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

Big thankyou for the very generous and flattering John-the-gardener stuff in this edition of the POST.

JTG

A pleasure! Please let me know when anymore interesting clippings land on your compost heap!... or benches
shazzPRME

Hi Shazz,

I'll try to put together an introduction for the Obituary page in the next day or so. I've invited submissions for obituaries on the page (In fact, half of the entries there at the moment came from Demon Drawer); I'll emphasize that in the introduction anyway. Did you mean a seperate section for researchers to write obits of themselves in anticipation of their own deaths? My wife wants me to include a pets section. What are your thoughts about that?

You should be able to reach me by e-mail at [email protected], if that is helpful. I don't think anyone has used that address yet.

JTG

OK JTG Good idea! I will email you at your h2g2 addy then :_)
shazzPRME

Back again I've written an introduction on a seperate page linked to the Obit list page:

http://www.h2g2.com/A280595

JTG

On my way That email addy you gave me keeps sending me a Daemon failure btw Any ideas?
shazzPRME

Sorry, my mistake. The addy should read [email protected].

OK I have it now
shazzPRME

Hi Shazz,

Surely you jest. You can't have given up the Post... Say it aint so.

JTG

I am very seriously thinking about it! I am getting fed up with people not realising that this is all done on a voluntary basis and that sometimes Pastey and I are as human as the rest of you
A certain person, who shall remain nameless, but who I thought was a friend, has submitted quite a critical article! I wouldn't ususally mind, but I had explained to him why a certain competition had not been run in the Post, infact it wasn't actually much to do with us in the 1st place... we ran it for someone else and they unfortunately lost their computer and therefore all the copy! How many times can you apologise anyway??
I will do this week's edition, and I still want to see your obits up and running... but then I think I will advertise for new staff! Let someone else take the hassle LOL!
shazz

shazz, i know it is hard but you can't let a few unthinking individuals upset you....most of the researchers fully understand and greatly appreciate what you and pastey go through each week in order to get the Post up and running ....what is that old saying about pleasing some of the people some of the time but not being able to please all of the people all of the time??.....i am sorry if your feeling got hurt and wish there was something i could do to keep the ones who hurt them from doing so but i can't all i can do is say that i appreciate the hard work you do and i am sure there are lots of other researchers out there who would agree with me
your friend through thick and thin monsy

Is this where I can sign up to ask Shazz to stay on at the Post?

No?

Too bad! Shazz, please don't go. Your vision and hard work have turned a good idea into a great accomplishment. I'd hate to see you throw that away because of a knucklehead (excuse my language)! You guys have been doing a really great job and I hope you reconsider!

- X

Thank you Monsy
There... you see... You made me smile... as always!
This week is turning out to be the worst so far for all sorts of reasons, and last nights 'mail' didn't help any! I also have a Dutch cold which I obviously have no antibodies for... yet! LOL
I now have to go and argue with my landlord, something I am not looking forwards to at all... I hate arguement and confrontation
Sorry JTG... we will move to another forum and leave you in peace!
shazz

No need to leave... this forum or the Post.

[cut and paste wot Monsy said]

Best reason not to give up the Post is that it is something you obviously put a lot of yourself into... therefore [in best HH Dalai Lama voice] is very key to happiness and well-being. Please don't let the insensitivity of the odd Researcher who happened to have forgotten to take his or her empathy supplement spoil a good thing.

JTG

see shazz, there are people out there who do like what a great job you have been doing and would like to see you continue doing it ...
no matter what someone else might say....the majority is what counts
monsy

Hey Shazz,

[Paste all above comments]

Please don't leave the POST. You do an excellent job editing an excellent work and it just wouldn't be the same. Here, have some fish

*hands over tray of fish*

Joe aka Arnia

Fish who agree with everyone

Shazz, I hope that you do what feels right, but I do know that I never would have involved myself in the post at all were it not for your encouragment. I love what you have been able to do with it and I hope that if you do indeed stick with it that it will be as pleasing to you as it is to me and the other researchers that read it. If you feel that you need any kind of assistance that I might be able to provide in the production of the post, I hope that you will let me know. I am sure that there are others out there that feel the same as me. I know a few have allready posted above. Get feeling better too!

Thankyou one and all I fear that the fact that I am under such a tight schedule in my personal life and am feeling pretty rotten all round may have led me to overreact! It is not the easiest thing in the world to have to say goodbye to pupils with whom I have built up a special relationship! Some of them I have know for 10 years and up! I received a lovely thankyou note from a parent whom I don't even know yesterday, thanking me for running the recorder club(NM please note!) I still have all the exams to get through next week, as well as the final farewells, and there is still a mountain of packing to do! My car has gone to have the malicious damage repaired, and I had forgotten what a rough ride a mini can be! So, all in all, I guess that I succumbed to the straw which broke the camels back! I will try to catch Pastey... and Veggie(!!!) tonight and talk over what has really bugged me this week, and try to put my brain in better order
shazz

Shazz you gorgeous hunk of womanhood!
Ya can't leave luv!

Who would I draw caricatures of then?
Who's going to listen to my inane bouts of artist's block?
Who'll notice my spelling mistakes?
Who'll massage my ego?

Actually these are all good reasons to leave. Disregard.

But stay. Please stay.

I stay away from my computer for one day and look what happens. Oh dear, oh dear oh dear, oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Shazz, I'm kicking around again now

I will take this opportunity to agree with a thing or two that Shazz has said though. People do seem to forget that the Post is done completely voluntarily. It's also not only there to be done by a few people, but by everyone. At the moment there is a core of about half a dozen researchers who each and every week either write, edit or code for the Post. But what we really need is more staff.
Shazz, as many of you know is moving not only house at the moment, but country as well. I'm also getting married in a couple of months time and so my spare time of a weekend is getting shorter. Add to that that we'd like a week off occasionally and you might see why we need more staff.
Putting the Post up isn't mind taxingly difficult, but it is time consuming. Shazz currently goes through each article twice on a Sunday night, looking for errors. Once, when she's editing the articles and again after I've formatted them. But still once the Post is up we both get emails and icq messages telling us that we've missed spelling mistakes or that the grammer is wrong. We start putting the Post up at around 7pm on a Sunday and it's around midnight by the time we're finished. Is it any wonder that there is the odd mistake?
Basically, what I'm saying guys is give us a break and give us a hand.

Pastey