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

Got 'Catcher In The Rye' on a recommendation. Got to chapter four and nothing's happened.

Failed to win the pub quiz last night because according to the imbeciles that wrote the questions, the world's largest island nations do not include:

Austrailia
New Zealand
Japan




I mean, wtf?

So what *are* the world's largest island nations then?

Hi LS,

Apparently, they are:

Madagascar
Indonesia
Malaysia (HELLO! HAS A LAND BORDER ON THE MALAY PENINSULAR!)
Papua New Guniea (OK, it's a bunch of islands, but it has a land border with another country!)

There is another but I can't remember. What we couldn't work out was what possible criteria these were identified with. Clearly not the presence of land borders with other countries, even if that other country was just the other half of the island, and clearly not countries with no connection to a larger landmass. So why not, I don't know, Canada? It's got a bunch of islands, a land border...

Suggestions welcome!

Watched Fight Club. Wasn't as good as I was expecting.

Went to see Troy yesterday. No, that wasn't the disappointing bit (Brad Pitt in a leather skirt, allegedly commando , are you kidding???)


But afterwards, the practice of putting pennies on the eyes of the dead to pay the ferryman across the Styx came under discussion, as someone sugested they didnt have coins back in them days.

So I've just been trying to find out some details on the history of money and/or Greek mythology via this Interweb device thingy.

And I've been disappointed.

>> Failed to win the pub quiz... I mean, wtf? <<

I think the operative word there might well be 'pub'.
Any pursuit conducted under these circumstances is liable to misinterpretation.

Despite this reality 'pubs', taverns, bars and restaurants licensed to serve alcoholic bevvies, continue to be popular places for people to conduct business meetings, hold hiring interviews, make marriage proposals and other important decisions. Perhaps triva competitions and quizzes which require more attention to detail than is usually possible under such conditions are the worst case of being in the wrong place at the right time.

~jwf~

Lucky, i saw somethin about Troy the other day on telly, it was arguing that there were no coins in olden days So the argument was that they were shiny pebbles instead of pennies



And the last thing i was disapointed about was that my aunty is selling her car, and i think i'm goin to get it, but she hansn't found another one to replace it yet, so i'll have to wait a bit

Ancient Athens had obols as the principal unit of currency. These were coins. How far before the establishment of the democratic city-state of Athens was established the events depicted in the film are supposed to be set, though, I don't know. Certainly Athens collected tribute from client cities and provinces in the form of silver and gold, although whether this was in coin form I don't know.

RF

I picked up a whole bunch of dead greek dudes who wanted me to go South of the river and would you adam an' eve but it when we got there all they had to pay me with was bleedin' shiny pebbles.

I was well disappointed and no mistake.

"Charon, in Greek mythology, is the ferryman of the dead... He only accepts the dead which are buried or burned with the proper rites, and if they pay him an obolus (coin) for their passage. For that reason a corpse had always an obolus (1) placed under the tongue.

Those who cannot afford the passage, or are not admitted by Charon, are doomed to wander on the banks of the Styx for a hundred years...

(1) Occasionally, a danace -- an ancient Persian coin which is worth rather more than the Greek obolus -- was placed in the mouth of the dead."

toxx

...so does that mean that shots of coins being placed on the eyes of the dead during the time of the Trojan war are

a) wrong because that was pre-coinage
b) wrong because it should've been under their tongue

Slightly disapointed with the steak I had last night, though the pudding made up for it, maybe my sense of taste is a bit badgered at the moment cause of this cold/sore throat thing/pumpbing myself full of drugs/strepsils

Yes, but your talking about Ancient Athens, the same people who claimed to have beat up Atlantis on no less than five occasions!!!

Under the tongue/in the mouth is more historically accurate. Thinking about it, on the eyes is, well, a bit *precarious* isn't it? One nudge and you're condemned to wondering (or even wandering) the shores of the Styx for eternity.

I reckon that if your civilasition is at the stage that it has 1,000 ships ready to launch at the drop of an obol, one or two of those might have been used for trading as well as mongering war. So I guess they'd have had coins.

RF

I'm still in the opinion that the Myceaneans were a bunch of idiots, unlike the Minoans!!!

'Batman year one' directed by Darren Aranovsky (Requiem for a Dream) got cancelled. This would have been the darkest most violent Batman movie ever, written by Frank Miller and Aranovsky.
Well, let's hope Christopher Nolan and Batman Begins will be as great. Nolan also has the knack for creating ambivalent characters. But not as schyzophrenic as Aranovsky's.

And before that, there is the cancellation of Sam and Max 2 from Lucasarts.

Everything I love is going away! What am I gonna do?!

The system restore that finished 10 minutes ago didn't work.Grrrr!

Incog.

Try pressing f5 bregudgingly until it sorts itself out or someone asks "what's wrong?" and solve it for you, works for me!!!