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

So, everyone seems to have made it though this-- including the site-- relatively scot-free. *rouses up the band for one more joyous song at h2g2's reopening*

Well, m'friend, how've you been these last few months I haven't spoken to you?

~Amy (Keeper of Wolves and Muse of Procrastinating Novelists)

Helloooo! Nice to see you again

I've kept very well... had a nice skiing hollyday... eaten lots of cheese...

how about you?

How I am is quite an interesting question... at the moment, I'm sick (once again), but you didn't want to know that. I'm also about two and a half months away from graduating from high school, which is cool. (And I know what university I'm going to, which is even cooler and relieves a lot of stress). Hmm... otherwise... well, my grandfather just had brain surgery to remove a tumor on his brain, and he's doing pretty well. That's all that's really happened in the last two or so months.

That, and me keeping my head above water in schoolwork, which is incredible. It was funny... just after mid-term exams, I was up to date with everything for about a week. Then, by no fault of my own, stuff started to slip away-- I think not only should we change Thursday to Thing but adopt a 30 hour day. It's so much easier to get things done when there are more hours in a day. But I repeat myself from months and months ago, don't i?

Hmm... work always seemed to slip away for me too... until I got to the stage where, if I worked really really hard, I could recover and get good grades; but then I fell ill and didn't do any work and ended up with rubbish grades

So don't do that

Sorry to hear about you feeling sick though... are you off school?
Speaking of sickness, have you heard what's going on here in the UK now? Foot & Mouth disease has broken out among livestock and spread all over the country... it doesn't affect humans but spreads very easily among sheep and cows and stuff. A huge number of farms have had to slaughter their entire herds... destroying a lot of farmer's livelihoods... and there's restrictions meaning no animal can be moved around any more. And nobody is allowed to go on land with livestock on it either. So it's a pretty poor outlook for the British countryside at the moment... especially following on from the BSE paranoia thing.

Sorry, just letting off steam... I grew up in a farming community.

What university are you going to? Roasted Amoeba is coming back to Southampton in September to start university again here in Southampton... he was doing Aerospace Engineering but is now going to do Computer Science. (which is amusing as everybody used to assume he did comp sci anyway). What course will you been doing?

The thirty hour day thing sounds a good idea. I always stay up really late and wake up late, and start a cycle getting later and later, meaning that I am eventually going to bed when it gets light and getting up when it gets dark... and so on until I'm back to the normal times. A longer day would be a great solution. How about shorter weeks, while we're about it?

Hmm I'm rambling, I'd better stop. It's quarter to one in the morning and I'd better go to bed to avoid getting into the aforementioned routine... I want to do some work tomorrow morning. I'm building up a portfolio to see if I can get a internet artistic design job.

ooh yes do you like chocolate ? Probably a silly question but I have known people to say no. Anyway, the Alabaster House is hosting a Zero Gravity Chocolate Banquet to celebrate the return of h2g2. It was at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A444827 last time I looked. It'd be great to see you there

I'm out of school for the moment-- hopefully I'll go back tomorrow, but this cold I've had just happens to be one of the many things I'm also allergic to, so now I have hives all over in addition to a dry cough. *scratches hand and feet for a bit* It's lovely. *rolling eyes*

I remember reading something about Foot and Mouth Disease on the yahoo groups... but I heard about it late enough in the thread that I really had no idea what was going on. And of course, American newspapers rarely cover stuff like that-- they'd much prefer to wonder exactly *what* all our leaders are doing with every spare minute of their lives. I really wish that they'd cover something relatively important once in a while-- a major disease like that's pretty darn important. Even here in Pennsylvania we had a Chicken Influenza outbreak either last year or the year before-- basically ruined that industry for the year. Anyway, I hope things brighten up there in the UK.

I'm registered as a freshman at Radford University, which is in southwestern Virginia, about two hours from where I was born. It's a lovely place, with the New River right below the school, and it's cradled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm going to major in English there, or at least, I plan to, but I may switch over to Music, and maybe even to French, considering that I basically have enough knowledge in that subject to start off with a minor in it anyway. (minors are sort of like majors in that you take a concentration of classes in that subject, but not as many as for a major).

Shorter weeks, longer days... hmm, sounds like a plan to me. Less depressing winter weather, too, while we're at it. That just makes a hard job harder. (Hmm... remind me to mention that to Bluebottle when he gets his page of things there should be more of back up-- we need more months of Spring).

Oooh... artistic design? Coolness. I saw your homepage (not the h2g2 one, the other one)-- I must say it's impressive. I hope you get the job!

Well, I think that's all for now. Have a beautiful day (the sky is blue, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdiez iz...).

I'm out of school for the moment-- hopefully I'll go back tomorrow, but this cold I've had just happens to be one of the many things I'm also allergic to, so now I have hives all over in addition to a dry cough. *scratches hand and feet for a bit* It's lovely. *rolling eyes*

I remember reading something about Foot and Mouth Disease on the yahoo groups... but I heard about it late enough in the thread that I really had no idea what was going on. And of course, American newspapers rarely cover stuff like that-- they'd much prefer to wonder exactly *what* all our leaders are doing with every spare minute of their lives. I really wish that they'd cover something relatively important once in a while-- a major disease like that's pretty darn important. Even here in Pennsylvania we had a Chicken Influenza outbreak either last year or the year before-- basically ruined that industry for the year. Anyway, I hope things brighten up there in the UK.

