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

*comes into the salon and goes over to the samovar for some tea, then fetches a slice of mbougatses and finds a place on a red velvet sofa*

Ben -

Hallo sunny! Thank you for popping out of the Lurkers' Cottage to join us, however briefly.

Joanna, you were a charter role player on Hootoo, and your doughnut stall was practically the first virtual institution to be formed here. I consider you to be practically a patron saint, or at least way up there at the high table, and you always honor us with your presence.

I be answering the quiz questions in no particular order, mon...

These red velvet sofas were imported from a drinking club in New Zealand at Looneytunes' request. It made him feel comfortable to have the same furniture in the two places where he hung out more or less continually.

The Book Nook was actually founded by Beeblefish, with me providing the Art.

Courtesy is responsible for the Zen Teahouse and Garden. I have come in to the room without the link; I'll provide it shortly, or someone else will, or you can trace it back through my page cos I was just there last night, composing haikus and watching Courtesy rake sand.

Matina was designed by Garius Lupus, under consultation with me. Minoova had indeed been co-opted by a researcher who fancied her. Garius designed Minoova in full french maid costume, and this researcher created a Minoova account and began manipulating her so that they could get it on! But he was really bad at it. Not only had he not studied Minoova very carefully (the chauvinist), but he forgot which account he was in and went to some bar here, instantly confusing all the patrons there. We had a showdown at the Aroma Café, and the researcher left in ignonimy. Or was it igninomy?

Anyway, we made a conscious design decision about Matina; she wears full Corfiot agrarian costume, and does great Greek cooking.

More later.

we don't really go to a new room, per se, it's just that our tea cups are refreshed... or think of it as a new packet of biscuits being opened.

hullo lurkers!

*passes round a plate of s for old time's sake*
Even though the stall is pretty much no more, I still keep the machinery in tip top condition

Ooh, are there any moebius doughnuts? Those are so low on carbs...

Cille and I are going up Nogal Peak this morning; the leaves are about right for foliage peeping. I'm taking the camera of course. And then we'll go into town and have a Chinese lunch. Think of this as the Lincoln Meet Memorial Day Trip.

Have a lovely day.

It's good that you're not the jealous type, Hyp .

Mr. D, you can have the 35 that didn't read the assignment...they're easy to spot!

*waves to Ottox and Sunny

Thanks for your postings - it was interesting to hear your views and I hope you'll be able to join us here more frequently.

*waves to any other 'lurkers'
Teuchter - also in lurk mode today and missing Caerwynn

*de-lurks, having wrestled with SSO and finally been allowed back into H2G2 *

Hi all,

I've been reading the "What's wrong/right with the Atelier" debate (both here and on site) with great interest. So many things I agree with have been said by many other Salonistas, but in particular, just about everything Ottox said in post 88 F38024?thread=1241416&post=14370379#p14370379 also applies to me; the Atelier will always be a very special place for me because of the Salonistas, (a brilliant bunch of people), so even if I find it difficult or impossible to join in as I would like to, it's good to know you're out
there....

Candi.
*smiles, waves and slips away again*

nooooo! I've gone and missed giving Candi a !!!

Thanks Ottox, Sunny and Candi. Your input is invaluable to this discussion as you are the target audience for the outcome...

i'd still like to know where the other half of this discussion took place. otd? even if not, is that still around? i have a lot more time on my hands nowadays, and would like to resubscribe. my email is what you all call me @gmail.com

Candi! How lovely to see you again!

sunny and Candi, great to hear from you. Thanks for delurking and letting us know how you feel.

Courtesy
*happy that there are so many lurkers of quality out there*

On the subject of Role Play I must admit that when I had more time on hootoo I did a fair amount of it. Most famously I was James bond of course in Hootoo's forst online film. I frequented the Donut Stall and helped create a number of variet's there. I was the official scribe for the the first mission from the CotTB. I even opened up Mama Peta's Ristorante for which Lil provided artwork. And spend some formative discussions with my former fiancee at the H2G2 campsite. And I know there are others.

