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

Hiya - Nice to see you around so much. I get curious about the researchers and realised I didnt know if you were American or anything. If you email me a bit about you I will do the same back to you... Fair swop?

my email is [email protected] - but you probably knew that already!

Hullo Peta!

Thanks for dropping by.
Here, have a seat *brushes cat off chair*
Care for a gingersnap?
Tea?
Care for a pillow?

Who me? Excited by a vist from one of TPTB?
naaaah....
*yawn*
Why would you think THAT??????

More tea?
More pillows?
More cats?
Comfy?

er..hope you dont mind my using the honorific 'TPTB'. We researchers have to have role models to look up to, and Ford [wonderful as he may be in his own way] doesnt always quite fill the bill. He also seems to take really long lunches--possibly in another galaxy????

Anyway, I am rattling on here, but I just wanted you to know that an email is speeding through the ether to you. Contains all the things about the bludragon you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask...

}:=8

Thanks!

*takes gingersnap - mm delicious thank you*

TPTB - *blushes* - no just me - Peta. I am one of you guys remember?! U15551 and all that.

Thanks for sending me the email. It is nice to get to know people...

Well, you are at least a PTWWTPTB [Person That Works With The Powers That Be]

Which I think is probably a lot more fun that the people where I used to work...

}:=8

Hi Blu,

This is just a note to let you know that I have taken the liberty of putting a link to this page on my page. I hope that's OK with you!

AWWW, Gee....
*scuffs toe/claw in the dirt; looks down and blushes a furious purple*
Heck, an' gosh-darn, it's nice to be accepted by your peers...
I am honored.


I have GOT to do a 'friends list', myself. Just as soon as I get A Round Tuit. Where do they sell those round tuits, anyway????

}:=8

Hello. I am Teaserman. I am in the process of buzzing every forum in the H2G2 universe. Buzz. Thank you.

Hullo teaserman!
This is my official reply to your buzz.

So how's the project going???

}:=8

Thought I would just pop round to say hello, rather than via Billypilgrim. I bit wary of the Goo though. No time for a cuppa, shopping to do soon, before closing the door on this wet, cold evening.

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse is my favourite. Must try to remember to tell BP.

thanks for dropping by, Toker.

No need to be wary of the goo. It does seem to be confusing sometimes, but quite accomodating, sorta like the friendly mattresses of Sqornshellous Zeta. Should there be any goo that becomes recalcitrant, just let me know.

I have read all of Vonnegut twice. After reading Slaughterhouse-5, I read everything he had written up to that point, and each subsequent book as it was written. I have also reread everything in chronological order, but that was several years ago and I tend to forget details. As billypilgrim observed, I am long past 17.

My personal favorite is Palm Sunday, the collection of essays and letters. And there is a quote from Mother Night I like especially. Other than that, I guess it is Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions [for the illustrations].

Drop in again when you can chat. I am assuming you live 'downunder' so our time frame may be a bit off, but I like wandering, leisurly, thoughtful, literary conversations, anyway.

And so it goes.

}:=8

So it goes, indeed. Except I live in England.

Oops, too many responses to too many different folks.

SOMEONE I was talking to was 12 hours off of my time. Im in the US; Michigan.

We ought to have little clocks in the corner of our pages showing local time. So people would know what to expect in terms of alertness, etc.

}:=8

I find alertness can be rather difficult to achieve at any time. It is now Sunday lunchtime, 12:30 here. When you read this, a complicated bit of maths could be employed to work out the difference. I tried and got a headache.

Not sure about the clock idea. Do you not remember Jerry's (god rest his soul) instruction to 'deep six your wristwatch'?

I agree about alertness. Mine varies without respect to the day or hour, too.

As far as watches are concerned, I never wear one. Never have. Back in the days when I had a work schedule, I found it useless. All it did was tell me how late I was. I did not find this to be particularly helpful.

Interstingly, I once traveled with friends who wore watches, and who seemed to be consumed by needing to know what time it was. We would be on the beach somewhere [it was a vacation--all the less reason to know the time in my opinion] and they would ask eachother the time. While they were fumbling for watches, I would say "Oh, I think it's about 10:15". When they found their watches, it was, yup, 10:15. This happened repeatedly over the course of the vacation.

