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

Ick!
Mary Travers would beg to differ.

Well, to be truthful, as I was mowing the lawn and the mower kept breaking, I found it hard to remember the 'element of fun'. I'd had every intention of being 'mindful' as well, however what most came to mind was whether I would be forced to get a new mower. This one's been patched up so many times, but the new fault is something I don't know how to fix, apart from put new plastic blades in.

(Just in case you're wondering - it's a hover mower and the plastic blades are breaking at the 'eye' where they're attached.)

The ironing isn't yet done, but the sorting of the socks is!

A hover mower?
I don't know what that is?
You mean it has no wheels?

Ick! Ironing. My spousal unit has a hobby of ironing.

I haven't done it since I was in the Army. I did it for other fellows for pay.

No wheels. Hover mowers are quite common over here. They have a cushion of air underneath and a central wheel to which a shortish plastic blade is attached. This means that it rotates in an offset way, rather like the earth going round the sun, but rather faster. Other models have actual blades attached in the centre and angled. These are more dangerous if you run over your foot. They also need sharpening from time to time.

Hovers are good for going up and downhill as they're not quite so heavy.

How are they when you encounter a hidden bottle or stick?
Is it electric or gas?

It just breaks off the plastic 'blade', which is easy to replace. It's electric. Needs an extension to do the bottom of the garden.

Well, at least it's quieter.
I have to wear ear protection to use our mower.
The neighbors don't and they don't fix their mufflers or change their oil often. So splutter splutter ROAR all over the place...Kaching!
Braaamm!
Kinda like half the cars and trucks that go down the street.
Noisy. Uncared for. Dangerous.

I'm assuming that yours is petrol. Mine is reasonably quiety - you certainly don't need ear protectors.

The only read noise problems I have had with my neighbours is loud music - they have two teenage children. I found a way of dealing with that (I may have told you before!). I played lous morris dance music back at them. When they turned theirs down, I turned mind down. Believe it or not, it worked.

I used to live in a really nice bungalow near to a roundabout. My house was about 100 feet at least away, yet sometimes vehicles would have loud thumping music so loud, it drowned out our TV inside the house. I used to pray for the traffic to get a move on!

We had some kids that lived across a vacant lot from us. They played rap so loud, it was coming down the chimney of the house!
I took a hundred foot extension cord and a jam box and took it to the edge of the property. I put a Black Watch Band tape in and played "Colonel Bogey" almost as loud as the machine would go. When they stuck their heads out the window, I said,"Just thought I'd share some of my music for a change."
They were a bit quieter for awhile.
We used to live in a quadraplex. You could hear everyone's TV but your own. You could hear everyone's plumbing, every step across the floor, every step on the stairs outside...
Where we live now, we have the artillery from Ft. Hood performing a concert every night. It rattles the windows.
In Austin, where I used to live, they pay half if you buy an electric mower and they give you a discount on your electric bill. They're trying to cut down on the noise and pollution.

I bet the double glazing salepeople make a mint! I think one of the reasons my tactic worked was that the kids used to do it when their parents were out and I have good relations with the parents and the children would not want to be in trouble with them. Also, morris music is not 'cool' for West Indian kids.

I'm impressed with Austin. The world is definitely getting a noisier place. Where I work, there are noise pollution officers who have to deal with amongst other things, anti-social neighbours. I don't think I would want their job! They can confiscate hi-fi etc (I think).

See if you can access the Austin-American Statesman (yeah, I know) on the web.
That policy apprently only applies to 'established communities'.
If you live in one of the people hives or near an office building, the lawn care hordes (they drive up in lorries full of guys, pulling trailers full of lawn mowers, string trimmers and leaf blowers) show up once or twice a month to serenade the entire county with rrrrmmm,Vuaggghhhhh, rooooooaaaarrrrr, chewing and cutting and blowing everything everywhere....
Then there are the sprinkler systems that seem to function best in the rain...

I just read the local wedding and birth announcements from the Sunday Paper. I don't do it very often, because I almost have a stroke from the names and teh descriptions of the wedding gowns...one poor dear had a "semi-formal" one, covered with rhinestones,clear sequins, and handsewn bugle beads....another had a princess neckline, with a tank-top bodice covered with a unique custom design of...crystal clear sequins and handsewn clear bugle beads...
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahah....cough...
I won't get into the...aw, crud, I forgot, now I've got newspaper ink residue all over my hands and key board...yuck. That stuff actually makes me itch!

So they don't set a lot of store by ceremoney then .......

I remember our newspapers used to do that to you, then they discovered some kind of process that made the ink stick to the paper better. Do you know English butlers are supposed to have ironed the newspapers not to get all the creases out, but to make the ink more stable.

I'll see if I can get to see the newspaper site.

Ceremoney? Ceremony. (Maybe I was right first time!)

Who don't set a lot of store by celerymoney?

Salarymoney, perhaps?

What would they say of a bride in Austin who simply wore a plain suit?

Oh! I don't live there any more. I'm out in podunkville, Temple, Texas. Leetle Wee burg, a bit north of Austin.
The bit I was reading off to you is from the cruddy local paper, the Temple Daily-Telegram, which I refer to as the "Pimple Pelican".

Oh, Austin, which was a lefty little place to begin with, about 1975, has become so techo-yuppy that they still have nude weddings in the University Baptist Church,(which has a large contingent of gays in it, which is why it got kicked out of the General Baptist Convention.
My spousal unit used to sing in their choir.)only they are not for the hippies anymore, they are for the Dot.com and Texas Silicon Valley crowd, who are almost politically conservative as the Texas Democrats, who are not to be confused with the national Democrats, who are weinies compared to Texas Democrats. Texas Republicans, on the other hand, are so "old money" that basically they sit around and whine and call their lawyers when they need their behinds wiped.
Bush II is only a Republican because it was convenient. He's a Texan first before he is any part of any national party. "I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast as I could," says a popular bumper sticker.

Is it to be a Texan, then?!

Sure beats the heck out of being from Illinois!
Which is where I was borned.

Texas is kind of the Scotland of the US. They joke about us, but they try not to make us angry...
And being as there are a pile of Hibernians messing around here, holding Highland Games (just up the road in Salado)and there is a Texas Bluebonnet Tartan (big deal, even BP has a tartan), and my real name (last) is that of a famous Scottish Poet...in fact, my mother's name is a female version of his first name and I had an uncle who had both names...

I hate this typeface where a big "i" and a little "L" both look the same.

I'me playing around with goo for the moment, to see what things look like in this alternate reality.
I don't like the format.
I don't like that the text formatting that I spent so much time on in my recent entries is useless on this side...
I particularly hate the fact that my glasses and mustache blob on the AGG/GAG page is invisible in goo... somebody was talking about that weeks ago, but I didn't understand...
Now I do.
I gotta go back to alabaster. I have a window right behind my monitor and this light/black thing is messing with me!