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

*purplejenny (a figment of someones imagination, intergalactic avenger and cook of great soup) sits behind the bar, with a nice big mug of tea. She is half-reading the paper, and half eating toast*

*A huge pillowcase with two human-looking legs sticking out the bottom walks in through the swing door. An hand emerges from the bottom and grabs one corner of the pillowcase. With a deft flick, the hand pulls the pillowcase up and off. In its place stands a guy of about 5'9" and a sturdy build with very short, dark hair and protruding ears, dressed in sneakers, dark blue shorts and a black t-shirt, with THIS on it: A picture of the earth hangin in space, enshrouded by thick, sooty cloud through which the continent of Africa and a bit of Europe is dimly visible; the sea is lead gray and the land ash coloured, scarred and pock-marked. A little spaceship can be seen heading away from the dead planet. Above this picture is the slogan: "Terraform Venus!!!" in bold green, and below the picture, in smaller yellow letters, "...It's our Last Chance!" Willem folds up the pillowcase and puts it in his pocket. He steps up to the bar.*

Hi, Jenny! My, this is a nice, cozy and friendly place, so I'm taking on my human guise to make the others feel at ease. Am I the first one here?

Can I have a big glass of CLEAN water, please? I mean, no fluoride, no chlorine, no heavy metals, no pesticides, no phosphates - a tall order, but I guess this is the one place in the world where I'll be able to get it.

By the way, did you ever wonder if it might not be possible to make REAL money by selling (yes, selling) VIRTUAL drinks? Imagine you set up a virtual bar, and a credit system where people can have drinks for one cent each and pay by credit card over the 'net after they have had a hundred drinks. And of course they can then get virtually drunk and chat and flirt and have a roaring time. But if they don't pay (and of course pay for REAL for every hundred drinks) they don't get served. My guess is if it is a "hip" enough place, with lots of really interesting people having conversations and flirting, people would actually visit it in droves and of course there will be pressure on them to buy drinks and after all it's just one cent. If such a virtual bar had on average a thousand customers a day and every one bought twenty drinks, that's a thousand dollars every five days. Not bad pay for doing absolutely buggerall aside from having a brilliant idea. If you can pull such a scam off, of course.

Well, that might be neat, but not quite utopia yet - although virtual drinking has many benefits over IRL drinking, dontcha think? But, as for me, I have made a vow not to drink any beverage but water until water is accorded the priority it ought to enjoy. After all, water is more essential than coffee, beer, wine, soda, or anything else. Many people in the world HAVE nothing else to drink. And almost nobody in the world has access to really pure and healthy water. So my first posting to the noticeboard will be about water. In utopia, every person can have 1000 L of absolutely clean and pure and healthy water for drinking and for washing. Is that possible? Is that realistic? We will have to consider the amount of fresh water available on the planet, and the number of people living, the natural water cycling systems, the water needs of plants and animals, and so on. I will need a while to prepare my posting - perhaps tomorrow night it will be ready.

But first this factoid: Did you know that if you shower in water that contains high levels of chlorine, you absorb it through your skin and it is about a hundred times more likely to make you sick than when you drink it?

*Willem waits for his glass of water*

*smiles*

water from the tap in the Utopia Cafebar is the cleanest, freshest, wettest, wateriest water you ever will drink.

*pours a long tall glass of water.*

Would you like anything in that? Ice? Lemon? Whiskey?

BTW I think that the idea of charging for access to a virtual bar is a bit daft. But I'll let you put a poster up about water. Try to keep it short and sweet, with links to further info on the web etc.

You can use a pen and paper from the table. Here's your glass of water. Do make yourself comfortable. Would you like some of this delicious chocolate cake?

*Smiles back. Takes the glass of water.*

Nothing in the water, thanks. I'll have some of that cake ... hmmm, nice! I can't eat real chocolate, but virtual chocolate is perfect!

Putting on that notice about water right now. I didn't get my info off the 'net though. But I'll look around for relevant pages and if I find any, I'll put links up.

Hi willem,

I've been thinking about turfing the roads, and i like your idea about making them into indiginous woodlands and forests. It would certainly make the view from the top deck of the bus more interesting. Ta for the stuff about water, if anyone else ever does wander this way they might find it interesting.

love jenny

ps. i know the cake is good. would you like some of my special hot chocolate? (all organic and wholesome, obviously, but most important of all it is a taste of chocolate utopia)

[polite coughing sounds]

Any chance of a coffee ?

Hello Chief Happy Dude,

here's a nice big mugfull of coffee. Cream and sugar are there on the bar, please help yourself.

*gives him a large slice of chocolate cake*

there you go. Now whats a nice bloke like you doing in a nice place like this? How are you?

I'm pretty good at the moment just a bit tired as I was up all last night watching the US election and setting up a new PC.

Thamkyou for the coffee & cake, much needed.

Oops, hit the post button by accident - I was going to enquire about how you are doing ?

Regards

Happy

Well, Mr Happy,

I'm fine. Things are settling back in my life into some semblence of normality after a few very weird and intense weeks. I had a big thing on today - my company is up for the London Innovation Awards, and there is a £10000 for the winner. So I had to do a business presentation to the judging panel, which was very nerve wracking.

At home, things are as they should be; my bloke came home at last. Things are sweeter than ever between us now, but it was a horrendous couple of weeks without him.

