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

MR, that *is* frightening. Now tell me you ate some Greek food this weekend and things will take a turn for the downright spooky.

Lil, a good mass-market maker of root beer here, MR and I have found, is Henry Weinhard's. Intense questioning of Sporky has revealed that they do not sell this brand back East (or at least in New England). But if they have Henry's beer where you live, they should have his root beer, creme and orange sodas.

*spoons up ice cream from the bottom of her rootbeer float*

Intense questioning? That wasn't what you called it at the time

Have been out of internet all morning due to an electrical storm in Vermont. Let me say that again. An electrical storm in Vermont. Scary. TV stations and phones were down for two days in some areas.

It was announced today that there would be no Secret Santa this year, which is just shameful. Something I truly look forward to, even if all I ever end up getting is chocolate of some sort.

Secret Santa?

*starts looking for the pecan pie*

I needed the sleep. It was a fun, but long weekend. I am still a little angry at myself for getting very very drunk on Friday night, but other than that I am very happy with the trip.

Rootbeer. Another good mass produced variety is IBC if you can find it. Weinhards is also very good, but my favourite is from a local microbrew called Hoppers.

[decides to stop lurking and put two cents worth in]

All the folks at the office put their names on slips of paper, then each person draws out one name and either purchases or makes a gift for that individual, usually within certain monetary limits. Its the equivalent of drawing lots, only with a nicer outcome.

Good enough encapsulation, Sporky?

B4

*Tries to figgure out a way to make a Secret Santa Scheme work on H2G2, but can't*

Sporky, what do you mean "even if" you only get chocolate??? What's this "only" chocolate??? As if there were a better Secret Santa gift EVER????

Irv!!!! I thought you were gone for good this time. Nice to see you.

*Walks over to Mac and Carmel's root beer stand.*

I'll have a large, please.

I vote for permanently installing a root beer float machine...

And I am sad to report that the Marx paper is still giving me fits. I just can't seem to get going on it.

Typolifi is half-French and is studying in Paris. Perhaps you two can meet, if he isn't visiting Poland while you're there!

As I get older I grow somewhat haphazard with names. I meant Henry Weinhardt. The best root beer I've had since I was a child and we got cases of A-Treat from the local brewery. Mike A's brother Mark had a passion for Weinhardt's cream soda during his visit.

*discreetly props the Fireworks 4 manual on her lap while sampling various pies and gingerbread*

B4, that is a fine summary.

And Irv, I am not fond of chocolate in any amount greater than one piece, i.e. one cherry cordial or one chocolate covered raisen. I am not very fond of the smell of it- it makes my stomach very mad indeed.

Fireworks 4? Egads. Have you skipped from Corel/proCreate to Macromedia?

*looking up* Well, I use Dreamweaver, not being a coding maven like the rest of you, not any more. So it's a short step over to Fireworks. But only for specific web-tasks which I've never had to think about till now.

*takes a small helping of all the pies with gingerbread and cheesecake on the side *

I love Paris, expect we shall be going for another weekend in the Spring. Versailles will be at the top of my list of places to see this time.

Somehow, I have got to set about marshalling the 3 hours of DV tape of New England into an hour's worth before the year is out. I hope the program is easy to use, but first I have to install the firewire card thingy. Does anyone use Pinnacle Studio DV?

Today we did our Wish Lists for our office Secret , which starts next Monday. Our version is we write down what we do and don't want, draw names, and then give that special someone small gifts scattered over a two week period. My list?

Do: candles, , , , and The Far Side or The Onion desk calendars.

Don't: live or fake plants (I have a black thumb), Christmas and angel paraphenalia, knick-knacks, stuffed animals, and hard candy.

Speaking of root beer brands, I'm not fond of what Thomas Kemper does to root beer. They make great cherry and grape sodas, but their root beer leaves something to be desired. One of the wonderful things about Henry's is that he puts vanilla and honey in his brew. But beware of anyone (and here I'm thinking of a all-natural brand I found in our natural foods store one day) who puts anise seed in root beer.

[leafy typo]

Any Salonista visiting Paris wins a free tour!

Courtesy, you will find that many French words are already in your vocabulary either through Spanish or through English, so at least you won't be lost when it comes to reading signs and so on. As for communication, I confirm that almost everyone, even in the country, speaks enough English to understand what you'll say.
I'd be very pleased to meet you and your family too, Caerwynn!

Can only be only very seldom these times, so I may as well formally go out of the room.
*leaves, not without a look behind*

the second 'only' in the last sentence should of course read 'online'

After I posted the above, I toddled over to the Secret box, fished out my form, and pencilled in on the "Do" line "a six-pack of Henry Weinhardt's root beer".

*draws GL a float* Glad you want a large, I only brought our large mugs.

The trouble with the rootbeers you get from major corporations is they tend to be too bitter, rootbeer is meant to be sweet. And shame on Coke for adding caffiene to their brew!

My brand is Richardsons, but it's hard to find. They don't bottle it, they only sell the syrupe, and fewer and fewer shops carry it. The major corp.s that have been buying out and selling off Richardsons little flavoring company have no idea that they own the finest rootbeer in the world (IMHO) but it is the secret weapon that has kept my family restaurant in business since 1961.

But the real secret is the ice cream. It should be soft-serv. Now hard ice cream is superious to soft in all respects except one, it makes the best floats. Hard ice cream is just too frozen to mix properly with the rootbeer. Mind you, soft-serv has gotten a bad rap thanks to the Mc-IcedMilk you get at national fastfood places. They way to tell is right there in a restaurant's menu - if it's rich enough to legally advertise as ice cream then it's good stuff. If they call it ised milk or some such then give it a pass.

Hard ice cream has one more advantage - you can use it at home. I don't know anyone who has a soft-serv machine in their house.

I think Secret Santa could work on h2g2, if we approached it in a way similar to the masque. Each participant would create a new ID, and drop "gifts" off to another researcher's home page. Only there's a limit to how many smilies you can take, so the gifts would be better as links to interesting sites or little poems or other creative gestures. The hard part would be randomly assigning Secret Santas - I think that would have to be handled via e-mail, and someone would have to volunteer to do it (giving up a chance to participate).

There is another form of Secret Santa which existed as a tradition at my university until it was squashed by the administration. It involved performing a task that your Santa assigned before getting the gift, and usually the task was a publicly embarrassing display of some sort. While it was great fun, the administration decided that it was too close to hazing, and thus illegal.

The most commercial rootbeer that I like is Snapple's True Rootbeer, which I'm not even certain that they make any more. I buy IBC but these days I'm buying the diet version, which just isn't the same.

Off to Talinn today on the annual visa run. This trip enlivened by the prospect of hanging out with Hati, which should be fun.

Do I hate travelling though...