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

THESE SHORT SHORTS ARE WONDERFUL. I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE MAKING THE IDEA WORK SO WELL. WHO WOULD THINK THAT EVEN IN A SELF-SELECTED INTELLIGENT GROUP SUCH AS THIS THERE WOULD BE SO MUCH TALENT?

"Now here is the secret to a long and healthy life," Uncle
Cosmo started, "and the best part is, it may help even if
your life turns out to be short."

Cosima the hunchback and Freddy the albino leaned forward
to catch every word of their uncle's advice.

"First, eat your green vegetables, especially carrots and
grapefruit..."

"But carrots aren't green," Cosima objected, "and grapefruit
is not a vegetable!"

"Smart youngsters!" Uncle Cosmo chortled as he got up to
go, happy that his sister's kids now knew enough not to
take advice from blowhards like him.

The moon was hidden by clouds that night, but the glare of flying
missiles and the powerful explosions all around the U.S.S.
Flotsam made the sky seem as bright as midday.

The torpedo that finally hit the Flotsam was a powerful T42 that
tore apart the ballroom where the Elvis impersonators were competing.
Within minutes, most of the 800 sailors had evacuated, with 42
filling the 3 lifeboats and the remainder jumping into the open sea,
taking their chances with whatever ravenous creatures might be out
there seeking to fill their bellies.

Within moments the first nemesis appeared, a Sugarplum Fairy that had
gone over to the dark (not to mention wet) side. Soon, the 758 sailors who were bobbing, terrified, on the ocean's surface were surrounded by a vast ring of the sinister Fairy's brothers and sisters.

When I lost my baby I almost lost my mind. But I found it, luckily, behind the gas oven, and later found the baby as well. When my husband came home he could tell by my face. 'Have you been losing the baby again?' he said, 'and did you lose your mind again almost?'

'Oh, go and suck a peanut,' I said, in my special Donald Duck voice.

The bitter smell of gunpowder was everywhere, as it had been throughout the battle, but there was another smell--this time a sweet one--that accompanied it. Sergeant Hans Anfeet, the first to grasp the implications, shouted "Take cover, men! The enemy is dropping BUBs on us," meaning 'Boring Uncle Bombs,' which
were enormous cream puffs filled with lethally boring uncles.

This meant the deployment of defensive NABs, or "Nagging Aunt Bombs,"
which were lime jello concoctions filled with specially trained fault-finding aunts.

Whether the platoon lost the battle or won it would now depend on the soldiers' capacity for eating or neutralizing all the cream and jello that would be left after the aunts and uncles had finished fighting each other.

War is still hell, and sometimes it's even fattening.

Wise words. Wise words. Wise words. I read 208 and I thought to myself: wise words, wise words indeed.

On his first day with the Grampian Police, detective Harvey Keith was assigned to the Brigadoon Murder Case, the longest-unsolved case in all of Scotland. He fell in love with Brigadoon at first sight, though its lack of modern conveniences such as telephones prevented him from calling headquarters to say he'd have to stay overnight and report back in the morning.

The case broke early the next morning, and Harvey Keith trotted out of Brigadoon toward Grampia with his prime suspect and a signed confession. Imagine his dismay to find that the Grampian police station had been replaced by a strip mall, for a century had passed in the day that he had been in Brigadoon.

But his frown turned to a smile when he found the new police station and was paid a hundred years' worth of wages.

Computers at home or at my course, have a mind of their own. When I am in a rush, they always slow down and at other times it is too quick. I am fed up of seeing not responding, it is another way of the computer saying that it's on strike. Advertising cookies and popups are such a pain. It's a pity I can't turn the cookies into food, when I am peckish.

As Sunday afternoons go, it was a perfect mix: lunch in front of the TV, several dozen games of computer solitaire, and a phone call to Bob's Grease Palace to make reservations for the evening's date
with Jennifer.

He hadn't planned on opening the door to find several dozen shirtless Costa Ricans standing on his lawn, but that is in fact what he found himself doing when the doorbell rang
at half past three.

"Ralph Peebles," began Jorge, their spokesman, in heavily accented English, "the people who are with me today all helped make the shirt you are now wearing, and as you can see, they are now so poor they cannot afford to buy shirts of their own."

