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

I had a trip that cost me my first name here so I had to change it. I have two logons now (I ignore the earlier one though now.

I am the muse of all transdimensional beings. Is there anything that I can help you with?

I dont know where you live but here in North America, we are engaged in the enormous game of whose going to be our leader. I takes nearly a whole year and it seems unlimited amounts of money and we get the same person whoever wins. (it's really the money that wins)

Observing this behavior pattern can be very amusing since it repeats itself every four years. Self deluding and banal this process fails to bring out the best in people (it never has since the founding of America). As a transdimensional historian, I find the many concepts that this country (USA) holds to be fantastic, unbelievable, and pitiable.

Freedom, sure, but it is not real freedom. They dont want real freedom, just enough to do what they want, when they want, and to whomever they want, and for those that disagree... (not freedom).
Democracy? yes as long as the monied "elite" gets the final say so. Even the founding fathers really didn't believe in true democracy, they just wanted to throw out the old style British aristocracy and install themselves as the rightful heirs to the controls.

Each quadennium this whole process amuses me. Maybe eventually it will finally end but for now it is the play...

GReetings from the transdimensional ether

Hi Dim (may I call you Dim for short?)!
Thank you for popping in. I still use my first h2g2 account too but seems that this entity here is getting a life of her own.
This cycle you have there is weird and scary. I wouldn't dare to think that things may get any worse but every now and then they get. And nothing is in the safe distance from US.
You mentioned democracy - I've always thought that Mericans use democracy as a very powerful weapon. You *must* be very free, very equal. Then again, what do I know, I've never been to Merica.

Thanks to Hootoo I have friends all over the world. From China To England, Australia, and even in the USA.

Yes please call me whatever you like, if I dont like it I'll let you know right away.

Where are you from?

NO I dont think of our election cycle as wierd or scary, it is not much different from many other country's. It is less violent than others, there's that to say about it. (At least at home)

It is uniquely American though, a product of American marketing, our multi confusing political history and the willing participation of masses of self deluded people doing what they think is right. Sounds like it could be from anywhere.

My first friend from China is now coming to American for his post graduate work, in Microbiology. Most of my friends dont make such big moves though. I'll be here to make conversation on a daily basis. I am living in Oregon USA, a beautiful state even if there is much unemployment and drug use here.

Thank you for making my day brighter.

I live in Eastern Europa, GMT+2. Not a bad place for living either, though completely different from US.
Hootoo is . I have actually been here for quite some time by now and I'd say I have more friends here than IRL. I've even met some of them IRL (which makes them RL friends also, doesn't it? that's confusing).

You are my first acquaintance from that region. Nice to meet you.

I suspect that Americans (In general) tend to think that the US of A is the center of life on this planet, it is not! We are just the latest bully to push everyone else around.

Even though European history is not my specialty. I did study European intellectual history from the 19th century which is my specialty. Which consisted of mostly German and English philosophers.

Well I hope to hear some of your local history if you care to share with me. I've got to go now bye.

Our local history is pretty much the history of USSR. And then some more years, now in the EU.

You seem to write in English very well, that must mean you are highly educated. Or spent time in the "west". (That may account for the connections to the BBC/HooToo.) Possibly a diplomatic connection(?)

Please, tell me a little more about yourself I'm curious, what is it that inspires someone from you area to make this hootoo connection? Is it Douglas Adams?

h2g2 has polished my English mostly. If I look back at the first postings I made here I can clearly see how I've improved. I haven't spent much time in the West and I am not really much educated either, so you can as well put all the blame on h2g2.
I found h2g2 because of Douglas Adams and my ex-husband who was a great fan of him. I read the HHGTTG and signed up here years ago. I've made a lot of great friends here. I guess h2g2 is the best thing that has happened to me in ages.
Other good things that have happened to me are my kids (2 of them) but they are older than h2g2. That makes me not a teenager anymore, I'm afraid.
What else? I am not good at guessing, so if you'd like something else to know, you should just ask.
And what about you? Who are you?

Well I'm glad you asked.

I grew up in the sixties reading all sorts of science fiction. Spent nearly thirty years working in the aerospace field on such projects as the space shuttle and the GPS. Watched with bated breathe the moon landings and the Challenger disaster broke my heart.

On a more personal note I have three teenagers that are now in high school. I have recently gone back to school myself for a degree in history.

My son is now a reader of Douglas Adams and he introduced me to the website. Being an anglophile I jumped at the opportunity to converse with so many brits, and now with people all over the world through the BBC.

I consider my internationalism unique amongst my coiterie, most have not traveled as extensively as I have, and they just dont have the international experience I have. My family and I have traveled the world (although we seem to have missed South America). We can claim visitng such places as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia several tours of Europe, and trips to the South Pacific, in addition to literally covering all of North America (Canada, Mexico, and the US.) We have met or known missionairies to such places as Taiwan, and Latvia.

I like to place pins in the map for everyone I chat with on H2G2 to keep them all recorded. Obviously I have many in the British Isles. My curiousity about people leads me to ask so many questions from those I encounter please feel free to keep anything that is too pesonal out of this venue.

What issues are important to you? What fustrates or angers you? Do you have any soap boxes you stand on to tell others how crazy or wrong people can be? Most of these things are good to write about on H2G2 write journal articles or even guide entries.

