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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."
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
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."
And though it's Memorial Day in one part of the world, this site is a part of the WORLD WIDE web.
I don't think that your post is a Troll, but please recognize that there is more than one thing going on around the universe today.
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
Who cares about Americans ? Douglas Adams was English. Obviously you got lost on a UK-centric thread...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I don't think that your post is a Troll, but please recognize that there is more than one thing going on around the universe today.
Of course. I mean the Universe is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
I'm Canadian, and I do have may 25th on my calendar.
And it's Towel Day.
Memorial day isn't set for the 25th, its set for the last Monday in may. The two do not coincide most years.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Thanks for reminding us that the USA is the most important country in the world.
Erm, why is this an issue? There are 365 days in the year to celebrate some 200,000 years of Homo sapiens wandering around doing notable things like inventing crop rotation, stopping throwing rocks and the moon and trying to figure out how to throw themselves at the moon and inventing Hypercolors t-shirts. Even if there's just one notable event or person a year, that's around 548 things to celebrate, honor or remember each day (there were decimals, but screw them because if they can't be bothered, neither can I).
So, yeah, some days are going to be shared. Doesn't mean they have to be mutually exclusive. For example, May 25th is also:
Cookie Monster's Birthday - I tried carrying around a cookie, but I ate it. It was delicious and I poured out some crumbs for my muppet hommies who ain't here.
National Missing Children's Day - read a milk carton, maybe save a life.
National Tap Dance Day - Part of me hopes there's a afterlife just so there can be a Gregory Hines/Douglas Adams smackdown for this day.
Cover The Uninsured Day - Pretty relevant, really.
And, the one you might be most interested in, National Smile Day.
Besides, Memorial Day falls on the last Monday in May (or May 30th, depending on how you feel about 1971 and the federal government), so it's really just a guest on this particular May 25th and maybe it should behave itself better?