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

Here's a present: -7+(9x5)+0+4-0=42

Thank You,for the gift. By the way, what's the thing with "42". Please excuse the ignorance. As to the meaning of life. Hmmmm. Maybe you have some thoughts.

Here's a gift for ya lass. rose> There would bbe mre but I'm running out of time on this store intrernet thingy

Wow. You haven't read the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" trilogy? Have you read any of the four books? Wow. You really should read them. Anyway, somewhere in there you learn that the meaning of life is 42. It's the question that's complicated. At least that's what I think it was. 42 definitely was the answer though and I think we also discovered that rats run the world or was it the dolphins? Elvis is at The Resaurant at the End of the Universe and bistro math makes the Heart of Gold run. You really must read them. Then read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Doug Adams knew all the secrets of life and he is funny as all hell. I am still pretty pissed at him for dying.

And I almost forgot:
Every heart to love will come but like a refugee.

I found this on http://www.hhgproject.org. I can't remember every word in the five books of the Trilogy (Unlike Monty Pyton fans, HHGG fans have to deal with the fact that DNA changed the story with every version, which he openly admitted), but it looks like what DNA wrote in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So, you wanted to know what the deal is with 42, here it is:

"Deep Thought

Quite simply, the second greatest computer ever created.

Activated by programmers Lunkwill and Fook, Deep Thought's purpose was to produce an answer. No ordinary answer, mind you, but the most important answer ever... the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

The philosophers Majikthise and Vroomfrondel attempted to intervene in the calculations at this point, but Deep Thought's circuits were committed to finding this answer, which took seven and a half million years to complete.

In time, Deep Thought imparted the answer to descendants of the original programmers, Loonquawl and Phouchg. The answer, of course, was 42. Baffled by this outcome, the programmers were informed that the question was too vague and that not even Deep Thought could extrapolate it. Deep Thought would, however, design the computer that could, and that computer was so vast that organic life became part of it's matrix. The new supercomputer was known as the planet Earth.

Sadly, though, the planet-computer was demolished by the Vogons a mere five minutes before it's calculations were complete. The mice were utterly perturbed, but that's another story for another entry."

Thank You for the explanation behind the "42" thing. I never new it was so deep. I'm not much on recreational reading. Unless the subject is of interest to me. I have to admitt this subject seems interesting enough to look into. You seem to be well read.

I feel guilty if I read fiction. I think it's left over from growing up with my mom yanking books out of my hands and telling me I was a lazy lump for wasting my time reading. Parents, what can you do? Now I really only read non-fiction with one lovely loophole: the text of the english lit class. The thing is crammed with about 1300 pages of "Death of a Salesman" and "Bartleby the Scribner" and gobs of junk and since it's a text book, it's not wasting time! Wooo Hooo! I forget why I picked up H2G2. If I remember correctly it was a guy on the rugby team in college who told me about them. Or maybe he told me about some books and I remembered wrong and ended up with H2G2 instead. I think all the fiction I've read after high school was to try to figure out one guy or another. I think because that way it was research and therefore not a waste of time. God, my life is full of self imposed shackles. I'm not as bad as I hear Martha Stewart was, but I'm getting closer.

How's Memphis? August in Memphis. Is it as hot as Mathew Broderick said in Biloxi Blues? Is the air like soup? Do they have a lot of ghosts there? Thanks for the flowers.

Well Memphis is HOT. I don't know if it is as hot as Matthew Brodrick but it's hot. Not as hot as previous summers. As far as ghosts I think there are a few. Are you into the afterlife? So am I. Both my Parents are there along with a few of my pets. I've had a chance or two to be there myself but l digress. You'er welcome for the s

Verrrrrry much into the afterlife. Stupid lumps in my lymph nodes weren't malignant so I can't go there myself (unless I get lucky and a bus hits me). They say your pets greet you when you get there and your human friends and family have to wait until they're done. I've had too many personal experiances that can't be explained any other way not to KNOW there's a place after this life and I'm pretty sure it's all rainbows and lollipops and bottomless cups of Starbuck's.

Whoop! 4:55! Almost quiting time! Hasty banana.

Sorry about your folks. I've lost of pets, but I've still got both parents (knock wood). I can't imagine losing one, much less the both of them. How did you come close to cashing in your chips? Was it the same thing a bunch of times, or a bunch of things one time? I don't think I've ever come close (unless you count when I was nine and got super sick). I hear there's another hurricane reving up somewhere. The news goes all beserk when it so much as hails within three hundred miles of here.

As to the ? of cashing in my chips. I had a nasty disagreement witha fellow in posession of a shotgun. I lost a kidney and several feet of stuff. The incounter was not to say a seedy sort of the for me anyway just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet the outcome was of great consequince to me. The Doctors said ir was a miracle I survived the ordeal. It inspired me to later on become a surgical tech. So some good came of it.

Yikes. That's awful. Wooo. Boy. That sounds like... man. I can't even conceive of what that would do to your head. It would be understandable if you ended up a little off balance after something like that. Actually, I wouldn't think it would be out of line to end up a lot off balance. I've got some family that have had similar experiances, some survived, some didn't. Do you talk about it much? Or is it something you'd just rather not think of?

Actually, it use to bother me kinda. Now I don't think about it much. So I'm ok with it. I'm still able to participate in everythnig I've always have. I still have a good build. Maybe a lot more sore at the end of the day. That would have happened anyway as I've gotten older. So I can't complain.

PS I'm getting DSL internet at my house this weekend.

I spent the whole weekend reloading windows. I got Verizon DSL and I can't say enough about how much it s*cks. It's down every freaking day for hours at a time and that's after three guys from Verizon came out to get it going in the first place. The only reason I have it right now is because I called to cancel it and the nice lady on the phone said I could have two months free if I gave them another chance. I did. They still s*ck.

The Verizon isn't the reason I had to reload windows. That was my fault. I have a bad habit of deleting as many files as I can, as often as I can. I keep my computers complusively clean. You're going from rent-a-computer to DSL? Aren't you skipping a step? You're missing a kidney AND some of your guts (literally)? I think it's funny that you say you have a good build the way other people say they have brown eyes. Very matter-of-fact.

Oh, and of course you'd be more sore at the end of a day then all us two-kidneyed-intact-intestine types. It's funny, when I was working in a foster care agency I used to tell the girls that, although they had a perfect right to every feeling that resulted from the abuse they'd received, they still had to follow the rules. "If you're pulled over for speeding you can't say, 'But officer, I was molested by my dad.'" I may think you should be allowed to go through the express checkout with more than ten items and drive in the carpool lane with less than three people or react to something in a way I'd not expect, but it's not something that would be apparent to the casual observer.

Sorry to hear about your Window's problems. I hope they are all better now. As for me I had too wait until today at 5:30 CDT to get my stuff to hook it up. I did it myself so far so good. Knock on wood. It is nice to know that you would give me such liberties because of my injuries. I appreciate your latitude. Unfortunatly the world doesn't work like that. That tells me that you have a nice way about you. I always thought you were nice even after you thrashed me that time. (just teasing) So I'll be available more often from now on. I hope we can become good E'friends The Kid

No, problems are still here. Stupid DSL won't get along with the cable, so I can only have one on at a time. I'm glad your life seems to be falling into place.