"The Jane Austin Book Club"

I saw the book "The Case of the Imaginary Detective' in
the shop and it was written by Karen Joy Fowler the
author of "The Jane Austin Book Club." I had heard
that book was a good read so I took the detective book
home.

Well it was rubbish. I think she must have been on
drugs when she wrote it as most of it makes no sense.
Then are whole pages devoted to describing the sky
and beach. Whole chapters to the dogs and the two
dog walkers.( None of which has anything to do with
the plot!)

The plot line concerns a 29 year old girl,Rima, who
when her father (the last of her immediate family) dies
goes to 'visit' her godmother, Addison Early. It seems
for the first time in her life she wonders about the
relationship between her father and Addision so sets out
to find out what that was.

Very slim story line that takes 321 pages to cover.

What was very confusing was the constant change in Point
of View (POV) often occuring within the same sentence!

All in all there are three days of my life that I am never
going to get back. Yes I kept going to the end, so I can say
I gave it a fair go!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I watched this at Cliff's last night on 7Two.

To recap the plot "Hyper intelligent pan dimensional
beings on a distant world ask their super computer'
Deep Thought 'What is the meaning of life and everything'
The computer tells them to come back in 7 and a half
million years and it will have the answer.

They do, with a cheering crowd that turns ugly when
they are told "The answer is 42." The computer
defends this answer by saying that it did not know what
the ultimate question is, but that it could design a
computer to give the answer in 10 million years.

The computer is the earth and the living beings on it
the 'computational matrix'. ( Aside: Is this where
the concept of the Matrix films came from???)Two of
the pan dimensional beings in the form of white mice
live on the earth to keep an eye on 'the experiment'.

Five minutes before Ms Fenchurch, who is sitting in
a cafe, in Rickmarsworth, comes up with the answer,
(This is actually not in the film, which is a hugh
oversight as it is the crux of the matter!) the
Volgons destroy the earth to make way for a Hyper
Bypass. The Bypass is made redundant 15 minutes later
when Zaphod Beeblebrox engages the improbablity drive.

Just as the earth is destroyed, Ford Prefect an alien
from a planet near Beteleuse, (Remember the movie with
Michael as a ghost like being in 'Betelgeuse'?), rescues
his friend the earthman Arthur Dent, by hitchhiking on
one of the Vogon Ships. They are found and expelled into
the void of space where the stolen space ship piloted by
Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy, picks
them up.

Imagine Arthur's surprise to see Zaphod a man he met at
at party in a flat in London. He is even more surprised
to see Trica McMillan the girl he fancied at the party
and who went off with Zaphod, walk into the room."

After a few adventures the band end up on the planet,
where the creators of the computer Earth live. Arthur
finds that there was a 'spare' earth comp[uter in the
wings and it is already having the finishing touches
put on it to replace the destroyed earth."

Now comes the scene where Arthur is shown his new (old)
house. Inside he finds a scene straight out of the Mad
Hatter's tea party. Ford, Zaphod and Tricia, (who now
calls herself Trillian) are eating a feast. Arthur finds
the tea much to his liking. The mice appear and tell
Arthur that in order to complete their experiment they
need his brain. Obviously Arthur objects and the mice
say that if he can come up with a good question to the
answer 42 then he is off the hook as they really don't
want to wait another 10 million years for the question.
They reject his questions till he says "How many roads
must a man walk down?" they think this is pretty good.
(Remember this is a Bob Dylan protest song 'Blowing' in
the Wind" and if you recall the 'story opened with Arthur
lying in the road prtesting the destruction of his house)
but then they decide to take his brain any way. In
'kill or be killed' scene Arthur kills the mice. (Please
recall that we have seen their home world and it would
appear that they could be the last of their race.)

Then Arthur goes outside (skip the Vogon scene) and the
creator informs him that the life cycle is about to begin.
Arthur makes no changes to the erath and off it goes.
Then in what is a remarkable scene all the people of
earth are put back (truley a god like move), to approx.
15 minutes before the Vogons destoyed the earth thus
wiping out all memory of the event, and thus Ms
Fenchurch can still make her discovery!!."

