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

Greetings and howdy, fellow Lost person.
I wasn't aware that there were more lost people than me at h2g2. At least not anyone who admitted it.
Just dropped in to say hiiya. I'll be on my way now.

L in S

Hi Lost in Scotland! Reckon there is any chance of you finding your way again, or are you as irretrievably lost as I am??

L i G

Geographically I'm not lost very often, and even if I do get geographically lost, I usually find my way back to unlostness pretty easily.
The mental level of lostness, however seems to be constantly increasing, for every day that passes.
Any good tips on how to prevent it?

Lost

Preventing mental lostness - hmm, is it worth it? I personally find that mental lostness is a great help here most of the time. The only time I try to combat it is when I'm in the local Irish pub among people who understand just what "knacker drinking" is, recognise the name "Christy Moore" and hate the song "Country Roads". Of course when I'm among such people large amounts of alcohol tend to get consumed and I become lost again (completely mentally, and often morally too - oops!)

I suppose if you really want to find yourself (ooh, that sounds a little Californian!) surround yourself by Irish people or your own countrypeople!

L i G

I would say that Irish people would be far easier to find around here than my countrymen.
Well, there are a few of my countrymen around here, but they're boring.
Maybe stimulation of the mind itself may prevent mental lostness, but then again, as you say is it worth it?
They say that ignorance is bliss, and sometimes you can't do anything but to agree with them.
Large quantities of alcohol is usually a pretty good way to get yourself loster (is there such a word or do I keep making them up?) than you already are. Mmmmmm... Vodka & Red Bull..

L in S

I prefer to get lost on Jack Daniels and Coke myself. The one joy about being Irish is that it is usually difficult enough to find a large group of Irish people, all of whom are boring! In fact, out of the group that I've met over here, there isn't a boring one among them. Some are odd, others are weird, and a lot of them are just plain crazy. No boring ones though! I'm going to miss them all when I have to go home again.

Hmm, stimulation of the mind. I try to do that in small doses only - it can be fatal, didn't you know. It certainly made me quite ill this morning (stimulation of the mind for a lecture at 8.30am has got to be illegal I'm sure!). Maybe there are other less painful methods to stimulate my mind - any ideas?

LiG

Jack and Coke is a well-known way to get lost. Personally, I'm not too fond of it. Actually, I'm not too fond of Whisky at all, which could be considered an act of treason, if I had in fact been Scottish. I am, however, from the land of Absolut and Explorer (Vodka with a cool viking ship on the label) so the Vodka and Red Bull isn't too far from home. The Swedes around here are more or less just trying to survive a year of virtual enslavery before they can go back to Sweden again. I'm not so fast to leave, though, cause I like this place.

I think that mental stimuli could be good for you in small doses, but never before noon and never ever on a weekend. However, a nice game of chess with someone that doesn't take the game very seriously is a good stimuli of the mind, and it's not really harmful. At least I don't think so. But I've been proven wrong in the past.

Chess - I always was really interested in learning it, my brother and Dad used to play a lot and I´d try to get them to teach me. My Dad was great, but my brother couldn´t understand why I´d try to have fun while playing (he never got lost - obviously too much mental stimulus!)

A year of virtual enslavery? Dear me that sounds a little serious, what are they doing being forced to support Cowdenbeath or something?

Chess shouldn't be played too seriously. Chess should be fun. Okay, so Kasparov and the others doesn't seem to have much fun, but still.

Well, we recieve calls from Sweden, where people want to tell us that their machines are broken. And then we log the errors.
And we're pretty much chained to our phones, so we can't move about very much.
Hard to get lost in such an environment. Maybe that's why I feel like staying lost when I'm off work.

ok, maybe this is a really silly question (maybe it´s just my mind that I lost, rather than being completely lost?), but if you´re Swedish, and you´re being called by people in Sweden telling you that their maschines are broken, would it not be a bit easier to be in Sweden not Scotland??? Or am I just lost??

I might just make an attempt to play chess again (on a computer of course, if I can´t find myself in this country I´ll nver find a chess board or someone to teach me!).

You make a very interesting point. One would think that it would be smarter for us to be in Sweden, but the "high command" thought that if they gathered people from all over Europe in one place they could invest more in the working environment (or something) in one large place than they could do if they had to look at 13 different small sites.
Therefor, we're stationed in Scotland. Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Danes, Austrians, Irish, French, Italians, Belgians, Dutch, some Germans...... Basically people from all over Europe.

Finding someone to play chess with needn't be too hard. There are always people that like playing chess. Computers also like playing chess. And even if they don't like playing chess, they can't say anything to complain about it.

