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

I went to Sainsbury's yesterday, and while I was attempting to park, I was confronted by a woman who was merrily driving the wrong way (towards me) along a one- way section of teh car park. She was quite obviously in the wrong- the great big, very clear, white arrows told me this quite definitely. Of course, she dealt with this by making various hand gestures and signals to me, including the mouthing of obbsceneties. I pointed out the nice, big, white arrow pointing at her on the ground in front of her car, and this just made her obscenity- distribution that little bit more avid. She seemed shocked when I grinned and showed her my middle finger.

Later that day, I spoke to Jenny. She told me about a cat scrap she'd witnessed in her local Sainsbury's store. Over a turkey. One of the women was knocked unconscious and was taken to hospital. I repeat, over /a turkey/.

Today, I was wallopped in the shin by a woman carrying a huge bag of stuff (very hard, pointy-edged stuff). I immediately apologised, despite the incident being no- one's fault in particular, and you should have seen the look I got...

Merry Christmas everyone, I see the 'peace on Earth and goodwill to all mean (and women, of course)' thing is in full force this year. Oh what it is to be human.

TK[1]

It seems that all the rules are breaking down lately. If you check out the sun, yeah that local star of ours, seems to be breaking down also. There have been coronal mass expulsions sending out millions of tons of material and there are new features on the surface that have not been seen before also.

Our future may only be 8 minutes.

On the other hand maybe it is just the stress of the moment and the people will be returning to their normal grumpy (er happy) selves after the holidays. The sun could just be experiencing a normal variation and everythign else is just the way it is supposed to be. OR NOT!!!!

Have a happy eight minutes

Ah, you posted that more than 8 minutes ago, so I think we're O.k for now

TK[1]

Unless we're all dead and we just think we're alive. Wake up, you're dreaming this.

Can't belive someone fought over a turkey.

ARGH!

I can.

TK[1]

It just means that at any time the sun could explode and we would only have 8 minutes from that time. We wouldn't even know it until it was too late.

So enjoy yourselves

The link to it is http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ check out the sun and see for yourself.

I can think of better reasons to enjoy myself than the minute possibility that the sun might somehow have exploded 8 minutes ago, but thanks anyway

TK[1]

IT's one of the risks of living on this planet. Like Asteroids.

Very very very unlikely of ever happening.

For those who have a good life it's OK but for those who think they are owed something it is disasterous.

We need to live as though it were our last eight minutes

Writing our wills?

I don't know about you, but if this really was my last 8 minutes, I don't think I'd be spending my time productively in this knowledge. I'd be panicing like hell and generally loopy. In fact, I'd probably die of a heart attack.

I'd be trying to complete Medal of Honor.

But only because I don't think even I could make it to Kent in 8 minutes.

TK[1]

Just goes to show you what your made of doesn't it.

We are not that noble to make the medal of honor.

We are not ever really thinking about what we will pass on to our sons and daughters. Most of us will in fact pass on things but which things.

Most of us will just think of ourselves and our poor dreary lives, we are a tawdry and poor excuse for humans.

Let's re-focus on what we are, and can do, and get on with it. Life is too precious to waste

Greetings from the Christmas Nazi

***

Greetings!

The advent of the *christmas season* --that being the start of December to the finish of December-- is the month that the Christmas Nazi (known as ME! ViveAnn ...Leiann) wishes merriment for all but is also severely irritated with those who try to encroach on and bastardize the little territory the Christmas Spirit has.

Christmas is the time to show respect and caring toward all peers (or for the Christians: love to their fellows and to those who are less fortunate). Not only is kindness and respect given to peers but to those who are different and who may also be less fortunate.

Some people like to bring in a cut down tree and then dress it up to make it look pretty. ...Such barbarity, however, toward trees can be distressing if you're an intelligent tree who knows the implications (the dead end) of becoming a chopped down tree or a Christmas Tree.

Some people, to celebrate Christmas, like to roast a dead turkey and then eat it as way to keep themselves full and happy. But for a turkey, Christmas is murder.

Christmas can be interpreted as a time which can be murder, such as the terrible shopping season in which people become fighting bulls who charge each other. But Christmas is really meant to do no harm.

Christmas is the time to either celebrate Jesus Christ's birth into the world because such an entrance by god incarnate was to show that he was concerned enough to manifest as human to be close to humans, or Christmas is the time when caring and respect is shown toward fellows as the way to bring in love to interrupt and dissipate the constant cruelty and grief that is in the world.

The Christmas Spirit is little, and its little space of time can be taken over by something else such as a time to celebrate severed heads. The Christmas season is only for a season; and like the other seasons, I hope that it continues in its merriment and goodwill. People need a time to celebrate compassion and giving; and even though Christmas can seem to be buried by crap commercialism (such as the mechanical Santa distracting us from its true meaning) lets not forget Christmas still has the right points of love, joy, and giving.

Merry Christmas and enjoy the season as best as you want and can!

from ViveAnn

Also...

You are very much alive.

Dead people cannot dream or think.

Because you think and you dream, you are alive and not dead yet.

The 8 minutes hasn't finished yet ...but death is coming.
Death isn't here yet because time is relative to human experience. The 8 minutes is really 80 years (and there are always exceptions).



***the above is answer to the thread***

ViveAnn: Christmas Nazi?

Death gives meaning to our miserable lives. It defines us and limits our depravity. As long as we continue to live we can continue to do all the stupid things we do. It is only in facing our death that we begin to think about the real meanings of things.

The is only One chance.. That is Christ, but not this so called Christmas BS. Yeah we all know He had to be born for all the rest to happpen, but get over the celebration and get down to reality.

