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

(Posted 24 hours after mailing this to nearly everyone I know)

Sorry to burden you all with this, but I will not rest until I have told everyone.

I am in Los Angeles, in a room on the eighth floor of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, and there is a television in the bathroom.

No, really. A little white Trinitron. I can't find the remote control for it.

There is also, of course, a massive television in the main room, along with a video recorder, a minibar, a nice selection of seemingly-free snacks and a nice stereo that lights up when I go near it.

What I'm using now is the free Ethernet connection. 10mbits of high-speed Internet access to every room. (They gave me a spare 3Com "pigtail" for my laptop 'cos I lost mine in transit. I didn't know anybody called it a pigtail, but from now on I will always call it that. They are right about everything here.)

There is also a telephone with two lines and voicemail.

It took me ten minutes to find the light switch.

I wasted half an hour watching "The Dukes Of Hazzard". (It's always a revelation watching shows you remember from your childhood that seemed, at the time, to be aimed at adults but were quite obviously for children, or adults who think like children. I like the way that each plot point is repeatedly explained to you over and over again, often with the amazingly imbecilic characters as the excuse. Hazzard County is obviously a place where social Darwinism does not apply. Or maybe that's why it's so barren and has only five cars in it.) I watched it in the main room, not in the bathroom. (That would have been silly.)

I had a shower. It was very nice. I like the way that hotels give you lots of little bottles of free things to pour over yourself. By the time I left the bathroom I had used most of them. (I wanted to make a good impression in this very stylish, ostentatious and neat hotel. I think people could tell.)

There is lots of marble everywhere. Lots of green and gold and pinky-beige. It reminds me of the sorts of places that my paternal grandparents like to live in.

It was a rather hectic day, especially since I didn't sleep much last night, and two minutes before the SuperShuttle arrived the landlady called, who I'd never spoken to before, the reason being that I sublet the flat from Tom, who has never really talked much about the landlady, whose voice I didn't recognise until she told me she was the landlady, by which time I had already told her that Tom had moved out and then she told me that his subletting was in breach of his contract. So I may be homeless next week. But probably not. Pouneh says not to worry, it will get sorted. I trust her. And there are other places to live in San Francisco anyway. Probably. The flight I was meant to be on was cancelled, but because the SuperShuttle was fast I managed to switch to an earlier one, which was held up for ten minutes while waiting for the Duchess Of York and her six minders and personal assistant to board. Oh, and I lost my 3Com pigtail somewhere in transit, but I already said that.

It's amazing how quickly your troubles disappear when you go to a nice hotel and all the staff are amazingly nice and helpful and the list of available services takes up a rather thick folder on the marble desk and there's a heated pool on the fourth floor and a television in the bathroom. It's one of those hotels of the sort which has those advertisements in The Economist about how one of their guests once lost their poodle and the concierges did not rest until they had bought the guest a replacement poodle, which they managed in half an hour. But I asked the porter who showed me to my room about a replacement pigtail for me to take home, and he told me where CompUSA was. Oh well.

It is the company's money, and I am trying to be relatively thrifty. However, I just bought a bottle of Evian from the bar and it cost six dollars. I think I know why this place is so nice.

I saw my friend Tina tonight. She is very fab. We wandered around Westwood and bought cheap CDs and played Ms Pac Man. Tina is remarkably good at it. She drives a big car truck thing, of which there are many here. LA is very spread out, the roads are very wide, but the cars are wider. The cars keep growing. They are already large enough to be re-employed as small refugee camps. Parking is obviously not a problem in LA, unless you lose your car under another one.

I have just found the complimentary bottle of spring water on the little table next to the armchair. This has taught me two valuable lessons: Firstly, that I am a reckless fool who should pay more attention to his surroundings before spending other people's money. Secondly, the hotel staff are able to presciently gauge my needs to a fatefully cruel degree.

I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow. It is why I am here. The meeting is at 8 AM. I think my boss is trying to test me. He knows that my body clock lives five hours west of my physical location, wherever it happens to be. But I shall prove that I can rise to such a challenge, even if I fall face-first into the poached eggs halfway through.

I must finish outlining my work schedule and another document or nine and then go to bed. I must not log onto ICQ or play Starcraft or use Napster or watch the television in the bathroom.

I repeat: there is a television in the bathroom.

Thank you for your time.

LOL, glad you're having a great time.

Watch out on the "seemingly-free snacks" - often they are charged on the bill at checkout at OUTRAGEOUS prices. But if you're staying a while they do magically replenish themselves.

Hm, funny, I managed to spend a day/night at the Four Seasons in Tokyo (er, at my expense, unfortunately, although when in Tokyo everything was high priced, and got a good deal) and Yoz's description reminds me so well of what I remember, right down to the TV in the bathroom, though that was something I'd seen before once or twice. Hehe.

Did they have the electrically powered curtains in there Yoz? LOL, the room I had couldn't have had any more gadgets, though this was, after all, Japan, land of electronic toilets. (Yes, it had one of those, too.) The control panel for all the lights was built into one of the nightstands next to the bed, and it had controls for the powered curtains and an electronic "Do Not Disturb" sign, which disabled the doorbell. (Yes, that's right, doorbell. )

And there's me thinking that the phrases; 'I am trying to be relatively thrifty.' and 'staying at the Four Seasons, Beverley Hills' were mutually exclusive.

See, therein lies your problem, Peta. In the states, thinking is not high on the list of needed functions for the body. A television in the bathroom is second, or third here. Thinking didn't even make the top 20.

I've been to that Four Seasons, Yoz, and I don't remember the television, but the bathroom itself was very very big and all marble-y. Pretty place.

And Greg, I don't think the curtains were electric, but I could be wrong.

Wait--doorbell? I want to go to Japan, just so's I can point and laugh at all the unbelievable things.

LOL! Right. "Thinking" comes somewhere after "I must make certain that everything I own is color coordinated". It's good that we can focus like that. It's what sets us apart for the...er...other stuff living on this planet. Whaddya call 'em again?

Oh, and "I want to go to Japan, just so's I can point and laugh at all the unbelievable things"? Like you need to leave your front door to do that.

I want to go to Calafornia to point and laught at....

Who am i kidding, i just want to go to Calafornia. I've never seen the sun go *into* the water

That's why it's so warm here; every day, there's a free sauna.

I'm actually surprised they don't have a desktop (or at least a chained laptop) installed in there, too.

Wondered where you'd gone and how you were faring.. Sounds to me like I should hop a flight!

'Nonnie

I remember receiving this email... I still have it

Okay. Now I'm lost.

See... you just hit that button, the one over
<--------------------- there, and you're back home again.
Capice?

Yoz sent me this Email. What's not to get?