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

Fallen wet leaves - horrible slippery & skiddy ankle-twisters.

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Especially pine needles on steep terrain.

On post 17040, second line, of such conditions and demands the forms of the legàl brief are born.

The problem with a point-by-point rebuttal is when it's of a developed argument. To argue against the initial premise should be sufficient. To then continue is tautologous to the point of rabid hyperrationalism.

...and so, the recursive forms of the legal brief were born, in unconscious desperation, in an ultimately futile effort to cope with the cognitive deficiencies of people incapable of grasping that very principle, or remembering the point of the argument, or making consistent use of definitions, from one clause to the next...

(Cf. Icy's post immediately above.)

The moron who keeps dumping rubbish on the grass at the back of the row of houses where I live. Rubbish that should be in his bin.

Until last night when he was daft enough to leave medication boxes with his name on them in the pile.

It was reported to the council (at last, I thought, they can come and give him a kicking). The council seem to have come and collected the boxes with names (evidence?) and LEFT the rest of the rubbish. Different department I suppose.

It would be an awful shame if someone collected it all and dumped it on his doorstep.......

PP.

We found a bag of used nappies slung over the hedge onto our land. Someone must have deliberately carried it there, unless it somehow fell off the refuse van. Or perhaps they'd been out for the day & were just passing.

Leaving litter anywhere is pretty antisocial.

On my cycle ride to work through the lakes (well, filled in gravel pits, but it's a nature reserve) someone had deposited a disused mattress last week. And the last bit of the journey - a wide paved path through a playground - is liberally covered with poo. It might be dog poo, but they're all the same and I suspect it's from the geese which abound there. Anyone have any idea what goose poo looks like?

I've just googled it (that's gonna confound anyone who monitors internet usage ) and it seems to look surprisingly like dog poo.

Deb

Today's PH: Garden centres that devote more space to gifts & seasonal goods than traditional garden ware. Just been to one & found the plants OK but I had to ask where the garden tools were, the place was awash with garden decorations, Christmas items, confectionery, gifts etc.

That reminds me of a recent petty hate.

In Texas, there is a chain of HUGE gas station/convenience stores called Buc-ee's. The devotion some people have for Buc-ee's is cult-like. They're kinda like truck stops, but they don't allow trucks. They do have famously clean restrooms, no petty hate there. And they do have some great road trip snack; everything from various jerkies to pickled quail eggs to fresh made sandwiches. But the store is HUGE. And it's full of stuff like lawn furniture, flip-flops, barbecue pits, hunting blinds & game feeders, wind chimes, t-shirts, and rows and rows of junk food.

What I recently discovered is they have almost NOTHING you might actually need in an emergency on a roadtrip. No auto parts, fluids, or replacement parts. A couple of weeks ago, I was on my way to nearly Austin and mid trip noticed I had a trailer light hanging from its wires. I needed some way to temporarily secure it until I could replace it and pulled into a Buc-ee's. After walking from one end to the other and back, I asked someone working there if they had zip ties or duct tape or something sililar. He had to call for assistance. The guy responding didn't think they had duct tap, but mayne they had zip ties in section 9C, near where I entered. I didn't find them, but I did find "Gorilla" tape (made by the makers of Gorilla glue, I highly recommend their products) in the hunting gear section.

Who, in the hell shops for barbecue pits, patio furniture, or deer blinds while on a road trip!?

Oh, I forgot to post a link to their website.

http://www.buc-ees.com/index.php

Check out their fan photos. Folks LOVE Buc-ee's!
http://www.buc-ees.com/fanphotos.php

The fan photos remind me of one of my petty hates.

Organisations that sucker people into buying items advertising their business. Primarily, I'm thinking of clothing - mostly t-shirts, but it does extend to hats, bags etc.

Buc-ee's are a good example. But there's hundreds and hundreds. Pirelli (tyres), Iron Maiden (band), TaylorMade (golf clubs), Guiness (beer), Ralph Lauren (clothes and stuff), MTV (TV channel). The list goes on and on and on.

PP.

Yeah, I make it a point to not wear shirts with advertising other than a small tag. No printed T-shirts at all.

I remember when all that got started in the '80s with Coca Cola Apparel

Over here you get t shirts with logos, of course, but also many with various wordings in 'English' (because it's 'cool' ) but they are often embarrassingly ridiculous or even spelt wrong.

You'd think they would check these before printing thousands of them.

I don't need to buy t-shirts any more as people keep giving them to me when I finish a . I have a lot of t-shirts now, it'd be handy if runs gave out socks or shorts occasionally too.

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My daughter has a large collection of race-related* shoe bags, mugs and drinking glasses too.



*I mean related to running races - nothing to do with the race relations board.

You can take those unwanted T-shirts, cut them into strips, and braid them into doggy chew toys. YouTube has plenty of tutorials. I was looking for a specific rope knot for dog toys, but found more T-shirt braids. I gave up and just used a tight series of figure 8 knots as I've done before.

I have two Petty Hates today, both toilet paper related. The first is toilet paper holders located so far back that you have to twist to reach it. Sometimes the holder is located on the back wall right next to the toilet, sometimes it's on the side wall but a long way back. This kind of thing is bad enough in a toilet for the able-bodied but I find it unacceptable in a supposedly accessible toilet for the disabled. I know cubicle layout isn't always easy but often I haven't been able to see a reason for the holder being placed where it is .

The other petty hate is toilet paper holders that only give you one sheet at a time. I'm not talking about the single sheet dispensers. I'm talking about toilet paper rolls, be they standard size or the massive ones you often find in public toilets in shopping centres and supermarkets. One sheet is useless. Bad design, IMO.