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

That link doesn't work for me at the moment, jwf, and nor does your trick with the "Lucky" button. I think Google's doing something in the background.

Yeah.
Google has announced a whole new schema
to be instituted on March 1st. They intend to
incorporate all your google activities into a
single-sign-on system that will keep all your
info at its fingertips where-ever you wander.

They have been inviting me to move all my other
e-mail accounts to my gmail files. How did they
know those Yahoo and Hotmail accounts were me?

Elsewhere..
Facebook is introducing a lot of new features
and will be going 'public'. Twitter is going to start
censorship on a per country-of-operations basis.

The fences and tollbooths are going up everywhere.
Thank Bob for hootoo.


~jwf~

It was the best of doodles. It was the worst of doodle...


Well, neither actually but it was a Dickensian doodle.

Google 'define English person'

So today is February 14th, and there's another animated Google Doodle, which conveys the important message about relationships: that men are expected to take time and effort and money to woo a woman, to bring a woman gifts of flowers, chocolates, clothing, balloon animals, cuddly toys, antique diving equipment , pies, magic hats, televisions, balloons (again) and paper aeroplanes.

And that the appropriate and expected response for the woman to all this attention and effort and expenditure is rejection couched as utter blind indifference.

Only when the man is beaten down and dejected by the constant rejection, ONLY when he is prepared to sacrifice any pretence of individuality and independent thought, only when he is prepared to demonstrate that he no longer cares about his own desires at all and now miserably defines himself entirely by what she wants him to do, only when he dejectedly starts doing something he clearly has no interest in... only then will she smile and allow him... a hug. And permit him the privilege of doing exactly what she wants to do, with her. Whoopy doo.

It's a wonderful way to celebrate the day, and I applaud Google's subversive message.

That's not how I was wooed, it took 6 months of friendship and then a suggestion in my ear while we were dancing

Fair enough... but I bet he secretly *hates* dancing...

We haven't danced since

Wasn't the gift giver another woman? S/he certainly had a pony-tail in the early part of the film.

There is another message there, which is that a true alignment of hearts is not a matter of material things (though the diving helmet was cool) but a matter of shared outlooks.

Or maybe it's about the madonna / whore divide?

not that I agree with any of this but doesn't it also show, if you take it from Hoo's POV, that if men want to keep giving gifts to someone who doesn't want them... well, it's a bit stalkerish isn't it?

That's not a pony tail, it's a rucksack. It has shoulder straps and everything.

I think what it really shows is that Hoo has been unlucky in love.

And, I thought the St. Valentine's Day doodle was saying "all that rot of giving expensive gifts is, in fact, rot. Just being yourself is the greatest gift."


Assuming, of course, that one is man enough to admit liking to jump rope.

By the way, I would like to point out, I *can* be bought...

Here's a little cross post from "useless facts":

This day in 1914 was the worst day of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's life. In the morning his mother died of typhoid, in the afternoon his wife died during the birth of their daughter.

Happy Valentines.

At least his daughter survived.




Or did she?

"Assuming, of course, that one is man enough to admit liking to jump rope."

There's nothing unmanly about jumping rope, per se. Boxers do it, after all - it's excellent aerobic exercise and good for the footwork. And if you enjoy it, then obviously go do it.

But the man in the google cartoon is clearly *miserable*. He's beaten. He's not happy to be jumping rope. It's not something that he's relishing trying, otherwise it would obviously have been the thing he'd have tried *first*. Far from it. He's tried all the things society drums into us we're supposed to try on Valentine's day - flowers, chocolates, clothing, "thoughtful" wacky gifts. It's clearly just his last, desperate throw of the dice to get the ignorant b1tc4 to even acknowledge his efforts or, come to that, his *existence* even for a second.

The worst of it is - when it works, I feel *sorry* for the poor sod. Congratulations, sucker - the manipulative self-centred cow now has you on a string. Well done, sir. Hand in your balls at the front desk, you won't be needing them.

"There's nothing unmanly about jumping rope"

That's what I said.



For the rest of your post, Hoo . . .


see post 152.

we're all rather assuming that the ladies never ever do things for men to try to "trap them"...

You mean apart from getting pregnant?