Journal Entries
The Jade Sheep Commands you...
Posted Mar 19, 2006
Thursday (March 16) was my RL birthday... a very nice one incidentally, I have some very nice things to keep me busy now. However, my favorite gift of all could come from you, the h2g2 researchers.
The <./>UnderGuide</.> is beginning a recruitment drive - we need fresh blood 
to keep the UG running at a full pace. I've issued these sorts of requests before, but if you would like to join in, know someone who might, have hesitated before, have the badge but aren't really active, have tried to join before, etc, now's a pretty good time to do it. You don't have to be a brilliant literature critic to volunteer for the UG - I'm one of its longest serving volunteers and I can barely find my way through most novels. However, the UG has been immensely rewarding for me, and taking a part in it was one of my best choices (if not the best one) on h2g2. Plus you get a neat purple badge.
*ahem* Now that that personal testimonial is done, go ahead and signal your delight at this fabulous opportunity. Go on. You are transfixed by the power of the Jade Sheep 
Discuss this Journal entry [43]
Latest reply: Mar 19, 2006
The Time Has Come...
Posted Jan 15, 2006
...for a break 
Every winter, I usually get a little bored with hootoo and contemplate leaving. That usually doesn't last for too long, but this time it's coupled with an increasingly busy RL. So I'm going to try taking a break for a week or two.
I'll still be answering email - on UG business (not that I do much of that normally - if someone wants to be a UG Ed you can see my email address on my space 
) or the normal saving-the-world-from-the-forces-of-destruction issues. I haven't been posting more than twice a day at most for a while now, so I doubt you'll miss me. Like the Sheep Schwarzenegger once said...
"I'll be baaaaa-aaaack." 
Discuss this Journal entry [40]
Latest reply: Jan 15, 2006
As approaches the birthday of the baby Jesus...
Posted Dec 24, 2005
...so does mine My h2g2 birthday is in about a month. 3 years, it will have been. I always forget my birthday (well, I have the previous two times... I think) so I'm loading two birthdays into one journal - kind of how you'd celebrate two family members whose birthdays are a few days apart at the same time so you don't have to make two cakes.
I'm not as artistically talented as Waz, or as poetic as some of my other friends here, but all I can say is that my faith was restored tonight - not because of a Christmas miracle or a good deed, but because a minor flame war erupted tonight over the future of the site. I took it as a relief to know that emotions were still held so firmly over this home, this great nexus of opinion, this h2g2 of ours. What with all the doom-sayers, I felt my confidence erode for a while, but even today I see a whole army of researchers and friends, content to spend their time in the one thing many of us share.
I should hope I won't be here tomorrow and the next day though Merry Festivus (ooh whoops, I guess it's the day after Festivus, but... pah) to all, and to all a good night. 
Discuss this Journal entry [19]
Latest reply: Dec 24, 2005
The Drive for RF5
Posted Nov 22, 2005
"Well hullo viewers, and welcome to the 18-hour telethon for the Alternative Writing Workshop <./>RF5</.>. The phones are ringing off the hook right now so I'll keep it brief. I'm your host, Chuck Barbell, and you can see the number at the bottom of your screens there - yup, just dial R-F-5 after the skin and simply pledge your time to a few entries and leave a few comments in the AWW thread. You'll receive a nice tote bag or a tape of Sheep opera for your pledge."
"If you enjoy quality programming like A3892575 "The Springtime of my Death" and A1158662 "Why I Hate Sheep", please pledge your support now. It is only with public support that the UG can continue to bring you these things. We simply can't stress how important your support is. But to illustrate it, let's bring out the big board!"
Two highly paid models wheel out a board showing a goal of a chicken in every pot and a couple of reviewers in every AWW thread as well as a progress line that's well short of the goal.
"As you can see, we need every bit of support we can get to read our goal. It's been proven that the more active the AWW is, the more submissions it gets. Please, give... 'til it hurts fer all I care..."
Discuss this Journal entry [23]
Latest reply: Nov 22, 2005
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit...
Posted Nov 6, 2005
While h2g2 is tearing itself a new one and losing some old ones, I thought I'd try something productive... 
Based on a very quick and absolutely inaccurate count, I'd say around 70 people have me on their friends list. Surely some of you are willing to spend some time as a miner for the h2g2 UnderGuide? Quite simply, it's the most enriching thing I've ever done on the internet and some of my best friendships here were made in the mines of the UG.
One of the wonderful things about the UG is that its volunteers come and go as they wish. You get a badge, and you keep it forever (unless you want it taken away, I guess... that's not happened 
). As a miner you can help pick entries whenever you feel like it, or forgo a round if you don't feel like it. As a polisher you can polish an entry one month and take a four month break if you like. It's all very flexible.
(and, having been on more than a half dozen offsite hootoo forums, I can say that when the UG's is busy, it's easily the most entertaining of them)
You don't have to be an AWW regular to join, or really ever go into the AWW. Some of our best miners were complete newbies with regard to the creative side of hootoo. You don't even have to be that smart - just look at me! 
Anyone, anyone within earshot right now of my journals is encouraged to join the miners (A1092494 and A1092539) and/or the polishers (A1092548 and A1092575). If of my current or former UG compatriots are within earshot, maybe they could give some testimonials of this too oft-concealed and buried side of h2g2 
Or else. - UG Ed in charge of Volunteers.
Discuss this Journal entry [33]
Latest reply: Nov 6, 2005
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