Sounds a bit like us over here. Someone somewhere once got a good idea that taking 3rd year students from their own universities and dumping them in the middle of Germany with lost of other foreign students would be a good idea- Of course they made a few basic mistakes. They assumed we´d all make friends with Germans, but no, only foreign students want to hang around with foreign students. Then the thought that at least we´d all speak German together - but well, English is so much easier! And of course, their final mistake - they actually somewhere got the idea that we would study!! LOL - there isn´t much of a hope of that! (Too much J.D. and Guinness floating about!)

Sounds pretty much like over here. They got a bunch of people over, and said in interviews and stuff, that it would be a great opportunity to learn more English (or Scottish if you like) and to get to know new people from all over Europe.
But they always seem to forget a few things. For instance, there's a place a bit from the call centre that's swamped with foreigners, and that's basically because people that can understand each other tend to flock together, So the Swedes speak Swedish to each other, the Dutch speak Dutch with each other, the French speak French with everyone (cause in all honesty, not lot of them are very good at English, but don't tell anyone I said that). This means that not alot of people have spoken alot of English, unless it's in the pub when ordering beer and drinks and trying to pick up company for the evening.

Sounds oh so familiar.. and we have the advantage of being able to go into the Irish Pub or the Mexican Restaurant (owner and staff are Irish) and be able to order in English there too!! And anyway Beer is Bier in German, and J.D. will always be J.D. so it's easy enough!

Speaking of J.D. I had way too many this weekend, and I'm only just surfacing - the joy of 3 birthday parties in a week and a whole gang of visitors from home - and there're more arriving on Wednesday ... ahhhhh

Oh, I have a rather bizzare question. Some of us got talking one night recently, and the subject of mythology came up, and we couldn't find a name for a Godess of the Underworld/Hell in any of our own mythologies (we did Ireland, Britain, Greece and Rome) -- were there any Swedish ones??

I do know how you felt about not really surfacing after a weekend of too much alcohol (is there really such a thing as too much alcohol?). First weekend after pay day, a couple of friends leaving work and going home, a tab with 50 pints and 50 drinks already paid for and the start of a tequila race.
Saturday was no good day.

The Goddess of the underworld in Norse mythology is simply called Hel. One L. That is, as in the greek mythology, the same name as the place itself. Hades is the god of the underworld, and he lives in... Hades. Hel is the goddess of the underworld in NOrse mytjhology and she lives in... Hel. She also collects fingernails from the warriors that go to the underworld and builds a ship from them, called /Nagilfare/ in which she will lead her troops on the dawn of Ragnarok.

The only fun thing we Swedes can do in the UK is to go to IKEA and tell the people there that the Swedish IKEA's are much bigger and better.

Bracing myself for the start of the weekend now. Yes, I know it's only wednesday, but with a friend arriving today, a day off college on Thursday and no lectures on Friday - the weekend starts this evening! Isn't life great sometimes?

Thanks for the mythology info. Hel sounds like a pretty scary person!

Semistart of the weekend here tonight. Got tomorrow off from work, and then we have to get back here for friday, even though every company that could call us are closed on friday. And we have a fare well party to one of our colleagues who decided she wanted to go back to Sweden, so tonight we could probably get drunk. Which is always nice.

Yes, Hel is a pretty scary woman. One half of her body is the body of a beautiful woman, while the other half of her is deadish. She is the daughter of Loki and the younger sister of the Fenrir Wolf and the Midgard Serpent.
Maybe I should start contributing a bit to this place by doing something on Norse Mythology. I kinda like that subject.
Hmmm.....

Oh well. Not today. Today is build up day for party. :o)

I get this feeling that every day is either a build up for a party or the wind down from the one before! But before I get to party today I've got to go to work, go to lectures, get an exam result back (aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!) and collect my friend from the train station. THEN I get to party. Isn't life tough!

I might do a little on Irish mythology myself

Life IS tough. Today is a day where most finishes at around 1 pm in Sweden, leaving us with absolutely nothing to do here. Same will happen on Friday, since most industries will not even bother working on friday.
That's when I might get some time to get something together about the Norse Mythology.

I do not, however, feel like a tequila race tonight. That'll have to wait til saturday.

My friend didn't arrive until 5am. She managed to miss two flights!! As you can imagine I'm a little tired, and I didn't even get to party last night. There's always tonight though!!

Tequila race ... now that sounds dangerous. I stopped drinking tequila after one or two embarrassing flirting sessions after a few two many. Now when I want a shot I drink an orgasm (sambucca and Baileys...mmmmmm)