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

I use the alarm in my phone, too.

I have a clock radio with two separate alarms with snooze functions. I can choose buzzing noise where I select the start volume. The volume gradually increases on a scale of one to one hundred, also know as obnoxious. I can also choose to awaken to radio or CD with the same volume increase. The secondary alarm was made redundant when I became single.

I never use the snooze. I typically am semi-awake before it goes off when I'm working regular hours. And I haven't had to use it at all since early January when I was sh*t-canned from work.

A gentle chiming on my mobile wakes me up. I snooze at least three times though, unless I have a train to catch.

British Summer Time has just started. It was 12:55 when I gave up trying to get to sleep, and by the time I'd made myself a cup of tea it was 2am. I'm not sure if losing an hour when I wasn't actually asleep is a good thing or a bad thing. Usually I finally drop off between 2 and 3 but now it's likely to be between 3 and 4 - almost too late to be worth it, because I will then sleep in and lose half the day. If I stay awake all night I will definitely sleep tomorrow night *and* I will get loads done.

Hey ho.

Mol

*mourns the suddenly increased time-distance between herself and Europe*

Time is just there to keep everything from happening all at once.

HN, that's a thought provoking statement *mulls it over in her mind*

It seems my current guild members in Rift aren't fully convinced I'm a SwedoFinn - thanks to you folks sharpening my ability to express myself in English quite a bit.

Ti, it's a line from the sci-fi classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the Eighth Dimension:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/

Ti, I'm always impressed with you Europeans who converse so fluently in written English. You express yourself better than a lot of the staff here, and I'm not singling out the Hispanics when I say that.

Can't speak for the other Europeans that don't have English as their mother tongue, but I'm very much a language person.

One of my main problems when trying to learn a new language is that I pick up the pronounciation quite quickly, which means that I sound as if I'm very fluent when, in fact, I only know a few words.

Had this happen to me in Italy where I had a hard time finding anyone reasonably fluent in English, even when trying to talk to teenagers who study it at school. My meager attempts of stringing single Italian words together with no consideration of grammar was more successful than their attempts at English

Fish wackers are called priests because they deliver the last rights.
http://www.fishingmegastore.com/priests_257.html

My, what an impressive collection of billy clubs.

I'm always impressed by polyglots. Anyone who can read, type/write or speak another language I find incredibly astounding!

Oh, that reminds me of Polyglot Plaza, a place that deserves to be revived now that we're out of Auntie's claws...

Yeah, that's right. And then I can start harpin' Boontling.

Boontling! I'd forgotten about Boontling. But is it still spoken?

I'm afraid so.

What, pray, is Boontling?

Boontling means Boonville Lingo and is the world's strangest brand of spoken English. Boonville is right here in Mendocino County.

Makes me curious!

I beg to differ - I think Pidgin is the strangest spoken English. Heard it once on the commuter train, and I only got every fourth word or so, but it sounded as if I should have understood all of it.