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

*********DON'T READ THIS POSTING**************
Unless you want to die of boredom. Or deadness.
Or some equally contagious disease of the post-
modern era. Like... Sprouts, or something...
*********DON'T READ ONE MORE WORD*************
I noticed you were top of the listy thing for people with the longest postings so I thought I'd drop you a line. Dunno why. Are you online? I guess not right now. But you were two hours ago.

I just posted my new article on Sheffield into Peer Review. It isn't great but then, it's Sheffield. Besides, I can't be bothered to actually draft and research these things as properly as I should any more. I have to admit that Sheffield was not a topic that partcularly interested or inspired me, but it was something that needed to be written and I guess I was as good a person as any to write it. Take a look if you like and tell me what you think. The other reason that I wrote about Sheffield is because I am now struggling to think of further guide-worthy topics, to tell the truth. Fiction's really my thing. Could write about other stuff I guess.

I do have a couple of articles in progress at the moment (one on Keats, and one on... I can't remember what the other one was on.) Maybe it was only the one article in progress. Either way, I can't be bothered to check, and I can't be bothered to finish the one (or two) guide entries I am currently working on. It would require effort, you know? I don't know enough about Keats to do the thing without reference to.. stuff. Besides, It's a difficult topic. Would really lend itself better to a University project, I guess. I wanted to look at his poems more than him as a person, and it now occurs to me that I could do that better in a project. One article about him and his life, and then a series of articles on his poems. Cool. I'll do that later. The article was just going to get ridiculously long otherwise. A bit like this posting.

Have you worked out what it is yet? I guess maybe this is a subconscious attempt to knock you off the top spot. Consciously of course, I know this won't happen- it's AVERAGE posting length that counts, and I recently posted a series of very short postings to various places (peer review for example, I think they frown on 2000 word explanatory posts).

Anyway, I should go see if anyone's written anything about my article yet.

Madmaz (who isn't FEELING in a smiley mood today, and won't be using ANY of them, OK?)

So where's this listy thing then? I've not seen it! I'll have to go have a look if I'm on it!!!

Good luck with the Sheffield article by the way. I showed Adrian Lane the Eastbourne article while we were bored on Prospective Parents evening and there was no-one about. It went down very well! He wants to know if the cryogenic storage thing is true - I don't know, you wrote it!

While I'm here - don't knock sprouts. I trained myself to like sprouts so I could get twice as much Christmas dinner than everyone else 'cos I ws the only one who would eat them!!!

Gotta scoot - Photography!

Lifson

The list? There's a link to it from my page, but it's just http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/INFO I think. You woun't be on it any more, I suspect, but still...

Apparently the cryogenic storage thing is true. There's a website somewhere. Found it on google ages ago. I'll have a look if you want. If I find it, I'll post it to my personal space and leave it there a few days.

Did I knock sprouts? I don't remember doing so. Or is this a general precept on which to base my life. I'm fine with sprouts, as long as I can still keep my vengeful lemons and evil gherkins.

Madmaz

I'll have to have a look!

Had parental consultation evening Monday night. Both parents turned up (worse luck). It quite interesting how things change in the 5 min car journey home. By the time I went to bed that night - here's how it seemed to have turned out...

(in order of occurence)

Photography:
What the teacher said:
Lifson is always there, gets the work done, and always has a different approach to things. Lifson produces some interesting and original work.

What my parents "heard":
Lifson is a proper freak and is going round photographing weird things in weird ways, but it's roughly in focus so it's not too bad.

Computing:
What the teacher said:
Lifson is always there, but programming is a little slow. But as long as you do put some work in at home, it will be okay. Also going into way too much detail - work on the overview more.

What my parents "heard":
Lifson is lounging around doing s** all during lessons, and will not have the project finished even if given the rest of eternity to work on it. Progrmming is in need of major help.

English Language and Literature:
What the teacher said:
Lifson has an outstanding essay for me, but as long as you have it in by the end of the week it's no big deal. Great debating work though, can't be faulted on that.

What my parents "heard":
Lifson does nothing but talk during lessons and never does any work. Homework situation is dire and severe monitoring is required.

Tutor:
What the teacher said:
Lifson did a great presentation. We required at least 10 min but Lifson managed to stretch to 20 by inciting some good debate. Lifson provided an interesting Powerpoint presentation and provided a 1 page handout. Will have to re-do the hand out as I've just found out that it needs to be 3 pages, but that won't be a major problem. Set realistic target for English essay.

