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

How dare you take my name?!

I'm kidding, of course. Nice to bump into you - though perhaps a bit surprising... I chose the 'pennywhistle' bit after carefully checking there wasn't anyone else of this name to avoid any confusion. Is your name really Penny? Mine isn't, I just liked the sound of it. Most people around call me 'Lady P' now anyway.

So, just wanted to say hi...

My warmest regards,

Yael (aka Lady Pennywhistle)

Hi there!

No, my real name's not Penny. But I do a lot of writing, and I became obsessed with things like ocarinas and pan pipes not too long ago. I was trying to come up with the name for a villain, and "Penny" came to mind. "Whistle" just kind of followed as a natural last name at the time, and the rest is, well, history.

Anyway, nice to meet you as well, Lady P. I tend to vanish for months at a time, FYI, so I might not be as responsive as others. But I'll be sure to keep an eye out for you.

Penny as a good name for a villain? Really? Never struck me as one actually...
I'm getting a bit obsessed with pennywhistles now myself. I just find that there's something very humble and friendly about them (which is why it seemed so weird as a villain's name).

Would you awfully mind if I add you to my friends list?

I wouldn't mind at all. Go right ahead.

Done and done!

Might make people wonder... which reminds me, if you want to see which people have you on their friends list, you can do it by going to edit and changing the bit at the end of your PS from:


to:




(Just in case you didn't know that already - I haven't for a long while)

Yeah, I'm still relatively new to the whole GuideML experience. I think I'll give that code block a try.

I see you have - nice!

The GuideML Clinic is a good place to look at, especially if you're going to be writing guide entries, but if you just want to play around with your PS I think the best thing to do is to look at other people's - you just find one you like and then replace the 'U' in the address line with 'testuserpage' to see how it's built.

So for example, mine would be http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/testuserpage250656.

And when you start finding your way around here you can start putting people on _your_ friends list, which automatically subscribes you to their journals, where you'll meet more people, and so on and so forth. Warning - h2g2 is highly addictive!

Maybe it will be. However, this is about my fourth attempt to get "serious" with this site. Maybe I'm immune.

Sorry for taking so long, I've been pretty busy and I'm trudging through a scary amount of backlog at the moment.
Anyway, I remember the time when I just joined (just a bit over a year ago actually) and was fairly inactive. Then I started joining things - first the Geographical Entry Society, but it's a pretty quiet place, then the Pythonists, where after we had a fruit war that ended with somebody being swallowed by a desk and having to riverdance his way out, that somebody suggested I join Masters of the Multiverse (MotMV), which I did, which opened up whole new horizons of insanity.
And somewhere in the middle of that I discovered the nighthoover thread and lost whatever little sanity I had left...

It's a huge place and there's lots to find. Just lurk around, you never know what you'll find!

Oh, it is huge. At the moment, I've encountered some business called CLI that seems pretty interesting (though it doesn't seem like something that one can "join"), a little conversation pit called The Hootoo Atelier, and some guild of superheroes called CHOPPERS. Definitely interesting.

Interesting you being involved with Crater Labs and CHOPPERS at the same time... the guys at Crater Labs are also in STUMPED, which is some sort of an evil organization that had been fighting CHOPPERS a while ago. They fought us (ie the MotMV) too once, but it got pretty annoying because they kept insisting we use continuity, which we didn't. Much more fun without it, if done correctly anyway.

Eh? CLI didn't strike me as a fairly evil place....

Methinks that I should clear some things up, Lady Pennywhistle.

CLI has never been in STUMPED, nor has CLI been in CHOPPERS. CLI is an independant corporation that has sold our fascinating technology to both of these organizations whenever the best in cutting-edge technology is required.

As it turns out, I do happen to have a second character named Minos Krylma who is a fairly major STUMPED player. However, my primary character of Afgncaap5 (the creator of CLI) isn't in STUMPED at all. In fact, he's a founding member of CHOPPERS (not that he's attended a CHOPPERS meeting for ages).

Come to think of it, CLI is probably the one Continuity-friendly organization that hasn't gotten into a direct scuffle with MotMV yet. Maybe it's time for a friendly fight!

Sorry for interrupting. I just love h2g2 history.

:-?Woops. Sorry for getting this wrong - it's just that I remembered you being around at the battle (wasn't there a satellite involved or something?)... and well, you know how I get with facts.

I'm sure nobody at MotMV would mind if you start a battle, since the invadion to CHOPPERS had ended long before it had officially ended, but just don't expect continuity because we don't like it and don't use it... other than that, bring it on!

...and the :-? at the beginning should have been a

No problem. Most people don't really get what CLI is about (just check our surprisingly low sales for this quarter alone!)

But that satelite....as both employees of CLI (myself and Garius Lupus) are adventurers who generally think that good is better than evil, we like to stay a major player in the world. Hence, we have espionage satelites that are constantly watching any areas that we believe may be of interest to us. And any war that STUMPED is involved in is a war that we're interested in as STUMPED is one of our greatest enemies/customers.

I remember when CLI wasn't really continuitous...it was okay, but it led to more problems than fun. You get people who become upset when you destroy their shield of indestructability with a well placed blow from the Destroy-O-Mallet that you pull out of thin air, you get people who become upset when one of their "characters" gets killed by one of your attacks, you get people who become upset because you won't let them hit you, etc.

Oh, and I'm not saying that playing without continuity isn't fun when done right: I'm just saying that you've gotta expect the whiners when you don't go by continuity.

I guess you could liken playing without continuity to Calvinball. Calvinball's a lot of fun, but people won't get it if they're expecting something more like football or cricket.

(Oh, and incidentally, if you ever need some form of technology, CLI is always willing to sell it at a reasonable price. You need it, we got it. Granted, you might not need us when you don't go by continuity, but it never hurts to have a few story-centered weapons lying around that no one can protest. So if you ever need radical, new mind-numbing technologies, or you just wanna say hi, or you want to send a 40-Ton Snowball to someone, just head on over to A258167 where we'll leave the light on for ya.)

CLI-Where Explosions Build Character

Well, we use incontinuity mainly to make things crazy... if you recall the battle with STUMPED, at one point I remember turning their robot into custard without even knowing how I did it. He morphed right back, of course, but it was still funny.

Not to speak of my amazing Confusion Dance(TM)!

Yeah, I vaguely recall that. Funny, if I may say so.

I think that the problem that some people have with things like that is when a character is designed to follow a set story rather than a fluid story. In effect, continuity can thusly create ni-invincible characters, providing that the characters at least have an accessible Achille's Heel.

You know...I think that there should be a contract between continuitous and discontinuitous organizations. I mean, I can definitely understand why people should be able to just have an atom bomb drop from the sky in some situations, but it'd be a bit unfair to always have that as an option (especially not in places such as Lil's Atelier or The Magic Forrest).

Something like..."When characters are in these locales, Continuity shall not exist. When characters are in those locales, Continuity shall exist." I think that could be a reasonable method for action and reaction between groups of differing ideals like this. Whattaya think?

*Doesn't really have a clue as to how to react to any of this*