I'm bored. Bored out of my skull.

I hate it when things get bored into my skull.

I know the feeling. I just graduated and can't find any (legal) employment.

You could do what I've been doing for the past two months - paint. Not the fun, creative kind. Oh no! The bad kind. The one involving lots of white paint, my parent's house, my grandmother's house, and now (I've just been informed) my aunt's house....

If I don't get carpal tunnel syndrome from typing at a computer or from raising a frothy beverage to my mouth, then the painting will surely do it. I haven't even honed my martial arts skills. Mr. Miagi lied to me!!

In Response to evilaltor (#909):

Painting is difficult to do at work.

Oh, I have plenty to do; just not at the office.

I need to set up an SEP field around my cube so I can dance naked.

I mean, so I can draw comics.

Yeah.

In Response to jon (#910):

You could try slipping a panagalactic gargle blaster or two into the water font at work - then you could do whatever you like!

On a mildly related note, has anyone read "Salmon Of Doubt - Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time"? It's on my list of things to do...

In Response to evilaltor (#911):

I'm reading it. Mostly I find time to read while waiting at airports. I don't fly often, but every time I do, there's a lot of waiting involved. (I don't find that security is really all that slow, but because I fly Southwest I still like to be really early to make sure I'm not in the 10th boarding group and have to fly seated in one of the overhead bins.)

Anyway, it's good. It's not a novel and shouldn't be approached as such. (It does include the unfinished bits of a third novel in the Dirk Gently series, which some rumors suggested might have ended up being another Hitchhiker's installment instead. I still haven't read the first two novels in the Dirk Gently series, so until I do I guess I won't be finishing the Salmon...) It's mostly a collection of essays, short stories, and other random stuff compiled form his Macintosh after his death.

One thing I like about it is that it has a lot of references and recommendations to music, other books, etc. I don't expect to agree with all of his recommendations, but it's still a good place to look for ideas of things to read, hear, etc. And it includes directions I'll need to try out for how to properly make tea...

In Response to jon (#910):

Huffing the paint will make the time pass much faster.

What's a SEP field? And, if you plan on dancing naked, make sure to have a news team around so you can cash in on your full fifteen minutes of fame.

In Response to TheWizardofFez (#916):

An SEP field is a "Somebody Else's Problem" field. In other words, you can hide stuff in it cos people won't notice it because it's somebody else's problem. Handy for, say, hiding spaceships in, or dancing naked in a cube farm, for example.

Comes from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Trilogy

In Response to evilaltor (#917):

Here we see the disasterous results of speed-reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in action.

In Response to TheWizardofFez (#916):

An SEP field is what is preventing me from giving a useful answer to your question.

In Response to mea37 (#914):


  I read The Salmon of Doubt recently and loved it. It has caused me to seek out Richard Dawkins' work on Darwinian evolution (Douglas cites him as the reason for his atheism, and Richard spoke at Douglas's funeral), and as mea37 alluded to, I made a perfect cup of tea at about 1:30 in the morning and raised it in honor of DNA's memory.
   
  Nothing in my life so far has made me quite as sad and wistful as finishing the book and realizing that it's all over. He will never write anything more for us.

I feel you, Jon. Boredom is my constant state of mind.
Regarding th Hitchhiker's Trilogy... why is it a trilogy? Are there not five books? I KNOW there are more than three. I just got the "Ultimate" book, with all five books in it. So I'm not crazy. No, not me. No, no craziness.
:-)

In Response to Jennifus (#1162):

There are five books. Yet, it is a trilogy. It is also worthy of note that the More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide is somewhat less than complete, in that it includes only the first four (plus, IIRC, the short story).

It has been said that the novel DNA was writing when he died might have mutated into the sixth in the Hitchhiker series, although it currently was well on its way to being the third Dirk Gently novel instead. Had it been completed as a HHGTTG book, then the Ultimate Guide would've ended up... well... penultimate.

So yeah, not everything falls out the way you'd expect with Douglas Adams's writing. Most of us would be rather disappointed if it did.

In Response to evilaltor (#911):

yes, the book is good, and I believe I saw a recipe for the drink once... It was from some guys at MIT and it glowed in the dark. That wouldn't be boring at all.

In Response to jon (#910):

The only problem there is that you would probably have to paint your naked self pink, and even then where would you attach the batteries for the field? It may just take the fun out of the dancing naked part.

Or, the paint and batteries might just make the event that much more enjoyable... whatever floats your boat.

In Response to AsphaltBuffet (#1819):

Paint himself pink? Totally unnecessary. The SEP field prevents onlookers from seeing any sort of problem with which they might otherwise feel the need to deal, not just oddly colored ones.

In Hitchhikers, the suggestion of painting the mountain so that an SEP field would make it invisible stems from the fact that an un-painted mountain at the location in question is not a problem -- it is the expected behavior of the world. By contrast, we can assume that an un-painted naked Jon dancing in his cubicle at work would need no further embelishment to be a problem for all present, and so an SEP field would work just fine.

In Response to mea37 (#1820):

Of course, the need to paint him pink would only be needed if it is unusual for him to dance naked. It is entirely possible that the people around him would not find that odd and thus the need for pinkness or some other odd thing to make it another person's problem.

It would simply be a matter of whether or not naked-Jon would be enough of an oddity to warrent himself somebodyelse's problem.

In Response to jon (#910):

I suspect that you dancing naked would actually act as an SEP and so all you need to do is clone yourself so that one can dance and thereby hide the you that is drawing...

Whatever you do don't use phillip for the SEP as a quick side step around the ethics of cloning yourself though. That would behave exactly as a KP (Ken's Problem) and act as an attractor.

oh jon. poor boy. when i'm bored i have a number of fallbacks that always keep me busy:

1. run round and round and round and round until i pass right out. generally when i wake up i'm not nearly as bored.

2. watch martha stewart, if i can find it on t.v. and mock the crazy devil-bitch. (on a side note, is it possible her and diablo are in league?)

3. if i can't find martha, i am reduced to watching other home decorating shows, less easy to mock, but i enjoy the challenge.

4. fantasise (no never never act upon...usually) about stalking certain celebrities, some for love (like...oh never mind who) and some for killing (like britney spears, die BS die!).

think about these in the future, and you'll be just fine, i'm sure.

Where is babies on the celing? I've been looking for a long time now and just can't find it...I saw it one day and now it's gone gone gone...

In Response to dragonshellfire (#2743):

Oddly enough it is part of the series entitled ceiling babies and accordion players [goats.com]

In Response to goat_girl (#1919):

Have you checked out the Parody of Marthas site?

http://www.marthastewarttalks.com

not to be confused with the real site:
http://www.marthatalks.com