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

Hi all.

Hey AR1,
I'm back, thought you may be interested to know that.

I can see youre smiling , that's good.


Dancer

Very dear Dancer

How lovely to hear from you? How are you and where are you? And where is your lovely friend? I think of you both so often and wonder how you are when I hear all the dreadful things which are happening in your neck of the woods. It makes the problem that I have of taking ages to get on line seem like a little pin-prick.

I am well, I have celebrated by 75th birthday during your long absence. We had a wonderful virtual party and I actually got nearly 300 postings - I suppose one could call them guests!! - which I have bound and look at with affection!!.

I hope to hear good news of you soon.

With affection

AR1

Very dear Zarquhon

Confuse-o-late is a most excellent word my dear!!

No it dose'nt confuse-o-late me in the least. It just makes me realise that the easy things are very often much harder to do than the harder things!!. and the reason for that is that we have learnt to do things in a logical way, and when we have to dart around without understanding WHY it is problematic.

I was trying to explain that on Amy P's thread where she was having a very technical discussion. I can remember when I first started using a computer for my research nearly thirty years ago. I taught myself DBase 3 with the manual. But I was only able to teach myself because I had acutally majored in Logic and Metaphysics. Unbeknown to myself I happen to have a logical mind!!. But I HAVE to understand things before I can do them myself.

And woe is me - I cannot UNDERSTAND Cutting and Pasting in this particular instance as the use of both words is illogical to me as I am neither cutting nor pasting as I understand the words. Cutting means using a pair of scissors or a knife, and pasting means using glue and a brush. Perhaps that is an illogical argument, but it makes sense to me and explains (to me) my inability to perform this very ordinary task. I wonder if that makes sense to anyone?

QUITE EASILY EXPLAINED!!
BUT
NOT
Q.E.D.11

However if some other useful LOGICAL words could be used i.e. removing and transferring (these are just suggestions!!) I might be able to do it!!.

Anway, perhaps with a patient person by my side I mught understand the illogical operation!!.

With fond

AR1

Dear Sweet Amy P, big

Stop putting yourself down. You are a mine of wonderful information and you had the courage to talk about the birth of your darling Faith in the most wonderfully straightforward clear and concise way. Well done.
Anyway. I have had a wonderful offer from MY official photographer Gnoman (he photographed me with your picture at the summer meet in 2002 Amy, sitting in my wheelchair in Regent's Park. What a happy memory!!) and he is going to fix everything up for me, so I shall be one (whole) person again. i.e.

AlsoRan1 and
smilingAlstoRan1
will be one and the same and I THINK appear together!!.

But as I read the instructions late at night when I really could not read the screen very well I might be mistaken!!.

Fond
AR1

Hi Wry Nancy,

Yes aren't I lucky. My youngest son and his partner have a ranch there. I think that the trip is worth planning as I have not seen him for years and he is very special.

Incidentally who is NTL? I do not have either an H,. or a son here who can help. That is why I have to rely on my extended family on hootoo to help. And they do, but I am getting slightly bored having to go through the rigmarole of entering my details THREE TIMES AND ONLY WHEN I HAVE ANSWERED MY secret question getting on line!!It means I have to have time to sit down and chat.

Affection

AR1

Hi dear Shea and TJ

Of course I shall be seeing you. I seem to remember that you offered to take me on the promenade where you live and promised that we were going to have clam chowder!! But the museum would also be good - as long as they do not deicde to put me up as an exhibit!!.

So sorry that the nights are still problematic. I wonder if you tried the ear plugs I suggested - I think that someone put you off them. But they really do work and I hav had to have good ones when swimming as I had a stapedectomy years ago in an effort to improve my hearing.

Both my brother and my son are now in New York so we shall have a grand get=together. I have told them so much about you.

With much affection

AR1

Oh, AR1, you're so much fun!

Let's see if we can come up with a "logical" way to explain copy and paste.

Your mouse should have two buttons... a right and left button....


Now, with the *left* button, which you hold down with the forefinger of your *right* hand , you highlight the part of the text you want to "transfer" (copy) to some other location, by holding that button down while you pass the mouse (mouse) over the text.

Got it highlighted?

OK... now you click the *right* button with the *middle* finger () of your *right* hand. There will be a little menu come up that has copy on it. *Left* click the word copy and now your computer will remember what you highlighted.

Now... go to where you want to transfer the highlighted text and *right* click again. This time the little menu will have the word "paste" on it... I know you're not actually "pasting", but trust me on this... Just click on it and see what pops up on your screen.


Try it with this line when you answer this post. That way you'll have the directions right in front of you as you do it so you can keep referring to them.

