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

I've had a long hard day at work!

Have you seen the caption competition?<./>A698466</.>

Yes. I contributed. I await the results with baited breasts.

the results are in - on the entry.

I didn't see your name as one of the winners, though.

Which one/s did you suggest captions for and what were they?

Ask the man with the bad memory, why don't you?

Sorry. RL has kept me busy for an hour.

Anyway:

Vagabonds: One should always be proud of his pedigree.

Odd one out: 1/2 of them believe it is a weapon, the other 1/2 hope it is!

Young love: Unacquainted with that flavor of gum, he was offered a piece, slightly distressed, but still warm...

Abi & Ashley: The shuriken-tossing competition was a quiet success, the winners mopping up and the losers licking their wounds...

Crosspatch: The Maths prove it: the the sideburns are equal to the goatee in mass.

Mrs. V: Pausing in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, the artist wonders if God should have a Pinky ring...

Hey, then you *did* get an honorable mention, even if you didn't win, for Mrs V! If you haven't already done so, go look! I must have missed your name. So close ...

I ought to get a dictionary, but - what's a shuriken?

Takes a guess - is it a person of restricted height, someone who is vertically challenged?

It is a Japanese throwing star.

Gee, you were right! I has been mentioned! Hoo Hoo.
And the winner got in with a boob gag...

I had been writing those things down in the midst of other stuff here at the house. The kitchen is right next to my office and when the unit gets to rattling those poat and pans, it gets a bit noisy.
I just rearranged the kitchen for her and she had to vent a little confusion just cause she hadn't thought of it.

You're still up?

Actually, I though yours was miles better!

I've resolved today to do less h2g2 and more housework, but I've till managed to do almost 3 hours h2g2.

I might even do the garden - the lawn (jungle more like) needs cutting and I might take sprog out on his bike.

The mum-in-law (what's the cockney for this animal?) is taking the spousal unit and the springoff to the hairdresser to celebrate the unit's birthday last week.....to watch the MIL get her hair done...

They just brought back a hard-boiled egg, a half a chicken-fried steak and a half a baked potato for me in a doggy box. I gave the egg to the dog, whom they never remember to bring anything for...and half the half of the chicken-fried steak...

I rearranged her kitchen...when has she ever rearranged anything of mine? On purpose, I mean...

Mother-in-law - don't know the cockney for it, but then, I'm a northerner - a transplant in London.

My favourite cockney word is 'arris', meaning backside. It comes from 'Aristotle' > bottle - bottle and glass > a**e.

What's a chicken fried steak? Is it a steak fried in chicken grease?

I hear loud cries of 'I'm not appreciated'! I think that's one of the most common complaints of men and women.

John Gray, who wrote 'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus' has a theory that women and men score points (for thinge done for them) differently. He reckons that men see something big as worth loads of points, whereas women see all things done for them as one point each, big or small. I'm not sure that it works out exactly like that, but it's worth a thought. So, she wants loads of small things, a back massage, clearing up the dishes, a compliment.

What do you think?

Eh....yeah, that is what chicken fried steak is...but you forgot the 'breading'....it is that kind of yellowish crumby spiced muck that the Colonel puts on his pullets. In Illinois, they had a version of this "what's the butcher got left lying around" that they called Salisbury Steak....
I generally do not want to experience the "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" thing, with the talking cow...but I would like to have some idea of what I am eating... I haven't been in Texas long enough to come to terms with the 'greasy spoon' (eatery) philosophy: if you cook it long enough and cover it with gravy, you can eat anything...

Ran into a lady at church last night whose daughter is swellingly allergic to rice...the polished kind...they had to cut the rings off one hand...ick.

RE: this Men are from Mars...crud...
The unit and I are suffering from her wish to be domestic and my wish to avoid being stereotyped... I never thought that being born with cojones limited me to a certain range of experiences or abilities...
I've tried to introduce our child to non-gender-specific ideas, a la Letty Cottin Pogrebin "Growing Up Free, Childraising in the Eighties", which is a piece of protofeminist claptrap but I had read it and believed it for at least a decade before I found that out.
Pogrebin herself, once an editor-at-large for Ms. magazine, later admitted that, the way things ultimately turned out, if you let children be exposed to a wide range of experiences and ideas without dogmatic editing, then they are going to to do pretty much what they please....and all the theories in the world don't do as much in the household as paying attention...
Because: MOST theories of childraising do not take into account that under most circumstances while you believe you are raising the child, the child is also getting a rise out of you....

