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

Welcome to the Atelier! This is a place for conversation, the sharing of ideas and extremely strange birthday presents. If this is your first time here, please take a few minutes to look at our forum page at A304354, to find out how this place works and, via offsite links, what it looks like.

Let's begin with attendance, which was unusual:

First LED Roll of Honour
Marv
Eatsmice
Mr. Dreadful
minichessemouse
Mol
Witty Moniker
Bel
Wandering Albatross
Bald Bloke
kelli
Happy Nerd
Santra
Magwitch
=========
Rev Nick
Pedros Ecosse
Titania
Todaymueller
Amy P
Metal Chicken
Lentilla
David B
GDZ
lostmonalisa
V
SpaceCadette
Rosemary
Dr. Zen
KerrAvon
Milla
gandalfstwin
Hypatia 144
Lanzababy 192
Affi (400)
egon 591
The Corrupt One 923
Ben 1138
nicki 1142
Solnushka 1145
Ottox
Phil
Tonks
J'au
ltp 1235
sea 1328
Wilma Neanderthal 1358
b4 1467
jr 1822

There are some people in that list that we haven't seen in absolute ages, and it was both thrilling and disconcerting, in that the reason for these appearances had much to do with fresh threats to our continued existence. Another Foop loometh.


Top news story from 103X -- well, so much happened, but this story is special and specific for the atelier -- Marv proposed to his girlfriend, who very wisely said yes. Congratulations to Sir Marv, atelier stalwart and most deserving fiance.

Lots of jokes were told during this conversation. Elephant jokes made an appearance! Your hostess's favorite, however, was told by Santra at post 1050. For cuteness, hard to beat an exchange between kelli and her progeny at post 1352.

Best special effect was originally from Garius Lupus, and here's the link again -- http://www.neave.com/strobe/



As the conversation began, Salonistas were suggesting new career paths for Eatsmice, among the most popular of which was international porn star. The goo spruce had just arrived and traditional decorations were being hung. David B got a new job with lots of new responsibilities and powers.

It has long been noted that the salon is top-heavy in librarians. How interesting to discover that there are nearly as many air force veterans and possibly-soon-to-be veterans! Rev Nick, Eats, Pedro and GT had several exchanges in the course of this conversation about things RAF.

As Christmas approached, menu planning became a dominant topic, because many here like to get a running start on The Big Meal. Lil ordered a spiffing new wheelchair as a present to herself. And it began to snow... and snow... and snow....

All salonistas demonstrated efficiency in present wrapping, and even helped each other out with assorted social dilemmas. Affi made a rare appearance bearing Christmas wishes and inflatable squids, and lingered to chat a bit.

Several of us suffered breakdowns of assorted utilities, sparking discussion of water rates, while Lil rolled about, acclimatizing herself to the new wchair.

And then New Year's wishes were exchanged, lobbed about, drunk deeply and celebrated. We all then began breaking in 2011.

The shooting spree that wounded Gabrielle Giffords, killed some and wounded many others was an event that engendered much discussion -- of the Westboro Baptist "Church" and of political rhetoric.

Dr. Zen presented us with a musicality quiz at which he probably earned the lowest score: http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/musicality/
And this in turn got us talking about those multiple choice tests that seek to find out how strongly one agrees or disagrees with the statement. When Z learned that Happy Nerd's thesis involved "parametric bootstrapping as a goodness-of-fit test for logistic regression models" {thank you, cut-and-paste}, they were off and running on a track roughly parallel to the salon but about eight feet higher.

The Corrupt One manifested in the vidscreen and invited us all to participate in villainous goings-on.

