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

I think I passed through the senility stage about three or possibly four hundred years ago.

Haven't been 'round here for a while. You see, I finally picked up my laptop last wednesday. Not pleased about having to use Windows ME (which comes pre-installed - I _detest_ Windows ME), I decided to set the thing up as a Win98/Linux dual-boot machine. It's taken me four days to make it work. But now I am victorious and, for me, life can now go on. It was quite an adventure. Quite rewarding, actually.

So here I sit on my couch, gradually vegetating, with my laptop on my lap, watching the Canucks lose to Dallas (OK, so noone's scored yet, but Canucks will lose this one). Ah, so nice to have a laptop once again. yay!

So did the Canucks lose?

I've never been a big fan of laptops - chubby fingers, you see . Although I am not averse to gadget-worship, and can understand the convenience and portability of a laptop being quite handy, but... not my cup of tea (but perhaps this is because I know that I will never be able to afford one, so I am rationalising the envy )

Oh yes, they lost all right.

It took pretty much all of my savings to get this thing (plus all the remaining vacation pay from my previous job). I only got it for two primary reasons:

1) My previous company, in much the same way a crack dealer operates, provided me with a laptop at no charge while I was working for them, thus addicting me to the convenience of having one.

2) Having left said company, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to justify buying one (i.e., I didn't have to go into severe debt to get it).

...and one secondary reason, which is being able to sit on my couch and play Diablo II on my lap.

However, as if recovering from a nasty blow to the head, it will take me a couple of months to recover my savings again. It only hurts when I laugh.

Glad to see you can handle defeat with such grace... "oh yeah they lost" -- BIG GRIN --

How on earth do you react if they ever win anything??

How I react to a win depends on the situation and the team they're playing. When I went to a game where they were playing against Colorado (the #1 team in the NHL right now), and we beat them, I jumped up and down, freaking out and screaming and yelling, just like the other tens of thousands of people in the stadium around me (it was a sellout crowd - absolutely deafening).

More likely though, I'm at home, usually watching the game with my brother. If we win, we typically both go "Yay!" and then watch a movie. It's almost always far more exciting when they score a goal than when they win.

How's work, by the way? You don't seem to have any more of those interesting jobs involving petrified birds or anything (or you just don't talk about them anymore).

Work is OK - quite busy at the mo, and none of it very interesting. If anyting remotely noteworthy happens I shall let you know

Totally knacked at the mo, although have done v. little all day - pottered in the 'garden' (concrete pathway with a few plant pots) this morning and spent the pm watching films on video. Approaching midnight now, and with work tomorrow I ought to get to my pit (old age creeping on - or maybe it is just plain laziness - but struggling to wake up in a.m.) - and Mondays are awful - the weekend is never quite long enough (--longs for 4 day week--). At least I got out of town and did stuff this weekend (although countryside is still shut due to rampaging sheep illness) - saw Chocolat at the pics (Depp oozing sultry good looks, little else.. apart from all that chocolate - hollywood hunk gets out-classed by brown foodstuff shocker).

Seen any good movies lately?

I picked up "Boogie Nights" the other day (had never seen it). It had a flow to it that reminded me of "Goodfellas", not too mention a few rather brutal scenes.

Also watched "Red Planet" (great effects but too much exposition made it predictable and formulaic), "Bedazzled" (I didn't know Brendan Fraser could be so funny - laughed me fool head off), and "The 6th Day", which many people seem to hate just because Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it (usually despite the fact that they've never seen it). It had a couple of predictable aspects to it, but I liked it.

I have to walk to work all this week. A strike has shut down all the bus service in Vancouver. Takes me half an hour to walk to work. Bloody unions. I blame them for inflation, you know.

I swear it's easier to see typos on a blue background than on a white background. Damn.

Typos? You?


Surely walking to work can't be that much of a hardship? Today has been positively springlike in Kent and any excuse to get outside was necessary. (Some of us walk to work every goddam day, you know!!)

Glad you rate Bedazzled - haven't seen it yet, but look forward to (Brendan Fraser being a bit of a dish, and all - blimey, am I that shallow)




(yes)

Typos. Me.

I normally wouldn't mind the walk, but crossing a bridge twice a day means inhaling exhaust fumes most of the way. On the positive side, there are no more buses roaring past my apartment any more.

Bedazzled was much funnier than I thought it would be. If you think he's a "dish", then that's certainly a bonus for you.

Ah, pollution! I can see how that would spoil a walk. Despite being on the coast, we actually suffer from quite high pollution down here - the high level of shipping in the Channel adds to the generally high level from the road traffic that passes through the port. Being in a river valley, sometimes the fumes just seem to hang in the air, filling the valley and smothering us all. I feel it the worse when cycling into work - you can't really avoid the exhaust fumnes of you are stuck behind a pantechnicon at what feels like exhaust-pipe level on your pushbike

However, this morning feels fresh and crisp. After yesterday's sunny day the heavens opened and it poured with rain all last evening.

But I'm up bright and early (actually after alarm clock #1 = a world's first ) - so as long as I don't spend too long here, I should be able to avoid the busy school rush of traffic.

Sorry for the delay, I'm still busy with work. Unfortunately, I also woudn up purchasing Black & White, and it tends to consume my few hours of leisure.

Yesterday was full of strange weather here. I walked to work in pouring rain. By the time I left for lunch the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. By the time I got back from lunch it was raining again, and then it hailed (a lot) for most of the remainder of the afternoon, then it rained again.

By the time I went home, the sun was out again.

Fantastic weather synchronicity - the very same happening over here - well sort of.
Cold sleety rain whilst walking into town and then sunny sunshine.

Earlier in the week we had lovely sunny mornings with hideous torrential rain for the rest of the day and night.
Now is a lovely mild spring evening...
but with the deepest blackest clouds moving nearer from the north.

Transit strike is still going on here, as you may have surmised. Canada seems to be plagued with strikes recently. Another transit strike in Victoria seems imminent. Nurses striking all over the place. Strikes in the east, strikes here in the west.

It all means that I'm still walking to work, and I'd better not get hit by a car.

Not terribly au fait with Canadian current affairs, sorry. What are they striking for?

UK current affairs currently pre-occupied with the foot-and-mouth epidemic amongst the livestock in the farming community
-- sheeps, pigs, cows with terribly infectious disease which over the past couple of months (??) has spread badly into certain areas throughout the country.
Mass slaughter of animals and restrictions on moving through the countryside --
also affecting the tourist industry, including national parks, country parks, stately homes, open-air museums etc.

And the forthcoming general election, and what date it is going to be
- what with rampaging foot-and-mouth etc.

Just looked through a moderation debate somewhere, and someone drew the conversations attention to http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A528103
which says that we are not allowed to discuss the UK General Election
-- I vaguely remember reading something about the fear of h2g2 been targetted by political groups as a canvassing device, so maybe it has something to do with that?? It doesn't mention it on the page I've linked to, so maybe I made that bit up? It could have been somewhere in the terms and conditions.

Scary-ish - hope my general election/fmd comment is not too politically sensitive

Well this forum seemed an appropriately named one on which to post. Been ages.

Not been round much and I see no activity on your page, so not sure if you are still involved? How are you?

Real life pretty busy etc., but going well. Thank god it's summertime! Living by the seaside does have its perks in decent weather. How's sunny canada? Hope you are around soon.

Frizz