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

We had big limbs and a few trees coming down all over the estate, and I had a surprise houseguest last night - the warden couldn't make it home...

Here in Texas, an Ice House is a beer joint (with garage doors) so that would have been a logical destination after such a chore.

We finally managed to remove the tree, but this has resulted in P's Man Flu worsening, so dunno if he will make the Ice House tomorrow (assuming we're not snowed in)

Is the Warden drooly, Mal???The may get jealous!

zdt

Terri love, do I have to spell my countryman to you in finest detail or are you a female? Bring him a hot drink to where he lies in his misery and tell him "it´s the last to be had before spring thaw, me being on my own, but have it - you were so wonderful"

Luv, that stubborn whiner is from Westphalia I beieve - snivel while being strong, Scarlett O´Hara style. And, yes - don´t tell him I told you. Please.

The warden is quite pretty, yes.

But she complains that she feels plain next to the new house steward, who is, in her words, "seven feet tall and five feet of that is legs"

I think i am going to come and live at your place Mal,i can be the drooling

for wise advice, Pit; he seems slightly less afflicted since returning from Ice House, did go into a bit of a relapse when informed some female wanted to know why her wind turbine wasn't working though.

Meanwhile, the new guitar is tuned and seem to definitely be preg. He\claims it will be exctly 147 days since they indulged in unmarried naughties and that he will be back from next Solar Infection Tour to deal with lambs, but has given me Dire Warninga about prolapses.

zdt

Google had a hoax and I thought it was real and that was the animal translator they had on April 1.

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/#

On the BBC news programme they had a news item of cloned unicorns and it really was quite realistic.

Hilarious!!!!

Thanks for sharing that; i've passed it onto P via email, saying it was released a few days back, but they are doing a special Easter deal...wonder if he'll fall for it?

We had Easter egg hunt today, i coloured eggs with edible stuff like coffee and beetroot and hid them with various animals; he had to solve a cryptic poem to find them, but managed in around half an hour.

His version for me was easier to solve, but hell, was it worth it.
He's paying for the guitar.

Send that man please. He may also be able to connect with his son en route on his next work trip, which will cheer him up a lot; whether it totally cures Mann Flew remains to be seen....

So; what did the Easter bring "you lot"?

zdt

Hiya Terri, the Bunny brought me an Easter basket full of chocolate goodies!

, vs. a guitar? Being male I have no idea, but I´d say Terri has the less fattening boyfriend.

Thanks Terri

I got two small easter eggs along with a easter chocolate gateau which I topped with chocolate flakes and lots of chocolate speckled eggs. Struggled to eat my portion yesterday and I have loads left still to eat.

I enjoy watching people have conversation with their cats on youtube and here is another one.

Nemesis Talking Back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxJrUqqIVI8

Great stuf, Thinker! I've spent the last hour at some of those video clips; when i played the first one, Woolie Bear started barking "Where's this new <cat"?

Today has been torrential rain and howling gales; we stayed in and attempted to sort our paperwoRk and generally get the place a bit more organised (it's a losing battle!)

Ja,I'd rather have than any day. It's a sweet guitar, Fender acoustic/electric, CD60, lovely tone and gentle action. I got an actual guitar rather than a bass, i will probably rarely use the higher strings, but nice to know they are there.

So our musical gear now is:

Piano, P's, desperately needs tuning
Harp, P's, have now managed to get tuning thing, but she doesn't like the damp
My wonderful new guitar.
Psalter, P's, also managed to eventually find tuning key; it's now tuned to my guitar...very lovely spooky sounds together.
Djembe, mine, it's a kids one, but sounds OK in the right hands.
Various recorders, tin whistles, harmonicas, ocarinas etc between us.
A kids guitar , broken,no strings, we found at recyclying place.
An ancient mandola from a friend, also broken, no hope of fixing.

The last two are best as wall decorations i reckon.

It would be lovely if P could get back into playing cello again. His parents and sisters were violinists, he wanted something different " mine's bigger than yours is!"

So: You lot, any of you play/sing? What are your musical tastes ( mine are purplish red, ask Kandinsky or Google synaesthesia)

zdt

I don't do things with strings (except pianos), but I get on reasonably well with a variety of woodwinds. I dabble in percussion. Singing-wise, I'm an alto.

On the clarinet, I mostly do klezmer and classical, and medieval/folk on the chalumeau, bombarde, and recorders. I'd like to be better at ragtime piano.

