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

Curses, I forgot to put the bin out. And I'm not doing it now. It's awfully dark out there.

I know what you mean. I'm certainly not going out there, either. The 'bin' is just going to have to stay in tonight and play cards or something. It's just not safe out there at night.

I should have worked out already that it wasn't safe out, as the bin would go out on a Monday night and by Tuesday morning it had gone. And you know what's spooky, it happens fairly regularly.

Now you've gone along with my sillyness instead of saying, "you're wierd, Nick". Now I can't think of a sufficiently stupid reply.

You've been out-stupidded. Look, you started it. OK then - don't be stupid Nick I was referring to the household refuse that gets picked up by the district refuse collectors early on a Tuesday morning.

Satisfied now?

Curses, I just drawn a total blank now. Give me a minute...

Is drawing total blanks part of the rules when playing cards with bins?

OK I shall bring this back to a more serious (but still bin-related) note. DM (flat-mate) is due back from work pretty soon and I have yet to have taken the bins out. And the kitchen is a mess, as is the cat litter tray (yuck ). And I am sitting here ignoring it all, with a glass (um.. bottle) of red wine, and the bin-bags piling up in the corridor (oops). DM is a total tidiness freak and I am a lazy old slut. The flat is immaculate apart from my boudoir which is a pig-sty (or a penguin-sty?). I think I might be unpopular tonight.

Yes, let's bring this conversation back to a serious note. I love these UK expressions, like "taking the bins out", or "taking the mickey (or worse) out of someone". You sure like to "take things out".

Many years ago, I used to "take out" my girlfriend. Do 'bins' really deserve that kind of special treatment? They can't even dance.

Over here, to "take out" the girlfriend sounds more like hiring a hitman and having her 'whacked' (as you Americans would say).

In dating terms we 'go out' with people (or not as the case may be)

Oh dear, Frizzychick. Surely you should know that I'm Canadian, not American. We don't say, 'whack'.

Also, we don't say things like, 'I'm going to take out my girlfriend'. Rather, we'd say, 'I'm taking my girlfriend out for dinner and then to be shot', which doesn't have the same nasty connotations.

I'm sorry, but I thought Canada was still the Americas - I deliberately didn't say US or States etc. So is Canada North America or not?

And taking your girlfriend out to be shot puts purely innocent images of photographic sessions into my mind.

(I did the American thing just to wind you up - I apologise if I was technically incorrect.)

I don't know. I thought adding the 'and then to be shot' added a couple layers of humourous depth to an otherwise drab and lifeless (ha ha) sentence.

OK, I'm resorting to bad puns now. I get off work in fifteen minutes, and not a moment too soon.

Personally, I always thought that referring to people from the USA as 'Americans' was stupid, since Canada is not only also part of North America, but is also bigger than the USA. But if you can't refer to folks from the USA as 'Americans', then what do you call them? Late for dinner?

So are you an American or not? Come on admit it straight out... "I am an American"

And it's a shame you are going - I was beginnig to enjoy trying to wind you up (and i can guess you don't unbderstand that UK-ism either) (wind as in bind not binned)

Well, it's approaching 2am, DM has yet to return from work - can only assume she has found somewhere less trashed to stay the night. And after I was driven by guilt to actually sort out the cat litter tray and put the bins out as far as the front door (couldn't quite face taking them all the way down to the dustbins - it is terribly cold outside - and dark, rather unsurprisingly)

Wind me up? I'm not wound up. Not at all. Even a little bit. I'm not an American. I'm a Canadian. I was born in Dauphin, Manitoba. I know for a fact that there is no such Canadian province called 'Mooseland'.

Now I have to ask. What's the difference between the 'bins' and the 'dustbins'? Can 'bins' have dust in them, too?

OK so this is what I don't get. I always thought that Canada was part of the Americas. (ie North America). But according to you, you are not an American, as you are Canadian, correct?

And the difference between bins and dustbins (as far as I am concerned) is nothing. Although is there a technical
difference between a bin and a waste paper basket? And why, for that matter is the Windows trash setup called a recycle bin - what the hell has retrieving digital info got to do with recycling?

Yes, "recycle bin" is a stupid name. As if the information you throw away is going to be recycled. Actually, it kind of is. It's no longer useful information to you, but it still takes up space on your hard drive.

So, if deleting stuff, in order to free disk space is recycling - then why do we have to make the effort to take glass to the glass bins, newspaper to the newspaper depot, etc. Surely the recycle bin is exactly the same as the rubbish bin. I mean, if i threw a really important piece of paper into the bin, then - as long as the binmen hadn't been round - I can go through the trash and find my paper. But if I let it go with the bin men, it will not, by default be recycled. If I want stuff to be recycled I have to cart it down to the bottle bank / paper bank and deposit it in a special recepticle (??) designed for such a purpose.