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

in case it's still p*ssing down . . .

az

I think I meant don't let me get started. I need to do a lab report-based on data I do not have-for next week, both Lucy and Sandra's birthdays on Saturday, hours and hours putting together a computer table,Leksvik, Ikea prezzie for the light of my life, who skipped off to work to avoid the carnage, a brilliant admittedly all-in-one printer/fax/scan/copier that took 6 HOURS(!!!!) to load, after a visit to the spotty boy at Dixons when it wouldn't work that treated me like a hardware leper (I am computer science subsid, I could build one of these things). It would be nice to spend some real time talking but my dear sweet sainted aunt, may she rest in peace, what does a boy need to do to get things sorted out? In addition stringing an acoustic for the boy-who has an official IQ as high as mine-137, but 148 in verbal skill(all bo**ocks of course, but still). Talking now of 'enrichment programmes', he's talking about my saying he wasn't a genius but Lo, he really is.

Can we treat this as a rant and get back to speed tomorrow?

Rain, Flustered, and too, too messed about, but hey-that we all had my problems, eh? there are children buried alive in Turkey for Gods sake

feels petty and pointless, back on track soon.

hi rain

Although considering Turkish children being buried alive (shudder!) might briefly put your worries into another perspective, your own life is what you've got. Though I do agree that the stuff that seems petty and pointless gets on my nerves even *more* because I feel I should be able to overcome such trifling stuff.

Anyhow, I've also never understood why considering someone else's misery should make us feel better. It's never worked for me. And so, it also doesn't make me feel bad when I see people doing much better than me.

hang on . . .

. . . back again.

It's just that I've lost so many postings recently, which makes me go aaaaaarrrgghhhhhhhh! Not a pretty sight. Seriously need new computer, or at least for now a way to get rid of stuff that is filling up my entire hard disk. Thing is, I just don't know what it is I don't need, so I don't know what to get rid of.

To be honest, your life sounds kind of normal for a guy with three kids (one quite young), a pareja, a house to run, a university degree to complete . . . I don't know how you ever find time to get onto h2g2 at all . Oh yeah, you do it at 3am.

Meanwhile, Ikea furniture - forget it man! There is a reason that carpenters exist. Because that's the way furniture is meant to be put together - properly. Not with little plasticy bits, a few screws and an allan key (have no idea how you spell that). Having said that, I quite like Ikea, but mostly for kitcheny stuff. It's weird - I have the eensiest kitchen you can imagine and it is as FULL as it could possibly be. Yet I am so attracted to kitchen shops - will spend hours in, for example, Ikea (though I have to go to Madrid to do this) for stuff I have no space or need for. I think some men do this with tools and hardware stuff.

Oh no! Just got serious ciggy urge and feel myself being dragged away from the computer, to go downstairs to the bar across the way . . . oh the flesh is weak (especially mine!)

see ya pronto I hope!
az

you weak female, just my type, the ikea stuff is remarkably good for the price-£65 quid for a decent new desk-really good quality/price equation. I find space to get on H2G2 just to speak to humans that are not contractually obliged to agree with me, which everyone here is. How the hell are you? post-guestical? I now have a full lab report to do by Wednesday so I will be likely challenged.....

hey raindude,

Doing just fine here, post-guestical. I tell ya, that's one person who will never darken my towels again!

Still smoking, however. Do you think that having more flesh now makes it even more difficult, since my flesh is obviously of the weak variety? Your type, indeed! You are a happily parejad man - shame on you.

Hey - don't get me wrong. I like Ikea furniture. Apparently they are going to open an Ikea here in Sevilla next year - yipee!

Had yet another run-in with the d**kless wonder yesterday. Boy, is he ever pathetic. Even after I told him ages ago I would no longer respond to anything he says it seems like he just can't leave me alone. So then I sent him a posting on his personal page. He didn't respond of course - just got back on the God thread and tried to humiliate me for making a spelling error. Like I say - pathetic.

In your absence I have been forced to make lots of new friends here - just check them all out on my personal page! Really, really nice and interesting people - I know you would like all of them.

Also have two new threads on my page that are quite funny. One I started - 'this does not translate' and another I joined - 'what is the strangest thing that has ever happened to you while sleeping'. Still continuing with the other usual ones as well. This is almost turning into a full-time job!

Okay, dog of choice, time to love you and leave you.

until soon,
az

going to bed now

maybe 'see' you in the morning . . .

azzzzzzz

Have spent the past four days (hols!) behaving totally like a cat! Well, except that cats don't cook or take out the rubbish. But it really has been totally sloppy lazy time for me - have quite enjoyed it atchly. Didn't even bother to shower or get dressed today. And when a friend came over to visit this afternoon I got HER to go downstairs to buy ciggies for me (so I didn't have to get dressed).

