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

Kerr we don't normally celebrate Boxing Day in the US. Most of us are off work today because Christmas was on a Sunday and things are closed today to give everyone their paid day off. Except for people who work in retail or some sort of service industry, of course. You couldn't pay me to go to the mall today.

I use my iPod primarily for traveling. When I fly places it is the only thing that keeps me sane. I do a lot of traveling so it works out. I want to get a bigger iPod though, as my mini can't contain my collection. One of these days I will get one of the new ones that do video as well as I know of a program that can rip DVDs to the fomat used by the iPod.

Being in the service industry myself, I am willing to work today as it will be slow and I can get a lot of work done. The bonus helps as well..

iPod? Well, just got one...

One usage will be travelling - I'd like one of the small docking/loudspeaker thingies for travel, fit easily in a corner of a suitcase & play up a hotel room.

Music for a quiet half hour on my scouting & other trips, too.

And then it conveniently allows us to play our CD collection downstairs where we don't have a CD player. The iPod's connected via a dock to the stereo - voila, all the CDs can stay upstairs, yet the music's here, too.

When I've finished ripping them, that is...

Ah. So you chaps only get one bank holiday for Christmas?

Kerr, a lot of companies give their employees a couple of paid holidays around Christmas.

...but they're not statuory holidays, are they? So I bet a lot of lower-paid jobs don't have them.

I think that Christmas Day is a Federal holiday. None of the rest of the days around are. So if you work on Christmas day you will be paid time and a half unless you are salaried and don't get anything extra unless your company wants to give you extra. For instance, my company gives us holliday bonuses for working Christmas, but as it was on a weekend this year today is the official holiday and Friday was a "Floating" holiday.

So how many holiday days your company decides to give you depends entirely on where in the week Christmas happens to fall that year. The Bank Holiday is a Britsh/European concept.

*takes out list and mutters to herself* The turkey is set to go, but doesn't need to go into the oven for another two hours -- I got one of those legless ones. The table is set, the serving dishes are ready to receive, the hors d'oeuvres are ready to be set out, and I can relax for a bit.

I never did do any gaming yesterday: I slept through the afternoon. What an old fart I am becoming...

I played Trivial Pursuit yesterday and won, with a little help from my teammate, my sister's boyfriend. Now back home from visiting family and everything seems very quiet. If only Dr Who was on today, I wouldn't have trouble hearing it over toy train and PSP.

Have just gone through some of the kids' old toys, we got rid of a fair number. I will be getting them new toy boxes to replace the totes they are currently using sometime next week.

Happy days in between xmas and New Year

to absent friends.

Hello tree, hope you'll stay the year out.

*Hangs a very old plaited (?) (and tattered) paper heart filled with pebernødder/pfeffernutzen*

To absent friends... I was just thinking about eatsmice and Peripatetic Warrior Monk yesterday. It's odd that there was so much coverage about Rumsfield and Cheney visiting the troops for Christmas, but on the actual day? Close to nothing.

I had a quiet day yesterday, and today. I'll be in to the job hunt fray again tomorrow. I think things will pick up after the first; right now so many people are off for the holidays. Not to mention that some companies still start their new fiscal year in January, and might be more willing to hire!

SC

Hello tree, and everyone else! I'm back from my mom's and three days of eating, eating, eating, eating, drinking, drinking, oh, and more drinking. I got some lovely gifts (red wine, chocolate, homemade knitted scarf, gift card to Barnes & Noble and some lovely little earrings) and had a great time. I hope everyone's holiday was nice. It looks like it from the postings...even yours, Marv.

Hello Courtesy, ltp and Ormy!

I'm glad the foodballs worked out for you, Sporky!

To absent friends, and those who have gone before

>> Does anyone else get a little psycho if they don't read anything for 48 hours? Or am I just deeply peculiar?

Nope, you aren't deeply peculiar, Ag. I get a little psycho if I can't spend time alone in my own head *in silence*. It doesn't take that much background noise for me not to be able to hear my own thoughts inside my own head.

