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

*skipped past the majority of the blog, hoping for immunity, and blithely sinks into the sofa with *

The visit to the parental units was just as wonderful as I could have wished for. Everyone - kid brother who was partially in on it - was surprised to have me arrive on Chrimbo Eve. My father - Episcopal priest and extrovert that he is - was even at a loss for words and found the first services excessively hard to get through once he saw me. My mother didn't stop crying - for joy - and touching me - to make sure I was real - for hours after I arrived. My brother felt that my trickery - in arriving a full day early according to his schedule - was to be expected, and was amazed that he, in fact, had failed to do so. Even the and appeared to have been surprised. Coming back to Austin - or more properly leaving Phoenix - was a very hard thing to do. Back at work, however, and reminded of how very wonderful people in TX think I am - boy do I have them fooled - I am happy to be here.

And I will be seeing my 'rents again for Easter. Not that far away.

*sips and tries to figure out the best way to attack the blog sitting behind her*

OO, yes CO posioning is a little worrying? I hope you mean that you've had it in the past, not that you had it at the moment.

Give pootle a pat from me, Toc, i would have taken her to Stratford today had I been her owner. It's too late to make the 2 hour jounrey to the airfield via public transport now that the snows cleared .

It's a hazard of heating my workshop. Too cold to open the door..I hate the cold. Does not take much. As you know..your'e out like a light if it gets to that point. I haven't.

Oetzi, I suggest you vent your heater pronto. That's nothing to play around with.

Rain expected here today as well, but we're still warmer than normal.

F has caught my cold and is miserable. It's been a tough week for him. Nearly run over then mild concussion on Christmas morning; an unexpected visit from relatives neither of us like last night; and now he has my cold.

Are you using a paraffin heater, Oetzi? That'll do it. I nearly put myself to sleep that way, once, back in Brum.

You've made me remember the old paraffin heater that we used to heat the bathroom back in the early 70's (my misadventure happened when I took the thing into the kitchen while I worked there). I can remember what it looked like and how it smelled but not, for the life of me, how I put the paraffin in, although I recollect buying the stuff.

No time to do this nation-states thing, unfortunately.

We knew we were ill when Dad put the paraffin heater in the bedroom! I now find the smell of paraffin strangely comforting, but fortunately, it is many years since I lived without central heating.

There is the possiblity of some snow tomorrow

I have shares in DFDS!

Worth less than 100 $ in total though

"(DFDS stems from the original name of the company: Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (The United Steamship Company) - in short "DFDS" or "Forenede". However, in 1971, the legal name was changed to DFDS."
(from http://www.dfds.dk)

An early Happy New Year greeting to all!

you dont rember "Boom Boom Boom ESSOE BLUE" used to trundle down to corner shop owner would take your gallon container go out back to glass conical jar pull alever hey presto, parrifin also came in green garages also sold thestuff.

Oetzi, Our road clearing is actually quite good. The resort's roads were mostly clear, this was the interstate highway that was not completely cleared. With snow falling at the rate of an inch an hour, we can't get every road in the state cleared all at once. The sity roads were far worse than the interstate roads once I got out of the canyon and in to my neighborhood.

Well I've had the thing on again today. Anything but cold please. It runs on bottled propane. The main house heating used to but I changed that to kerosene. Glad your roads are cleared Marv.

I'll have to find away of venting this heater thing. I remember Esso Blue well. But I've been painting and varnishing today and of course the gasses just all mix together. DFDS have a fair size key in Newcastle upon Tyne. Good company.

Abut the paraffin, it's coming back to me slowly. Blue stuff, yah. Pulling the tank out of the back of the heater and turning it upside down to fill, yah, we had a funnel dedicated to the purpose...


Well, I'm off for the afternoon, to the movie thee-AY-tre...

Sunny and warm here in TX. Ironically, it got down to freezing in Phoenix last night.

Enjoy your cinema experience, Lil. I shall be watching movies from the comfort of my own workdesk...

It is currently 25F here, the high is supposed to get up to 29F and may have already done so.

Shoveling snow bites the big one. It makes your arms and your back sore and it makes your body want to come down with a cold. I have been lucky so far in that I have not gotten sick when the rest of my family has been sick multiple times in the last 2 months.

Wasn't there pink parafin as well? I remember a keg of the stuff in my parents log-shed when I was wee in the 60s.

I eventually got a lot more than 4 hours sleep. I woke up at 6.30, and then rang the Stepson's Father, and gave the poor sod a bollocking for 20 minutes for being so hard to get hold of for the last 36 hours. As I said, I could need to be phoning about ambulances and hospitals. We have agreed to email at least once every 24 hours. We'll have to see how that works.

I then got another 3 hours, and he rang back and we had a one hour conference about how the Stepson is, and *then* I got yet another 3 hours sleep, and got up at 3.00pm. Then we went to Sainsburys and Currys and got the Stepson some headphones for the TV, so he can kill aliens at 2.00 in the morning without keeping me awake.

Z pointed out that a lot of our problems are flatmate problems not step-parent / stepchild problems and we need to destinguish them properly. We are going out for a drink in one of the local winebars later. Hopefully we have made some progress.

We are off to Brum tomorrow to go and see the Turners with Z and A and out for a drink afterwards, so that should be fun too.

In the meantime I have some relaxing to do.

B

Excellent news Ben, I'm glad you've come up with a constructive solution for part of the problem as well.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as well! Enjoy your evening out at a winebar. Very Cheltneham.

In case any of you are interested this is the exhibition we're going to see tomorrow..

http://www.bmag.org.uk/exhibitions/turners_britain/

I have to admit I'm a bit of a Turner fan, my Dad dislikes them for various snobby artistic reasons..

I'm back from watching The Return of the King. Wow. I'm going to have to lie down for a bit now.

I can understand that, Amy.

I have started a Nation State.... as long as it's not too time consuming I think it might be fun! It's the Queendom of Fafadpu. I've moved it to Hootooers Harbor.

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=fafadpu

[d'E] <-- still catching up with the Yule Log
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