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

I see you're getting lots of suggestions and advice about your name (Yes I've been reading your mail).

We seem to be chatting in several places at once but these postings here are mostly about your name-and-h2g2-identity so it seemed appropriate to open a new conversation here. (Hence the subject line 'over here' as in "Pssst..Over here!" - the American-continental-togetherness-thingy notwithstanding.)

Actually I just came to your homepage looking for insight or an explanation of the recent "wa sock jav jav ..(etc.)" you added to your number. And finding none, thought I'd ask right here ..since I'm already over here.
peace
~jwf~
PS: Speaking of names and identities, I have been wondering how (and why) you consistently (and maybe deliberately) type my name as jfw instead of jwf. I wasn't gonna mention it for a while because names just aren't that important ..to me.
But since we're talking about names ..and besides, now you've got agcBen calling me jfw too! Is this a conspiracy?
So, I gotta figger out why and maybe put a stop to it before it spreads and Everybody does it.
If Everybody started calling me jfw I would soon become jfw instead of ~jwf~ through no fault of my own. The will of the majority and all that. Which is ...OK, I guess, except I won't know who I am anymore ..or why.
So maybe names are important afterall.

~jwf~

Sincere apologies. I had no idea that I was making that mistake with your name and I do not know why. I do know very well that ~jwf~ is correct. It would seem that my fingers have chosen to call you ~jfw~ although my brain thinks ~jwf~.

Scary really - I wonder what else they are doing that I don't know about!

As to my new name experiment, that is just a whim of a few days ago - i just wondered if anyone would recognise what it was. Today it occurred to me that the name might get moderated for being in a foreign language. However nobody seems to have noticed.

I guess no one around here speaks Klingon!

wa' soch jav jav loS vagh
1 7 6 6 4 5

Hey I noticed! And I even took a guess at it being Klingon in the "Threes" thread. But I still have no idea what it means.
As for your fingers, I can only assure you that typos (even Freudian ones), misspellings and errors of logic or syntax are just not your style.
That's why I began to conclude the repeated use of jfw must have some 'significance'. That part of mind that still likes to curl up in a paranoid ball was starting to have a field day. Thank you for saying it's unconscious.
However, the fact that agcBen has also picked up on it surely must be a sign that ~jwf~ settles crooked in the intelligent female mind and comes out arsebackwards.
No offense was taken at all by the way, I just find it curiously amazing that two ladies, both highly literate and not prone to misspellings or typos, should both somehow construe me and my name into a pretzel of its firmer self.

peace
~jfw~ (if y'can't lick 'em, joint 'em)

~jwf~

I hadn't checked the 'Threes' thread earlier but now I have and have seen your post.

The name is just the number in Klingon.

176645

~jwf~

I still can't believe that i have been getting your name wrong. I am really, really sorry.

176645

Please don't tell me you're sorry. Oooh I hate that!
As I said above, once I knew it was 'unconscious' I was relieved of my 'conspiracy theory' and could stop 'worrying' about it. It is a random disfunction of brain to finger with no malice aforethought for which you can have no conscious claim to being sorry.

Now that I know it's an act of god and not a conscious action on your part it becomes a true mystery, and I love a mystery! How curious that it occurs nearly every time in certain people! So, stop being sorry and help me solve this mystery!

Now if anybody's 'sorry' it's me, for not recognising your number in Klingon. Once I saw it was Klingon, my mind took a break. But the pattern was there to be decoded and I missed it. I bring dishonour on myself.

PS: Mind you, what we have here is one of the more interesting problems of internet communication. Writing is a lost art amongst friends, acquaintances and business associates. There, in every case, was a set of known factors, previous encounters, established relationships, similar business interests and experiences. The skill of writing for an unknown audience was always left to the best writers, the novelists and essayists and journalists.
Suddenly, the internet has everyone everywhere writing to an invisible and unknown audience made up of people all strangers to each other except for the web experience. There is a constant sense of wanting to please, be entertaining, be informative and interesting.
And the only feedback comes from others of similar intent.
When one realises that something said has confused, annoyed or hurt someone in this great anonymous audience, there is a reflexive need to apologise. It is genuine, heartily felt and often exorbidantly expressed. I've seen this happen hundreds of times in these threads.
So, when I say "I hate that", I mean I hate that it has to happen. But it happens all the time, people apologising for using a word unknown in other cultures, making an ethnocentric reference or using a cultural icon unknown to someone in the audience. It always seemed like it had to happen, it was inevitable given the medium, the age gaps, the cultural differences.
I am only now just trying to get beyond that gap in internet communication. By ignoring complaints from certain readers and refusing to apologise for being myself I feel I am taking web-wrap to a whole new level...

jwf

*4 hours later*

I have no idea what any of that (above) means. Must have been the mushroom soup. If only I could post this warning above and spare you reading all that drivel (above). I'm normally above this sort of thing. Sorry.

jwf

I don't think it was all drivel but I'll return to that later.

I think I figured out where the JFW came from. It is basically a cultural thing for those of us who have been around for the past 40 years. We see a j and an f and the brain connects to JFK and we see 'fool on a hill' and the brain says 'fool on a grassy knoll'!!

176645

Doh! JFK of course!
Your words do much to soothe a savage breast!
Your thought reveals an insight most enviable and admirable!
You're more than just a pretty face y'know!
And I really do believe you are right-on about the JFK/jwf connection!
So, I may be looking for a new name myself now. Because JFK is not an association I want people to have of me, especially if it's a deep-seated unconscious one. *ducks rounds from second and third shooters*
Mind you, there was a time long ago (the Kennedy years actually) when I used to be a good-looking womaniser who played brinkmanship for the cheap thrills of it ..but not lately.
I'm more the Walt Whitman type now or an elder Rip Torn. A bearded wiseman, wise enough to be a fool, and fool enough to claim wisdom.
What's bearded-fool in Klingon?
john

rol - goH = beard-fool. Best I can do right now.

I remember a poem by Walt whitman the essence of which is that all you need is a red wheel barrow. I've got one, i hope you have one too.

E

~jwf~

Sorry for the so short message yesterday - time is short. Tonight I am here but also several other places at the same time - including a chess game. Which would be OK if I actually knew how to play.

Oh dammit I'm not supposed to say sorry, so sorry for being sorry. No, sorry, I'm not sorry.

I'll get back to you

E

I've been hanging around tonight but can't find anything that I want to say. So just thought I'd say 'hi' before I close down for the night.

176645

You're right of course. There aren't a lot of really interesting or absorbing conversation threads at the moment. Well, I can't find any. The main topic has been the sad events of last week's terrorist attacks. And I've been flamed out of those for suggesting there might be a lesson to be learned and that kneejerk responses would solve nothing.
So, yeah, there ain't much to talk about.
Except of course to say I'm glad we had our meet-up last Saturday and thanks for the e-card.
peace
jwf