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

It's odd the things that you remember.

I know without thinking the phone number of the house in Minehead that Mum and I moved into when I was 5 years old.

Yet I can't remember at all the phone numbers for the houses that I lived in in Stevenage (2 years), Sheffield #1 (2 years), Sheffield #2 (8 years), Brighton #1 (2 years), Brighton #2 (4 years and counting). Odd that...

Funny you should say that. I can remember the phone number of the house we grew up in, the phone numbers of most of my schoolfriends, but not the phone numbers of any of the placs I lived after that, or even my own businesses I can even remember my mum's old Co-op divvy number, but it was dead easy and only six digits.

One number which will forever be burned on my brain until the day I die though is my VAT number. Once you get one of those, and you have to deal with HM Customs and Excise every month, you never forget it

I know all 3 of IM's phone numbers, my own, all four of my Mum's, but only one of my Dad's (out of two)

Also:
Candidate Number: 0168 (look in the back of your mobile - under the battery!)
Center Number: 56360
Starship registrations:
NCC-1701 - Kirk/Pike's Enterprise
NCC-1701-D - Picard's Enterprise
NCC-74656 - Voyager

But not my home phone number before they changed them all!!!

I am the one person in the UK who doesn't own a mobile.

That explains a lot...

No you're not the only person in the UK who doesn't own a mobile. I think you must know that really. Even if you are _not_ discounting some small children for not being the genuine owners or you _are_ discounting others for not being proper people then you are still _not_ the only person without one.

Ok, let me rephrase that. I am the one wage earning, tax paying adult in the UK who does not own a mobile phone.

And further more I believe mobile phones, as an invention, to be the spawn of Satan and that all owners/sellers/manufacturers etc of such things should be thrown into the fiery pits and proded regularly with sharp pointy things.

OK that restricts it a bit. I may or may not be an adult but I don't earn a wage or pay tax (apart from the unfair stuff they steal from me and unless I get the other bits wrong one year). However, that then leaves out all the unemployed people who _do_ nonetheless own mobile phones (and possibly commit crimes or complain their benefits are too low to support this).

I could almost second the "spawn of Satan" remark except I thought a StarTrek style communicator was a pretty neat idea. It always knew exactly how to make the desired connection without being told and the newer ones were relatively hands-free devices too. I just don't fancy the huge bills and irradiation of the real life version. The chance of being mugged increases dramatically if visibly in possession of a mobile phone.

So you do approve of s then after all GD!

Of course I approve of . How else do suggest tossing salad if not with a set of

And as for mobile phones. I was a slave to one for four years in my last job. What folk never appreciated was that if I was out of the office it meant one of two things:
1) I'm in a meeting - so please don't interrupt by phoning me.
2) I'm driving to or from a meeting - so please don't phone me as I need to concentrate on the road.

Mobile phone use is even more prevalent here in America because the phones are simply another local phone, so it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to call one, and most of the phone companies offer free long distance (up to a certin limit usually). On a land line in America, local calls are free but long distance calls are hideously expensive; on a cellphone local calls are quite expensive but long distance calls are *see above*, so people buy cellphones and never have to pay call charges.

Oh, and its seen as either a God-given right, or mandated by law to drive whilst on the phone.

I don't have a mobile either!

And Lifson - Star Trek licence nos? How sad are you?

B

I am very, incredibly sad.

I have Star Trek videos, know the reg-numbers, and keep trying to decide which uniform I want to buy! I even speak a very small smattering of Klingon!!! I also have an ASCII version of the first ½ of the first Star Wars film (Ep.4 - A New Hope) on my Palm m515, along with a tricorder program and a phaser app!!!

So there.

...but could you have answered the StarTrek trivia question on which cabin and deck number was Dr.McCoy's. I got that right (and 100% of the rest) in a computer quiz. So I'm clearly very sad indeed.

By the way, how are you these days, Lifson? Have you stopped hitting your head against desks and returned to "proding" GreyDesk with a spork instead? I wonder if that is a special verb just for spork usage. Something of a cross between probing and prodding perhaps... [wanders rapidly off-topic again]

Hmmm...my Palm m110's got the tricorder on it as well. I think I might be deleting that tonight.

B

I have no idea what a Palm-whatsit is.

* shrugs *

Palm m110? I've heard of the m100, m105, m125 and m130, but not a m100? Besides - the m100 series? With the old contacts? And the clip-on covers? Eeesh!!! Give me the slick professional metallic feel of the m500 series any day!!!

No - 'fraid I'm not quite that good on Trek SEF. Maybe one day - I'm young yet!!! I'm okay. See journal for life generally (not so good), but I'll get though it. As long as both I and GD are at the next meet, I shall be prodding him with a spork (or several!!!)

For boring people like me, it's a combind phone book and chess/bridge game. I honestly found no other use for it.

B

For boring people like me, it's a combind phone book and chess/bridge game. I honestly found no other use for it.

B

Aaah! Simul-double-post.

The m110 was a) cheap (I was a student) and b) The original 8-meg version of the m100, somewhat weirdly issued before the m105 had even been thought of. There aren't many about, so I'm told, so I might have something of a collector's item on my hands.

B