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

My god. Just when I thought it was safe to come back to hootoo, I run into 2legs trying to explain things!

It wasn't my fault! they made me do it! I'll try not do it again

hybridization sounds like a brilliant plan, 2Legs .

My good friend Igor has been looking for work. Would you consider hiring him for this project?

badger panda hybrids.... I don't think it'd work... I mean.. the naming woudln't work for a start... a panger a badanana err... a badalarma err, badanda err. badda pandger nah... can't be done... a chinbadgerapanda a panbadgachilla ahh... now that has some potential hmmm.... - I've a plan so cunning... when I'm at the hospital thurs and Fri.... Thurs I can maybe get my hands on some radioactive stuff... adn fri, I've potentially got access to tons of drugs and stuff, plus on both days, access to the nursing stuff, needles and suchlike... that oughta be enough... to get started

I have total in you, my boy!

Sorry, that should have been total *faith*.

well... what could possibly go wrong anyhow... I'm fully expecting to come out of the PET scanner, turned into a fully blown superhero or superman this time... surely that has to happen one time they poke radiation into me

But the whole superhero trip only happens in comic books....

I distinctly remember seeing the real Clark Kent demonstrating his 1960s level Westinghouse synthetic diamond cruncher on television.




John Jones, the original of the DC comics "John Jonz, Martian Manhunter" was one of my childhood neighbors.

His primary occupation was forest service fire marshall, but in his spare time he also worked as a bounty hunter, hence his 'weakness' in the DC treatment, fire.

There's a monument to him in Holy Jim Canyon, Orange County, CA.

This is all getting very surreal.

"This is all getting very surreal"

welcome to my universe today's actually been quite saine, relatively speaking. although..... the fridge is looking surreal..... very odd... with fruit and veg adn salad and healthy stuff in it... and me... drinking cups of green tea, and jasmine tea, and eating, like actual fruit, and salads and stuff Mind, Sir was here earlier in the day, so there was some more.... useual.... surreal ness happening and we did meet his cousin in the street, who he's not seen in decades..... Mind... I am about to disapear into a haze of scents experienced as colours, which is no mean trick for a blind person I apour normality in all its guises its soooooooooo boring still tempted to take a can of Guinness with me... into my bath but I'd probalby spill it guess I oughta take my chainmail, slave anklet with bells, and new gorgeous jade pendant/necklace off, if I'm goign to bath... this could take some time with my finger's current neurophaic nature

"John Jones, the original of the DC comics "John Jonz, Martian Manhunter" was one of my childhood neighbors." [ITIWBS]

In his memoirs, Samuel Clemens identified the boy whom he based Huckleberry Finn on. But the boy was not Huckleberry Finn. Sorry. People sometimes sue an author for using them for fictional characters, hence the caveat on the back of many title pages, to the effect that the characters are not to be confused with anyone, living or dead. I doubt that many of these disgruntled people win their cases.

Sam Clemens original for Huckleberry Finn was actually named Blekinsop, a descendant of the original Blekinsop who came over with the first ship to the Jamestown colony.

His father had a notoriety as the town drunk, constantly 'drunk as a lord', as they might have said in the British isles at the time.

Ahem. All that Mark Twain talk made me curious. i'm still trying to chase this down, but I believe Wikipedia has it right, for once, and the boy's name was Tom Blankenship. He lived in Hannibal, MO, near Sam Clemens. The other kids envied him because he didn't go to school and could do as he liked.

Of course, the kid didn't go to school because his family couldn't afford to send him.

You can read the extended quote from Twain's Autobiography here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Finn

I haven't traced the original source yet, because Gutenberg only has the excerpts so far.

I enjoyed the Clemens autobiography. Frankly, I enjoy just about anything written by or about him. he turned literature on its ear by making the American experience seem well worth reading about .

He did. What I like about Twain is that, although he's a great anecdotalist, he lacks imagination. Most of what he wrote really happened, in some form or another. He just rearranged the 'facts' to fit the narrative, like any good storyteller. So his stories are a record of the times.

Here are some genealogical speculations on the Blankenships, with a census record showing the family in 1850:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/BLANKENSHIP/2001-02/0982344452