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

...you tell people at work you're multitasking by typing in one forum, reading messages in another, searching for special pages, and, maybe, doing a little work.

... you use your ½ hour lunchbreak from work to go home, turn on the computer, check h2g2 conversations for 10 minutes, turn off the computer, and go back to work being 10 minutes late.

... you are automatically disconnected by your ISP after having been online for 12 hours!
- and then connects again!

... you come late home from work, planning to make dinner *before* going online, but cant help checking your email (all the h2g2 egroups) and your conversation list... and the frontpage... and the 20 latest udated conversations... and... ...
BUT you're strong and doesn't actually log in (your computer's so old that you have to log in every time your browser has been closed) because you REALLY DO BELIEVE, that it will help you to go away from the computer, even though you know deep down inside, that it only means, that you have to read all the entries and conversations you read for the next five hours once more later when you're ready to reply. When you finally - past midnight - have had something to eat, you know you should go to bed, but well, since you wasn't logged in earlier, you MUST log in now, just so your friends know that you're still alive. When at 5 AM you realise that you have been sleeping for an hour, you manage to get to bed, but two hours later the first thing you do when you get up, is to turn on the computer to catch up on the backlog before going to work...

Good one!

...you find yourself screaming and tearing out your hair when you post you lengthly submition and your screen says 'ACTION CANCELLED'!!!

...when you advertise h2g2 to the extent that you're talking to people you've only just met about it, and writing "h2g2.com" (or should that be "bbc.co.uk/h2g2") in the margins of your schoolbooks, much to the annoyance and confusion of your maths teacher when you're doing algebra.

...when you *can't* visit any other websites because your eyes water if their colour schemes are not white-on-Goo-blue.

...you find yourself in trouble for laughing out loud at printed conversations you snuck into cless because you were gone for the long weekend and didn't have time to read them online so you printed them and smuggled them into the lecture hall in your textbook and then the Professor comes over and asks what's so funny and you show him the conversations and he laughs and gives you his H2G2 name...

...when you forget what the other people in your house look like.

...you bump into people you know and call them by H2G2 names, including: teachers, bosses, neighbors, friends, enemies, government employees, police officers...

...you get worried because your cat doesn't appear to like do(ugh)nuts.

...you complain bitterly for weeks about the new House Rules.
(OK, who here hasn't?)

...you try using the h2g2 smileys in non-h2g2 chats and boards... like < biggrin > and < angel > and < bubbly > and people wonder what you're doing...

...or using home-made smileys while waiting for them to be added to h2g2... like

... even in the school library the most popular website in the list is h2g2, above even the Backstreet Boys website (as used by the first years when they think you're not looking), even though you know you're one of only two people in the entire school who has actually read the book. And when you have conversations with your friends via h2g2 instead of normal methods like the phone. And when the librarian can't get you off the computer half an hour after school has finished on a Friday because you just have to post ONE MORE MESSAGE GODDAMMIT JUST ONE MORE!!!!!! (starts hyperventilating)
xxx

... 98% of your latest phonebill is for internet use - and 98% of that is h2g2.

I thought conversations via h2g2 *was* the normal method!??

...you're caught using H2G2 when it has been restricted and, after a lengthly one-sided debate over the inportance of Universal communication facillators via the Internet and the fatal need of banks for topics on icecream, the librarian passes out.

you discover that the '<' and '>' keys on your 'puter are completely worn out!

I thought I'd just leave everyone to this one but I have to say something now.

Thank you all so much for contributing! They're all really great and I'm going to have a really tough time working out which ones to do. But please: don't stop on my account! It seems that shazz is having a well deservered break next week so keep 'em coming! I already have a cartoon for next, next week so I'll be posting up the ideas for this cartoon in 2 week's time.

If I have any suggestions/preferences for ideas they'll tend to go towards the ones that are interesting visually - that is if I can illustrate it with a funny picture it's got a better chance. I really hope that doesn't discourage anyone - all contributions are fodder I can steal-I mean use in other cartoons

Once again - thanks one and all!

Wowbagger

... and the ones Wowbagger doesn't use I can make us of in a compilation article for The Post... so, the more the merrier

shazz

...you log-off and stagger to the bathroom. Looking at yourself in the mirror, skin pale, eyes red, body emaciated, you think to yourself that maybe H2G2-ing for the past week without any actual human contact, exposure to sunlight or freash air, was, possibly, a bad choice...

Naahhh!

...when you're quite able to get drunk drinking h2g2 drinks... why else would we have the smiley.... although I try to avoid using the smiley - one of the benefits of getting h2g2-drunk...

Imagine this:

An h2g2 researcher, sitting in front of the computer, looking more and more Hic!

A non-researcher friend looks in, noticing this, asks:
'What are you drinking?'

h2g2-researcher: 'Champagne!'

Non-researcher: 'Oh - got a glass for me too?'

h2g2-researcher: 'Sure, help yourself!'

Non-researcher looks around, but sees no champagne, asks: 'Where?'

h2g2-researcher: 'In here!' *points towards computer*

Non-researcher shakes head and start looking for a straitjacket, while h2g2-researcher falls off chair, being quite drunk now...

Cheers!

...or when Bumblebee walks into the café with homemade, still hot, cinnamon buns - and you can actually feel the mouth-watering smell!