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

I remember once a good friend of mine told me of something he did. Okay, it wasn't silly, but I suppose you could loosely interpret it as silly . . .

Okay, there he was, him and a group of friends in a particularly crowded . . . crowd. My friend and his friensd pointed at the sky and affected an awed countance, muttering things like "oh wow, I've never seen that before" or "that's amazing", to see just how many people the could get to look up and see this wonderous phenomenon. Then, once they had sucessfully ensnared a suitable number of people, they started screaming things like "It's coming!" And ducked as fast as they could. You'd be surprised at how many people had followed suit.

We're like sheep, we are. . .

I remember in college when we got bored we would go down into town (a smallish town in East Kent - one with a big Cathedral), and form a queue outside a random building. There would always be people that would join the queue even though they hadn't the faintest idea what it was for (actually nothing, of course). Then we would leave!

That's hilarious!

The strange thing is, the guy who would do this was my youth pastor. . .

Another thing he'd tell me (actually, he was running around doing this once not too long ago) is that in a crowded mall, sometimes he'd throw himself at the ground and act like he had hurt his knee and see how many people he could get to believe him. He was definitely an unusual guy . . .

When he was younger my dad had a very impish sense of humour. An example of this was the 'polyurethane plant'. He took the sawn-off end of a broom handle, and rolled two sheets of ribbed transparent polyurethane rubber around it before stapling them in place. He then cut fringes in the rubber so it hung rather like the fronds of a miniature palm tree. He then stuck this in the front garden where it aroused a lot of interest from passers-by. Those who were curious enough got a 'cutting' from it with propagation instructions which, of course had to be followed to the letter. Of course, nothing ever sprouted, and some people came back requesting help. Which they got, in the way of even more ridiculous measures to be taken to get the rubber frond to start to grow.

He was a silly bugger then. It's a pity he isn't so humorous now.

The best thing I ever did was get some cones from a tip and set up a minature "road works" on the road outside, and watch all the cars patiently navigate it for an hour.

A friend and I were once wandering around Forest Chase in the middle of Perth (Western Australia) when we came upon a queue of people lined up in front of one of the bins in the middle of the square. Each person, as it came to their turn would move to the bin, look inside, then walk away. More and more people were joining the queue. We watched this for a while, dismissed the idea of joining the queue and walked up to the bin and had a look. Nothing, just rubbish. Needless to say we felt slightly foolish. I've always wondered what the hell that was all about.

Regarding traffic cones...

One day coming into school, we were surprised to discover in our semi-atttic classroom a traffic cone perched on one of the desks. Theories abounded to how it had come to be there but these were all put to one side at break time after the first couple of lessons.

The windows on this part of the old school building were barred so they couldn't be opened more than a couple of inches. The windows pivoted in the middle and swung in towards you. We managed to wedge the traffic coneinside the thin opening and we waited for our first victim.

It was usual for people to congregate in a large-ish huddle by the front doors of the school (which I should explain was shaped like a "U". Our classroom was situated right at the top of one of the far 'spokes' of the "U" the main door to the school was at the front of the other *spoke* ) Suddenly we saw him - some guy detached himself from the main group and started to shuffle his way across the car park toward us. Our first catch.

Positioned behind the traffic cone to use it as a crude loud-speaker. What folowed went something like this.

"YOU"
::person looks around, confused.::

"THAT'S RIGHT - YOU!"
::points to themselves - 'me?'::

"YES - YOU THE ONE WITH JACKET ON."
::swivels round frantically trying to locate the source of this mysterious voice.::

"I CAN SEE YOU. CAN YOU SEE ME?"
::getting nervous now - stil can't figure out what's going on.::

"I AM THE CAR."
::stops, stares HORRIFIED - and RUNS::


I couldn't stop laughing for a week. -->!!!!!

It was glorious.

That's so funny it's almost hard to believe. I gotta try that.

One thing I wanted to try and do was sit by the side of the road and point a hairdryer at passing cars to see if they slow down. Especially on this one road right next to us. NOBODY goes the speed limit.

The hairdryer sond like fun

Off the cones topic I found a picture of a man begging in a rasta suit with a sign saying "Need money 4 weed"

!!!
i really have to try some of these!!!
^. .^
= ' =

a friend of mine always used to tell this story about her dad in college.

he and his friends put a TV in the lift, got the thing working and sat down to watch it while eating fish and chips.

After a while word got roung to security that there were some prats in the lift eating and watching TV but of course by the time security got there there was nothing left but the smell of salt and vinegar........
FABT

Anyone whos ever paid a visit to Essex University Library will have seen the paster nosta lift (Sp?) which unlike normal lifts are a series of revolving rectangles that move ina sort of circle around the building, visiting each floor. The don't stop and the idea is to just leap on or off as the box move up or down the chute

.|..[]
[]..|
.|..|

sort of like this.

I always wanted, but never did, and have regreted it ever since, doing a handstand and watching the horrified faces of on-lookers pass by at the carriage that got scrambled in the works....

Can you explain quite that lift works, im confused

yeh...me too
^. .^
= ' =

it's hard to do without drawing a diagram..but here goes...imagine this:

The open box travel down all the floors then moves horizontaly across into the next shaft and ascends upwards and across at the top and down again - the idea would be to do the handstand while you were in the loft about to come down.

This is clearly in the time honoured tradition of "Spoofing in the Street". Other ploys are "Dead Bird" and which way to the Peer/Space Port/Collosseum/Zoo, etc.

Spoofing in the Street is a very community spirited act of generosity as it serves as a distraction from our day to day stuff, as a little humbling experience and an opportunity for all involved to laugh at themselves. No bad thing really.

Right so is this on the outside of a building and moves diagonally?

no.

imagine two lift shaft parallel to each other:

<<
|...|
|...|
|...|
|...|
|...|
>>

The boxes which are open (no doors) you just sort of leap in and out of them when you reach your floor (supposedly crying pasta nosta as you go, which I think means 'God save me'. which is a bit scary!)

Anyway, the boxes move in a sort of rectangle going down one tube then, without twisting or turning, they just move sideways into the next shaft and start travelling upwards, where again they travel directly sideways and start moving down.

That is just wierd.

On the subject of large rectangular things; when we were in the sixth-form there was a broken can machine in our common room. The company that ran it had never come out to fix it, and it had sat there for several years in our second-floor (third storey) room. The director of sixth-form studies told us that it just had to be shifted, by hook or by crook.
Cue drills, saws and hammers. We got all the money out of it (which we gave to charity), we got some cans out of it (but they were looong past their date) but we were left with this essentially indestructable block of metal.
Students weren't allowed to use the one lift in the building.
Cue rope, ten people and two flights of stairs. Staff and other students alike watched us work with bemusement. Once it was downstairs, it simply a matter of pushing it across the playground (sparks flying) and leaving it next to a skip.
Okay, not very spontaneous but it lvened up a very dull day.