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

Refugees from chat rooms. Ugh. I know what you mean. I've been wasting altogether too much time on a site called "habbo," sort of a cartoon visual chat thingy. Imagine "The Sims," only more primitive, and you don't have to buy it or subscribe to any service. Anyhow, it's all chat, and the site is aimed at teens from the UK, so the spelling is ... what you'd expect, I suppose. Somebody please slap me if I ever start writing "ur" to mean "you are."

and I don't talk anywhere but here.
I write emails to people who have their own sites, but nothing beyond that. I'm not really into the web except as a glorified library.
'ur' to me is that place Abraham came from.
I'm not sure how I feel about the web as a free-for-all for illiterates.
They should, in my mind, find some kind of guiding influence...otherwise we all look like idiots to someone from another country, unless they're doing the sam stupid crap in France and Germany, too...the acronyms and abbreviations and...blehhhhh...

From what I've seen, people with enough money the world over have been making fools of themselves via the web. The US may have more people with internet access (for now?), but we have no monopoly of idiots.

Deidzoeb

On the subject of titles (or is it 'the title of subjects'?), I quite often hear things said in conversation and think to myself, "That would be a great title of a short story".

If I am talking to someone I think might like it, I mention it. Usually I just feel quietly pleased at the thought and keep it to myself.

As for French chat-speak, fear not, the Acadamie Française are turning in their... well, most of them aren't far off that anyway!

Spiff

Reccos needed soon for #7 please chaps.
If each of you picks one from the current nominations list for starters, we'll read them and take a vote on Saturday. Then I can start assembling the page while you write your intros.

=X, have you started up a new nominations list somewhere?

jwf

I'm sorry. I lost my site map.
The nominations list is where?

I created a new nominations page titled "Waiters" per jwf's suggestion (to prevent sneak peekers from finding nominations easily). From now on, the best place to drop off your nominations is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A679511

I'll try to scour the other threads for nominations, but don't expect miracles.

And now I'm off to spam the other threads where people have dropped their nominations, so you'll probably see it again...

Oh...I went to that habbo page, well two or three, last night after you mentioned it and I found all the history fascinating....but paying for non-existent furniture with a credit card?
How unutterly pathetic!
And you do what there?
I mean the Finns, okay, but....Well I don't know what I mean by that.
But everything just seems so silly compared to here.
Haven't learned anything about the Sims yet. Too busy surfing for things to read.

Er... sorry?

Read thread.

Ah, got you. Now I remember why I forgot.

Do us both a favor and do it again....

Yeah, I'm working on an article about habbo and other visual chat sites. TITLE "In My Plasto Crystal Ball" (I See Virtual Furniture Whores and Debit Card Toilets).

I've been trying to start a poetry slam on habbo, but lost interest. It is disgusting to see how many people are willing to focus all their spare time in pursuit of virtual furniture. (My wife is one of them. But at least she doesn't say "I WILL BOBBA FOR FURNI!" Guess what "bobba" means. Even their censorship is cute as a button!)

Yes, I read some gushing bobba's fan site about Habbo and it's predecessors in terminal cuteness. She kept going on about drinks and burgers and how nice it was for lonely malcontents to have a place where they could go to avoid telling personal information to predators who might clean their bank accounts out if they didn't turn out to be pedaphiles....herf, herf, herf...
I about bobbaed onto the the keyboard.
and the screenshots of those little Stepford Weebles! ErrF!

I think someone aught(sp?)to do a parody of it called Rabbo...

Imagine if we had to look at a square-pussed avatar everytime we had a discussion of some serious matter like the declension of the verb 'to fnord'?

I know I could find this with a little internet searching, but can you tell me if the word "fnord" was created by Robert Anton Wilson, or Steve Jackson, or if it predates both of them? Maybe it's just their little inside joke, and I'm on the outside.

First published in 'Principia Discordia', afaik, so neither. There's a guide entry on that somewhere.

I looked it up in the Guide.
I am now looking for a slightly used flamethrower.
The search results confirmed that there are places in the Guide where only the certifiably insane should go...and stay.
I'm voting for Wilson.

Did Clark Ashton Smith and H. Allen Smith ever meet?

And trust me, I used to live in Austin, Steve Jackson came late to everything, but he's a nice guy, no matter what the Feebies said when they raided his office and took his computers....