I'm registered as a freshman at Radford University, which is in southwestern Virginia, about two hours from where I was born. It's a lovely place, with the New River right below the school, and it's cradled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm going to major in English there, or at least, I plan to, but I may switch over to Music, and maybe even to French, considering that I basically have enough knowledge in that subject to start off with a minor in it anyway. (minors are sort of like majors in that you take a concentration of classes in that subject, but not as many as for a major).

Shorter weeks, longer days... hmm, sounds like a plan to me. Less depressing winter weather, too, while we're at it. That just makes a hard job harder. (Hmm... remind me to mention that to Bluebottle when he gets his page of things there should be more of back up-- we need more months of Spring).

Oooh... artistic design? Coolness. I saw your homepage (not the h2g2 one, the other one)-- I must say it's impressive. I hope you get the job!

Well, I think that's all for now. Have a beautiful day (the sky is blue, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdiez iz...).

Ah, shoot, double posted...

aww... *dresses up as and sticks thermometer in Amy's mouth*

Radford Uni sounds nice... being near mountains is cool, Southampton is next to the sea (not a very nice part of the coast tho) in a very flat part of Britain... I miss the mountains in Wales.

Hmm Foot & Mouth has spread to France now... for some reason my friends and I find it rather amusing (The Anglo-French relationship is not particularly good, they were really snooty and nasty to British farmers during the BSE crisis) but it's rather unfortunate that all the prevention methods to stop it spreading to the continent haven't worked. The government is insisting it's got it under control, but the number of cases is still rising and the army have been called in to help... they're even deploying snipers on common land to kill stray animals

All in all it hasn't been a very good term for our Labour government. They've been in power for the first time in ages, and there's a general election this year as they've been in for four years. And this year alone they've had to contend with BSE, Foot & Mouth, and a fuel crisis... and a lot of angry farmers and drivers as a result.

Bleargh, politics.

But enough about my country's problems ... I've made a Celtic thingy in Flash... if you've got the Flash plugin then you can see it at http://www.ianferguson.co.uk/art/celtic.htm (the moderators will remove that, so if they've nabbed it before you read this, tell me and I'll put it on my page)... what d'ya think? It's just a demo wotnot, but I might expand it into a proper website.

The Celtic thingie looks awesome... *bows down in subservience to Peregrin's incredible talent in programming* I'm very impressed. *Very*

I finally read a newspaper article about Foot and Mouth Disease yesterday-- almost right after I wrote that last post. Of course, it didn't center on the problem in *Europe*, just what it means for the US. Yeesh. How completely US-centric can this country get?! Hmmph. Well, at least they decided to realize there is more to this planet than just A-mur-ik-ah. *shrug*

*finally pulls thermometer out of her mouth, seeing as it's been in there quite long enough*

Hmm... just on the button. 98.6 degrees F (what is that-- 37 celcius? I can't remember). Which means i actually have a fever, my normal temps about three degrees lower than that. Well, the other doctor, the one I just got home from seeing, gave me a perscription for some high-powered stuff... I should be fine by Saturday. *crosses fingers, legs, eyes, other extraneous body parts and dreams of mountains*

Ah, mountains...

Flash is fun... the one I'm working on now (well, just starting) is a kind of mock up shopping site; where you can view items and select colour and size and stuff. I think it'll be a good way of showing how Flash can be integrated into a website, instead of just being a pretty addition... but I'm not sure what items to actually display in it. Frogs maybe.

When I was in Switzerland I got a funky new penknife, it's got a digital altimeter and thermometer. I guess I could use it as a medical thermometer but it'd mean shoving a penknife into somebody's mouth which may not be very sensible. Other than that I haven't got a thermometer in the house... which was a problem when the thermostat in our oven broke and so food was either raw or black, as we couldn't tell it to be hot-but-not-too-hot

Hmm. People actually shop for frogs? Maybe you should do a really bizarre mock-up with random things-- just like frogs and things people generally don't shop for online. Tissues. Grass fertilizer. Something like that. It'd be amusing, in the least.

Hmm... penknife thermometer. Owwww... I assume this wasn't supposed to be used to take a living being's temperature?

Hmm I might just go with the random things... it might confuse potential employers but if they don't see the humour in it then I don't want to work for them anyway

The thermometer part of the penknife is rather pointless to tell the truth. If I keep it in my pocket or something sensible like that then it reads somewhere between the room temperature and my body temperature; not particularly useful really.
To tell the truth the altimeter is pointless too, but it's fun , I like my gadgets.

I'm trying to convince Roasted Amoeba to reactivate his h2g2 account. He's working very hard for the internet company he's doing a gap year at, but has internet access all day, so I distract him on ICQ. h2g2 would be another healthy distraction I'm sure.

Ping!

Hello Amy Hello Ian

Hmmmm....

How's the "teaching yourself Flash" going, Ian? Sent off your cv to anybody yet? Try not to mention mass killings in any of your flash movies, and then at least potential employers will have nothing to take you to court about...

I'm going to go and eat some more mature cheddar...

ah! Good to see you back...

Hey, RA! How've you been these months? And don't leave... your presence is sorely missed when absent.

Thank you 8)

Very welcome.

Oops I've been playing computer games all weekend and given myself a big headache. Not to mention the perpetual feeling that I'm directing Soviet forces to spread communism throughout the world...

I must stop playing Red Alert 2.

*hits self over head repeatedly*

And that's supposed to help with your headache how...?

Ah, well, I have this theory that I have headaches because my brain has shifted slightly out of place, and is stretching all the bits of twine that are holding it in place. So if I hit myself on the right side of my head it'll knock it back into alignment. Trouble is sometimes I knock it even more out of place and make the headache worse.