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

Everyone's invited! I can now grill for a crowd.

Marv is especially invited. Sounds like he could use an evening away. And I have mustard and Oreos!

One of your *co-workers* decided you don't work? Excuse me?

One day, hopefully in the near future, someone will let me sleep for eight uninterrupted hours. And it better be soon, or I'm going to turn into a raving bitch on wheels!

It is something of a long story.

What the hell, I am trapped in the Pit today anway...

I am the senior engineer on my team. I often take over for the team lead when he is training or away. I was asked by my mangler to cover for him for the last three weeks. Normally, that means that I take 0 cases. Well it has been a bit busy so I have been taking cases. Yesterday I did not take many, but was stuck with one customer who had such a bad stutter that it took 5 times as long just to get simple sentences out of him (mind you, he was quite smart, just not able to speak well. I never make the assumption that a speach impediment is a sign of lack of intelligence). So at the end of the day, one of my cow orkers decided that I was slacking and that he was immune from taking cases because I had not taken any. Now last saturday, when I took 10 cases to his 2, I did not say anything to him. I *know* that he was stuck on some lenghty cases. But he was whiney and complaining so I just took the late P1 and as a result I did not get out of here till after three hours beyon the end of my shift.

I am in an evil mood today, and I am not going to put up with his crap. I don't like getting told off by *anyone* but my mangler. Well I don'e like talking to her, much less being on teh recieving end of an ass-chewing, but that is her job.

I need to learn some form of insta-Zen meditation that will allow me to ignore all the little things that are driving me mad. Or, perhaps I should just leave. I dunno. It's hard to leave when I can't be sur that I will get a job paying as much as half of my current wage.

Is it too early for a ??

Marv, I know it sounds too easy, but just taking deep breaths, holding for a count of 7 and letting the air out slowly relieves stress. And if that doesn't work, try it while holdin your fingers around your cow orkers () throat.

And think about an interesting going away gift to leave on his desk the day you find that better job.

The worst part aobut this situation is that I respect this person and enjoy his company. IT is just that in the last few weeks, he has become an insufferable whiney troubelmaker.

MR I need your help.

Was there any major conflict between European and Japanese interests in the middle ages?

AFAICT the first contact of Europe and Japan was in 1542. I want to shoot down the argument with another coworker.

Has anything changed for him recently? If he has recently changed how he behaves, it may be that something in his private or personal life is different.



I didn't go to the meet, I was going to, but decided that it would be too expensive both in money and in terms of energy. I was shattered yesterday evening, and really couldn't face two long bus-trips for three hours in a pub. Its a shame, but not too much of a shame.

I went to a village fete with Rainbow (she lives in the village next to the one I lived in for 10 years) and we made a profit on the day. I won a rather nice beaujoulais, and a bottle of Moet et Chandon, which we drank in the sunshine in her garden, and she won a bottle of rum and two theatre tickets!

I also had a very encouraging tarot reading, and found a Buddhist chanting and meditation group in walking distance of the flat.

So all in all, a lovely day.

B

Ben, I envy you your proximity to the Buddhist community.

Marv, I thought it was 1543, but I could be mistaken. I know St. Xavier went to Japan in 1549 to set up a Jesuit mission. And the early contact with Europeans was with Portuguese traders. The Jesuits took rakeoffs from the Portuguese. And It was the Portuguese who introduced cannons to the Japanese, which was the major influence the Europeans had. I think the Jesuits were expelled from Japan around 1590 or thereabouts. The Spanish and Portuguese traders were expelled around 1630-1653 - something like that. And the few English and Dutch traders who were allowed to trade were kept pretty isolated. I'd say that Europeans had a very small effect on Japan until the mid-nineteenth century. Japan even kept itself isolated from China and Korea.

[BC nodding approvingly at MR's broad historical knowledge]

Did I say MR? Sorry, Hypatia! Haste makes waste !

[{Courtesy}]

[Amy]

Good morning, everyone! Only a few giclée prints to produce today; the rest of the time I can do art. Or get over to the shed and finish the set-up of the studio so that I can start work in there, find out how my tool work in that environment and those dimensions.

Yesterday was so neighborly, beginning with going to pick the mail up at the post office. Everybody, almost, arrived at about 9:15 to 9:30, and it became an impromptu town gathering! Phoebe Taylor, Bev Wilson, Stan Thomas (second son of old Johnny), Dan Egan, Bev Hammond, Lynda Sanchez, David Lee (who pantomimed getting back into his truck and driving off when he saw us all), Drew, Ted Allen and his two boys, Ira Rabke, Cille Dickinson, Rosalie Dunlap, Rosina Locke, Mr. Branson and his daughter, Russell Waterhouse -- pretty good for a town with a population of 38! Soon to be 41, when Fred Ficke and his family move in.

Of the three restaurants within 15 miles of here, one is a gourmet place with its own hydroponic greenhouse, and is called the Greenhouse Café, and that's where I had dinner last night -- prime rib au poivre with fresh veggies, piñon nuts, lambs quarters (the green veg that is growing wild on La Bosquita), black rice and a good house wine.

Ben, would you care to share what cards you got in your reading, if you can remember? Do you know which deck it was? I just laid out a reading the other day when I was visiting with Nora, and our concern at the time was Billy's bones and what would become of Lincolntown...
And it was a very encouraging reading indeed.

F23373?thread=107905 -- I've finally added a new pimlico to the old contest at this thread.

*~waves~ from Heathrow, where she is trying to spend some time before her flight leaves, much later than originally planned, will be explained later in journal*

[note to self: catch up with 296-375 once home]

[Sol]

Another exciting day in the Ozarks. Laundry, shopping, gardening.

Be still my .

Waves back to Ti at Heathrow.

Hello!

I'm sorry you weren't at the meet Ben, I was looking forward to meeting you. I'm so glad I'm meet all of you that were there

I've got to get on with packing for my move on Tuesday now