Now it is obviously that the last scene with the mice
and this replacing the people by the earth creator are
at odds with each other.

It would seem that they did not need Arthur's brain to
continue the experiment. Yet it is also clear that
they have not been informed of the creators ability to
replace the people, and thus continue the experiment
otherwise why try to take Artur's brain. Yet they
were paying 'good money' for the job. So the question
becomes who was paying them more to withold that
information? Someone who wanted the result to be the
death of the last pan dimensional beings and their
quest for the ultimate question?

An Election Nightmare.

I went up to the Revival center in Morwell to vote.
As it was close to Donald's I decided to go to his
house and I thought we both could go down together
and vote. I also had the photos from Talhia's party
and a recycle bag with Collingwood on it (How I got
that I don't know) that I wanted to give him. But
when I got there the house was open, the fire was on
as was the T.V. but there was no one home. Donald's
car was in the drive way so I figured he and the kids
had not gone too far.

I walked down to the center thinking he might have
already gone to vote.

Just as I was getting all the paper work from the
various parties, I heard a voice call out "Nan."

There was Donald and the kids coming up the roadway
from Crigian Rd School.

Turns out as the sun had come out for a few minutes
earlier Don had taken the kids to play soccer, footy
and cricket on the school oval.

But now that it was spitting rain they had decided to
come home.

So we waited in line to vote. Thankfully we just
managed to squeeze into the foyer of the center.
There were people who were not so lucky and had to
wait in the rain.

Forty five minutes later we finally got to vote!

The problem was that there were only two issusing booths.
But there were 8 voting stations. I kept walking in and
looking how it was going, the most booths that were
occupied at any one time was 6!

It was taking longer to cross the people off and issue
the voting forms that it was to vote. After Donald and
I voted we noted,as we walked out, that there was only
one booth being used!

They really needed four issusing stations.

Boo Turns 8

As a family we all got together for dinner on Thursday
12th August for Boo's (Talhia) 8th birthday.

Of course Cliff was not there as he can't see the point
of 'a birthday party' for an 8 year old. No matter how
many times I tell him it is just a family dinner. The
only extra thing is a cake and presents for the child we
all have to eat tea so why not enjoy it together in
celebration.

I think Audrey didn't tell him this and it seem obvious
that Glenda did not practise it with the boys. Yet he
sees the 'boys' each year for their birthday to give them
a card and present and they are now 30 and 31!!!

We went to the Rossmore hotel at Yallourn Nth. It was
Parma and pot night for $14. I was the only one with a
camera, so I took a few shoots.

Kath told Nan Player that she is expecting another child
in early December. Boo asked why I was watching her
mother talk to Nanny Palayer and I said "because Mum is
telling Nanny that she is expecting a baby."

Boo said "What another baby?" I said "Yes" and then she
came out with the comment of the night:-

"Well obviously dad didn't wear a condom then."

That cracked up everyone!!

New E Mail Address

If there is anyone out there that reads my blog, you
can now reach me on my new email adress of
gloriathorn@yahoo.com.au.
and don't be afraid to makea comment! Just put BLOG
in the header line.

More Computer Woes.

Just on two years ago I had the CD compartment on my
tower replaced because it had given up the ghost.

Then a month ago I told Meg that the Norton anti virus
was about to expire as it kept telling me there are
only 28 days till this subscription expires. Then
there are only 21 days till this subscription expires
etc. till it was down to ONE day. Meg kept saying
that she would buy a new Norton, but she didn't do it
till a week had gone past and then I found that the
CD compartment wouldn't open!

I ony use it about twice a year so that means I opened
it FOUR times before it stopped working which makes
the $45 part rather expensive. So once again I went
for a second part but if this only last for four
openings I will really be complaining!!!