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

I try to avoid Doppler Shift when I drive.
A Stick Shift is hard enough for me....

Ah yes the fundamentals of the colour coded society. Green is the favoured colour. It represents money, the wide open spaces of nature and the freedom to go - go - go.
Yellow is the colour of urine and jaundice. The connotations are all negative. Bad smell, acidic taste, etc, and the nagging social responsibilty of its reminder to slow down, be cautious, be less than free. And red of course is blood and a bloody nuisance when you're in a hurry. We are like bulls.

Conspiracy theorists often hit a blank wall trying to build a case for the insidious mind f**k that is traffic lights. An unnatural control system imposed on our freedom of movement which like the three doors the Christians faced in the Coloseum, has only a one in three chance of going our way.

An African American, the first to own an automobile in Cleveland Ohio, Garrett Morgan is generally credited with inventing the first traffic lights. The link below however suggests that like so many 'inventions' it was an evolutionary step from earlier attempts including one in London England as early as 1869, decades before the advent of automobiles.

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/story010.htm


~jwf~

"like the three doors the Christians faced in the Coloseum, has only a one in three chance of going our way."

I hadn't heard that one.

How does it go?

I think that civilization would be served by having a 'free-for-all' day, during which the people who chafe at being forced to be courteous or at least stop every once in a while could be allowed free rein on the roads, while the courteous and observant sorts stay at home.
The survivors of the day could receive all-expenses paid vacations at the resort prison of their choice.

Once the pileups were cleaned up and the bodies carted off to the morgue, the rest of us could take to the road in comfort at a sedate pace, ready to engage in leisurely road rage at anyone who did not lift their pinky when signally for a left two blocks before the turn...

What about the people who never turn the blinker off? Signaling for a left for five miles of dense traffic, there's a need for the AVCM (Anti-Vehicular Cheese Missile). Basically a can of spray cheeze, a nail, and a model rocket engine. Take that! Hahahahahha! Maybe I should do up a spoof WMD peice about the AVCW.

Thass a good idear....
Had a little Samuel Smith Nut Brown
a little happy.
Uvula is watching some "Vicar of Dibley" we taped this evening and laughing her ass off...

No matter how hard I try, good ideas happen to me all the time.

>> I hadn't heard that one.
How does it go? <<

Let me first remind you of my almost complete lack of religious training or education. Much of what I think I know is merely hear-say, gossip, urban myth and or the Hollywood version.

And I do appreciate that when the subject comes to Christianity and Christian beliefs you would prefer that I have my facts straight, but in this case the Christians are incidental and if I could I'd simply recast the scene with a Gladiator of unknown religious persuasion.

The 'three choices' motive is a familiar one in all sorts of ancient tales and legends. It can be argued that it survives in modern jokes which invariably have three stages, the third being the punch line.
eg: "So the first guy says - No way am I putting that on my head. And the second guy says - No way am I putting that on my head. And then the third guy says - ah so that's where my hat went."

In the Roman Coluseum, the three door choice was just like a bit of TV-quizshow-showbiz. It wasn't always used, but was a 'feature' event. It would be announced that behind door number one was a lion. Behind door two was a six foot Ethiopian with a big sword. And behind door three was a pretty girl and a pot of gold. This supposedly gave the Gladiator/political prisoner/Christian-martyr a one-in-three chance of avoiding certain death and being happily rewarded with freedom, sex and money.

Of course the game was fixed. Just like three card Monty or the old shell game where you guess under which a pea is hiding. There is nothing under any of the shells, the dealer has palmed the pea.

Similarly, there never was a third option behind door three. All three doors had a lion or an Ethiopian, depending on which they had a surplus of on any given day. Pretty girls and gold were not to be squandered.

None of which explains why most traffic lights are red when you are in a hurry.

~jwf~

'None of which explains why most traffic lights are red when you are in a hurry.'

Murphy's Law. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy was an optimist.

A good contingency plan assumes the worst.

Eh. I didn't get around to the template.
I'll have to look at what is actually being done, to see if something new has been added.
I did call up the one from January out of my Documents.
It's sitting in my tray right now.

In Spain they appear to have permanently amber lights suspended over the road to warn of pedestrian crossings. At least I think that's what they did. But sometimes there was no crossing and it may have been a warning of a speed limit change.

Whatever they were, I went through a lot of them last week.

Waz

Senor, may I pleeze see yer driver's licenze, inshurence card, and passeporte, pleeze?
Cudd you pleeze tells me, where's the fire is?

Okay, I am finally working on a CAC Continuum.

Any suggestions on what I can slop into it?

There appears to be a new contribution being offered at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F84877?thread=414279 referencing an entry at A2578881 which I have not read and leave to your discretion along with the burdensome responsibility of replying to the new contributor. ~jwf~

There is A80326 in the AWW that looks good to be CACC'd. It takes some determination to get all the way through, but it's interesting.

By the way, what happened to the un-official template anyway? Otherwise random bits of text will link random bits of ether (u-space of TR, AGG/GAG, and anybody else I can think of to annoy) the very next time I compile an issue.

Don't everybody throw code at me at once. I need a chance to dodge.

I am using the issue I am trying to compose to come up with
the template.
I can't think abstractly without something to play with.

I will look at those two items.
Thanks, guys.

Okay, I'll take them.
That Squiffy thing is going to have to be formatted, though.
Off to the salt mines...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A2587944

Okay. Here's the ken version.

Would someone please go through it and alert me to the more obscene bits so I edit them out?

About a third of the way down is:
'For God's sake, will someone tell that damn rug to fold...'
Someone might take offense at 'damn'.

About two thirds of the way down is:
'All she wants to do is lick farmyard animals' genitals...'
Obvious bestiality reference. Unlikely a little kiddie would make it that far but...

I hate censoring, but those will get us in trouble.

I seem to remember some reference to faggots, too.

I'll dive back in later today.

Yeah, I know what you guys have been talking about in the UG yahoo thread.

No, the word "damn" is not a problem.

This entry hasn't been yikes, yet, I know, but it was probably below the radar.

If I'm going to connect it to the Post, I think a bit of discretion is involved in order to get the rest of the silliness a chance.

Okay?