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

Ding Dong

And just how, pray tell, can thee to thine on self be true, when it's getting damned hard to tell in here just who thine own self happenth to be?

Then again, we all know Will Shakespeare was really Francis Bacon, so there's good reason to drag him into this discussion.

I see we have an oxfordian in the forum (as opposed to a stratfordian(as opposed to a stratocaster)). Personally I've never really been convinced that anyone other than William Shakespeare wrote the works of William Shakespeare. I know there's a guide entry on the subject, and it's quite good... have a look.

ooo- a guide entry in here about me? i mean us? i mean you-
well, neato
-saffire

out of curiosity, could we investigate whether any of us has any UNIQUE characteristics? I mean, I've always prided myself on being an individual (given the nature of this forum, I'm sure you all have, as well). Here go my quirks, and indiviual characteristics: I write songs, I habitually order pizza with pepperoni and jalepeños, my shoe size is somewhere between 9 1/2 and 10, I have never died my hair, I own nearly every beatles album on CD (discounting compilations, though I've got many of those. I don't have "yellow submarine" which is mostly symphonic), I think synthesizers are evil, I've spent entire 48 hour periods in my bathrobe, I have never spent time on any continent other than North America, although I live close to the america/mexico border I take french classes and not spanish, umm... I'll think of more later

Hm, well, I suppose I could come up with a few unique characteristics. Let's see....introduced the word "zine" to wide use in the language, lived in a motor home full-time for almost 3 years (including an entire winter in the parking lot of North American Van Lines in Ft. Wayne, IN), very rare last name, have been both an alcoholic and a teetotaler (not at the same time), once bungee-jumped from a hot air balloon, now raising Buff Orpington chickens...

get this--out of the two beatles cds i own, one is yellow submarine...interesting...
-saffire

I feel a movie reference coming on... "Saffire, You... Complete... Me!" Or at least my beatles collection. What's the other? Maybe it's one of the compelations I actually don't have (I think the only one I don't have/ want is the blue double album 'cause I have all of that somewhere else anyway)

aww--i complete you? well that makes sense i suppose, seeing as i might just be you...but anyway, the other one is abbey road...quite a nice cd if i do say so myself
-saffire

Well, I don't own any Beatles CD's (sob). I DO, however, own a large blue book with every HitchHiker novel (and one short story) ever written. I love ocean fishing and scuba diving, and think that Catalina Island is the most beautiful place in the world. I've never had any part of my body peiced for jewelry (I guess that getting a shot at a doctor's office would count as being peirced if you got really literal), and I own a pet ferret named Lenny. Well, a stuffed feret named Lenny. I have never worn high heeled shoes and hope that I never will (I AM male, after all). I think that I'm related to Belgian Royalty on my father's mother's mother's side. Oh, and I think the color muave is an aphrodisiac. Can I be an individual? Can I? Can I?

Talking to yourself isn't a problem, answering yourself back is

That's right

3

The way I heard it, answering yourself was the first sign...arguing with yourself is the second sign...but it's losing the arguments that's a REAL problem.

well, we've been answering ourself back often enough now, does anyone have any really good arguments we can lose to ourself?

There IS such a thing as a 'free lunch'.


Discuss...

'sus

PS How did that Jester get in here?!

Through the front door

3:-þ

Of course there is such a thing as a free lunch. In fact, I have a coupon for one in my pocket right now.

3

Free to you, maybe. Somewhere there is a cost for that lunch being absorbed by someone.

to confuse the issue:

NO FREE LUNCH (economics): The farmer and the rancher had to perform the labor so that the food would be there. The resteraunt, market, etc had to buy the food from them and prepare it for you to consume. Along the lines several people had to perform labor (a factor of production) to creat this lunch for you. In most circumstances they must be paid even if you aren't paying anything, therefor the lunch is free to you, but isn't free because someone else is paying for it. Even if they are not paid, they have expended their energy, used a factor of production, and in that sense the producers have all "paid" for it themselves with labor.

FREE LUNCH: I'm not all that hungry. I'm out in the middle of no where and I find an apple tree that grew on its own with no cultivation. Hanging very near to the ground is a red ripe apple. It takes no effort for me to pick it and eat it. No one has paid a thing.

but in the tree's point of view...its lost a perfectly ripe fruit and is hence less likely to reproduce...
mmm..but it must have been yummy;p
-saffire

There's always the cost to whatever else might have eaten that fruit...you've taken it out of the mouth of some bird or bug...maybe this is the final step in making some endangered species extinct.

And suppose that endangered species, about to die out anyway, was meant to give itself to the belly of a slightly larger animal that was about to eat it, if the endagered species had not died because of no fruit. So this slightly larger animal, starving to death, having neither fruit nor endangered species to eat does one of two things... it dies, or it gets pushed into the city where it can eat fat pidgeons and rumage through the garbage. If it dies, it again has choices: rot, fester and become infected, leading to the death of yet another animal that actually DID eat it but later died of disease; or decay and rot into the earth, fertilizing the ground where the seeds of the original fruit plant DID fall, brinking another tree to life which then grows up to start the whole thing over again; and maybe there are even more choices! If it goes into the city, it could get killed crossing the road, or it could become hungry and desperate enough to attack a kiten belonging to a small child who is then traumatized, needing years of thearpy, therefore the cost of the lunch is embodied in the check (amerian spelling, I know) to the shrink and signed by the parents. Gad that's scary.