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Don't Panic, It's Towel Day!
An anonymous reader writes "Today, as every May 25th, geeks all over the world celebrate Towel Day and carry a towel in honor of Douglas Adams. The popular author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy died in 2001 at the age of 49, but his work lives on. According to the book, a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Hence its symbolic role in this celebration. This year, for the first time as far as we know, Towel Day is being supported by the British publisher of Adams' books, who organizes a photo competition."
Today is also Nerd Pride Day, but that's probably not a coincidence. Whichever hoopy frood thought of towel day should have been slapped with a Salmon of Doubt so that this never came to be!
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
since 1776 and there is a post on Memorial Day about a fucking holiday celebrating the fucking towel?
Don't forget to bring a towel! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA6EHCrgZC0
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it.
-- Douglas Adams, Speech at The University of California
If you live in Europe, you can buy THHGTTG with amazing discounts. Not affiliated with bol.com, just a satisfied customer and also surprised that they actually give discounts on this special day.
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...now more than ever: Keep your towel close and hope that you can hitch a ride.
I like blue towels, white towels aren't bad but blue towels are sweet.
Just a "Slashdot is US-centric!" comment here, but damn, it's already 4 PM in Europe, and I think past midnight in Australia.. couldn't you have posted this story earlier, for the geeks in the other parts of the world?
Indeed he was.
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
This is ABSOLUTELY anything...
I would love to join in on this special day, but I'm busy trying to stop this bleepin freeway bypass from coming through my living room. Oh, Zaphod, where are you?
I immediately go back home to get my towel... ½ walk to the bus, ½ hour riding the bus, ¼ hour search for a clean towel, 1 hour to clean a towel, 1 hour to dry it, ½ hour riding the bus with towel, ½ hour walk with towel. Leaves me with 3 hours working with towel. But it's gonna be SO PRODUCTIVE to work with my towel's day towel!
Well the answer to all your rantings and mumblings, and also the answer to the universe and everything is....
You guessed it 42
And Douglas gave it to us, Salute!
You cannot solve tomorrow's problems with today's level of thinking - by Einstein
..today is the first day I've washed my towels this year.
Sure, the 1st book is mildly humorous, but that's as far as it goes and the rest of them are simply tiresome.
Deleted
hey, that's the tune to funkytown!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
i threw in the towel long ago
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You wanna get high?
I love The Hitchhiker's Guide, but fuck carrying a towel around with me!
"sudo rm -rf your-face"
Seriously - a lot of people have a towel on shoulder in some parts of the country.
Sadly though, it is now only seen in (supposedly backward) villages.
Percussionists know the usefulness of towels. We use exclusively black towels because they look better on stage, but they can be used for:
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Took my Towel to the Memorial Day Parade!
It had so many uses! I waved it and wiped my brow with it. I even used it to wipe the chocolate stains off a child's face.
Douglas Adams was a Genius!
+ bonus points to whoever gets my account name (WSOGMM).
...and thanks for all the fish.
Your sig is remarkably apt, after that quote...
May we live long and die out
as they can still breed and are genetically the same, they are more likely subspecies than actually different species. many dog breeds are different mutations in the same genetic code. there are genes in dogs that are repeater genes, and depending on how many repeats of these genes determines how tall the dog is, the ears and so on
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Hey, you wanna get high?
Jor-El, who said, "We don't need any freakin' towels", had a little time to rue his arrogance, and sent along a nice monogrammed towel with his interstellar-traveling son, when said son was set off in search of great fish elsewhere. And ever since, interstellar travelers from non-DA dimensions have been taking their towels on their spandex backs wherever they go.
Ha! Mod me -1 wasntpayingattention for not knowing about towel day, but I was actually carrying a towel all day on Monday! I was fishing on the holiday and it turns out that I got more fish that day than any on other trip this year. Unfortunately they were rock bass, not Babel Fish.
I did say "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" when I left the lake, though...
I still think that DNA is only dead for tax reasons, and as soon as the mess in California is sorted, he'll be back..
(might have to wait a while :p)
Democracy is a very interesting idea; it would be worth trying..
Democracy is a very interesting idea; it would be worth trying..
The human race as a whole is not yet ready for it. Most people don't vote for the one they want, but against the one they hate. This invariably leads to dual systems of two hated parties, where third parties don't stand a chance. The same thing is happening from the US to Romania.