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

Well, this is the oldest one I can find:

"While the mechanics of hockey are all very interesting, and although fighting was mentioned, what was overlooked is the fact that the fights are the attraction. As I do not have an extensive knowledge (or any at all for that matter) of European hockey, I can only draw from it's American counterpart for point of view. Watching your home team score a goal is all very nice, but the main attraction is blood on the ice. You go to the game to watch your team beat the living tar out of the other team. Everything else is a sideshow, albeit very entertaining as well."

Good lord.
October 14, 1999. If that wasn't the first it wouldn't have been too many far behind.

Mine was in German. We were allowed to do that in those days.

I see that in the link given by KB in this conversation:

F19585?thread=8244796

gives the option of four different languages. This is what we were promised all those years ago. It's going to be weird.

'Um, considering the subject of this thread, and what you've said elsewhere, shouldn't that be "polygamy," not "polytheism"? (And while I'm being picky, the correct term is "polygyny"="many wives." "Polygamy" just means "many spouses," and I doubt that many early mormons practiced polyandry ("many husbands"))'

I actually found that by remembering that I'd found the Entry this thread was attached to through the (since updated) h2g2 tour pages

I have a link to my first post on my page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/FFM24306?thread=55113&skip=120&show=20#p407845

It's in Goo because everything was Goo in those days.

>>I only seem able to go back to sometime 2005 in my convo list

You can if you change things in the URL. The 'older convo' link seems to disappear around the 10,000th post.

Here's the back end of your convo list:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/MP169793?show=20&skip=26280

I'm fairly sure that my first post was a reply to my Aceing.

My first thread was in How Do I? Anyone remember that forum?

I did have a thread that I started that no-one replied to for 7 years, and then RF posted in it last year

I just have to post this. It's the thread currently last on 2legs' convo list. He started it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=103265 Subject: What is strange? Posted Mar 23, 2001 by 2legs Posting 1 What is this screaming and shouting in my head? Have these people taken control of my thoughts. Is the 3 horsemen of the apocalypse running in my brain to find the fourth? Protect me from myself, prevent me from knowing there is a “my self”.

That's not me posting from brlsq btw.

I'm still subbed to How Do I...? but people only post there about twice a year.

Mind you, I'm still subbed to the Alternative Writing Workshop and it has about the same level of submissions...

My first post here would have been pre-Rupert. I've no way that I know of to find it, and obviously absolutely no idea what it was about.

Specifically it seems my first post here would have been in mid-March of 2000. Closer than that I cannot say.

I don't remember the nature of the first post, but do know that it had something to do with life in our province of Newfoundland. Very soon responded to by azahar who originated there (as I recall), the first person I actually met on this site.

Using Kea's link from Post 46 (replacing 2legs U number with my own) produced an unknown error , so I failed to reach my first posting.

The earliest found, dated July 2003, was my response to 'Insults'. The next, 'KNOW YOUR SHORTS' (I was still shouting in those days), was the first ever question I put to Ask - successfully answered by David B - Singing Librarian.

Here's Somerset Maugham's version of the story I was looking for:


Appointment in Samarra


"There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.

The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.

Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?

That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

>> produced an unknown error

It does that once you've passed the number of post you have in your convo list. You just have to adjust the URL backwards (or forwards depending on how you look at it).

Thanks for that, Kea.

Someone, it might even have been you , showed me how to increase the number of threads on view to 200, so it didn't take that long to work my way back - I just don't know how to set it permanently at 200.

I set it to 200, then save the URL in Favourites, and use that instead of links on h2g2 pages.

We think alike, Icy.

The only trouble with that sort of thinking is that my favourites' list is about half-a-mile long!

You could create a link to it and incorporate it somewhere on your u-space.

Another good idea.