The salon very quickly grew enthusiastic when kelli expressed a wish for a get-rich-easily-and-quickly scheme, and before another LED had passed we were forming Atelier International (Don't Panic Corporation for tax purposes). Lil went for company CEO and all the perks at everyone else's expenses but was shouted down by the workers and settled for being stewardess/receptionist. Eats took on the post of corporate jet pilot, mags became tea lady, and Tod the sommelier. Lentilla decided she would paint things pink and then ignore them. Spacecadette became company chronicler and Milla a hanger-on, while mini volunteered to do child care. Witty and GDZ requested back-office positions, and Santra became our travelling salesman. Hypatia settled for "official AI retired consultant, communicating through the internet from my beach house for large enough fees to finance said beach house." And wanted assurances that she would also be able to maintain her yacht. Beatrice asked to be the accountantand kelli took on the post of web presence and social media coordinator. Wandering Albatross named the gamekeeper position

Lil discovered head-torches, flashlights that can be worn on the forehead or neck, and subsequently learned that she was the last person on the planet to do so.

Meanwhile, some began trying to post from the new skin. They call it barlesque, but we know it's really the dreaded Orchid. And it promptly began munching on apostrophes and spitting out's. There was much discussion of the new skin, its bugs and features and philosophical underpinnings. And just as we were expressing thanks that the BBC were taking the trouble to keep us around...

In came the news that the BBC is not keeping us around. The girt big FOR SALE sign hit the floor with a loud clunk, generating a cloud of lurking salonistas posting for the first time in the thread. Marv set up a facebook lifeboat for the atelier, and Dr. Zen launched a consortium to investigate the possibility of having the site pass into the hands of its own denizens.There was in fact a bit of a lull in the salon as entities settled into the lifeboat or got busy over at google groups. Matters remain unsettled at this time.After the ads went out, Bagpuss passed the hat, but collected mostly lint and old to-do lists.

Solnushka announced an imminent baby girl.

What was the first vinyl album you bought (or CD if you're that young)?
What book are you reading at the moment?

Other topics
organ donors, specifically brains
Marty Feldman
snow
snow
passports
cold
the empty gift of early closing
Christmas cake
snow
kodachrome
pardoning Billy... or not
ultra Downy
snow
it's raining dead birds
Dick Cheney has no pulse
Little House on the Prairie
Bringing new cats into an existing pride
Bad Christmas presents
The 13th sign
snow
explaining gravity to children
SNOW
Egypt
Yasi
dentistry
Resumés, effective
snow
Christchurch earthquake
wrinkles
gaudy primroses
stuck ships



We've made it to 104X! And the salon is clean again, ready for us to leave circles on the coffee tables from our drinks, to drop mbougatse crumbs on the carpet, and strew magazines and newspapers across the furniture. Please make youselves at home.

Neeeeeooooowwww!!! *Skids to a halt*

Hello. Is it here?

First LED! Don't generally manage that

*Matina brings Beatrice an irish coffee in a FTTF mug*

Hey Bea, is that your first mug?

*First one to have a *
*Puts new v/_\3 on*

<BB<

Sure is! Thank you most kindly, I was at the dentist this morning, so my mouth is just about un-tingled, and some Irish Coffee would be perfick!

I love the smell of a new thread in the morning.

[z]

*saunters in*

Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night as the case may be.

Just read the summary of the last conversation, noticed the number of mentions of the word 'snow', and recalled that I felt too guilty last convo to post that we had snow here too while some Salonistas were nearly buried in the stuff. When we have snow, there's never enough to cause problems, so it's all just fun and no shoveling.

Now that snowbound Salonistas are enjoying the Spring melt, I feel less guilty about admitting to having stood out in the gently falling snow, with my head back, my mouth open, and my tongue out. The sheer pleasure of driving through whirling white dots. Putting things out on the back deck to see how pretty they'd look with a dusting of snow.

You see, it doesn't snow here that often.

First LED.

*wanders back to see what she's missed*

Wasn't on the ball today, but 1st LED is more than satisfactory

*Almost recovered from a good hangover*

*astonished to make the first LED*

Hello everyone, got a noce not of good news today, getting a pay rise after only 6 months in job!

sorry 'nice bit' not noce not

I thought were speaking in 'foreign' then, Pedros

[BB]

Skids to a stand in the first led for a change.

My typing is abysmal at the best of times, really should preview first