckoning. Well, I enjoyed it anyway!
On that note, I'm afraid I must away IRW, a meeting beckons. Do have another on me. Cheers. Feel free to talk "shop" (if we're not boring the h**l out of the other patrons) anytime.
BCNU - the bar is now in your capable hands.

Ooh. Promotion to bar entity.

*Power goes to head*

I'll open a fresh bar. This one is starting to smell.

Bar Number 36 now to be found at a forum near you.