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

relish recipe noted!

The fellow who boards his two quarter horses in the field behind my house was burning trampled hay last night. I had the luxury of the smell working its way into the house PLUS the fear that the fire would work its way through the parched grass and burn the neighbourhood down. But the horses have beaten the pasture practically to death, and there really wasn't anything left to burn. One of the two horses, Doc, has learned how to stick his head under the top wire of the fence, and eaten almost all of a night jasmine vine that decorated my back garden for 20 years.

Hooray! I'm here. The computer is still not stable yet but at least it's working!

Hi, Lil!

I'll be back later on.

[Amy]

Happy Holiday, Amy!
Sorry about the jasmine, Lil. And I'm glad the fire didn't spread! My spelling is getting worse...time for a cup of coffee.

[p] Short calling card from the parents place.

Fantastic. We have a quorum for a banquet.

*Matina has cleaned the turkey and buttered a deep open pan into which she has strewn sliced onion, apple, and cloves of garlic.*
*She now butters the bird and sprinkles it generously with sea salt and coarse ground pepper, then puts it in an oven turned up to 450 degrees*

*The bird will endure this for just 15 minutes, after which Matina will turn the temperature right down to 300 degrees. Meanwhile she cuts a carrot, a stalk of celery, a bay leaf, a couple of peppercorns and a couple of shallots into a saucepan with the turkey liver and cold water and sets it to come to a slow boil, skimming off impurities as they scum to the top. Then she adds a bit of salt and lets the stock simmer*

*At fifteen minutes, Matina turns the oven temperature down, takes out the turkey, turns it over so that it lies on its breast among the apple and onion and garlic, pours a bottle of wine over it and puts the uncovered pan back in the oven, along with the neck. From now on she will periodically baste the bird with the wine in the pan and, as that goes down, add the stock from the saucepan*

*And then she sets to preparing the vegetables and other delights*

Lil, I might be here on Christmas, but I don't know if I'll be able to post very much. It depends on several factors, such as how much time I spend enjoying my presents, whether or not there's a sermon at the church on monday (although, I know that the pastor himself will probably prefer to take a break, so I doubt that'll be a problem), and how much time I get to spend with my family and RL friends. But, that probably won't stop me from at least making one post, so have a little for me. Maybe a few bones or the peice of turkey that no one else feels like eating.

Meanwhile, I gotta run now. I'm heading off to meet up with a few friends from Louisiana who've somehow managed to come up for Christmas. We're going museum hopping! I love museums. Anyway, gotta run!

*Tinkers with his watch a bit, and teleports out*

*while Matina is cooking, Lil goes into the library, sits down at one of the computers and installs McGee's Alice. Everything goes well, right through the introductory sequence, until she falls down the rabbit hole. The Cheshire Cat walks up to her and begins to speak. He mentions somethig about behaviour and then is supposed to tell Alice that she will have to suppress her instincts.*

*But a fault develops in the game and suddenly the Cheshire Cat goes into a loop, repeating "suppress your behaviour suppress your behaviour suppress your behaviour"*

*Unnerved, Lil resets the machine and spends the next hour checking settings and Alice sites. One of the sites throws an illegal error during a wav file, forcing another reset*

*Lil may not play this game after all*

I would like to burn my next-door neighbour in a bonfire of grass clippings. He started mowing his lawn and generally tiding his section at 7.30am this morning (Sunday). I arrived home at 2am (Sunday).

I am planning revenge for tomorrow.

My intermittingly visiting guests will be sitting outside, eating, drinking and listening to loud music supplied by me. I am picking neigbourly relations will deteriate rapidly.

Lil, my brother headed back to England to have an operation (unsuccesful) done on his ear (poor hearing). He is now going to settle in Adelaide, Australia. It's where most of our immediate family live.

*floating in, in her usual vague, elf-like manner*

Hi all!

*sniff, sniff* Delicious! I'm sorry I won't be here for turky dinner...

See you Tuesday evening (CET)

Merry Christmas!

*drifting off*

Have a great one, folks. Love to all, and catch you later.
Jools.

Yes, I am at home... currently considering opening a brothel... to bring some money in...

McGee's is a fine game... good to know that any of the chatty cathy sequences can be skipped with the space bar

I'm making pepper relish... I'd make corn relish, which goes better with turkey, but last time I made it .. sorry, I really shouldn't get into that...

