I feel like a lost soul sometimes.

no, i'm not that bad, i live in the present

i'm 42, i've got a good job, i take my work seriously, but beyond that, i'm here for a good time, not a long time, and not i a party animal way, i'm past all that crap, it's just my priorities are different from any of my friends

and they'll retire and have decent pensions and homes and that stuff, and i'll have 10,000 cd's, every game console ever made, a room full of books and a huge dvd collection, which if i lquidate i'll probably be able to get a really good cardboard box on one of the better street corners, to live out my old age

now there's one frood who really knows where his towel is.

Littlek, now that would really be sick. Now that I think about it, I'm not totally certain that the main guy that I'm thinking of doesn't have a mullet...what is this called...Peter Pan Syndrome? Something like that. It seems like a lot of the guys I grew up with have it in various degrees. It must be something in the water.

Djjd, I see what you mean. I don't think that's such a bad way to be. Of course, I'm an infantile man-child, so don't go by me.

:wink: , got that right



the movie is going to be horrible, or so i fear

and without the camp value of the beeb's attempt to make a movie of it, i fear i fear.

though i did about crap when i saw a trailer for it last year. i wonder what kind of box office they expect to get from it (or is it all about the dvd these days)?

i have no idea

luckily i was able to find the original radio episodes, and the new episodes on the web, so i at least have those to comfort me

didn't know about any new ones. i've had the original on tape since i was a kid. funny you should mention that -- i've been thinking about tossing it in the new used car, which has a tape deck (of all things)...

the bbc produced a new series, the tertiary phase, last year, it's the continuation of the series from the original

maybe you guys could help out with this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A3790659

i can't help, but i'd like to know the answers to those questions myself

that looks like work!

most biographies of writers are disappointingly dull, i think. except maybe for that of rimbaud after he gave up the acclaim of the paris literati for a remote trading post in ethiopia. (was that rimbaud?)

I see no one's discussed my guide entry since that guy three years ago. Course, I ain't been back, either...

I'm in there wandering around a fair bit. I tend to get kind of lost there. I barely ever post. Maybe 2 or 3 times over 3 or 4 years. It is definitely my reading place.

what are you all talking about?

click on my www

we're talkin' bout h2g2 at the beeb

I did click, it was about Douglas Adams.

But, mostly what is a frood and what's up with his towel?

Oh, Kicky. Add Dlowan to the list of people you should listen to. You can listen to Gus, too, but VERY CAREFULLY.

Thanks, JL. I will do that. Now where is that "Art of Happiness" book I had...I know I had it around here somewhere...

From the The Hitchhiker's Guide Project


Towel

Just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar Hitchhiker can carry. For one thing it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth on the cold moons of Jaglan Beta, sunbathe on it on the marble beaches of Santraginus Five, huddle beneath it for protection from the Arcturan Megagnats as you sleep beneath the stars of Kakrafoon, use it to sail a miniraft down the slpow heavy river Moth, wet it for use in hand to hand combat, wrap it round your head to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, and even dry yourself off with it if it still seems 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.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Who else but Kicky -- pondering his direction in life -- could spawn
reflections on:
Pliny The Elder
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Rimbaud
Social Security
Clutter control
and mullet-optional keg parties in Rochester?

(Say, did I ever tell you how we used to control clutter by means of
The Exercise for a Happy Death?)