It is the ugly Christ, the beaten bruised and dead on the cross Christ.

The one that we rarely even want to look at Christ.

The God's wrath visited Christ, the one that no one really wants to admit to their hearts (because its too painful). That is our one chance.

When that Christ comes into your heart, then you can be happy. It is only then that all the crap that we call our greatest works is put into perspective. Humans think we're so great, well think again, we might as well spit into the ocean as try and compare ourselves to Him.

Christmas Nazi ... yeah

You are quick to shoot me down to then make me bloody on the ground.

You certainly shot me down like a real Nazi in Medal of Honour.

LOL.

Well, I pulled out the title "Christmas Nazi" as a joke of mine.

...I must say that I didn't know that you would reply and criticize me.

I do not know you, and what your preference for humour is.
I am ignorant of you. Please try to forgive me for being ignorant of your sentiments.

So please don't damn the ignorant. I know that bad things happen because of ignorance.
Now, I know better in regards to you.



Moreover, I hope that the quality of your mercy is in sufficient supply.

Well, I am a friendly sort who has been through all the seasons ...that being Christmas season and the time of suffering (comparable to the Passion of Christ, but not whipped to that level). You're invited to better know me or to interpret me better. But if not, then keep doing your thing and survive!

However, in doing your thing and when we do cross paths again, I will be less gracious if you do take another swipe at me.

Hmmm, I am less shocked and I now understand you a little better.

You gave me a fright!

LOL.

...and now I can articulate just a little better.

Well, I can somewhat understand your sentiments ...or I will be bold enough to say I can't understand more beyond what you've already written.

I, too, do not subscribe to the commercial mentality of buying gifts because it is that time of year. I even venture to say that, like you, I don't like the fabrication (the already made and packaged reality) of today's Western societal Christmas season. I agree with you that the Christmas shopping season is BS.

I also furthermore agree with you that if one does not ponder the temporal existence of one's life, then being that person is like a snail who knows life as the time to eat, crap, eat some more, crap some more, and then sometime later die but not before that person can reproduce other grubby humans to live to eat, crap, and continue that cycle.

*I laugh*

But back to what I first said, I am less shocked (as though someone dropped a grenade on my position and I wasn't anticipating that) and I hope to hear more from you.

I hope you didn't take the diatribe pesonnally. I just get so depressed during this season of insanity and you just were in the way so to speak sorry if your wounds take a long time to heal, I give you a special time trip if you can endure the special effects.

The oddities of human behavior dont surprize me at all given my point of view of humanity, and when I fall into the same category, I cant complain about exceptions for me. I am just the same way as all the rest although I hide it well enough most of the time.

You did shock me. LOL. However, I have an optimism in my belief that humanity (though it be grouchy barking and bloody bitchy) is really kind and compassionate at the core of its self. So, I decided to smile back at you instead of grimacing at your diatribe. And, behold, you are smiling back in your own way.



Well, let me tell you a story about how I've been shot at before you came along, which is why I can regroup myself after a verbal puck shot or a paint gun shot to the head.

Years ago was the time I was really first subjected to diatribes and an actual paint gun shot to my head. One time, and this was in the fall of 1999, I was participating in a paint ball game out in the woods of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. I was on the team in which the leader posed as a Red Army colonel who actually did shout out orders in Russian (this classmate, named Josh Birtch, already had the hobby of imitating Red Army or German officers). On this team, I wore the needed face mask and paint ball helmet along with my blue sweater and black corduary pants. I was on the Red Army team, and the other team was German by default even though all of us didn't dress the part (except Josh Birtch) and on our team there was a ninja assassin because he wanted to play that part.

On this day was the time I actually received a shot to the head...

I was entrenched behind a bush, a pile of wood and some rocks. The ninja assassin who was my ally also became entrenched along side me. He then said, "Leiann, lets put our backs together and fire so that they can't flank us and get us from behind ...Oh, and try to provide a really good distraction so that I can take more shots at them." But I wasn't going to do the latter and flash fire the enemy by lifting my sweater top to bring out my Charlies. Instead I fired several rounds at the keen shooters across from us.

I did just that... but the Ninja didn't pick off one guy who advanced on our position. This guy named Darren Lapierre had us at a surrender point. Darren picked off Josh with a fatal hit (in paint ball terms, Josh got a shot to the heart or the head) and Darren asked me to surrender. But I shot Darren instead because I reacted by shooting his trigger finger instead of considering to surrender. To that, Darren said, "Why you little bitch!" and he then shot me, with his sore but still servicable trigger hand, right in the middle of my forehead. To that I first fell to the ground, I then gathered myself up, and I finally dismissed myself from the paint ball game.

Off on the sidelines, or the homefree spot, those already out saw me take off my face mask and helmet, and they then saw the massive welt across my forehead as the result of the paint ball shot to my head.
...I must say that I went out with style.

To those people and to the rest once the game was over, I explained what had happened. Darren wasn't mad at me anymore and we laughed at what had happened. Darren said that I took a good shot at his trigger finger which left him "smarting" but he still managed to take a shot at my head because he was sufficiently motivated. I further said to that, that I heard his offer of surrender but my reaction was to shoot his trigger finger. To what happened I said, I must be a warrior ...and I laughed.

Now, I do prattle on but the moral of this story is that I've had shots taken at me before your diatribe. LOL. Yet also I do react with barbarity, but then I regroup myself to be more civil. So I hope that you and I will get along because, although people come to blows, I really do believe that people are good and kind at heart.