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

*cleans up salon and sets up a sturdy table and chair at one side of the conversational group.
Ampton, would you go out for doughnuts please, and take Mindspring with you, in his cage. A bit of air will do him good, even if he sleeps through it.

The table and chair are for Mike A, if anybody wants to know. He's a welcomed member of the group but he also has exams to study for, and I want to see those books OPEN!

Phil settles down for some more conversation about anything and everything.
So how's things going Lil?

They're going very well! I feel like a normal healthy person for the first time since mid-January when I came down with pneumonia. And I've just submitted a bill to a client, which bill is going to pay this year's property insurance. That has been swollen by a whopping great hurricane surcharge.

And I just put money down on web hosting for my domain and come back from the book store with a monster Ultimate Reference on HTML to complement my Dreamweaver app.

Things are great. If I were rich, things would be even better... or maybe not.

*Ampton returns with doughnuts and Mindspring in its cage, looking happy, meeping*

Thank you AMpton. Moebius donut Phil? Ado?

Ado, glad to hear you're so much better. I have arthritis to look forward to, I'm afraid; I've been a bit hard on my body the past 20 years...

Thanks for the donut.
*get's rather messy licking the icing from it *

Glad too hear that the pneumonia has finnaly gone from the system.
At least I don't have to worry about hurricane surcharges in insurance.

HTML, I've just got to do a bit of coding in that myself to get a new stats page up for some modem racks here.

*Phil goes over and puts some James on the stereo - what he's listening to on MP3 right now *

James who? *innocently*

I just took half an hour to download the Lord of the Rings preview. It was worh it. Wow! WOW!!

And now I have to take the car in for service, regular oil change stuff, what one does just before the Really Hot Weather begins. In any case the web is being a wall of jello, probably stuffed full of day traders again, so it won't be worth even trying to get back on for a few hours.

But when I get back I might have some HTML questions, if it's something you're good/practised at. Do relax -- the others will be by shortly, I'm sure.

Isn't the LoTR trailer magnificent? I'm psyched, personally!

I'm glad to hear you're paying the bills. How goes the (non-profit) H2G2 art buisness?

H2G2 seemed to nosedive at about 5pm uk time, just as I was trying to post that last message in fact

I'm still waiting to see the LOTR trailer. Even the message from DNA won't play under xanim on unix (the codec apple use isn't being let out).

James are a band from Manchester who play indie stuff. I don't know about the US but here their biggest hit was called Sit Down, from 1990 or 91 and again 98 and again in 1998 as a remixed re-release to go with their best of compilation.
I've seen them a few times live, but the best has to be in october last year as part of a capacity crowd of, wait for it, 400 for a special secret gig to promote the last ablum.
Favourite songs; Sometimes, sound, Ring The Bells, Laid.
Brian Eno seems to like them (he's produced a few albums for them) and says "you find yourself thinking I've never heard anything like this before, but it makes perfect emotional sense".
More info (including some Real Audio snippets) see http://www.jamestheband.com/

I'm not great at HTML but I'll try and answer any questions or at least try and think of where the answer might be found

There's an MPEG version of the trailer available at
http://bass.temp.2webspinners.com/media/countdown.htm . Could you play that?

It's taken me about half an hour to get onto h2g2, access this thread and be in a position to post a reply. Just like the bad old days. So I'll post this and then go off and study, I reckon.

Commissions? I just finished a storefront for Mama Peta's Italian restaurant, but I don't know where it is -- must ask Demon Drawer, who took delivery. Then I gave some ideas to God's aide, and with his feedback I'll probably finish that tonight. Then I have a banner to do for Venus in Flytrap, a rendering of sewer monsters for Bluebottle, artwork for your page -- and I don't know yet what I'm going to do -- and some buttons and oddments for the web page of The Man Who Can. And as I have just acquired web hosting for my domain I need to get cracking and remember what I was doing with Dreamweaver before I got sick. I bought an enormous book on HTML 4 this afternoon.

So much to do! A sloth and a horse to feed, friends and virtual relatives to interact with... Glad I'm not bored!

You sound busy! I'll go looking for Momma Peta's (last time I checked it out I'm afraid I got jealous -- they had an espresso machine, and Bluebottle was doing their washing up!). I guess I couldn't stay a monopoly forever c'est la vie

Irv, Have you thought about applying to become patron saint of Topic Drift?

And you have all the business you can handle.

I've been appointed the patron saint of Highly Strung People. And you're the one changing the subject here!

Oooh yes thakyou, love a donut.
Try not to get arthritis it really sucks! And you never know itmay just skip on by. It is after all an auto immune disease so get into the fish oil tabs wholesale and begin eating celery seeds now I tells ya.
Lovely to hear your billing a client, I've always found myself t be in a carnival mood when that magical cheque comes bouncing on through.

Also terribly glad to hear you're over the pneumonia.

hmmm; nice ott Lil, must say.

Well, arthritis ... I have failed to pamper my body and had a rather athletic career -- worked with horses professionally for a while, then did martial arts for a little over ten years. So my lower joints are starting to swell a bit, particularly the ankle I hurt 20 years ago and then sprained again twice during karate. Chronic bursal swelling...

But don't let me go on about that in an otherwise fulfilling life. A bit quiet, perhaps, now that the nephew is hevvy into revision.

I have another before-after to put up, maybe this evening.

You've had an active life there Lil. Keeping moving is something I'm losing touch with. I used to cycle to work before I moved to London, now I just walk to and from the tube station and probably get most of my exercise bu waling up the escalators

And I forgot to say congratulations to you, Irv, for your newly acquired sainthood. Are you still a member of every extant h2g2 organisation?

Phil: Stairs? Luxury! Here in Florida not only is everything flat but, due to the water table being so close to the surface we don't have basements, not even crawl spaces. And I rarely encounter a two-story office building.

So, get any interesting love letters today?

The water table under London is also rising so the underground has to keep pumping water out.

I didn't personally get a love letter, but some people in the office did. We spent some time blocking access to the site which it connects to and filtering the emails for the ILOVEYOU subject line.
Makes for a more interesting day (compared to configuring apache ).

I just heard on NPR that the House of Commons is clogged LOL. What possesses MP's to open an email with that subject line?

I read that on the web as well. I heard that several firms had their systems closed down because of it.

The other interesting (sort of) thing today has been the vote for the new Mayor of London. It's predicted that Ken Livingstone (last leader of the Greater London Council) will win by a landslide. So certain in fact that the bookmakers stoped taking bets on it!