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

Well, um, that was my question.
There is way too much seriousness around here and I have perpetrated some of it. I'm tired of behaving.
so...tired...of ...behaving......

exits
goes back to personal space
writes more dreck
exits
finds someplace else on site
to cause trouble.

Now is a relative term in cyberspace.
What is explained below.
Uhm.. I don't normally promote our (n2g2) alternative site ..partly because it is a fairly ruff and tumble sorta outa control place. Language and subject matter will inevitably offend. We have had a lotta lurkers and many who just couldn't stand the offal smell, but in your case, you sound like you could use a break.
A regular half dozen or so h2g2 researchers there, ventilate and try to keep the faith of DNA's absurdist cosmic view without restriction or moderation. The dot com of my nickname's e-mail addy has a link to the Yahoo site where we refugees still dance naked round the campfire and challenge the fickle finger of Fate. Be careful walking thru the muck though, there are many pearls of wisdom scattered on the ground.
peace
jwf
PS: Wave if you get there. Lemme know here if you can't find it.

Gracias, senor.
To the moderators, a translation: I don't normally tip

Whoa! I saw your name elsewhere and went to your homepage where I found a fresh journal entry you called, "I Am Fourteen Years Old".

Whether this is True (or not) doesn't really matter in cyberspacial realities. However, you do bring to my attention the realisation that 'if' I were ever to proselytize the virtues of n2g2 again, I must remember to add a disclaimer about 'adult' content. Which, if you read my original posting, any good lawyer could prove I did suggest however subtly and, unfortunately, only in a way an 'adult' would understand.

As to 'adult content' in general, it is never a question of 'parental guidance' once you reach puberty, rather, the social responsibility of everyone, me included, to advise of the pitfalls of Knowledge (See Genesis) generally. All knowledge, all ritual, all law, all adult activity and order is flawed by carnal knowledge.
N2g2 is particularly flawed, damaged, deranged, disordered - some us really blame Monty Python for Sept 11th. It ain't a place for 14 year olds or even sane people.

While it is obvious I cannot stop any one of any age from visiting n2g2, I am at least legally responsible to amend my previous welcome to those 21 and over.

Gads! If this keeps up I'll have to post Rules and start Moderating postings! Arrrggghhh!


jwf (a geriatic hippy)

Don't be tired of behaving.

I'm behaving.


"Disobedience is the origonal virtue" - Oscar Wilde.

That probably should have been horigontal if I know Wilde. Then again maybe he meant virtigal.

Um. Obviously you did not read the other journals. I have an eleven year old daughter. I am surprised that such a thin bit of flummery would fool an old soldier like you.
I went over to n2g2 and found a bunch of old postings.
Maybe I didn't look in the right place.

Thinks:
I will go back to my space
and write some more dreck
Maybe someone else will
be fooled.
What will I be this time?
A giraffe ventriloquist?
An h2g2 ace?
a flying water cooler?

and I do offer free babysitting and geriatric home care...

I suspect you reached the green page and must have missed the Yahoo link and found some old fora there at the site. It is sorta dormant but it does have a link to the Yahoo site which soldiers on.

In fact:

From: "JohnWFulton" <johnwfulton...
Date: Wed Nov 21, 2001 11:35 am
Subject: Wee ghosties on the weird channel!

--- In n2g2@y..., "Beth" wrote:
> --- In n2g2@y..., "JohnWFulton" wrote:
> > --- In n2g2@y..., impoverishedstockfordian@y... wrote:
> > > --- In n2g2@y..., "JohnWFulton" wrote:
> > >
> > > Boy was my face red!
> > > >
> > > >
> I ran into this person before - don't think she is fourteen.
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A652592
> Beth

Again thanks for that link to tonsil's article, Beth. As much
relieved as I am, that I had not been guilty of corrupting youth, I
am now equally perplexed by the Mysteries of Life.

In her article she specifically refers to discovering grown-up books
and reading beyond-her-age level as a teen. For her, the discovery
that writers were old people was a shock, a traumatic part of her
persona. So, I was actually 'anticipating' and trying forewarn her of
what she had already experienced. But I could not have known that.

In my latest reply to her, I point out that I now emphatically know
how those old writers would have felt to discover they were being
read by someone so young and innocent. It is a weird feeling of guilt
and responsibility to think you've corrupted youth.

The strange bit - and I don't want to bore everyone with 'channelling
and past lives' and all that - is that I had not (obviously) read her
account of her teenage discovery of adult books. And yet I reacted
exactly as one of those 'old writers' might have, if they knew and
had the opportunity to speak.

Makes me wonder, how I stumbled into that part of her psyche formed
as a teen, and experienced the feelings (perhaps projected by her)
an adult writer should have, upon realising a 13 year old girl had
been reading the work.

Was I channelling for some guilt ridden ghost who has been trying to
beg off her psyche lo these many years? Robert Louis Stevenson
perhaps... "Arrgh, where be Miss Purity?"

