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

*adds 'see' between to and it*

[Lady C.]

I am now a godfather. My buddy Mikey's wife gave birth to a son this morning at 0530 MDT. If you felt a shudder of fear rippling through the earth today, it was the collective fear that there is another Generation of Mikey to contend with.

*hopes Witty Moniker doesn't put on a fur coat any time soon*

Finally! I have uploaded a few photos to a sharing site. A few of the butterflies, one of the labyrinth taken this June, a few others I like. http://healingmagichands.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album01

Congrats, Marv, on you dignity.

Nice photos, hh. The landscapes and nature in US are really something.

tartaronne - wherewould they be clickable? I think I'd like a read, although my brain might implode.

>I am an I-want-a-proof person myself>

Aha, I read that the wrong way first time round. makes much more sense now.

>Did you see the thing on telly a while back about knee surgery placebo trials? Yup, I think that was part of the one I saw too.. Was it on C4 or the beeb?

mikerhike, they are clickable on the DR (Danish Radio) website

http://www.dr.dk/P1/rosenkjaer/Peter+Lund+Madsen/20060320114845.htm

you know Danish?

I'd really like to translate the lectures.

aah, right. Well, I'll have to get them translated then. I'm sure I know someone who can help me out with that.

thanks tartaronne

Hello all. I've been a terribly busy owl today.

I had my gym induction, and first workout session there this morning. It wasn't quite as daunting as I'd expected, but I expect it will become so during term-time when all the well-toned sports science students (the ones that cause puddles of in the library) come back and start flexing their muscles all over the place and making scrawny librarian owls feelterribly inadequate.

Then I flew off to a nearby village to practice a duet I'm supposed to be singing in a concert this weekend. It's 95 per cent there, with a couple of interesting moments when I appear to be harmonically-challenged. Is spending just over two hours singing one song considered overkill?

Flew back, did some shopping, tended to my housemate's plants (probably killed them), read a bit, looked at the song again but started screaming and then remembered that I have to go back to work tomorrow after a long weekend off.

So nice to see visitors and returnees like ltp and sea around. and I wish I spoke Danish, as those lectures sound fascinating.

Thanks for the welcomes everyone--I didn't realize that I knew so many Salonistas

Mufflewhumps? Knew I was forgetting something... Be right back

Oh, and I'm *for* backlog, which made coming back from a 7 month period of netlessness rather challenging at 3N Not enough to read through all the old threads here before joining, though

Oh, and kelli? After preggie brain rot, there's I-have-a-newborn-that-doesn't-sleep brain rot, and other such things, so memory doesn't seem to go back to normal (at least it hasn't for nearly 4 years (counting pregnancy))

Now, what was I going to do

Oh, yeah

What's the song, David?


We're having lots of excitement. Cille went to the vet's to work today and we don't know how she's going to get home because the whole plain between her and Highway 380 has converted back to lake. I spent 20 minutes on this side of Capitan, enraptured by the sight of the Pacheco (normally a trickle) roaring over the road to Capitan Gap, tearing out salt cedars and burying them beneath rapids on the downstream side of the road.

Further toward home, another flat area between 380 and the Capitans is becoming a second lake, and I got through Double Crossing just in time, I reckon, because the Bonito was rising.

And the junction of 380 and Route 70, that nice new 4-lane highway, is underwater. It's where the Ruidoso and Bonito rivers meet and form the Hondo. Water is pouring over the bridge, and both highways are closed.

Woo-hoo!

The Forest Service chappie at the Gap Road said he hasn't seen water like this since 1986. And it's still raining and expected to continue through the week.

*a 5'7" paperdoll of 20lb cotton bond, rather the worse for wear, what with deep crinkles, wet-and-then-dry-again texture change, half-erased map on back, remnants of a drawn-on bikini from the last bikini contest a few years back, and scars from being torn or cut (yes, sentient paper heals) re-enters, bearing a large basket of mufflewhumps, which, in the unchanged state, resemble sparkly rainbow dustbunnies*

*sets basket down in middle of salon*

Normally I simply point to my name if people ask what mufflewhumps are, but this once I'll actually define them, and how they work:

A mufflewhump is whatever you want it to be, but it's always very wonderful. Therefore, mufflewhumps are the best gifts... They stay in their balls-of-unrealized-potential state until taken up by (or given to) someone who has a definite want, either conscious or unconscious. Mufflewhumps can become nearly anything (most common seem to be foodstuff or pets)--the only limitations are that they can't become something sentient or (recent fiddling) something that can be used against the interests of the giver. They're quite handy, as well as being great gifts--I've often picked one up while concentrating and gotten things I need here on h2g2.

*Matina enters from the kitchen, picks up a handful of mufflewhumps, returns to kitchen, and a moment later places a fresh rack of cinnamon buns on the butler's hatch*

Slow day today apparently.

How silly of me not to mention which song it is I'm struggling with. Lil, it's 'The Last Night of the World' from 'Miss Saigon' (sometimes known as 'that song about the solo saxophone, ooh, you know the one'). I am also doing Mister Cellophane again, which I most emphatically *can* do well, which is a relief.

Welcome to the Atelier, Amy P.

*flies up to a handy perch for a snooze*

*helps herself to a cinnamon bun and dozes off munching it and pondering over tendonitis and massage*

Hi Wooly! Welcome back, Greensleeves!

> Hand towel or bath/beach towel? I have eliminated face cloth and bath sheet, but am torn between the middle two sizes of towel I own.

David, do you sweat a lot? Do owls sweat? I find that the average 'hotel towel' is adequate for the amount of sweat I produce. And I'm a sweaty girl. A good-quality hand towel would be sufficient - just make sure it's something you don't mind losing.

> *(I don't quite know how to account for a gross of cinnamon buns. Matina wouldn't make more than a couple dozen at a time...)

Perhaps Wooly has been dumpster diving for the old stale ones out back. It was a *gross,* after all!

> Lil, does the Atelier include a mechanism for coping with scale? Having a Mammoth and an Ant in the same conversation is rather disconcerting.

I find that if you lie on the ground with Amy in the foreground (being careful not to crush her!) and then look at the Mammoth, I can look at both of them at the same time.

The Spamplants site is awesome.

> Nigel Slater and the smell of flapjack cooking and he remembers his mother.

Whenever I smell mothballs, I think of my grandmother, who used them to repel cockroaches. They didn't work.

> Oh, I'm not upset I just don't want to ruin a nice day here in the salon by ranting.

Mr D., are you a smoker, or an ex-smoker?

> it hurts for some reason lately and so i've been trying all sorts of new and interesting ways to sleep.

SE, all of what Dr. Z said... I find a glass of orange juice or a gargle with salt water helps quite a bit to relieve a mild sore throat. But it's worth going to the doctor if it's been hurting for more than a week - it could be something serious, like a cyst or growth.

I keep having a sore throat in the morning, and it's due to acid reflux. I also get indigestion pretty regularly, and every once in a while my esophagus (behind my sternum) will cramp up and hurt pretty bad, like a chest pain. *I* need to go see a doctor, actually. I know it's not life-threatening, but it can damage my immune system.

Ah, hidden LED.

Hi, Paperlady!

And what I was doing in 1978? Busy being seven years old, as I recall. I listened to the Ronco Funnybone record and my Sesame Street record, but that's about it.

"Rubber duckie, you're so fun, you make bathtime lots of fun, rubber duckie I'm awfully fond of you... Rubber-duck-a-duckie!"

[c], trying to get back in the hang of keeping up with Hootoo