However, reality will be rearing its ugly head tomorrow at 7am - eek!

Have decided I want to be very well paid for just enjoying my life. Is that too much to ask?

Not much else to say. Still missing my ol' dog of choice and hoping he will come back soon.

kissitos,
az

It's quarter past one . . .

Ain't no one in the place except,

- well, NO ONE!

(story of my life)

az

It's a quarter past 2. I am sort of here. I got into the new term last week and they told me not only had they tacked an extra starter week onto last term but they needed a lab report, on an experiment I haven't done by Wednesday of this week. I am a little confused, a little fed up with it all, but at the same time I hardly do a thing so I cannot legitimately complain-some people sweat for a living doing something they hate and which demeans them, this I know. So no sympathy needed, just patience, and fortitude and all those other 'good thing for mr he who waited...paging mr he who waited'

It's all about visual perception of objects-I know, you're fascinated-and how long it takes to verify an object is made up,or in psych speak a 'chimera'(how cool are we?), I didn't do the experiment but I have gotten hold of the results so I should be able to put them through the techie mangle and get some words to write-I actually don't want to do a quantitative research project for year 3, I want to do qualititative, so I am the local pariah amongst the techie types. I like the counselling angle-what can I say-I like the idea of 'what do you feel?'
So, I'm back as a limited edition until Thursday. Then practical 2 begins, what joy.

You seem to be cruising at an altitude of 'me' since the departure from runway 3 of houseguest. Money sorted? lazing about the house? good for you. just don't spend money on daft stuff-every time I get a student loan I try to get stuff that improves life without complicating it-not an attempt to preach just what I think you'd expect from me-sort of reciprocal reinforcement of ideas+challenge.

Rain, an English classic since 1965.The original and still the vest.

holitas!

Hey, just read that the monitors no longer edit stuff unless someone clicks the 'yikes' button, so those postings here that got edited due to my LANGUAGE were because someone else was reading this thread. I find that so odd, don't you?

Re: the loan. Ricardo has gone to Capri, so I have to wait until next week to get his signed 'avalista' stuff. Then it should only take a few days for it to go through. In fact, I'm not spending it on anything - it's all going straight to Visa. Well, *except* the extra bit I'm asking for to . . .

BUY A NEW COMPUTER!!!

. . . soooooo excited about that.

Yes, have been cruising quite nicely the past couple of weeks. I keep waiting for this feeling to go away - I can't *really* be this content, can I? - but so far it's sticking around.

Well, must go to work soon, so shall talk to you anon,

azaharita

so much of it is just all crap anyhow, innit?

miss you being here.

az

Look- I am smashed OK-it's 3 am- but I just wanted to answer that -theoretically I am finished for the year in 5 weks-then I can relax, until then they just keep gunning it and expecting us-me specifically-to work. I am soooo tired with it, and I have no idea what c0mes next, cant be arsed with spellingdsdfsdfgerf now-who on earth spellchecks someone elses swearing???? now that I would like to know? bizarre.Glad you are OK-sometimes you need a yardstick to measure where you are up to by- you seem to have done that.

Just get on with it-wow!

Rain, I felt the pain last week-poor guy.

evening!

Another hangover day. Hmmmm. Had fun last night though. Went over to my neighbour's place for a little impromptu party and met some nice people who are also neighbours. But good thing they wrote their names next to their phone number (on the bar napkin - finished the night off by going out to the Irish pub) as the brain cells that contained that information seem to no longer be with us.

It's not 'spellchecking'. It's because you're not supposed to swear here. So three of my postings got edited (a monitor put in asterisks). But the curious thing is that they only do this if someone complains by hitting the 'yikes' button.

Are you now saying that 'regular service' is not going to be resumed for another five weeks???

Anyhow, better get into bed. It's only 9.30 but I'm pretty zonked and if I don't go to bed I'll just eat something else.

az

hey there, dog-of-my-life,

See you are on-line. Wassup?

What I've got to do is basically 2 modules in one, this really means very little as it lets us get on with the one thing and not have to keep messing around trying to do several things at once. In practice it means that we are doing way more work than we usually do and they excuse this by it being a double module. In the last week I've had to hand in a lab report and devise a questionnaire, get it completed, revise it, check it on a computer program and then try to get it tested on 200 people. All this by tomorrow with another lab report on it by next Monday. OK not like real work but still.As a consequence I've done very little except go to college for the last two weeks and it looks the same for the next six-or until 16th June whichever is the sooner. My life when not doing this is wine fuelled telly vegging. I've just posted a question on another quiz that nobody got-where would a teaser hang round with some travellers and a banjo? Any ideas? I gave several clues but they gave up in the end-wimps.