Thanks Terri, it must have been a very funny sight watching Wooly Jimper bark at the computer when he heard the cat meowing.

I used to play the piano but had to give it up when my family and I moved from Scotland to Ashington Northumberland in 1995 and that is when the piano was sold. I have tried to play the recorder but not very good, did have a hand held keyboard but it's not the same as a piano.

Terri, I wish I had some nice guitars - you are so fortunate!

Over here, we have a piano and I have an electronic keyboard in 'Christiaan's Room'. Actually it was my sister's old room, but Christiaan (her son, now 6 years old) sleeps there when they're visiting.

I used to sing in a choir. My voice is not very strong, but I can stay on key!

Musical tastes? Wow - lots of things! Classical music: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Dvorak, Vivaldi, Saint-Saens, Liszt, Bach, Handel, Verdi, Rossini ...

I don't know music before the sixties very well. I like a lot of the suff of The Beatles.

Music from the seventies: ABBA!

I really started listening to music in the eighties. There were so many cool groups! Some of my favourites are REM, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi (but only really their album 'Slippery when Wet'), Metallica (first two albums especially), Alphaville, Men Without Hats, Tears for Fears, Til Tuesday, Duran Duran, Madonna, The Pet Shop Boys (don't like their later stuff), Crowded House (their nineties work is also good), China Crisis, U2 (later stuff also good), A-Ha, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Outfield, The Police, The Human League, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Kate Bush, Talk Talk, XTC, Depeche Mode, Blondie, Men at Work, Icehouse, Madness ... more, I can't think of right now.

I didn't listen that much in the nineties, but I liked Alanis Morissette's stuff, and also Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

I only recently again started listening to contemporary music. These are my favourite modern bands:

Nightwish - they're fantastic!
Within Temptation
Epica - they should rule the world!
Sirenia (most recent two albums)
Lacuna Coil
Kamelot
Sonata Arctica
Coldplay
Imogen Heap
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Gamma Ray

Not much musical talent here, sadly.

I've played with* a bass guitar, a bodhran and recently an ocarina. *(it wouldn't be fair to say I could play them)

It was about twenty years ago when I picked up a pawn shop bass. I knew I couldn't play a guitar as my fingers are like sausages. Even on the bass I tend to deaden the adjacent strings. I learned maybe three songs. The Peter Gunn theme, Pink Floyd's One of These Days (nice and repetitive) and something else. Then I sold it to a guy going to his twentieth high school reunion who was going to play with his old classmates at the party.

The bodhrán I had some fun with. I picked up a cheap one at a Renaissance festival and found CD and book to teach myself. After a while I even thought about buying a good one (tunable) from this guy: http://www.albertalfonso.com/Home.html Here's a guy who actually knows how to play one showing off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKexHX990mQ My level of talent justified all those bodhrán player jokes. http://www.ceolas.org/instruments/bodhran/jokes.shtml

Last year I bought an ocarina at the Ren-fest so I could play the tunes from Legend of Zelda. Couldn't do it though... sausage fingers again.

When I was a kid, I was in the school choir for a couple of years (grades 6-8). I was okay until the 8th grade. We went to the regional contests. My choir teacher didn't properly teach me to sight read yet it was required in the competition. That's ing cruel. Imagine being about 13 years old, shoved in a room with judges behind curtains and asked to sing a song you've never heard given only sheet music you don't know how to properly read and then hear your own voice try to find the song. It was brutal. I knew the relative speeds of the notes, and I knew when they went up and down, but I couldn't look at a note and sing that key. Deeply embarrassing, especially for a young boy as shy as I was. Then came the end of my singing. The high school choir coach came to our middle school to audition us. He thought I would make a great alto. All my other friends were hitting puberty and their voices were dropping and he was telling me I'd be singing with the girls. There's no use telling a 14 year old boy that a male alto is a special thing. Did I mention I was shy? To be singled out to go up in voice while all the other boys were getting deeper voices was too unbearable. So, I went tone deaf. I haven't been able to hit a note since. I still whistle quite often, but I have no idea if I'm in key. I'm usually alone when I do so it don't matter.

CZ - crazy place hootoo is. How come people with ~same background always bunch up?

Dunno... but we do.

Seems. Discussion in rather physics heavy loudspeaker forums (fori? forae?) is DIY cooking at the moment.