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

Is that Blecccchhh the same noise Snoopy makes, Mudhooks? If so, I agree...



F/b

Ok, I know that this is Texas and it's in the mid 60s out there, but you'd think that folks would at least make some pretence of dressing like it's December instead of walking around in shorts and T- shirts, even after the sun goes down and the temperature plummets to the low 30s

We came down to San Antonio yesterday morning to work, and we'll be going back to Austin late tonight. It's a tradition in Mrs Gosho's family to have the big family get-together on Christmas Eve (in mine it was on Boxing Day), so we'll be going to her grandma's place (her father's side) tonight for a big dinner and setting off for home between 9 and 10pm.

Lots of squashy grey snow, here, with very few white patches in between....

Hmm.

I've never seen -y gray snow before.

That is the color that snow goes when it is saturated with water. Not quite slush, as that requires it to have been walked through or driven through. I'll see if I can get a piccie of it tomorrow during the daylight.

Now, of course, the temp has dropped below freezing and it has mostly turned to ice.

Fog this morning Not too bad here - about 500 yards visibility I'd say, which means it's probably rather more dense downtown by the river. I've just seen a weather report which says that visibility in San Antonio is down to 100 feet in some places Knowing the way that they drive down there (only slightly more stupidly than they do here), I'm sure a few people are going to die this morning.

It's very mild too - currently 56º (13ºC) I believe we're foecast to get into the low 70s this afternoon, but still no sign of any rain

You can have some of ours

* rushes outside with collecting bucket, brown paper, string and some stamps *

I hope you can ship that stuff airmail

Have I ever mentioned here that I had an idea once to take a bunch of jamjars outside, put lids on them all, and then eBay them all as 'Genuine Texas Air' for all the Texas ex-pats around America and the world? I know that some of them would sell... people will buy anything if the marketing's right.

Stupid, stupid people.

What a fantastic business idea - some nice labels and a pretty website and I reckon there's money to made. Reginald Perrin would be proud of you, I bet it could have been one of Grot's biggest sellers.

Great!

Super!

Just finished the first book last night - on to The Return of Reginald Perrin

Warm and wet in Perthshire

My brother gave bottles of Mersey water to all his friends for Christmas one year - tastefully decorated with a photo of him scrambling over the rocks at Eastham Ferry to collect it, and a red ribbon. This was in the days of really filthy Mersey water, before the salmon came back. It was yellow and smelt of oil

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Now, do you know, I was just considering starting a trade in London Tap Water once I get back there in January... now I've got a colour inkjet printer for Christmas, I could even make labels depicting the very tap it comes from... I tell you, it could make my fortune!

London tap water... I remember it well

Typical Christmas weather, here. Cold, but not terribly cold. Below freezing, anyway. I don't feel as cold as most people I know and am forever getting "Oh, my God! Aren't you cold? Put on a coat/heavier socks/sweater/boots!"

They just can't believe that I'm not cold.

Now, I wouldn't go to work without my coat os in sandals. But if I am just running across the street to pick up a coffee, or going to my friend's house across the parking area in our co-op, I will just slip my clogs over my bare feet and/or will go with either bare arms or my sweater.

My friend was all worried I was going to get pneumonia from wearing my bare feet in my clogs to go to the movie. We were driving, so I wasn't going to get cold. Some people just will not be convinced.

I'm not COLD!

It was a windy and decidedly un-snowy Christmas in Pennsylvania and Maryland, as per usual. However, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if we have more snow before long, because there's still little bits of snow along the roadways (despite the rains we've had recently). They always say that when the snow doesn't all melt off in spite of warm weather or rain, it's hanging around waiting for more. I'm talking about places where it drifted in naturally, not just where it was piled up by snowplows.

Sunshine and s today

Not sure I'd pay much for London tapwater Six But you never know: there are weirder things in the shops I'm sure. Needless to say, I can't think of anything offhand!


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I'm halfway to registering with eBay - so I've no experience of it, but I've a presentiment that it might be the kind of thing that would attract a bid... Gosho, any thoughts?

I say give it a go I don't know what the listing fees are in the UK, but it's cheap enough here to make it worthwile to try it atleast once. If you make the jar and the label nice enough, people will buy it for its collectability.

'A w@nker and his money are soon parted'

There was a dreadful episode in Woburn (a town North of Boston) some years ago, in which several children died from leukemia after drinking polluted tap water that had been laced with outflow from a tanning company dump site. (See film "A Civil Case")

I know a librarian who works in Woburn, and I sometimes tease him about drinking water when I run into him. Fact is, when my father was being treated for cancer at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, my mother took a motel room in Woburn so she'd be close by. I tasted the tap water in her room, but it was fine. But maybe we should have bottled it and sold it on eBay?

London tap water - I wonder if it is possible to bottle the scum that floats on the top of it and sell it to ex-pats. Then all they need do is add half a teaspoon to each cup of tea they make


As for marketing bottled air. Well someone has beaten you to it. One could buy canned snow at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics way back in the 1970s .... and yes, it was sold from nice warm souveneir shops