Ralph blinked several times, trying to think of the right thing to say, but all that came out of his mouth was, "Yeah, it's a nice shirt and I love it, and thank you all for helping to make it...."

The rest of the afternoon was a disaster with 45 Costa Ricans moving into his house, emptying his cupboard and fridge, and quarrelling with the shirtless Guatemalans who were on his neighbor's lawn.

Go down the road in an easterly direction, and when you get to the shop on the corner (the one that sells jellied snakes) and smells, take a left turn. Keep going for about half a mile, - there you should come across a pink painted pub called The Green Mermaid, but DO NOT go in there, - it is possessed by a banshee, which makes a ghastly racket, instead pass by on the other side of the street, when out of hearing distance, cross the road again, you will eventually reach a cobweb strewn antique shop, and this is the place I'm directing you to.

Notice the window display, a deaths head, a bowl of congealed blood, a mummified gnome, a painting of Rupert Murdoch, some rotting peutrid seaweed, Miss Havershams wedding dress, a collection of wizzened sun-dried thumbs, a Damien Hurst sculpture, rings that contain poison, chokers that choke, a peculiar collection of other atrocities all covered with strange green lichen-dust, BUT, and it is a big BUT, amidst this scene of chaotic degradation you will see a minute porcelain vase. The vase is a thing of startling and unparralelled beauty, it contains every virtue known to mankind, the soul of every saint, and you will find love, peace, kindness, gentleness, serenity and other goodies emanating from this vase as a mysterious ether, - a halo.

Here's my advice: Stick newspaper over the window, and then get a large brick and carefully smash the window, taking great care not to damage the vase, then, grab the treasured vase, and run like hell.

And to Paul as well as Vi. (You do the ok ok and you turn around...)


Jabs

He was clearly a very old man, and at first I imagined that he might
be somewhat senile when he claimed to have been alive in the Third Century B.C. Okay, make that *very* senile, because he then said that the Greek king of Egypt asked him to translate the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek so it could be added to the Library in Alexandria.

"It was called the Pentateuch then," he continued, his cheeks reddening with the vast amounts of sherry he had consumed, "the earliest written Bible, the biggest scam that we extra-terrestrials have ever inflicted on the human race."

I was at a loss for words, and he continued: "the 70 Jewish scholars
who translated it were actually my henchmen from the planet Zograth,
with instructions to make a document that *sounded* authentic but would confuse succeeding generations with its contradictions..."

"Have you planned any sequels, then?" asked the pleasant young couple who were standing next to me, and seemed to find his tale very convincing.

The weather is acting strange, it cannot make it's mind if it wants to rain or be sunny. U don't know what to wear, as it's very cold in the morning but warm in the afternoon. The weather is so changeable a few warm weather and then it gets colder again. But there is an old saying, which goes never cast a clout until May is oot, which means it's a month of unprerdictible weather.

"Swine Flu has broken out, and you are all to go home and stay there, until the end of term," announced the Principal at assembly that morning. The hub-bub that broke out could've also broken your ear drums, if measured the noise might've reached a couple of hundred decibles, and the children went out into the playground still cheering loudly.

Outside, there was yet more excitement to be had, as a group of journalists and photographers were waiting, and asked the kids to hold their jumpers up over their noses and look serious and sad. It was hard to look sad, when the holidays had arrived so early, but after all it was only their eyes that they had to disguise and they would be in the National newspapers. What an exciting day it was -"Pig Kissin Day."

When Ricky Wagner went out on his lawn for the morning paper, he
saw that during the night someone had erected an immense medieval
fortress in the vacant lot across the street. In the foreground was a
helmeted warrior guarding a rainbow bridge, and beyond that a swarm
of battling warriors who had to contend with droppings from the very
large boar and herd of goats.

"Hello, Mr. Wagner," said a seductive yet otherworldly woman who
was approaching with a tray very full of cookies, "I am Grendel's mother, and I live in Valhalla, which we have just erected across the street, so don't be afraid to come over and enjoy our cuisine, which is wonderful."

The mead cookie she gave him was very good, though he was distracted at that moment by the slaughter of the boar, which Grendel's mother explained was a daily occurrence which was reversed every night.

As she left to offer her cookies to the other neighbors, she said, "We may not be here very long, just a century or two."