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

All right, so I'm a newbie. But I'm a somewhat chatty newbie. And I can't find anyone to chat with. Oh, yes, thank you: I got the welcome blurb and I really did read it carefully and press all the buttons at the right places (I think) but I still can't seem to find any postings that aren't dated immeasurably long times ago by people who have probably completely grown out of the whole thing and gone on to better things on Myspace.com or Bognor Regis.

Not that I mind chatting to myself too much. After all, I always seem to natter on about things which I consider fascinating and incredibly interesting so I never get that tell-tale little dash of boredom that sometimes absolutely dashes ones conversations with other people. I never talk above myself either so I don't have to pretend I know about the things other people talk so fluently about that make one feel a prat for not understanding. Nor do I give a toss about my own syntax or ever get confused by my own convoluted sentence construction. I am also completely au fait with my own vocabulary and never have to make furtive dashes to The Oxford or Ask Jeeves in between postings because I may have completely misunderstood myself.

However, that sad little analogy in the Howto blurb about not getting out there and jumping in at the deep end but staying in one's own room - which does not possess a deep end but does rather shamefully have a dusty one - keeps resounding in my head. I really am not one of those people whom you will always find in the kitchen at parties. Well, not very often, anyway. So I certainly don't want to be one of those people who always stays in their own room at on-line time. Even though, now I come to think about it, the fact that my computer actually is in my own room rather necessitates the fact.

I think, actually, I may have made a complete dogs dinner of this and written a journal entry and not a conversation? Although, considering that this is not so much a solilloquy but a conversation with myself perhaps it will pass? I really do want to come out to play so won't someone join in - if only to tell me how to spell-check an entry or explain exactly where it was I went wrong with the word "solilloquy"? That's one of the pitfalls of conversing with myself - neither parties in the conversation knows how to spell.

*wandering around, hopes it's not minded*

Well, for one, there's no spell check, and I've no idea right now (may after getting some sleep--right this second the clock behind me is striking 1, and it's not afternoon...) how to spell soliloquey...

No spell check? I suppose that's some sort of socialist concept initiated to bring put us all on the same footing? Only trouble is I'm a journo and we're not allowed to know how to spell. Keeps us from getting too big for our boots. Also allows elderly and retired schoolteachers to write in from places like Little Grampus in The Wold deploring modern education/journalism/standards/work ethics. So anyone who was on the same footing as I would find themselves reduced to the lowest common denominator which is not a good place to be and is rather damp and uncomfortable.

Your spelling's not bad--then again, I've several friends on here who are dyslexic, one very much so! Lots of folks for whom English is a second or third tongue, too. and those whose keyboards are wonky--I'm having to cut & paste every single 'a'

Well, my little girl just got home, & I need to get her to bed.

Hmm. I expect its rather silly to worry about one's spelling - but I was brought up in convent schools (16 of them, actually) where being a bad speller was right up there with the seven deadly sins. Everytime I dither about i being before e but-only-sometimes I still hear legions of ancient nuns with whiskery chins direly phrophesising that I'll Come to a Bad End.

Ah--sorta like how I still don't like to write in books at all, and if I do, it's in pencil, lightly. Made studying while in uni interesting sometimes Only one book did I actually use a highlighter in. Shucked the don't-eat-while-reading and wash-hands-before-reading training pretty easily, though.

I know exactly what you mean. A couple of years ago one of my lecturers came across a book I'd left lying somewhere and enquired whose it was "Obviously," he said, to my horror "this book belongs to someone who doesn't make any use of it. It has no notations in it at all." And there I'd been so proud of my lack of slovenliness. So now I highlight and notate along with the best of them...and not only is it liberating but I realise how much more handy it is than labouroriously transposing my light-bulb moments into different computer files that I can never access again without lots of time on my hands as I never know where the hell I've written them or what strange filename I've christianed them with.
p.s. I've just realised how HUGE that last sentance was.That same lecturer would be foaming at the mouth.

*nods*

(Sorry--doing too many things at once, but didn't want to let this thread disappear)

Not to worry - I gave a class yesterday on non-verbal communication and my students came up with all sorts of assorted things that a nod could signal, (though we never got round to written nods)so your little nod was actually value packed with added meaning.