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

Hallooo Medievel Man,
Just thought I'd drop in and welcome you to H2G2. I'm Shadow, one of the Assistant Community Editor's here. We’re the volunteer welcoming committee, among other things. If you have any questions or need help with anything, please don't hesitate to ask. You can do so by either clicking on REPLY below or by clicking on my name above and leaving a message at my page http://www.h2g2.com/U133044. If you're looking for a place to get started, the following is always a good spot http://www.h2g2.com/A5752. There is also a handy quick reference guide at http://www.h2g2.com/A344756. Have fun wandering the vast, twisted and myriad halls of this place. There's a LOT to do, see and comment on here and everyone's opinion(s) is welcome. So don't be afraid to jump right in and offer your view(s) on anything!
Welcome again,
~S

Whoops! Medieval Man even. Sorry about the misspell, I'm really bad at names. But welcome again to H2G2 regardless of my spelling abilities!
~S

Dear Shadow,

Thanks for the double-welcome. What's a misplaced vowel among friends?
Considering the variance between "evil," "medieval," and "Evel Knievel," who can ever be sure? One can only buy a vowel and hope it's not a factory-second.

I anticipate some good times and fine conversation in this new cyber world. Talk to you another time. Medieval Man.

How true, how true. Last time I bought a vowel, it turned out to have been originally confiscated by a customs agent from a South American drug courier and resold on the market as "slightly used". Needless to say, I won't be getting any used vowels from a discount shop again any time soon. However, be that as it may, how are things in your corner of the world? It's a depressingly overcast day here with many evil portents afoot. *Cue dramatic music* (Bum-bum-buuuuum!)
~S

Shadow,

As you found out, never buy a used vowel: I once scored one of questionable pedigree from a guy in a pinched-back suit who stepped out of an alley in the industrial park. Turned it it was once used in a word that cannot be mentioned here. Purchase only new vowels that have never been sullied by being in words like: democrat, strumpet, and tofu. Consonants, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen.

I perceive in all things that you may be a logophile, like myself.

Medieval Man

Logophile...hmmm...afraid of Lego's...ME? Nah. Wait! That'd be a legophile wouldn't it. Hmmm...okay, ya got me, what's a logophile then?
~S

Greetings and welcome,MM
I am delighted to see that you are a man of many talents--and, more importantly from my point of view, a LizardLover. I would love to meet Ignatious--I am a 3ft long iguana from El Salvador, named Elvis of course, and my sex is a mystery to all except another iguana.Where do you live? I presently reside on a small island off the west coast of Canada.
LizardLady

Shadow,

One who has an inordinate fear of Legos would be a legophobe. If one loves legos, one is a legophile. "Phil" from the Greek: "philos," meaning love; hence, Philadelphia (delphos = brother) City of brothery love.

A logophile would be a lover of words, "logos" in the Greek: word. If one had an irrational fear of Scrabble, one might be a fledgling logophobe.

That person we refer as a "leg-man," one who notices especially the feminine leg, would be a, uh, legophile. No, we already did that one.
We'd take the Italian word for leg, then: "gamba." From that word, we get the English slang word for legs: gams. A leg-man becomes a gamaphile, not to be confused with a grammophone or the Gamma Quadrant, which can only be accessed by the worm hole.

A fear of any more pointy-headed messages from me, quite understandable at this point, would render you a Buffonaphobe, one who has an inordinate fear of, well, buffoons. Medieval Man

Dear LizardLady,

When you say you ARE a 3 foot iguana, may I assume that's sort of anthropomorphic, and you are writing a letter FOR your iguana? In any case, Ignatius greets Elvis, your lizard of unknown gender. Ignatius, being quite clearly a man, hopes of course, that Elvis is more of an Elvira. But, seeing the improbability of the two of them ever making an acquaintance, it matters little.

Is that little island off the west coast of Canada happen to be Vancouver Island? Probably not, since that's a big island, but that's the only western coast island I know up there. I've been all over it from Victoria to Uclulet, on the western side.

I am quite a distance from you, LizardLady: South Miami, Florida. Speak to you another time. Medieval man and Ignatius

I am but Elvis' human tool--when she tried typing herself,her toes kept getting caught in the keys{you have some of those near you , don't you?].
The island is Galiano--it lies between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and is indeed very small. Your entries on word origins are very clever. Are you by any chance a punophile?
I hope you are NOT a pedophile---or is that simply someone who enjoys taking a walk?
LizardLady

Dear LizardLady,

A person given to the sin of punning is called a punster, and I have been called that pejorative before. Actually, most of my puns are only 2/3rds of a pun: P-U. Sorry. I had to do that joke by law.