Imagine, some long dead writer bearing guilt since that day she saw
his picture on a book flap, then channeling through me a belated
warning that some things are best unknown to youth.

While I am happy to help the ghosties get things off their chests, it
would be nice to know which of them so possesses me that he can use
me to reply to his young fans. A conundrum, unless someone recognises
the style of my original apologetic backpedalling response.

What a weird cosmos we flail about in, wot.
peace
jwf

Um. Not female, either.......................windy

OK I give up. You win.
I'll even try being more succint.
peace
"Windy"

No problem. It was amusing for me.
I'm going to let that little first week entriette stew for a while longer, then expand it into a pseudophilosophical rant. Your comments above have made me look at a ten minute toss off in a new light. I had no idea. On the other hand, your comment may just have been a strong indication of how ideas are located in your mental car park and have nothing to do with the world I inhabit. In any case, may I have permission to cite you or consult you further on the matter of reader's perceptions of writers?
I think with the mental state of the site as a whole it would be a very interesting subject.
And it would keep me busy enough to stay away from interminable threads where 'variations on a theme' would be a polite description.

Gotcha back!

Gender/age/where-abouts, or as they say in American chat rooms a/s/l (for age/sex/location) are the three primary pieces of information which most online entities keep to themselves.
Personally, I think that's 'OK' for most (the young, the nervous, the married, etc.) but I have nothing to hide and less to lose so I've always just been me.

I had heard you say you had a daughter, and you're right, in my 'mental car park' only women have daughters, men refer to their little girls. Yes, I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion based on personal experience and local forms of expression.
Strangely, I also figgered out yesterday I assumed wrongly about the gender of the autist known as flinch whom you also know from another thread we share. It was a bad day all round.

Feel free to cite, consult anytime. Here or at the e-mail link on my homepage.
peace
jwf

Yes, well, I'm a bit anomalous. I only have the one, which happens to be female, thus I am a proto-feminist if only to provide the child for which I was the primary caregiver for most of her first four years with as broad a world view as I can. I don't want her to get trapped in the female version of the gender assumptions I've been subjected to. Plus, I'm probably in touch with my feminine side in ways that would.......aw, never mind.

Poop. That was just getting interesting.

*touches feminine side - walks off in a huff*


peace
jwf

My point exactly. And a very expensive huff, too.

Now, back to the original question. Is there any chance of truly organized silliness around here, like satire, parody, or studied pixilation?
Or is all of it incidental and reactive to postings?

I have felt that same loss of control !

But the real good organised silliness never gets past Peer Review on the grounds that is 'untruthful' or 'misleading'.
Like Looneytunes "27th Letter":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A504217

Which may or may not be how you stumbled into this forum in the first place.

peace
~j~

jwf and tonsil revenge:

There are a few organized groups on h2g2 where excessive humor are appreciated, just not in the Edited Guide. (See the Comedy Workshop at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A502886 or "So Long and Thanks for Laughing" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A227440)

The fact that these things don't get into the Edited Guide should not be a show-stopping problem to prevent people from using h2g2 as a place to circulate humorous or "untruthful" articles, or fiction or poetry. I still think it's a matter of publicizing good articles from the unedited guide: we need a person or group to establish a page for the purpose of pointing out good entries that could not fit into the Edited Guide. If it could be updated with a few new links every week or every few days, it could be something that readers regularly visit. With enough effort (and hype?) it could even be something that researchers would aspire to be listed on.

I've tried to drum up some enthusiasm on the Alternative Galaxial Guide for Hitchhikers (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A506675), but haven't heard much response there either. I also thought that the Alternative Writing Workshop might get people polishing their entries for their own amusement, but it seems to be an alternative sin bin, where entries are dumped and rarely heard from or discussed again. (Most of the discussions there end in "Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'The Alternative Writing Workshop'." ...and no further discussion on Alt Writing Workshop.)

What do you think, tonsil? Are you the charismatic leader we've been looking for to lead the unedited guide out of bondage and into the Promised Land? Or would it be worth while to start a group who would find good unedited guide entries and try to publicize them on AGGH or somewhere else?

Why the hell did I link to AGGH? I must have thought this conversation was taking place somewhere else. Is there some thought-jumbling chemical in turkey or mashed potatoes of which I can claim to be under the influence?

I was just looking for the display department of the local planning office when I discovered this place where the dust was disturbed under the staircase....by a two-legged-rat running in circles...whistling a theme from 'Tales of Hoffmann'.
Yes, and I went by the 'Comedy Work shorp' too. An old coffee cup with broken pencil in it and a two-year-old page a day calender featuring the cooking wines of Estonia in French.
Isn't there some place in the post, or some showcase where we can put the little strange and humourous things, y'know something like a little column called,"The Last Chicken In the Shop"....
Or some altenative soap opera thread where babies have three heads and Arnslow gets to kill Hyacinth?
AHa! Turkey? Are you a colonial?