Random Ramblings
Created | Updated Oct 23, 2008
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
- Martin Luther (some time between 1527 - 1529)
Yes, I know it's our Hallowe'en special, but in the Protestant area where I was raised, 31 October was known as Reformationstag (Reformation Day) and as Weltspartag (International Savings Day/World Thrift Day), the latter being far more important for the children than the former. We used to go to the bank that day and bring what little money we had to put into our savings account, and we were rewarded with little gifts from the bank. Oh, those happy golden times - ignorance is bliss. Hallowe'en doesn't have a tradition in Germany (none that I'm aware of, anyway), but like most successful commercialised customs, it was imported from the USA a few years ago, and it seems to be spreading like wildfire. However, I can't relate to Hallowe'en at all, but if you are a fan, then the Post caters for you elsewhere in this issue.
Last time I promised to tell you a bit more about the upcoming h2g2 London Autumn Meet - for those among you who are neither subscribed to the Forthcoming h2g2 Community Events and can't be bothered to browse our very own Announcement Page, which is frequently updated by Titania.
So, the London Meet activities are being planned, possibly involving something spooky. There's currently no way to tell who will attend, though, because the attendee list shows more people who'll definitely not make that date than those who will. However, if you do go, you're likely to have great fun - as somebody who attends meets regularly I can vouch for that.
If you live north of London and it's too far/expensive/whatever for you to attend a meet down south, why don't you join our Researchers for the Hull Meet Saturday and Sunday 22/23 November 2008? The last meets were a great success and I'm sure the coming meet will be just as fantastic.
And now for some personal business1: my much beloved Telegram Game is suffering from a decline in players. Ever since neri_aracro stopped being the host of the original Telegram Game back in May 2004, a few Researchers have taken it on and kept it going, with Vestboy giving it a new home, MazinMadFiddler being our Tallyman, Icy North providing us with the Telegram Game - Past Telegrams Index, me setting a new word every Thursday and PedanticBarSteward writing an acrostic poem for the Post based on the current telegram word. It has been running in this way for more than four years now, and it is lots of fun. It has had times when it was quiet, mostly due to people being on their annual holidays, but this year it hasn't picked up again, which is a shame. It is the same case as with many games: the more, the merrier. It's not difficult, anybody can take part, and you have a whole week to think of a telegram. Just read the rules and get started. Voting is optional, although it would be nice if you let us know which three telegrams were your favourites from the week previous to any current word. Like with the Entry of the Month this is not about politics, but just about personal preferences. No need to tell us why you chose a telegram, and nobody will ever question your choice. Come on, give it a go!
Entry of the Month is a good prompt: Matt started a thread suggesting an Entry of the Year. If you have an opinion on that, please go and discuss it in the thread linked to above. Please bear in mind, though, that the address for Editorial Feedback for all Post articles is the Post email account.
And what is the majority of the h2g2 community up to? As is to be expected, discussions about finances and governmental politics make up a big part of the community threads. If you have a look at Ask h2g2 you'll find plenty of them. They don't polarise people as much as the persistent discussions about religious topics, though. The most recent of these (at the time of writing), the God bothering 101 made no.2 on the Front Page top 20 within a couple of days. It attracted the usual suspects as well as a few hitherto unknown user tags. Which makes for a nice transition to something else which divides hootoo into two factions (with the added bonus of having relevance to Hallowe'en): the Hallowe'en anagrams.
It has been a long tradition for lots of Researchers to make an anagram of their user names in the weeks before Hallowe'en, thus making it seem as if it is not the usual suspects posting, but a lot of newbies. Three years ago, Emmily set up the RAECH2 page after an idea of Galaxy Babe and Mu Beta and quite a few people signed up as supporters. Seeing as the first Christmas sweets appeared in the shops here in the last week of August!! this year, this little protest seems to be more important than ever. Go and sign up, you know you want to. Never mind all those anti-anagrammers who are likely to start heated debates about the inconsiderateness of it all, throwing all their toys out of the pram, unsubscribing from community threads and from friends' journals even. They'll calm down after Hallowe'en when all tags are back to normal. If the Eds don't have a problem with the anagrams (and they are likely to cause them some headaches), I really don't see why anybody else would have. After all, a click on the name will bring you to the PS of the Researcher in question where you'll usually find some hints revealing their 'usual' name.
In that sense, enjoy the current issue of the Post!