Having a lovely time, laid back, quiet, fun. We are reading our presents, and in between-whiles Z is designing a spice rack for me, (think Mondrian, he's not the son of an artist for nothing, our Z), the cat is asleep on a chair, and *does snoopy dance* I have the internet! Ok, it's dial-up, but it's not bad dial-up, and I get broadband the day after tomorrow, and wifi as soon as I can physically set it up after that.

I need to put pictures of the view on line, but I need to find the connector from my phone to the PC to do that. It's in a cardboard box somewhere....

Off to Nottingham tomorrow to meet up with an aunt of Z's.

Happy Boxing Day everyone. (*Looks at clock* Happy Holy Innocents' Day, everyone. )

B

Good night all.

I had fun working in retail today. It was quiet enough that I was actually able to *work* (that's the most annoying thing about retail. When it gets busy, actual productivity doesn't exist in an effective way, and my poor one-track-mind grates seriously at such instances).

It was fun to wish people a happy Boxing Day, as most people in my area don't know what Boxing Day is.

I even got into an argument with people about just when Christmas was (the term "12 Days Of Christmas" had never struck them as an actual set of days that the terrestrial calendar was capable of striking, it seems).

Well, I received no books for Christmas. But I did receive a healthy portion of film to watch. A DVD of the Hitchhiker's television mini-series (woohoo! No more hoping that the local PBS station will play it at 3 AM this year!), a DVD of A Mighty Wind (by far my favorite of the four Improvised films by those people), a DVD of Batman Begins (an excellent movie, but the gift givers were unable to locate the version with deleted scenes and commentary. On the one hand, this irks me as there were scenes that I REMEMBER from the movie's initial release that made the film flow better, and I love listening to commentary. On the other hand, at least they found it in widescreen), a DVD of 8 early Max Fleischer Superman cartoons (I love old Animation like this. I honestly can't tell if this Superman was flying, or if these were made early enough that he was merely doing a lot of stylized jumping), and a lone VHS of The Two Towers (so I can finally watch all three LotR films back to back if ever I find a day clear enough).

And I've played through the game of Mancala now, an amusing puzzle game that I can't wait to play again. Oh yes, I yearn for the day when I can finally say, "So, wanna cross the bridge, eh? Well, only if you can defeat me in a game of...MANCALA!"

Ah...and still 10 more days of Christmas to go...

Good Morning beautiful tree - and salonistas.

If your family enjoys Uno, Santra, they'll love Extreme Uno. There is a battery operated card dispenser and a few extra penalty cards which make the game even more

I use my i-pod nano at the gym, mainly. The music they play there is dire so I like being able to listen to my own choice while I put in time doing the boring stuff.

It is snowing here - and very cold. Further east, in David B's county, they're predicted to get 20cm of snow today. Not much in comparison to some places, I know - but a lot for south east Englandshire. And we're so unused to dealing with it that the whole place will grind to a halt.

Off now to tidy-up and start preparing for more guests - Mr T is cooking Big Pig today so reduced input is required from me (yaay).

*waddles off muttering 'Not more food, don't make me eat more food........'

It always seemed to me that the main reason the television news showed photographs of the occupants of south east Englandshire wearing ski-suits and wobbling over in 3" of snow is that most of the tv-news-people *live* in south east Englandshire. They self-centredly thought that the rest of the countgry gave a damn.

On the other hand it is snowing here! *Does snowpea dance* On the other-other hand we are driving to Nottingham and back today.

B

*Ag meanders in in fuchsia satin jim-jams, with a in one hand and a slice of panettone in the other. She looks a little... tired, and possibly a little... rounder in the tummy*

My husband's family treat Christmas as a four-day Eata-Drinka-thon. Oy, my liver. Ow ow ow.

Anyway, they have left early so as to not get stuck in snow. It is snowing, by the way. In London. Very unusual. Very beautiful.

And now a day of total collapse before the next Eata-Drinka-thon at New Year with my lot (there was a reason I married this man. Foodies? Well indeed. And incidentally I am exceedingly proud of my not a Christmas pudding festive pudding thing made because nobody else likes Christmas pudding).