You have an interesting life as it seems to me. I haven't got out of Europa so far.
As about pins in the map - you can as well add one on Estonia now.

I am not sure what is important to me. I guess most of the time I am too occupied with myself. Tonight shooting stars were important. Yesterday it was w*rk and procrastination. Bob knows what it might be tomorrow.
I am not easily frustrated. I guess the most annoying thing is intolerance. Maybe I am too indifferent but I really don't think people should have that much opinions.
I've written or participating in writing few guide entries but in general I am too lazy for that. And I use my journal for letting the out most often.
Sometimes I am very sad and depressed, then I use my journal the most. Right now it's not the time of the year for that. I think it's mostly about SAD (seasonal affected disorder) and living where I do.

Well the Balkans, that is interesting. I recently met a missionairy to Latvia, he lives in Riga. He starts churches there. I dont know if you can get any radio broadcasts from Riga I might be able to give you the frequencies later. Do you live near Tallinn?

Where I live in Oregon, our latitude is 45 degrees north and during the summer we have daylight until around 10:30pm, but we only rarely have the "Aurora borealis", I imagine that your summer daylight stays much later. I keep track of the Aurora activity on the NOAA satellite internet pages.

Lately I have been following the Mars missions and the Saturn mission via the Internet also. There are two Mars explorers and an orbital mapping mission that give pictures on the NASA website. When I was younger I dreamed of flying into outerspace. With the many years that have passed, that possibility has gone away, I'm in no physical condition to do that now. I can still dream about it though.

Do you have the capacity for streaming video on your computer? I've been considering the video email possibilities that my ISP offers. So far I've not any friends that have that capacity so I probably wont get it right away.

Have a good day I'll talk later.

Nope, Riga is too far away. I live 100 km from Tallinn.
Nope, my poor computer has no capacity whatsoever. It works on its top limits already and I desperately need a new one. I can't even use Skype.

I would like to introduce to you one of my favorite teachers. He broadcasts on shortwave radio Moscow 17765khz at night and 9940khz during the daylight hours. His name is Dr. Gene Scott the most brilliant man I know. He speaks and writes 14 languages that I know of and mostly preaches about God's word, but also talks about many of the mysteries of the ancient world.

He commands respect because of his decades of mission work in some of the most primitive places around the world yet manages to have led whole denominations here in America. A graduate of Stanford university with a Phd in Philosophy of Education in 1955 which means he is nearly 80.

There is no more important part of me than what I know of God and Dr. Scott is my teacher.

I remember when I was working in Saudi Arabia, I would sometimes listen to radio Moscow because it was so close to the voice of America on the dial. Their broadcasts into the middle East were spoken in English so well that until they said something like imperialist I might not even know. American just never use that word.

Let me know if you can hear this broadcast if you would as a favor for me.

Thanks

Tom Kent

Nope, my radio doesn't have those frequencies at all. I am not much a radio listener as I used to w*rk for one. I guess I got fed up.
So I only have a little radio mostly used as an alarm.
I have to admit though that your words about your mentor or teacher made me curious. I am not much religious person myself, mainstream liberal lutherian or something like this.

Is there an Estonian Olympics team this summer in Greece?

Here in America we will have 1200 hours of television coverage during the games. That seems impossible given there is less than that during the whole Olympics. Well the company that is covering the games has 4 different channels each with many hours of coverage, plus there are analysis and replays. (They even own a Spanish Language channel) I still seems like a misprint though. I certainly will not be following it that closely.

There is an American swimmer who thinks he can break Mark Spitz' record seven Gold medals, there are other individual events that interest me like the track and field but so many that do not. Our newspaper says the American Olympic team is expected to win 100 medals in all (they hope).

fini

There is our team. We hope to win couple medals too, I guess. Like in dekathlon - we got gold in Sidney.
And the TV coverage is awful. I wish there was something else too on TV as I am not much fan of the TV-sports.

In a different sense our televsision is awful also. Over the last few years the amount of advertising is so high that there is little gaps where the story line is told. Frequently the ads are more humorous that the story lines.

It used to be that each half hour included 26 minutes of story and 4 minutes of commercials, now it is 22 minutes per half hour and many of the commercials are insulting of our intelligence. There is a tendency for the advertising companies to repeat commericals excessively just to put there name into our minds.

Of course we do have some commercial free channels but they cost extra. Some documentary channels that have endless repeats also.
All in all I just dont watch as much as I used to watch.

American culture is portrayed in all of its glamour but it has its down side also. Having traveled extensively though I would still rather have it the way it is than live anywhere else in the world.

We have only 3 local (i.e. Estonian) TV programs. Then again, most of us can see around 20 programs with cable or even more with sattelite receiver. I am lucky to have only 2 programs on my TV. Unfortunately one of them is national TV which broadcasts olympics. Then again, we don't have any commercials on national TV.

I just saw the olympic opening ceremonies and it was great. Your Estonian team has 44 members! From a small country like Estonis thay's wonderful. Do you know any of them?

Is there a lot of competition amongst the Balkan states in athletics and other things or is it most co-operative? During the Soviet period I imagine that the focus was on Moscow not the other Balkans.

I will keep my eyes open for those Estonians when I watch the Olympics

Baltics, I guess, not Balkans.
As about sports we are usually good on different fields.
And no, I don't think I know anybody from our team. One of them did quite fine today already, in rowing.