Re: Spousal Units....
I don't like this male/female politics thing. I get it at home all the time... The unit believes that since she gave birth, she's achieved a sort of instant sainthood that should not be assailed by the grunter who put her in the family way in the first place (through his ability to sweep her off her feet with his uncontrollable animal urges and occasionally magnetic personality ((but he's still a bum!))) or the little biter she gave birth to in that agonizing space of a couple of hours during which her life was changed forever and now things will never be the same.....
Ach! There are three categories in her life:
1. What she has to do.
2. What she wants to do.
3. What she ignores because it doesn't fit in the other two.

Anyway.....I read 'your' bit on Money in the PR.
It is a bit overwhelming....
particularly since 'money' doesn't really exist except as an idea, albeit a powerful one...and gold was a bit tenuous because it really isn't as rare as they'd like us to think it is...

And "investment" as "legalized gambling"....(my quotes)

whole thing makes my head hurt, which it was anyway....

Just for fun, check out the economic fallout of the "Tulip Boom" back in, uh, the 1600s? The tulip bulb became a unit of exchange over much of stupid trend-following europe and some countries have never completely recovered yet. I wonder who the first person to discover that you couldn't eat the damned things was...?

The interest and loan thing is interesting because of the biblical prohibitions against them. This featured prominently in the World Jewish Conspiracy theories that started popping up, oh, in the 1100s...and haven't left us alone yet...

There's nothing wrong with the IMF that a case of diarrhea from a bad salmon mousse wouldn't cure....

I did grow up in a world where people were stereotyped by their sex.

I was told I couldn't be a pilot (which I wanted to be) because I was female. I could only study the foil, not the sabre and epee, which women couldn't do when I was at school

I made better boats than my brother and I had the brains. I can remember my parents (although interestingly not which one) saying 'We really wanted him to have the brains. I can remember being most hurt.

I decided to bring my son up in a non-sexist way. It's more difficult than you think. When he went to pre-school he started becoming more 'boy' like and try as I might (I haven't bought him toy weapons), he turns a stick into a gun. Society's conditioning is all-pervasive.

I've not come across Pogrebin.

Do you know, your description of your spousal unit sounds just like my ex, with a couple of variations!

The money thing - I didn't intend for it to get so big. I've not come across the Tulip boom thing. Where would I find out about it?

I had been aware of the biblical prohibitions against usury and of the Jewish thing - remember Shylock in 'The Merchant of Venice'. I don't remember the exact history of the Jews in Europe, however I remember that they had a hard time periodically.

It's looking like a University project now.

BTW, we have greasy spoons here as well!

I don't know. Do what you wish.
My tendency would be to find the humor in the situation.
Taking that kind of stuff seriously makes my brain hurt.
I don't suppose there is anything like a list of best practice?

I don't know. Do what you wish.
My tendency would be to find the humor in the situation.
Taking that kind of stuff seriously makes my brain hurt.
I don't suppose there is anything like a list of best practice?

For the world debt stuff? The only humour I've ever seen around the subject is in cartoon form, but it's more cynical than humorous.

Best practice - sort of. There are suggestions in the piece and sites where there are more fully developed suggestions.

Here, we have a bank, Tridios, that describes itself as an ethical bank and I've just found a site called 'the ethical partnership'.

It's probably going to have to wait until after Easter, now, though as it's holiday time and we're going to the Isle of Wight to stay with my parents. I'm looking forward to that.

Hmmm. Isle of Wight...I've heard of that...

Going up to the BBC bar to see what the news from the Isle of Wight is...

Well, I spent three hours goofing around the Isle of Wight web sites.
I took some notes. Added some things to my favorites and learned some things about the dangers of taking memorial plaques too seriously.

Not much of a tourist meself, I found the Industrial and other Archeological sites to be the most interesting.

The experts spend a lot of time saying,"We're not sure, but we think..."

I find it interesting that the inhabitants have been wiped out or decimated a half a dozen times in historical memory...
and that European and World economic tides have swept the fortunes of the Isle back and forth for almost 3000 years...

Plus, they have the only dinosaurs in the UK...on the local NHS Dental apparatus...

Well, thanks for mentioning that and directing my tangent for this evening...

Where are your parents on the Isle of Wight?