I find that my current response to the question 'what time is it?' is 'Tuesday' or 'winter', depending on my mood. I dont think you should hafta cut it too much closer than that.

And as to the maths involved in figuring the time as it relates to other Researchers, I think I've got it down pretty well. I take what time it is here and add 5 hours for England. Australia is pretty much opposite of whatever it is here. I still have trouble with friends on the west coast of the US, tho.

If I get too confused, I have a program called Hour World that works it out for me. It also does phases of the moon which I find equally helpful. There was one time when I found it really important to know exactly what time it was. Recently, DNA did a live 'chat event'. It was scheduled for 1pm London time, which I found was 1 hour off of GMT. I almost missed the 'live' part.

So you're in England. And I'm in the US [eastern standard time]. Maybe I can remember that. Or not. We can still talk, regardless.


}:=8

Good morning blu!

You may have noticed that I'm often online during what for me are the small hours of the night. It's really odd, but I've ALWAYS been useless in the morning but wide awake at night. Admittedly, these days my morning sluggishness is sometimes exacerbated by hangovers, but even when I was a kid my folks had terrible trouble getting me up for school and getting me to bed at night.
I'm just a creature of the night, I guess...

Oddly, I was born with the same affliction. But many years of getting up with children, and going off to work have beaten this out of me.

I still am pretty foggy in the morning myself, tho. And prefer to begin moving very slowly. I would stay up into the wee hours, too, but age definitely slows this tendency down.

And the nice thing is that on h2g2 it really doesnt matter. There are people on line at all different times. And messages will wait until people get to them anyway. Maybe this is what time travel really is all about...


}:=8
PS I recommend lots of vitamin C for those hangovers.

Hello there, bluDragon (or can I call you blu?). I don't mean to drop in on all your conversations, but I was reading what you said about time, and I had to laugh. I didn't wear a watch for years myself, because I found that I was obsessed with knowing the time. Quite annoying. As for having a watch always tell you how late you are... well, I can empathize with that!!! I even made up a little saying that went something like "Time is an artificial constraint invented by man in an attempt to make us conform." Or something similarly pretentious.

I now have a job which seems to put the utmost value on time. Something that goes against my nature. Well, my choice to be there, my choice not to do something that gives me more freedom. It is better to change you circumstances than to complain. But oh, I DO enjoy a nice soap-box every now and then!!

And I've been a night-owl since the day my mother brought me home from the hospital. But in the work-a-day world, that just won't do.

Pssst!!! Bludragon Billy has just admitted to me that he is in fact a girl.

I suppose the next thing I shall hear is that you are the Dragon Queen of Damogran.

Isn't life ever complicated. I'll just go take another pill. Can't have reality intruding too much.

hmmmmm...Dragon Queen of Damogran...

sounds pretty good.

And no sly comments abou 'queens'.

I dont know how to break this to you, Toker. I AM a girl, as is billypilgrim.

Way back when h2g2 was mostly fields, I met an ageless, genderless lifeforce named Feisor. Who helped me learn that on h2g2 it really doesnt matter. We are all very hoopy froods.

So dont worry, it will be all right. Just think of everyone as ageless and genderless. Except for shazz. Shazz is definitely female, except for the short time where she was male on the main page of the Guide. But that was a while ago, and we have all gotten past it.

fondly,
the Dragon Queen of Damogran
*flaps wings assertively*
}:=8

(ducks head to avoid wind from flapping wings)

Well, helllooooo to all. Yes, it IS nice that on-line, we can be anyone we want to be. I do not try to deceive, but it is interesting to see how people react to you if they think you are one gender or another. People usually assume I'm male because of my on-line name. When in fact I chose it because at the time, I was feeling a little unstuck in time myself.

I initially thought bluDragon might be male, because she seemed to know a lot about computers. Horrible stereotype to make, me thinking of myself as liberal-minded and all. But there you go...

So yes, billypilgrim is a girl, and has always been a girl. And quite likes being a girl, for reasons too numerous to mention. And so it goes...