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

Well, maybe it's more than equal in the official sense, but in the difficulty thing Post articles are much harder.

DD has 100 post articles. But think of all the word plays and cartoons and quizzes of Greebo Shazz has a lot of stuff too.

AWW

100. That's a lot. I'll never catch up to any of them. Especially the ones who keep going and going. Not that it's a contest. I was just curious. You're the one for contests....not me.

Some of the articles - the ones about UK sports or music or something that the kids would understand make no sense to me at all. Over at the Atelier they're always talking about music groups I've never heard of. I'm getting old.

Hey, you've been in contests against me. Of course you never knew about most of them.

I've never heard of most of the references Britons, Canadians and Austalians make. It's not an age thing, it's a regional thing. Just today, something confused me for a while (bear in mind I've been writing about the Civil War for a week) today, when someone mentioned the North and South, with the north being more like what he think of our south to be... I think.

Greebo's probably written 500 articles. Word count comes on every week, and she has at least three columns or cartoons running regularly.

(and I'm only going for 100 EG entries)

Well, some of the things in the Post are pretty short and some of them are long and some are creative and some are games and some are cartoons, etc. It's hard to compare apples to oranges.

I've thought about having Wolfgang do a cooking column. And Lola could do an advise to the lovelorn column. Buck should do a column on finance.

Personally I prefer oranges to apples.

If it helps, you're tied for second place for most UG entries with the Seal-boy himself

Dang! I had no idea. I had better get something submitted in that case. Who's in first and what are the totals? Is Pinniped submitting anything else right away?

You're supposed to keep me up to date on like this.

You have four, Pin has four and Peregrine has five. Pin will have one more than accepted this round actually. John Babbacombe. But you might have one too. I'll check.

Go H! Bring home more gold for the USA!

Where is Peregrine from?

Great Britain I believe.

Dang. It's sort of up to me then. What choice does that leave me?

You have to go for the gold. The US is winning in the Olympics because of patriots like you should be.

I almost had a UG entry once. I'd help if I could. I will make sure that the most EG entries rests firmly with America (I believe Bluebottle of Britain has it right now, but Jimi X is poised to take it over soon) in one way or another.

I'll get busy and get some stuff for the AWW. But that means the barbecue entry has to wait. What a pity.

I have to call it an evening. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I hope to have a plan for takeover of the UG stats by then.

Oh.............don't tell anyone (especially a certain Phocoid) that there actually is a contest going on here. Otherwise I'm doomed.

See how it can be useful to keep a contest all to yourself? Eh? I've won many secret gold for the US that way.

Pin isn't too competitive, though anyway, is he?

I don't really know how competitive he is. What I know is that I overslept and have to get to work.

I'm thinking about completely changing the baseball story I've been working on from a scifi setting to an Ozarks setting. And I'll write up a story about the dreaded health inspector who came to our summer reading kick-off. Also planning a story about a family July 4th picnic years ago when Uncle Harvey spiked grandma's world famous - ok, family famous, punch and my teetotaler pentacostal aunt got tipsey. And I may take the time he poured moonshine into the carbureator of his car to help it start, lit a cigarette and burned off his beard. If I really think about it, I can come up with enough Uncle Harvey and other relative stories to turn me into the official UG Ozark-Story Laureate.

I've been thinking about taking family/neighborhood events and turning them into stories. You don't really need something spectacular. You just have to have a knack for spinning a yarn. You start with a few truths and embellish a tad. It's actually easier than inventing something completely because you have a feel for the people and places in the story.

You can do it. I bet you can turn out some funny family stories. Just be sure and change the names to protect the guilty. You really should try. You'd have a lot more fun than writing about the Civil War.

Here, I'll give you an example you're familiar with. Remember the Uncle Harvey and the spider bite story? There really is an Uncle Harvey although his name isn't Harvey, he really did get bit on the bum by a spider,and folks really did start calling him butthole. The rest is padding. And I gave him a DeSoto because he always wanted one and because it added a folksy detail.

I think creative writing isn't my domain. Plus it's easier to be seperate from the the creative area as a UG editor.

Maybe in a while though. I'm busy enough as it is.

Ok. I don't really want to write for the EG and you don't want to write for AWW. Fair enough.

The heat index is 106º. That is entirely too hot.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent fo'ks.

106, eh? Ohio is rather nice about now.

We will be cooler starting tomorrow.Today will be another scorcher, though. We have rescheduled the ugly truck contest for tomorrow evening and it is supposed to rain. How typical is that?

I imagine it's quite typical.

Y'know, you shouldn't put Smurfish in your nickname. The moderators will get you