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Happy Towel Day

An anonymous reader writes "While Douglas Adams continues his attempt to set a new record for the longest extended lunch break, geeks all over the universe pay tribute to the beloved author by celebrating the tenth edition of Towel Day. Towel Day is more alive than ever. This year Richard Dawkins, one of Adams' best friends, has tweeted a Towel Day reminder to his numerous followers. The CERN Bulletin has published an article on Towel Day. There has been TV coverage and there will be a radio interview. The Military Republic of the Deltan Imperium, a newly formed micronation, has recognized Towel Day as an official holiday. In Hungary several hundreds of hitchhiker fans want to have a picnic together in a park. And there's a concert, a free downloadable nerdrap album, a free game being released, the list goes on and on."

24 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Don't forget.... by blankoboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    ....to bring one!

    1. Re:Don't forget.... by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Informative

      I always bring mine but I've forgotten why now.

      "A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

      More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

      Stolen (well, copied really... it's not missing or anything) from The Towel Wiki.

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  2. I missed my chance. by dsavi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Reason #453 to not live in a time zone other than the US: I never remember Towel Day until someone in America reminds me, during the afternoon.

    1. Re:I missed my chance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't panic!

    2. Re:I missed my chance. by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Informative

      <cover style="font-size: large; font-family: friendly_letters;">DON'T PANIC!</cover>

      There, fixed that for you.

  3. towelie says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do you wanna get high???

    1. Re:towelie says... by daveime · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, your a towel.

      and the show lost what little originality it had years ago.

      This from the person whose posts seem to consist mainly of tired memes, inflamatory comments, liberal use of the word "fuck", and a journal so stunningly verbose you could barely call is a complete sentence.

      How about fuck you and your wire-coathanger sense of humour.

    2. Re:towelie says... by arkane1234 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It got your lips frothing, so I consider it well worth it.

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  4. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by geekoid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thanks for letting everyone know that you're not a frood, AND you don't even know where your towel is.

    Belgium!

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  5. Thanks!!!! by irreverant · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So long, and thanks for all the fish / So sad that it should come to this / We tried to warn you all, but, oh, dear / You may not share out intellect / Which might explain your disrespect / For all the natural wonders that grow around you / So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish! The world's about to be destroyed / There's no point getting all annoyed / Lie back and let the planet dissolve around you / Despite those nets of tuna fleets / We thought that most of you were sweet / Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women / So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, so long, so long, so long! So long, so long, and thanks for all the fish!/ If I had just one last wish / I would like a tasty fish!/ If we could just change one thing / We would all have learnt to sing!/ Come one and all / Man and mammal / Side by side / In life's great gene pool!/ So long, so long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long, so long, so long / So long, so long and thanks for all the fish! And Carry a Towel

    --
    Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
  6. picnic? by SnarfQuest · · Score: 2, Funny

    want to have a picnic together in a park

    Shouldn't that be a panic in the park?

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    1. Re:picnic? by justaguylikeme · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, Don't panic!

    2. Re:picnic? by BSAtHome · · Score: 2, Funny

      It is all covered by my SEP-field.

  7. Re:I still say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    why not 4/2 ?

  8. Dawkins by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry, but I don't believe that Richard Dawkins exists.

    <grin>

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  9. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 4, Funny

    especially since Richard Dawkins is mentioned.

    Awwwww. Poor baby. Did he make fun of your imaginary friend?

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  10. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by uglyduckling · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If, as a non-stamp collector, you invested considerable amounts of time in investigating stamp collecting, try to find flaws in the activities of stamp collectors, holding meetings to espouse the value of not collecting stamps, constructing straw-man arguments to illustrate the futility of stamp collecting, trying to assert that the bad behaviour of a given stamp collector ought to cause the whole of philately to be outlawed, wrote several books asserting that the possibility that a letter could be sent without requiring a stamp 'proves' that stamps do not in fact exist, etc., etc., etc., then - yes - I would describe your 'not collecting stamps' as a hobby, if not an obsession.

  11. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does this stamp collecting lead to wars, genocide, terrorism, assaults on human rights, genital mutilation, suppression of women and suppression of free speech? Opposing that might be a good hobby then.

  12. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In the end, the last war on earth is going to be FSM followers vs IPU followers.

  13. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by hargrand · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't think philosophies need to be proved. Yet Dawkins seems to believe that atheistic rationalism reigns supreme among philophies. If that's the case, then by appealing to rationalism, logic should be able to prove that rationalism is correct. Show me the proof.

    I guess when he's done with that, he can appeal to rationalism to prove to me that he exists.

  14. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by mattack2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    while arguing from and promoting a philosophy that cannot be proven (atheism).

    Which is why I think that everyone should be agnostic. (Yes, I realize that that largely would then make the term meaningless.)

    Sure, if we pretend that there is an invisible man in the sky that controls the universe, he *could* make the universe exactly as it is now... So even though I don't believe that that invisible man exists, I do understand the theoretical possibility (and consider myself atheist AND agnostic).

    Now, if all of the people that do believe in the invisible man would realize the same thing (that the universe could be the result of natural phenomena), then presumably a lot of the bad things mentioned in other posts would not happen/have happened.

  15. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My neighbour has some sort of hippy spirituality thing going on. She does meditation, won't eat animals, all of that junk. I'm sure you are familar with the type.

    Religion can cause harm, but so can anything else that humans feel strongly about. My neighbour has not caused any harm with her own little brand of religion, so suggesting that those things be universally connected to religion seems to be in error.

    In other words, the existence of atrocities committed by religion does not indicate all religions cause atrocities.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  16. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even though these are small things, religion causes shops to close on sundays. Religion is given all sorts of exceptions(imagine anyone else wanting to make a ton of noise on a sunday morning). Religion sneaks into laws all the time.

    You can be religious as much as you want, but for some reason those who are constantly feel the need to press their superstitions on the rest of us, starting with their children who will then do the same, ad infinitum.

    --

    People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
  17. Re:Idle's the right place for this... by hargrand · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except I never claimed to be particularly tolerant; I'm not ... at least not in the way you and the politically correct crowd want. The whole notion of tolerance has been co-opted by people of your ilk who don't want to be held accountable for your bad decisions. You preach tolerance on the one hand, and expect that the world bow down on the altar of tolerance and when some chose not to, when they have the audacity to disagree with you, you get up on your high horse and shout "blasphemy!" as you have so aptly demonstrated. Thank you for your example. You serve your cause well.