I'm not surprised that you were up all night watching the election - I nodded off as Gore was said to have won Florida, and woke up to it seeming that Bush had won. I've just heard on the radio about all sorts of dodgyness - road blocks in areas that stopped people vote, the Florida ballot confused thousands, and the result is balanced on a knife edge. It's all bound to end up in court, and then who knows?

Still, I'm not overly convinced of the vast differences between the two, and am very disappointed that Nader didn't get it.

So I'm fine thanks.

How are you??

jen

I'm good, having a wild time with the new PC at the moment - glad that thing worked out for you, good luck with the award.
The last I heard they were saying it could be a week before they know the result - and then you got the legal challanges - looks like its going to be a long drawn out affair.

Greetings Purplejenny and Utopian loungers. I have been directed to this lovely and worthwhile spot by that excellent fellow The Unmentionable Marauding Pilllowcase. May I say what a pleasant place it is. Please accept this rather peculiar lava lamp as a token of my esteem. I got it from an imaginary hermit in Hawaii. The lava, of course, is real; and it's constant motion and illumination is a product of the absurdity of imaginig it any other way... so it won't ever need batteries. Is there any of that cake left?

JTG

Plenty of cake left, but it is going rather quickly. I'll have to bake another tomorrow. Nice of you to drop in.

I was just writing a long rant for the noticeboard about turfing the roads, reclaiming the streets, critical mass and culture jamming action when the computer crashed. My rant about why technology is never quite as good as it ought to be is now brewing. I shall re-rant tomorrow, as its way past bedtime now.

Anyway, please have a drink and settle down. We're looking for interesting stuff for the noticeboard, and Practial Solutions for a Utopian Future (TM)

*hands over a large piece of chocolate cake, and a nice big cup of tea*

Dearest Jen,
Hi, it's me JLC the TTP. I celebrate my 2 week anniversary tonight after disengaging cohabitation with my "bloke". It has been harrowing, especially the first few daze. He's being kind now, and is throughly in a state of de Nile that I am not coming back for more BS and abuse. Did you know that statistics show that a woman leaves an abuser an average of 6 times before it is really over.I hope this is my story and has nothing to do with you. Except that the stars were right for relationship breakups 2 weeks ago. Mercury was in Retrograde.
I am happy that you are happy that he is happy and we are all together now in Utopia.
It has finally turned to a crisp 40 F in the evening hours here in Fairhope and I am living on the Farm instead of the homestead downtown.
There is a full moon tonight and I will be Happy Happy Happy for you and your reunion.
Worlds of Love,
Another Day alias JLC the TTP

This post has been removed.

It's not only women who live in fear. I also live in fear, and many other men do so also. My country is a dangerous place to be. People get killed and attacked in record numbers. I live a life of a hermit and there are lots and lots of places in my surroundings where I would love to go but am too scared to go. I am afraid of meeting people and getting involved with them because we're all so stressed out and freaked out and screwed up that, when we get together, we form emotional whirlpools that suck us in and tear us all to shreds. Where I live paranoia is the norm and healthy because an open and unguarded attitude gets you killed. In a crazy society nobody can be sane.

By now I have become quite accustomed to looking over my shoulder all the time and being prepared for the worst. Quite a number of times I felt my life sufficiently threatened that I was ready to kill the other guy in a second if he made one false move. In all those instances it turned out to be a false alarm. But you don't get much of a warning in the actual event. A guy could come up to you with a big friendly smile and just pull out a gun real quick and easy and shoot you in the head. I know people who have been shot through car doors and windows open only a small slit. I have trained my mind in an attempt to improve my ability to endure torture, because lots of people here are tortured, it is a fairly likely event in the lifetime of any individual. Whether my attempts at preparation will be of any use in the actuality I don't know, as humans are rather inventive.

Interestingly enough it is possible to live like this and enjoy a quality life. I still think South Africa is not such a bad place. We are living under great strain, but humans are tough and can adapt to this kind of strain. I don't fear the outside world in princple, but there are many places that simply are extremely dangerous places to go at the moment so it is much more sensible to stick to the safer ones. My life is important to me and I want to preserve it. I hope there will come a time soon when things go better. I still see the beauty in the world and in my fellow humans. I don't have any hate towards anyone or anything. I do have a lot of fear, because there are threats, HUGE ones, to me and to the people and other living creatures that I love. But I try to go on with a positive attitude despite the fear. That's not always easy but sometimes I succeed.

But there has to be a better way. If my life has any purpose or meaning it has to be dedicated towards finding a better way. If we need a miracle to get out of this mess, well, let's have a miracle then.

the only miracle we need is for each individual on this planet to respect each other. from that, utopia will follow. its maddeningly simple.

does anyone have magic powers we could use??

j

the only miracle we need is for each individual on this planet to respect each other. from that, utopia will follow. its maddeningly simple.

does anyone have magic powers we could use??

j

The only magic is time - with it we learn.

i can magically make anything fragile and delicate, broken and smashed, it's a talent many will be jelous of, but i only use my powers for good though, like that dimond thing recently, they wanted me to help break up some dome thing. but i said "no...i will be no party do this", they beat me up. i can still fell them kicking me sometimes at night when i'm all alone. it could of course be my flat mate playing tricks on me, but she would never admit it.