*on her way toward the salon, stops at the computer to check Black Ice status, then moves on*

May I have some tea, Matina?

Sporky, if you're opening a brothel, just remember... location, location, location.

Re Alice: I did try the space bar, actually. But it was a solid lockup, the kind that makes one glad one has a reset button. What got into computer makers, taking that element away from the new boxes?

I have some issues with my ATI Rage 128, too. It's too much of a game thing, and the accelerator actually ~slows down~ some of the effects in Photoshop. Cranking the accelerator down necessitates a machine restart, and the ATI software hangs during the reboot, so then you have to wait for scandisk to complete its housekeeping during the re-reboot (yeah, I prefer to let it run). The slowdown is noticeable in all other apps, so I'm fixing to crank it back up and live with the slowdowns in Photoshop until Adobe does something about it.

*sips tea, and gratefully accepts a cinnamon bun. Notices that Matina is making use of the Time Dilation setting on the CLI cooker-oven, so that the turkey is continuously almost ready over a period of days*

*The Professor pops his head round the door, and comes in...*

Hello everybody! Having a nice Christmas Eve?
I always like to be on Earth at this date because, of course, San Beta doesn't have a Christmas. Naturally, most inhabited planets have a day devoted to some sort of prophet or other religous entity, but a good old Christmas on Earth is fine for me!
Bar the busses, trains, rain, floods, bad programmes on the TV, showing Titanic when we've already seen it loads...oh, no, that's just Enlgand is it? Oh well...

*Matina offers him a bun...which he accepts with a smile...*

Why thankyou...oh, could I have a glass of San Betian Seawater please, alcoholic variety, if you have any, thankyou...

*Settles down into a seat that isn't there...*

Mmm...Matina, everything smells wonderful. I wish you could visit my RL kitchen!

Ah, never fear, ox. Some day, we will all have housebots and maidbots and otherbots...

They're really cheap if you buy 'em downstairs.

Tonks, what's this about not having a Christmas in San Beta? I can understand the absence of, say, the tree, the lights, a complete absence of most of the kinds of religions we might have here on Earth, but they don't even celebrate the Winter/Summer Solstice? After all, that's how the date for Christmas was chosen. "How about we set it at about the time of the Winter Solstice?" Something like that. So, after much arguing and deliberation, and me glazing over a lot of the important historical facts, December 25th was chosen as a good estimate of a time after the Solstice.

I mean, there should be at least *some* note about it. At least a little mention in the calendar, or something. Unless, of course, San Beta doesn't have the traditional elliptical orbit that most of the planets we know of do, but that would make for a very odd mix of seasons as well. Are you absolutely sure that the people of San Beta don't have *something* going on during whatever their equivalnet of Winter might be? That seems very odd to me.

Matina, if you would, please get a small cup of phlog for me. Non-alchoholic, as usual.

Just out of curiosity, how many people are going to make it here tomorrow? I might get a few posts in, but I can't guarantee it.

I seem to remember Christmas as being h2g2's "slow season" if you will. I check the "Who's Online Now?" button when I logged on last year, and there were only two or three people other than myself who were online. One of whom was an Ace, the other was a newbie. Needless to say, there wasn't much backlog for me to catch up on then.

[Amy]

That's a good question Affy, about Christmas. You see, when I said San Beta, I meant the GalaGroup, i.e. trillions of planets. The GalaGroup itself doesn't have a great big intergalactic holiday, as it were, apart from say, the Overseer Elections.
And then there's San Beta the planet. It's also known as G-Planet, or Governmental Planet, and really doesn't have much of a culture of its own, being mainly the home for diplomats and such, myself included of course.
By far most planets d have the normal orbit and experience changes in weather patterns, and some do tend to get a bit exited about this sort of thing, and have some sort of special occasion about it. G-Planet though doesn't, as it's not really a society as such.
OK?

Hmm...not sure if I'll make it on tomorrow. Might be able to, as I'll be on the computer most of the day, what with installing a new harddrive and all...

Loonytunes woke up on the morning of December 25 and his comely partner leaned over and kissed him passionately on the lips. "Steady on," he remarked, sensitive to the possibility that he might not taste or smell so good on account of the fact he had got chooked as a goose the previous night at the Cosmopolitan Club. But she sniffed, lasciviously, and this excellent fellow paused to realise that his expected hangover and appalling state of physical disrepair were absent. Unmentionable things happened.