I have perused my atlas in vain for a sighting of Galiano Island. There are so many little islands between Vancouver Is. and the mainland; you'll have to tell me which eastern Vancouver Is. coastal town is most adjacent to Galiano. I see San Juan Is. off Victoria; I see Saltspring Is. up north and Hornby Is. above that. Then I see a bunch of white islands that look like they are ice floes in my atlas way up north, and they may well be.

I live south of South Miami. My church is in an area called The Redlands, an agricultural area that grows crops 365 days a year. The Redlands is just north of Homestead, FL, which is just north of end of land. Actually, not quite end of all land, in that the Florida Keys (of which you alluded)stretch out for 140 more miles into the Atlantic toward the Caribbean Sea. All those keys (islands), as you know, are connected by an "overseas highway" all the way from the tip of Florida to Key West. These islands are not unlike yours up there, except a road connects them and they are not ice floes. I presume Galiano is not an ice floe by any means.

No, no, a person who likes walking is a pedestrian and, as you suspect, there are no pedophiles anywhere around this computer. I also like bicycles, which would make me a pedalphile. I like my puns down and dirty: the lowest form of humus. Medieval Man

Dear Shadow,

I am a practitioner of IRQ, so excuse this question, and excuse the fact that I don't know the answer: In all of these terms: forum, forum feedback, online, entry-this and ask-that, etc., it is the case that there is no real time chat anywhere in any of it, right? I just want to make sure I'm not missing something that's right in front of my face and still invisible to my undiscerning eye.

Having said that, I'm still enjoying the responsive conversations with those who write. There is, of course, simplicity and a certain elan to letter writing woefully missing in yakking idly. The grace of it all does not escape me. I just wondered if chat existed in the Hitchhiker's Galaxy, or must we go to the infected death star of IRQ for that dubious pursuit? Thanks for the help. Medieval Man

If you take the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, Galiano is the first island on the right. Its way too small to be in an American atlas, although there was a plot to declare war on the US and lose, so we would be eligible for foreign aid, and thus be in a position to secede from Canada and establish a divorce mill and gambling casino, as well as off shore banks to maintain self sufficiency. Alas, the plot came to naught, as we are still arguing about who should be king, and whether democracy works. You have to be eccentric to live here, in the best British tradition of the remittance man,whose wealthy families would pay them to stay away. More modernly, we have to pay our families to stay away---and alas, I can no longer afford to.
Motto of the islands--"Send more tourists--the last bunch was delicious!"---Think it will fly?
Too bad iguanas are vegetarians.
LizardLady

No, sorry at the moment there is no other method of chat other than posting to forums. I haven't heard anything at the moment about adding this feature from the H2G2 staff I know, so I will go out on a limb and say that it's improbable that chat will be available any time soon. Stick with the IRQ or even AOL's AIM. Also, remember the primary function of H2G2 is to create a real life functional version of the Guide on Earth, so I wouldn't expect chat as a feature to be included any time soon if at all.
~S

Dear LizardLady,

We haven't spoken since you told me the location of your island home. I tried a bigger atlas, but alas, Galiano evidently can only be observed with the naked eye. Since I traveled by ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, did I pass your island, and did I see you and your iguana? One can only guess at this mystery.

My own iguana doesn't actually reside with me at this moment. He is on semi-permanent loan to an attraction near end-of-land on this Florida peninsula, about 25 miles south of my home. There is a large tropical fruit stand and reptile exhibit called (I'm not kidding)
"Robert Is Here" in Florida City, the very last town on the mainland. There are many giant tortoises and lots of iguanas in the exhibit, of which Ignatius is the largest. He is therefore, the king lizard, and currently has a harem of seven females. In order to commandeer this seraglio of lizards, it was necessary for Ig to best Leonard, the former (and now deposed) king lizard, in semi-mortal combat. This, Ig did, being much larger, and having never seen a female before I loaned him to Robert-Is-Here, Ig was presumably powerfully motivated.

I go and see Ignatius quite often. Ig, being a reptile, has a towering disinterest in whether I do this duty or not. It is also uncertain if any synapses in his reptilian brain bid him recognize me from another person, or from a tree, for that matter. A year ago, I moved Ig to the fruit stand/exhibit so that he'd have more space, and could live a more interesting life than being in a cage that had become too small for his bulk.

If iguanas can be happy, he must be now. He has an unbelievable array of fruits and veggies from the stand and lovely lizard babes in his life. A man really needs few things other than food and women. I did the right thing with Ignatius. I had him for 15 years since he was a little pre-pubescent lizard. He is now in iguana Valhalla.

