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

I'm moving.

For the next couple of months, probably, I'll be on the road, sleeping in friends' houses, making do with whatever cooking equipment is available, doing my level best to influence (subtly) their television viewing habits, and generally getting the hell away from where I am now.

This is all together a good thing, but it does lead to certain inconveniences. I will not be able to get on to the internet from my own computer while I am moving, so I will have to rely on my hotmail email address for any kind of communication - a few people around here know what this address is, but very few of my other friends do...

I will farewell this house with a certain sadness, but I am still very happy to be moving - great position or not, this house has bad karma, and it's not helped by the calibre of people my housemate has chosen to endorse as friends. He now owes me about $1400 in unpaid shares of bills and rental bonds, but he'll be paying this off as he can, I don't doubt. It's just that the electricity people, for example, won't accept this as a good reason for not having had the previous bill paid before trying to set up another one.

I am very pleased to be rid of the whole scene - and eager to move into a new one. People should feel welcome to call me if they can find someone who knows what my address is.

I'll be back...

Sorry to hear your probs. If you do get that comp of your operational again - I would like to pick your brains - no honestly - you can still contact me at the old email addresses or [email protected]

Catcha soon old bud - hypo-ven toelator .
aka veggie

So just when I stop practising my narcissism long enough to look up old friends, what do I find but a note on the door?!

Well then, I hope you log in now and again. I hope you're enjoying the road life and that health is good.

Hey Veg - I'm back! Look me up in any of the old ways...! If you need to talk soon, check here or on my hotmail address(es).

Hey Lil - narcissism is good, but only in small doses (I've just had a year's worth of overdose, and I think I'm in recovery at present!). Hope all is going well otherwise, and that your move (being planned when last I looked) finally came off. I'm around again, so don't hesitate to look me up!

Regards all. It's good to be the king...

H.

Huzzah!

I did look around when I found you not at home, and discovered that the bubster is also long absent...

Anyway, yeah, I'm living in the mountains, in New Mexico, exactly where I hoped to be, and I even have some land now. Great exercise, sawing dead branches and clearing brush...

Are you settled in one place? Did you have adventures?

I am indeed now settled in one place. Thankfully, I'm hoping that I won't have to move again for a while - and it's clean!

I also had some adventures - mostly of the good kind where people who care about you spend time informing you that you've been an idiot. Much travel and some drinking was involved, but being the classically emotionally retarded Aussie male, none of this affected my natural taciturnity to any effective degree...

Bubster has been absent for some time - I have a feeling he was hanging out at Floor42 for a while, but I kind of lost track there about four or five months ago. I'm not sure what's happening at present.

New Mexico sounds as though it could be pleasant - I trust that you've recorded some of your impressions for further persual?

Sorry, the soundtrack to 'O brother, where art thou' is on at the moment, and it's kind of distracting...!

That's OK, one of my cats is trying to break into the laundry room, for the pleasure of investigating the dusty country behind the washer and dryer. And she's battering the folding door. What a racket!

Moving to Lincoln was the best thing I ever did, Hypoman! In fact, when I think of Lakeland, I simply shudder. There are pictures and things at my website, http://www.asterlil.com , although I haven't enabled any journal pages as yet. Life is picking up pace, bringing me actual customers! And there's a house to be built...

Nobody ever takes advice from anybody, I think. Some good friends told me for years that I should get out of Florida, but I clung to the known, almost for too long. It's beautiful here.

Have you also permanently changed location? By very much?

I think I have permanently changed location - but not by much. I've only really moved about twenty minutes down the road (and a whole other mindset) away from where I was. It is also beautiful here, but that's more to do with where it's not than any inherent quality.

Your place, however, sounds remarkable, and I hope I can get over to have a look at it soon.

I thought I should ask you, because you seem a remarkably pertinent person to ask, whether you know of any place on the web where I might be able to pick up a reasonable quality line drawing/graphic of the Venus de' Medici? We're hoping to make a t-shirt soon which sums up the popularity of a person whose image is remarkably well represented by such a picture...!

I went over and had a look, and your place IS rather remarkable - although somewhat empty at present...!

I'm about to head off for a round of appointments and such, but later this afternoon I can have a look round for de medici venuses. Although you may choose to do what I will do: google for web images. If there turn out to be no line drawings, I can do one off a web image, no worries. What size should it be?

My property empty??? Look at all those trees! I have two lawn chairs and a plastic storage box full of saws and wire cutters and tape measures and such, and a bunch of stakes in the ground marking the footprint of the future house. I sit in my living room and look at the eastern view where the big window will be.

Yeah, you should visit. Catch me here, Marv the Grate in Salt Lake City, the claque in Denver, Montana Red in Montana (another gorgeous place)...

I get the (possibly unfortunate, and possibly also unfair) feeling that your house is going to exist in its current state for quite a while, given the rhapsodic tint of what you have to say about it...!

If you can get hold of such an image - or produce one, for that matter! - I need to be able to manipulate it with my ancient, but still serviceable copy of CorelDraw (7, I think). How I would go about doing such a thing I have no idea, but I suspected that you might know!

PS you're obviously on at present, but I am not really aware of what's happening in your part of the world - is it early, late or good time? For me it's rather late, and having had a long and very physical day (I played soccer for the first time in several years this afternoon - I think the only thing that saved me from serious injury was that I was substituted just as my calves started cramping, just in time also to watch the team left on the park lose...) I'm going to go to bed. I'll try and get back on tomorrow, but I may have a little difficulty making time, so don't be too concerned if I'm not around in the next 24 or so.

Regards,

H.

I'm on Mountain Time, which is GMT - 7. Sleep well.

Hi Lil!

You back on the air, yet? Any success...?

Oh, there was a feature article about me in the local paper the other week, and it's brought in business, so I've been doing some photo restorations this week.

Are you still doing physical fitness instruction?

*Ahh! Ahhh! Turn off the media spotlight! Give me some peace, you jackals...!*

I'm still trying to do some fitness instructing stuff, but work in other areas keeps getting in the way - without a car and a licence, it's a little difficult to get between the places I have to be in to do what I could otherwise do. I am keeping myself as generally informed as I can, though. What brings you to ask?

Well, I remember how committed to physical fitness you have always been...

I found 3 venuses de medici, and for a bonus one of them is already a line drawing. Two of them are GIF format, the other is JPG. They all have arms, too.

Where would you like them delivered?

Send 'em here:

[email protected]

and I'll send you back a copy of the t-shirt design (so you can decide on whether or not you want a t-shirt, of course...!).

Ta hugely for that, Lil!

H.

Look in your mailbox!

Hey lookee there. That's MY name.

Hi there Hypo! Hi, Lil. I am indeed missing, but you get that. Glad to see you are both tootling along.

*does a quick count*

And, uh, happy birthday for next Tuesday, Hypo

Well yair, I was saying, there's nothing worse than getting annexed by an absentee landlord.

Why are you missing, bubster?