I really am so dull at the moment-the high point of yesterday was getting the Honda 'cog' advert on a DVD with the Guardian-you know where the bits hit each other and eventually start the car? Can you imagine that being something that raises your day?

I need a large summer to play with, but conveniently the money runs out just when you get the time to enjoy it. I want to do a PGCE after this and apparently that goes this way for the full 9 months-so who knows. I wish I could take advantage of the banks latest offer, they want to convert my student overdraft into a 'graduate loan' when I finish so I can take a year out to'discover myself and the world', fine I'll just ask everyone to pretend that I'm still there as I tramp the lower slopes of the Himalayas. Not going to happen I think. An Irish bar in Seville? Whatever next, nearly all the irish bars here are total crap (mustn't offend the lurking shriekers)In fact most of the pubs are crap, usually end up driving to the HArp or the Red Lion in Parkgate-ever get there? I was always told Bristol had a really good old hippy vibe to it, any better there(Bristol)?

I'll be trying to make some time to chat-it really is too dull just work and telly. Not even got a book to read except research methods for research students, and I know how that ends.

Rain, headfirst into the fray.

hi sweetie,

Have you not read Life of Pi yet?

I don't get your quiz thingy either. The only banjo players that spring to mind are either Steve Martin or the tree-playing weirdo in the film Deliverance. Sorry! Perhaps I'll check out that thread to see your other clues.

So, what about your summer? Still thinking of coming to Seville?

In fact, there are tons of Irish Pubs here in Sevilla, but only one good one, which is not part of a massive international chain of Irish pubs. Really expensive though, which is why I almost never go there, except when really drunk and don't give a flying f**k about the money I am spending. And almost always in the company of Mad Lesley, my English neighbour. Such a bad influence she has on me!

I think Bristol is quite a cool place. It has the university to keep things fresh and happening, it's also very pretty in the centre. And it has a great water-front area, with art-house cinema, neat bars, etc. My main problem with Bristol was that it was in England (!!!) so the weather was totally crap. But met very nice and interesting people there. One of whom remains one of my bestest friends in all the world.

Okay, shall post this now and see if you reply within the next five weeks

kissitos,
az

had a weird night, rain,

Woke up at 3 and was totally panic stricken (normally I only ever get panic attacks outside, almost never at home). I honestly felt like I was cracking up, like I was about to slip into insanity or death or SOMETHING ELSE REALLY SCARY. So, perhaps slept another minute and a half after that - then had to get up to teach. After my second class (I think the coffee was a bad idea in my very nervous state) I almost felt like I was about to hallucinate or something - like reality was totally crumbling. (sorry if this is coming across as hokey sounding or melodramatic, but it's really how it was).

Finally popped a couple of tranqs and then had to have a meeting with my landlord downstairs. The whole time I kept breathing deeply and trying to convince myself that 'this table is *really* here, Pepe is *really* here, so I must be too!' And by the time the meeting was over (have no idea what it was about, but somehow I ended up agreeing to pay more money for something or other) the drugs had kicked in and at least I was no longer jumping out of my skin.

The rest of the day was better. Got back on h2g2 to discover I had alienated most of the God thread people yesterday (including friend Moth). Oh well. Then I had a couple more classes - now enjoying a glass of rioja and talking to you. Feel a bit nervous about going to bed - don't want the same thing to happen again tonight.

Maybe I need a holiday?

az

Really feel an inadequate response from me might be worse than no relpy but I really am not likely to be here a whole lot for the next 4 weeks. I've had minor panic attacks occasionally-usually when I have been stressed beyond belief- and don't really understand them. Puts one in a strange position- I feel inadequate because I have never felt that way,lacking the experience I am unable to rate it, empathise with it, or understand it. Saying I'm sorry seems really inadequate (word of the post apparently), it seems absurd.

I've just got some good news-want to hear?

A little boy who is autistic and gets help from play-work, in some American therapy type, is wanting some more playmates and I need to contact his mum to get into doing it(if i'm suitable). Looking forward to that-interested in that line of business.

Hope you're OK, regain the momentum. You are you-they're not.

RAinDoG, capitalizing on his assets.

four more weeks? or is it three now?

am sure you'll do great with the kid - hope that worked out.

kissitos,
az