What my parents "heard":
Handout was appauling and not enough work was put in to it. Presentation was padded out with waffle and too much work was put into the PowerPoint presentation. English is a major cause for concern.

How am I supposed to fight this!?!?!

Sprouts are cool! Not so keen on gerkins but pickled onions aren't bad! Lemons rock too!

Lifson

I have now posted a short extract from the page to the bottom of my personal space. It's a commercial site (belonging to the owners of the cryogenic facility) so I can't link to it for very long before the moderators find out, and I don't want my page hidden *again*. Still, if you were to do a search on google, you really would find stuff about this quite quickly.

Let me know when you've taken a look at the extract/site and I'll remove it from my page. It does look a bit odd, a piece about cryogenic freezing sitting in the middle of my intro, even in comparison to all the other marquee oddnesses that dwell thereon.

I discovered today that I have an old account. . I'd forgotten I had it. Because of the dodginesses of the college computers, I was forced one day to create a new account for myself in college, as I couldn't for some inexplicable reason access the old account. I forgot all about the old account "teeheee" and just carried on using the new one. The old one, though, is the pre-beeb one I converted. The preferences were still set to Alabaster (for I was young and naive), and I was viewing conversations in frames. Eurgh. Luckily I was able to guess what the password was, because my mind works in only-too-obvious ways.

I started writing a fiction piece on my old account. Thought I'd liven the place up a bit. Then I could use my old account for fiction and my new account for *serious* pieces. Ha! It sounds like such a good idea. I wrote about 1000 words of this fiction piece, and then decided it will be my masterpiece, and that I didn't want to give the copyright to the BBC after all. So now I have approximately 815 words (I've done some editing) of my first bestselling novel. Which is nice.

I tend to operate, in fact, on a backwords-working basis. I start off with a given length of perfectly adequate prose, then begin pruning, removing unnecessary segments. Eventually I have half the length I started with. then perhaps I'll edit some more. Remove some bits. It's all very minimalist. Eventually I'll end up with a minus number of words, no matter how impossible that is. I'll actually owe the piece of paper some words. Either that, or I will eventually reduce my piece of work to the single, most essential component. A single word. And that word will be...


...Well, that would be telling now, wouldn't it?

Gherkins are indeed most evil, putrifying and foul. And I am the Freaky Gherkin (or I was, in my young days[ha!]). I learnt a lot about gherkins today, in fact, by simple expedient of running a little search of the guide, using the word 'gherkin'. Turns out there is an excellent edited guide entry on the subject. Most informative. So now I know that Gherkins are in fact baby pickled cucumbers. Now ain't that just the cutest thing you ever heard? They're still evil though, just for the record.

And now, I must go. For I'm pretty sure this posting is just about long enough. For what, I don't know. Just long enough.

Madmaz

Checked it out thanks! Saw your PS and it was the first page up on Google! Sounds like the most fun place in Eastbourne! I know where I'm going to spend my holidays from now on!

Gherkins are truely evil - especially when my Dad and my brother eat hundreds of them a Christmas. They reek! (not just the gherkins - them too!)

I was going to say something. But I can't remember what. Never mind, it will come back to me later...

<...mind wanders back into abstract thoughts...>

Cool. I'll take the extract off my page then. It does look a bit . I have to goo now. Speaking of which, I installed a 'goo detector' on my page (OK, so it's only text in blue and white) But the top bit says different things depending on whether you're using alabaster or goo. Yay!!!

Maria

I'm going to have to learn GuideML at some point - my various titles are beginning to demand such things.

Any tips (apart from "go to the GuideML CLinic!")

Lifson

Look at other peoples' pages. Go to their page and um, subsitute the 'U' in the title for 'testuserpage'. So to test the guide ML for my user page you'd go to
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/TestUserPage169317 >.
That's pretty much what my sister and Ken have done. They just cut and pasted the coding from my page around a bit. Saying that, it really is very easy to get the hang of after HTML. Looking at other peoples pages will give you an idea of the differences very quickly. Only go to the guideML clinic to check on specific pieces of code you want to use, is my advice. Unless you're looking for something in particular it's a nuisance to navigate . I should be a really.


Madmaz -We want a smiley:http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A592102

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A667271

You can find Z Phantoms Towel smiley on my test page above. And my trombone smiley! You can make your own using Twinkle's smiley Generator!!! I'll dig out the URL again for you. I think also posted it on the ACE Forum.

Thanks for the tips!

Lifson

I already used it. Ages ago. Check out my dragon smileys. They're in 'Madmaz's workshop'. Also I have a cool ASCII dog.