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

I'm back, whenever you want to talk... I usually only sign in to H2G2 at work seeing as I 'm allowed to and I don't have an internet connection at home.

Nor do I have a cell phone, a PDA that works, or a computer with more than a GB of space (for writing, playing MP3's and playing games) at home, either.

This is all just a sign that I need more money before I feel comfortable buying all those gadgets.

Heyla,

How are you this fine wednesday afternoon. (well, it's wednesday afternoon here anyway!)

We just took out a loan for a second computer, which seems ridiculously extravagent, even to me. But with three writers in the house it really is more of a necessity than a luxury.

I do come on to h2g2 occasionally from home, but mostly I'm here when I'm in work. We only have limited internet acess and the job can be mind numbingly boring, so this place is a godsend.

Hi Eagle

We're generally on on in work as well, tho' we have an internet connection at home. It's just that h2g2 is so good for the long boring hours here. So how're you today?

Fatty

Hi,

I'm doing fine, though I have an interminable meeting in an hour when I'm supposed to be eating lunch!

How come there are three writers in the house, as you said?

I may be buying a computer in the not-too-distant future... kind of an early Christmas present for the two of us. I'll still hold off on an internet connection unless for either myself or my wife it becomes a necessity. But it would be a while before we decided to do all of that. Maybe this autumn?

I write prose, she writes scripts and is doing a scriptwriting MA (sorry I can't resist telling people that. My girl is so talented!) And we have our best friend living with us and he does everything. He writes scripts and some prose, composes, and can pretty much turn his hand to anything.

I do hope they'll let you eat something after the interminable meeting.

Oh, I'll just eat at my desk. I'm a creature of habit, that's all.

By the way, an update on the troll thing. The person who thought I was basically chased me out of the newsgroup, saying she'd interrupt any conversation I was in to keep me out. But I did make a couple of nice contacts via e-mail so I don't really mind that much.

But can you imagine someone who was determined to stalk you? I mean, do some research over the internet, and you could really make someone's life miserable until they dump their current e-mail addresses and pick up alternate aliases, etc and that's without putting in the effort to find who they really are! It's a blessing that I got shafted like this so I understand how something can run out of contol.

Sounds like they were pretty trollish themselves.

It's such a shame that there are so many people who are determined to start fights and take offence to everything, and equally, people who come online to be contentious and start fights.

Lizardy hardly posts at all, even on here, because she hates having to watch everything she says to make sure there's nothing anyone can take offence to.

And I see what she means. I try to be myself as much as possible, and I don't think I'm a particularly contentious person, but I do occasionally find myself reading over messages before I post them and changing things, just in case.

If you don't mind my asking, what did you say to spark all this off?

I can't imagine you posting anything that could cause that sort of reaction.

It's like Henry Kissinger said: "The reason university politics are so vicious is precisely because the stakes are so small."

The long and short of it (without getting into specifics) was that I was in a group that talked about medieval and renaissance reenactmants and after posting my impression of one, asked if (based on a picture I saw online) there were any around that did reenactments of stocks, pillories, guillotines, that kind of thing. I did a report on them when I was a teenager and I was curious.

You'd think I'd insulted someone's mother.

It's just one person, but she's very upset about the whole thing. Apparently someone came to start trouble a while back mentioning stuff like that. I said in clear tones I wasn't there to start trouble, but apparently it made no difference to her.

I'd give more info about it, but that's the basic idea, and I wouldn't want anyone here getting involved. Suffice it to say, I talked to a couple of people via e-mail who all but said they didn't want to respond for fear of persecution and that was enough to say ta-ta.

That sounds like an all round unpleasant experience.

So are you particularly interested in medieval and renaisance history and reenactments, or was it purely academic?

I didn't used to be, but when I was in college, I became interested in Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Archaeology in Scotland and northern England, etc. Basically, if I had a focus in college, it was literature with some history and archaeology in Britain from about AD 500-1600.

From there, it's a small jump to being interested in reenactments and modern interpretations of the past, especially since in my opinion, someone from the year 1550 arriving in 2003 and seeing one of these things couldn't feel less at home. Though they can be entertaining.

G would probably love to go to one of those. As a child She always wanted to a knight and she's never quite grown out of it.

A knight in shining armor, then?...

If you're interested, try these:
http://www.sca.org/
http://www.faires.com/England.htm

I can't get to them from work, but I'll look later.

You probably gathered from 'Rusalka' that I'm fairly interested in mythology, folklore, urban legend, fairytales and fables. As far as history goes I probably know as much as any sensible person could want to about Britain between the turn of the centuary and about 1940.

Urban legends! An interest of mine, actually. It's amazing the stories you can find if you go hunting for them. And how ideas get passed on from one person to the next so quickly!

Urban legends really are just a modern form of the folk-tale, told in very similar ways and treated much the same. But it's fascinating the things people are willing to believe.

I meant to ask you yesterday, would you be interested in joining the collaborative book project? There's a link to it from my page if you want to find out more.

I actually got an idea from the phrase, but it looks like the deadline was last month. Is it still going on?

Yep, it's still going. There were a few problems, some people found they had less time than they thought. Most people didn't get anything in for the deadline and the real time convo just didn't happen.

I've taken over running it and It's moving again. I think some of the origional volunteers have lost interest though, so new people will be welcome.

We're starting to gather broad plot ideas at F126899?thread=299028. Feel free to jump in.

Cool beans. I'll have to sit and compose during lunch. *Cracking knuckles*

There is a conversation thread for ideas for the book and I've just started a thread for people to post their fiction samples in. Ooh, that sounds medical!

You don't have to write on the the subject of 'No Carrier' any more, but obviously you can if you want to.

Things have been crazy for the last day or so, and I'll be off all weekend. It's been great meeting you and I promise to contribute to your project in the coming days (feel free to give me a swift kick to remind me).

Hopefully I'll be able to drop by next week and chit-chat again.
Talk to you later!