That's the story of Ig, the current top banana and headliner in a South Florida tourist attraction. If you were to travel approximately 3,500 miles across the U.S. and come to Miami-Dade County, and go just about as far south on land as is possible to Robert-Is-Here, you'd be able to see Ignatius, all 5'6" of him. Nearby will be a slightly beat-up Leonard and a covey of lizard chicks that tend toward the big guy. Such is the law of the jungle. Let's hear from you up there on the Left Coast. Medieval Man

I was just joking about the logophile thing. I understood what you'd said, I just have a tendancy to try and make people laugh all the time. I think I was Hamlet's father's Court Jester in a previous life, either that or a very strangely dressed donkey who's tail kept falling off. I can't say for sure, my memory of the entire thing is somewhat understandably fuzzy.
~S Alas poor Eyoric I knew him well.

OH! And once again before I forget, you're correct I am a logophile like yourself. Today's word is factotum! Look it up, use it, wear it out. I'm a factotum in the computer industry. I also rather enjoy quotes. My favorite is:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects
~R.A. Heinlein

I live my life by that, the only thing I can't do...YET...is conn a ship, but I'm going to learn it from my Grandfather when he returns from his current sailing adventure.
~S

Shadow,

I was aware you were pulling my leg a little with the logo-routine. Thanks for the word and the quote. I always enjoy a good one of either.

Your grandfather sounds like a singularly impressive man. I remember my own maternal grandfather. I used to visit my grandparents deep in the Ozarks of Northern central Arkansas where they had a little truck farm and had a few fishing cabins for rent.

I spent every summer with them as a child, chasing and being chased by things like dirt daubers and garden snakes, fishing in Lake Norfolk, and generally living a Tom Sawyer childhood. Someday before I die, I'll write about that boyhood and hope to do it justice: it was a good one.

Your Heinlein quote is, of course, of a Renaissance Man. It's a good aspiration. Specialization is the narrowing of the demands of the intellect; it leavens the whole of society. 250 years ago, if one were invited to a dinner party, one would mingle with a good cross-section of the community: attorneys, silversmiths, estate managers, musicians, literary figures, thespians, etc. After the meal, often the madrigal books were handed out to all the guests, regardless of their occupation. For the evening's principal entertainment, madrigals in four to six parts would then be performed at the table along with the serving of dessert. It would be unthinkable if a dinner guest in that day failed to competently carry his or her part in the madrigals. Certainly, this social faux pas would be glaring and unforgivable. Such a person would be removed from the guest list henceforth.

Imagine if today, in our culturally inept society, we handed out the madrigal books after our dinner parties. Also imagine removing those guests from our favor if they could not reasonably carry their parts. We would soon be singing by ourselves, such is the cultural malaise of the general community in this day and age.

Here's to your grandfather, a Renaissance Man out of due time. Good fortune to him and you. Medieval Man

Hi MM
Terrific to hear from you, especially at such length. I am fascinated by the saga of Ignatious; it certainly seems as if he is in a perfect place, from his point of view. My lizard, Elvis, may well turn out to be female--its hard to tell with nothing to compare to, as s/he's not saying, although s/he's been particularly bitchy lately, so perhaps that's a clue. I built her a lovely enclosure outside, but she escaped from it twice[still dont know how] ,so s/hes now given a free run of my guest room, which has a lovely view of Active Pass, and the added advantage of keeping most of my relatives from visiting.
Galiano is not visible on your atlas, probably because, like Brigadoon, it is an enchanted place that appears only once every hundred years, and then only to those with eyes to see. If you did take the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, you passed right by my front door, but I dont recall you waving. Literally millions of people pass by every year, but few stop in to say "Hi"--perhaps they've heard of Elvis. I also have a hedgehog named Grumble {because he complains a lot} and a cat called Deedlepuss Rex Cause He Loves His Mom {Deedle for short}.

Dear LL,

There are two ways to attempt to sex a green iguana: the first is called "universal male response syndrome" and involves showing the iguana in question a new power drill with keyless chuck and variable speed. If the iguana becomes noticeably excited, it's a male. This same test will work with just about any power tool or with any electronic gadget that looks complicated.

The other way is to observe the back spines. Males have longer spikier spines than females, whose spines tend to be short and stubby. Of course, without a frame of reference, it's tougher to make this distinction. Some of Ignatius' spines are an inch long.

Male iguanas hate other male iguanas whereas female iguanas tend to have coffee and chat. You might try holding a mirror up to Elvis and see if he goes into a spasm of head-bobbing. Male iguanas bob their heads to show dominance when in the presence of a rival. Human males also bob the head, but usually from inside a Jaguar or a Porsche. Hope this helps. Medieval Man