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

Mine is predictably, Sub-EthaNet.


Oh, speaking of which, with day approaching, I ordered one of these yesterday (better late than never, should have done so last year to have with me for the MancMeet'014).

http://img1.etsystatic.com/041/1/7091936/il_340x270.595758913_8nqg.jpg

Oh, and on a related note, we sadly lost a 42ism today.

http://www.iflscience.com/physics/faster-journey-center-earth

As if there aren't already enough questions to answer at the checkout ("How are you?", "How's your day going so far?", "Did you find everything you were looking for?", "Are you a member of the co-op?", "Would you like your meat wrapped separately?"), now there's another one.

"Do you want the receipt today?"

I just paid with a credit card. The receipt is a credit card record. Of course I want the bloody receipt

But if it's all the same to you, I don't want it *today*; if you hang on to it I'll pick it up next time I'm in.

This is probably fallout from the news that many receipt papers contain Bisphenol-A (BPA).

I personally have refused receipts even before hearing about BPA simply because if I don't need it, I don't want the extra trash.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/avoid-bpa-exposure-from-cash-register-receipts.htm

Apparently, BPA absorption can be significant if you use an alcohol based hand sanitizer before handling receipts. This is pretty bad news for cashiers. Either catch nasty disease from filthy lucre or have their hormones disrupted by the receipts.

Hmm, you may be right, although the cynic in me says it's just another piece of pointless customer service technique.

The one I despise is when they ask if you'd like to save 10% on your purchase.

This happens to me at Tarzhey.

No, they're not asking you if you'd like a discount. They're asking you to sign up for a store credit card at something like 19% APR. And you know the poor cashier would really rather not ask this question of every single customer, but it's mandatory.

I try not to let my anger spill out onto this poor wage slave. I give a polite "no thanks". But inside...

Concentrated

I know that feeling all too well. There's a certain three-letter drug store I'm sure you're familiar with where they will ask you "Do you have your CWS card?", an impossible question to answer because I don't have one, or simply "CWS card?", which I find abominably rude. I'll only go there now as a last resort.

Speaking of which, I did actually go there last weekend because I was being given a lift home by someone who needed to go in and get some painkillers, so I bought a chocolate bar while I was there. Which leads on to...

Happiness is finding a chocolate bar at the bottom of your bag that you thought you'd left at work and one of your co-workers had eaten.

A chocolate bar you were really, *really* looking forward to because you haven't had one for simply ages.

And regaining some small amount trust in your fellow man.


I hate it when something goes missing. I hate it when I misplace something, search everywhere I conceivably could have left it and then resort to suspecting others, maybe not of nefariously taking my item, but possibly moving it... or maybe they did take it.

Seriously, where is that Marillion CD? It is NOT at home and it's NOT in my car and it's NOT here at work. If it was at home somewhere it would have turned up sometime in the last five or ten years since I've last listened to it. And what about my Almost Famous DVD? Who did I lend it to? Who didn't return it? Someone has it and they know they didn't buy it.

And who in the hell would take such a small word as "of"?

I know I put it in that first sentence, right next to the word "trust". And I only had my back turned for a moment. Fess up! Who took my "of"?

I've just found out that Penelope Keith is 75 today, so here's my favourite bit from the entire Good Life series (all four of them). Not Good Neighbors, as the IMDB still insists on calling it. Margot would have been appalled at that, I'm certain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXKEHKgAdSo#t=22m40s (scroll to 22m 40s if the link doesn't take you there)

Despite her political views, I always had the hots for Margot; every bit as much as I did for Barbara, in fact. What a sexy woman. Both of them, in their different ways.

Oh, all right. This is my second favourite bit of any Good Life episode. The preceding scene, actually http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXKEHKgAdSo#t=19m30s

"The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

Oh yeah? I'll be the judge of that. You don't keep Thunderbirds Are Go from me, not from someone for whom Thunderbirds was such a big part of their childhood.

We have ways of making you play

Actually, that's a good point. This gents had no disabled facilities, and they're very big on that here. There was no third, disabled, bog though, just a gents and a ladies, unless I missed the bit on the ladies sign that said "/Disabled".

Oh cobblers, wrong thread

A most surreal non sequitur. I wonder if I can find the thread it was intended for. (whoops - nearly used the "erm" smiley)

There's a link on this page to the place where you can find it