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

Me too. I only schmooze people when there is an immediate financial payoff.

I'm being sincere when I tell you all that you're lovely people.

However...at work, or when I'm seeking exemplary customer service, I'm a total Schmooze Tart.

I even flirted with a male airline check-in clerk in an effort to get upgraded. It didn't work .













But I did get his phone number

That's great!!

I've flirted on a few occasions, in order to get out of paying Microsoft for tech support on my pc which is out of warranty- I pull the "damsel in distress" routine and let my voice go all weepy and stuff. It usually works.

And I constantly flirt with waitresses in order to secure excellent service. Never got any phone numbers, though.

<> (blathers)

Can I be put in the second category please? Or even in a third category, which is liking you because you are you and someone quite different to me in some ways but with personal characteristics that I both enjoy and admire?




az

I don't know Blathers well but I'd put myself in that third category as well... with the added bonus that Blathers has an astute b/s detection system and frequently calls b/s on people who annoy the cr@p out of me with their stupidity or thickheadedness.

This is getting dangerous. We do well to remember the spat that Darwin had with FitzRoy, Captain of the Beagle.

FitzRoy supported slavery, Darwin opposed it. FitzRoy reported that a friend of his had called in his slaves one by one and asked them would they rather be free, and each had said no. Darwin asked, "perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything?" FitzRoy promptly banished Darwin from his cabin (he later recanted on this ban).

The point is, we are never speaking in a vacuum. We can say what we really feel all right, but we also habitually take into account what effect our words will have. We are not reliable in principle, only on auspicious occasions, such as in the above thread.

And you can mistrust that last claim too.

Dangerous???

<>

Yeah well, speak for yerself, buster!

I was actually called 'cynical' on a thread today and I had to wonder how anyone would have come to such a conclusion about me.

Realist Big Mouth maybe, but never cynical.

I do know what you're saying about not speaking into a vacuum. And especially here on a public forum. I think we are always aware of 'lurkers' who are not partaking of a particular thread discussion but who are *there* nevertheless. But I mostly try to not think about them. Which is probably why I get into 'trouble' from time to time (Realist Big Mouth).

But mostly it's quite enjoyable . . . or have I missed something?


az

I was thinking more of my (sincere) compliments to Gn & Ed being (conceivably) given for the purpose of gaining their support, friendship, votes, money . . . but as I rarely meet Gn and never meet Ed in RL, this is not so much of an issue.

Thing is, in virtual land sincerity/hypocrisy hardly arises. If only we could all acknowledge this! Though there is every reason not to be unpleasant, there is no reason not to be pleasant

Cynics: Lord Melvyn was talking about the Greek cynics on R4 this week. One of them tried to eat a live octopus. Visions of the octopus fighting back...

A friend also ate live, freshly chopped octopus ona business trip to Korea. It would have been impolite to refuse. He picked up the still wriggling tentacle in his copsticks and placed it cautiously in his mouth wherupon its suckers stuck firmly, fastening his tongue to the inside of his cheek. Apparently the trick is to anaesthetise them with a quick dunk in your rice wine first.

>copsticks<

So you hit it with your billy club and stun it before eating it?

Do you know the infamous Rolling Stones bootleg, Lonesome Schoolboy Blues? Interesting use for a truncheon...

I've heard of the Korean dish of live octopus tentacles, but I didn't include it my entry on Octopuses. It disgusts me and would lower the tone of the entry.

Didn't Koreans recently clone a dog? Apparently it tastes just the same as all the others.

Octopuses have distributed intelligence - a lot of their intelligence is in their arms. Only something like one third of the nerves are in the central brain. So octopus arms can walk around and flash colour messages after they've been cut off.

EEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Yuk. Puke. Gross.

So we were sitting here drinking our coffee this morning and Noggin said, 'hmmm, here's something I didn't know, that octupuses have distributed intelligence . . .' and went on to read your post, Gnomon.

And I said, 'Oh, that's interesting, what thread's it on?'

And of course it *had* to be on a thread called 'How to flunk an interview'!

Impressive thread drift, guys.


az