Three minutes later - his stamina was the stuff erotic legend - he remarked that he was hungry. Soon enough, he was served a choice of crayfish, salmon, bacon, scrambled eggs, toasted white bread, a bowl of cucumber and radishes in vinegar with lots of salt at the ready, peaches, tea, beer, and a jellytip iceblock. "Delicious," he announced and, resting his head, slept the bloated sleep of the just.

He roused himself before noon. The day was as bright as genius; sunshine oiled his bare, barrel-shaped chest. His handsome cat at his side, Loonytunes decided on a stroll around his estate. The creek was at high tide but he could see through the sparkling waters and gaze upon the gambolling eels, the round oysters, the old trouts. Herons roosting on top of the mangroves caught his eye and returned his nod "Morning," he called to them, but a passing jogger, a rich 24-year-old Swedish gymnast called Ava Meontoast, assumed his greeting was meant for her, and her heart leapt in her pert breast. She had always desired Loonytunes.

A man in tune with the elements, he looked at the angle of her shadow and knew it was 12.36pm - his game of soccer would start very soon. "I may be a bit rusty on account of the fact I hung up my boots 22 seasons ago," he worried, but turned up at the local park and yielded to tearful requests that he take up a position as midfield supremo. A gasp went up as he tackled Cruyff deep in his own half, and waltzed through despairing lunges to finally unleash a fulminating left-foot screamer from a distance of 30 yards. It shredded the back of the net like a bullet in the breast of a fowl; Eusebio, di Stefano and Best smiled to see the majestic Loonytunes once more impose his will on the game.

Afterwards, relaxing in the team bath, he was approached by Graham Greene, who asked for his autograph. "of course," said Loonytunes. "But would you mind awfully if I told you how I thought The Power and the Glory might be written in a more vivid manner?" Greene tore off his clothes there and then and joined Loonytunes in the tub. Only mentionable things happened - Loonytunes dictated, Greene rewrote eight chapters. "Much better," Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the Times later noted.

A visit to a money machine threatened to wipe his mood. "Insufficient funds," it said, and then calculated that he was $29,015.50 in overdraft. But this even-tempered colossus took it in his stride. He simply went to work that afternoon, he mowed lawns, washed cars and healed the sick, earning enough to shout all his closest friends and various fawning acolytes - Macdonald, Hirschfield, Wilson, Campbell, Steel, Joe, Wichtel, Carter, even poor old Colbert - to a restaurant dinner. Instead, though, the great man donated his money to the City Mission.

Returning home, it struck Loonytunes that he had stopped smoking. "That was easy," he commented to himself, his back as straight as an ironing board, his face glowing like a powerful lightbuib. He lit a barbecue in his backyard and piled on steaks, chops and chooks. He was a stickler for feasting on a balanced diet.

In the cool of the evening, he turned his eager, well-hung mind to whether he had passed his life so far in a meaningful fashion, and if his celebrated h2g2 page was actually any good. He turned over the back pages of his existence and saw that he was much fulfilled. He had made the right decisions, the right sentence constructions; guilt, shame, despair, longing, and deep, wretched anxieties were complete strangers on the shore of his well being; marvellously, he harboured no delusions.

"Time for your special present, darling," purred his kittenish wife, as Loonytunes, that old dog, made his way to bed. "Thank you, my pet," he growled, and fell to his knees. Mystical, sainted, holy, he prayed for world peace and an end to hunger, and then brushed his teeth and drank a lot of beer.

He dreamed long into the night. There was no end to the fantastical images that delighted his subconscious - a goose on a seesaw, Ava Meontoast on a seesaw, a conversation with God in which Loonytunes was asked to mind the shop, his brutal slayings of everyone who he had ever hated, beautiful flowers at his feet and doughnuts in the sky. He woke up on Boxing Day with a sore head, and it was pissing down outside.

Some of you may remember that yarn from last year. Waking up this morning (Christmas Day) to a cloudless sky and an expected high of 30 degree celsius prompted me to run it again. Have a good one everyone - and keep out of the rain

Merry Christmas to you too Loony!
Well, merry Christmas to all of you...

So then Loony, that would be a normal day for you would it?