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

I entered into email "discussions" with the PTB over my posting that got pulled yesterday. They described it as "ranting"; it was exactly 18 words long, split into two sentences. They also characterised it as "Abuse of staff". Well, if demanding a proper apology for a monumental cock-up is considered "abuse", then they might be right on that count. But, I was careful not to phrase it against any individual.

By the published guidelines over at <./>DontPanic-Moderation#4</.> the Moderator had only one recourse, which was to edit it to add an extra asterisk to form the word s**t. (My original version only had the third letter asterisked out; my bad.) They had no reason to "refer it upwards". As a matter of principle I will continue to follow this up until the guidelines are revised or the post is reenstated.

Other than that, it's been a pretty s****y day.

I paid a visit to my pal Mike the Upholsterer; he had been complaining about a bit of a cold just over a week ago, then suddenly his shop was closed for a week with a "closed due to illness" sign. I asked what had happened; it turns out the cold had little to do with it - he was laid out by food poisoning contracted from a pie he bought for lunch from the local "Chalmers" franchise. He had all the usual symptoms of vomiting and running to the toilet ( ) during the day, then somehow he managed to drive himself home (something like 12 miles) before collapsing face-down on his sitting room floor, where his wife found him unconscious some minutes later. He was rushed to hospital, and spent three-and-a-half days there recuperating. Kind of puts my little foot operation into perspective...

I got home later, and had a 'phone call from my *other* friend Mike, who had somehow managed to stop his computer booting into Windows 98. I gave him prolonged "telephone assistance", eventually tracking the problem down to a badly corrupted Autoexec.bat file, and fixing it.

I also spoke to Bob at length on the 'phone; he's made a lot more progress on Chris's web sites than I have, and he'll spend Saturday round here sharing all the info he's gathered.

I'm off for an early night, to read some more Stephen Donaldson...