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

Party in our MMO. We have online radio channels, and some of the players have TS. The rest of us just talk in chat.

It's a fun community.

Which game were you trying to navigate in? (Or don't you like to say?)

Silkroad, it's what my husband plays. My eldest son used to play WoW, but he hasn't got any internet since he moved into a flat with his friend, so I think he may have cancelled it. After all, it costs money each month. Which one are you moderating - or can't you tell?

I work on a couple - not those - though I don't like to post it in the interests of scattering the information. (It's no big secret, you can ask Tavaron or Malabarista.)

One is a very old game, though...

I haven't ever played any others, though I hear a lot about WoW, even saw some Youtube videos.

Oh, here's a way to show you my planet, come to think of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8t3sKBpoWc

Thanks for the link. I googled for it, and it doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I've never played online games. I liked to play M&M many years ago. It wasn't just about fighting, but you had to use your brains to solve the riddles. That was my sort of game.

I've sort of heard of it.

This one isn't all about fighting - though there is lots of that. There is roleplay on the sly, and, er, parties, and er...

Of course, there will always be monsters...

I think there are new versions/additions to Might & Magic now but they've somehow lost their appeal to me.

Role playing? I once tried that here on hootoo but had to find that it wasn't for me so quickly wrote my character out of the story. I guess I just lack imagination.

Or the desire to put up with all that carry-on...it can be fun, or it can be demanding, I suspect...

(You know we have a very long-running role-playing game here on hootoo?)

I've just been reading about the other end of communication technology...a local scholar is using DNA testing to follow up on the provenance of medieval manuscripts, which of course were mostly written on parchment...sheep DNA...

Fascinating. Okay, to me, because I was trained as a medievalist and in paleography...not fascinating if you weren't, maybe...

But that's sort of full circle - using DNA testing and state-of-the-art investigative techniques to get more information from the most expensive information technology that ever was: the hand-written parchment book.

Yes, I know there's a long-standing roleplaying game here on hootoo. I never got the hang of it, but then I never really tried. I was too shy and my English wasn't good enough when I joined hootoo.

I'm still shy at times, but my English has improved.

I'm fascinated by what you describe (not by the technique as such, I've never been into natural sciences).

I've seen some incredibly old scripts about two years ago: A22261204

It was absolutely fantastic, and I'll never forget that.

Very cool. And you went to Kew Gardens, as well.

I never went to the British Library, which is a loss, though I pilgrimaged to the British Museum.

But I remember being (alone) in Kew Gardens one Sunday in March of 1975. It was cold, but fun just to be there walking around.

Do you go to the UK often?

Btw, your English is really very good. (This is an expert opinion, I used to be an ESL teacher...)

Thank you.

I only get away with it as long as people don't hear me talk, though.

I've been to Kew Gardens several times now, in winter, spring and summer.

British Museum was last time: A35553873

I go to London whenever I can afford it, so that's usually once a year for a weekend. I spent a two-weeks holiday in south England in 2004, that was absolutely marvellous.
I'll go again this year in May.

Wow. You really know the place, then. It must be nice to be close enough to get there.

I spent two weeks there back in the mid-70s, and a short visit in '79, and haven't been back since.

First time I went to England was with uni, in 1985. We had done a Golding lecture and went to see the Spire. I think it was for ten days. It took me nearly 20 years to go to England again. I really can't claim to 'know the place', but England is like a magnet for me.

One day, I want to go to Ireland and Scotland and Wales etc. I've only got a glimpse of what there is to see.

You're right, though, it's nice to be so close. London's not farther away than my parents' place, and it doesn't cost much more going there, either.

Very nice.

I hope you manage to get to the other countries, too.

I loved Ireland.

There are so many places I've never been to it would be hard to choose where to go next. I guess it's just as well that I don't get much of an option to choose, eh?

Like the weekend we tried to go to London from Cologne.

The bus got held up at the Dutch border because of some passengers with the wrong visas, and we missed the boat.

We never made it. He tried to talk us into Paris, but we made him go back to Cologne.

We got back at dawn, got our money back, and fell into bed.

They must have kept you quite a long time at the border then, after all, it's not that far from Cologne to the Netherlands.

An hour or so I think it was.

And that was back before all the big scares. Just people being bureaucratic.

I had no idea the Dutch were bureaucratic - or were you kept at the German part? I wouldn't be surprised then.

Dutch.

We also got held up by Germans, though. There used to be a ritual on the Sunday evening train from Amsterdam...people getting pulled off and inspected for drugs....

I used to get annoyed, because I was never suspected.

How come I looked innocent?

Oh, when we had our German meet in Düsseldorf last year, Hapi (who had come by train from the Netherlands) was very disappointed that nobody had suspected him and checked the package of suger he had brought for Mala.