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

*takes regular water instead*

Nice thought, bro, but that stuff tastes like sulfur smells to me

And I'm drinking cranberry apple raspberry juice right now, with my pretzels...

I go through a gallon jug of springwater a day.
When I'm singing, I take regular sips of water
to keep my vocal cords lubricated.

40 wt motor oil would provide better lubrication, one would think...

I think your stomach would object first tho'

after repated warnings from the doctor and friends and family I still drink widnes tap warter from the tap

-- DoctorMO --

Tap water is a lot safer than breathing outside in any city. Far less harmful to most people anyhow. *drinks water

Just how do you compare water and air, 2Legs?

:-An awful lot of fuss about chlorine and the like in water, which really isn't that bad, yet air outside full of polutants pumped out by all the cars on their mainly pointless journeys, and which are probably responsible, according to a couple of different theories for the huge increase in atopy over the past two decades. Not to mention the other harmful effects of exaust fumes and factory air pollutants

That's going to have to change if there's war in the
Middle East. The 2000 U.S. census revealed that
80% of all morotists drive alone in their cars
most of the time....With less gasoline available,
trips will be curtailed, or people will invite
others to share the ride.

I wish they would just raise petrol prices right up, were it not for one thing. Not only would it have the desirible effect of getting an awful lot of the morons off the road, but, unfortunatly it would have knock on effects in raising the price for industry, particularly in transporting grocery products, raising prices in teh shops.
Our family has never had a car, never really missed not having one though there are things called busses and trains, that do most trips, I'd bet the vast majority of car journeys are not necessary. Though of course, a certain amount are Probably not quite as bad here in the UK as compaired to other countrys

Every time there's a budget crunch in the U.S.,
the first thing they try to cut back on is
Amtrak. Passenger rail is getting to be less
and less available in many places.

Well, the UK rail system, despite what everyone says, is actually pretty good *ducks flying s But brits arn't happy unless they are moaning about something, and the railways get a fair old pasting at the moment, mainly for understandible reasons, all related to its privitisation under the Thatcher Torrie government, when they sold it off for a lot less than it was worth, and now we've reaped the rewards of this; The rail network, until recently, being run for profet, with little thoughts to passenger safety though it does seem our public transport system is in constant flux and change, hopefully it willbe to everyones* liking in th eend

I think it was a British economist
(John Maynard Keynes) who said,
"In the long run, we are all dead."

Yes, maybe the railroads will approach
perfection long after you are able to
enjoy it.

Most probably but I enjoy them as they are, and have done since I were in a pram Used to use them a lot in my early teens, we would go cycling, as far as we could make in a day, but careful to end up at a train station and then get the train home Now, I use them for traveling to H2G2 meets, and Christmas and Newyear and birthday partys I can't say I've had many problems on the trains over the last five or six years, the time during which I've lived at different places over the UK whilst at University, and involved endless train trips : there was once the train jumped off the rails; some kids had put logs on the track; the guard, leapt out of the train; and chased the little bu**ers down teh rail lines, and caught them!!! so we had a little delay whilst the poliece came but at least they got them,, aside that a couple of long delays (longer than1 hours), and one canciled train (for which the rail authority paid for use to travel the rest of the way in a taxi) : Hope my trip this Friday goes well; only short, about two hours, with one change of trains

I guess you have mischievous kids in your
country, too.

: I used to be one; though I don't think we would have ever done anything quite as dangerous to others as that

As I have moaned about many times before in countless other convos on here, public transportation is almost non-existant in this country, unless you happen to live in a big city. Worse than that, what little public transportation there is in the rest of the country seems to be designed to make it as inconvenient as possible to use it, which understandably discourages anyone who has a car from ever using it. When a train trip will take 2 days to get you where you could go in 8 or 10 hours by car, or a bus will take 2 or 3 hours to get you where you could go in 10 minutes by car, even calling it a public transportation system seems rather pointless.

*agrees heartliy*

And an hour's delay? That's short...

I thought it was long: we lost the train driver; we arrived at an intemediate station (Ely), and he got out, and went home apparently He had just finished his shift, and they are only allowed to work so long at a time for safety reasons, so we had to wait for another driver to arrive

I was trying to point out the differences in attitude between a country that has a functioning rail system and one that doesn't...

I saw that how on earth did we end up talking about trains