Of course, you're right AR1! How could I have forgotten the clam chowder? I shall leave the choice of outing up to you!

The night should get better soon! Once he gets the cpap machine, he should stop snoring, and keep breathing! When he used it at the sleep clinic, the technician observing him said that he didn't snore at all, so I'm hopeful it will solve *both* of our problems!

I'm so excited about the chance of getting together with you! You have such a wonderful way of seeing the world, and have had such a fascinating life, that I'm sure we could fill a week with conversation!

My

I have just sent you birthday wishes. I shall try and remember.

I am also sooooo looking forward to meeting you both and as many friends as I can. I am now going to begin to plan the holiday!!

Fondest

AR1

NTL is our cable tv and internet provider. As Guildford was one of their test areas any new stuff gets rolled out to us first. They then stand back and wait to see what happens!

We have found out that if more than 10 subscribers phone to complain about loss of internet connection they will send out an engineer within 2 hours to check the junction boxes etc. So any blip in the service and I'm on to them

I should cross my fingers before typing this, but we have had quite a reliable service recently.

Hey AR1,
Congradulations on your Birthday, and thanks for keeping us in your thoughts.

If by friend youre talking about Yael, then she and I seperated this summer. You can read a bit about the time I wasn't here in my last jurnal entry.

If youre talking about NMZD, well, he's sick again. He had a relapse of his lukemia and is in the hospital atm. It is still a bit of a shock.


Dancer

Very dear

Thank you for sharing with me what you have been doing I was actually talking about Yael.these things happen and as my husband used to say
"It is the way one picks oneself up an carries on that counts".

You seem to have immersed yourself in work and getting on with life even though you had a lot of pain. Well done.

Now for you friend NMZD. I do not know him, and I am very sad that he has had a relapse of his leukemia. I really know very little about it. Is it painful or does one just feel jolly ill?I hope that he beginsd to feel better soon.
I wish you well and it is nice to have you back to chat to.

With affection

AR2

Dear Wry Nabce

thank you for the explication. It must be useful to have such a good contact with the engineers!!.

I spoke to Pandora last night and she said you was a good friend of hers!!. She is a real tonic.

Best wishes,

AR1

Hi AR1, Hi Dancer! (sorry to hear your sad news)

Well, AR1, did you get the hang of cutting and pasting from Lady Scott's description. I was tempted to do it myself, however she got to the keyboard first.

Well my dear Zarquhon

I did everything she told me to do - but then when I was told to post it I did not know where to post it to. So I decided that the only thing to do was to put the cursor on Home Page and then print it so that the instructions would remain forever indelibly printed on my tiny mind - and all I got were the fist three pages of my home page.!!
Cut and paste had failed me again!!

So I shall have to find out when I have to give the directions to the inanimate computer where to post what I want to cut and paste "tramsfer and retain!!"

But she was very explicit and told me where to put my fingers and where. I must write and thank her. I was suddenly overcome with tiredness last night and today I have not had time to be on my computer.

fond
AR1

Dear Lady Scott,

Thank you so much for your detailed instructions. they were excellent. I did everything you asked me to do but was stymied when I came to the penultimate sentence.
"Now go to where you want to transfer it to".

In this case I wanted a blank page so that I could save these vital instructions for future reference. I did not know how to do this, so, foolishingly thought that I would transfer it to my home page, and there it would be idelibly imprinted on my mind. Instead I manged to print our three pages . At that stage I suddenbly felt very tired and inadequate and in any case I had to make a phone call.

So I shall keep trying, but it definitely looked as if I might one day learn how to do it!!

thank you again.

Ar1

Dear AR1

Yes, there's a lot of tiredness about. I don't think the weather helps. Well, we'll crack it ... never fear.

Hmm... If you'd like to put the directions on your home page, after you "copy" the text, you can go to your home page, click on "edit page", and then "paste" it wherever you want in the text block. Then when you click on "update introduction" it will show up on your page.

However, if you just want to be able to print the directions up, you could "paste" that text into a Word Document and print that...

Or easier still, just print the page of posts that my last post showed up on.

Then again... I just tried doing a print preview of this page of posts, and I can't get that post to show up because it only wants to print the first part.

So scratch that idea....


Maybe you could try transferring it to a word document? You do the exact same thing, but after you've highlighted it and right clicked to bring up the little menu and clicked on copy, you'll have to go down to the lower left hand corner and click on start to bring up the menu that has word on it. I don't know what version of windows you're using, so it might be someplace different from mine.

Unless you're using a Mac, in which case I don't know how their menus are organized at all...