I think I tend to treat each location with the rules and respect for the former of the role play thread. The atelier is like all such locations a place that attracts the thinkers of life whether artist, philosopher or I hope politician . I have through out hte history of the atelier slipped in and out of being regualr on here but I do read most of the backlog. I've still to cover September, but I was busy.

As for the questions I know the answers to some. I know the others to other tough questions but then I have been lurking arond a lot of places for a very long time.

Great - I'm small again!!

It's that holding your tummy in stuff isn't it?

I weighed myself this morning and I am back up to where I was 18 months ago, which is about a stone and a half heavier than a year ago.

I really do want the lawyers to get this house move stuff sorted out.

Sometime....

Like, before 2008 would be nice.

I'd settle for late 2007....?

And then there's the other cr@p that's going on.

It's not so much comfort eating as security eating. Food is my blankie!

B

Appears with a bottomless bottle of



Thanks for the birthday wishes


BB

*Collapses onto a sofa and looks pathetically at Matina, who brings her a soothing cup of coccoa. With extra rich cream.*

It's 9pm here and I'm still at work. Well, OK, I do only start at 12. Well, alright 11.30 say. But still. Although actually the only reason I'm gonna be at work any longer is to hang out with y'all...

Which is an indication of how strongly I feel about this place. I've been trying to find some time for the last couple of days to post my thoughts properly here, but to no avail so far, so here goes some probably rather random thoughts.

Actually, I didn't read the thread where people were discussing the Atelier as being so negative about our snooty exclusivity as has been assumed. To be honest, I think it's the time and effort involved that puts people off most, not our cosy clubbishness. Which is partly to do with the backlog, sure, but I think that's just the reason people give because it's the most obvious result of our labours here. The thing is, it takes a lot of commitment to be a salonista not because of the time it takes to read the backlog - which in aby case is not a chore - but because there's some thought that goes into our posts. And yes, we do all come across as knowing each other very well, but that's because that's the result of making a fairly considerable effort to do so.

This would be true _whatever_ we were discussing at this point. Well, short of banning all personal chat altogether. But if you banned all personal chat I'm not sure what the attraction of the place would be: it is our commitment to each other as a group of friends that makes this place a unique place as well as anything else. And actually, a lot of our more satisfying abstract discussions are sparked by the occurances in people's lives. We'd probably get _more_ of these if people posted in _more_ detail about their lives than less.

I thought that whoever said that at the beginning there was a lot more discussion because people were getting to know each other to every topic was new was a good one by the way. Now we do know each other, it takes less time for everybody to get across their opinions. The only way to get rid of that problem is to start again with a whole new set of people who _haven't met anywhere on hootoo before_. Or are all eaqually new to the place.

My take on the the roleplay aspect is that it was more vigourous in the beginning because that's how the idea of the Altelier was thrashed out and consolidated. I know when I was first here I was more concious of conciously exploring the confines of the place through that but now I need to do it much less becuase, actually, I carry it all in my head. The Altelier is, in fact, about the only place on hootoo where I do still have a sense of place, with the exception of the threads devoted to the roleplays.

*Grins* funnily enough I often find myself dropping out of the roleplaying threads here becuase my freetime comes in waves (some monthes yes, some no) and those threads move too _slowly_ for me to complete an adventure before it all kicks off again... .

I _did_ have some thoughts about how we could move forward though, and some thoughts about my ideas of what a 'salon' is - which are probably beside the point, mind - and considerably more pontificating in general to do, but I think I'm about to get locked in... One thing I will say is that I agree with whoever mentioned that perhaps splitting the Altelier into rooms for different topics has intensified the tendancy to keep the main thread off substansive commentry and more purely for blogging - which I also enjoy mind. I can't keep up with the other threads here and I miss the jam recipes... Does anyone even post to the 'cookbook'?

Won't be back for the weekend, but be assured I'm thinking of you all, just as I've been thinking of you all and about this post for days now...

*waves to Sol*

What are your suggestions?

*looks sadly after her disappearing back....*