I'm back from Pennsylvania. It's good to be home. I'm tired. But I enjoyed listening to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series on the drive home, and thought I would share two of my favorite guide entries mentioned (these vary somewhat in the radio series/books/tv shows/movies):

The Universe:

AREA: Infinite.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word "Infinite":
Infinity: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real "WOW, that's big", time. Infinity is just so big that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.

IMPORTS: None.
It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.

EXPORTS: None.
See Imports.

POPULATION: None.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.

MONETARY UNITS: None.
In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altarian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.

[Dave's note: Ford Prefect carries around an American Express card with him, because he finds it useful to carry around currency that will not be accepted anywhere in the galaxy]

ART: None.
The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn't a mirror big enough - see point one (area).

SEX: None.
Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied. However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now because it really is terribly complicated. For further information see Guide Chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the Guide.


The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.

This is, many would say, impossible.

In it, guests take their places at table and eat sumptuous meals whilst watching the whole of creation explode around them.

This is, many would say, equally impossible.

You can arrive for any sitting you like without prior reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were, when you return to your own time.

This is, many would now insist, absolutely impossible.

At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time.

This, it can be explained patiently, is also impossible.

You can visit it as many times as you like and be sure of never meeting yourself, because of the embarrassment this usually causes.

This, even if the rest were true, which it isn't, is patently impossible, say the doubters.

All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for.

This, many claim, is not merely impossible but clearly insane, which is why the advertising executives of the star system of Bastablon came up with this slogan: “If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?”

current weather: Mostly Cloudy, 44, Wind: W 4, Rain today: 0.40"; I have no idea what the weather was like today - I wasn't here! Therefore, I am a fraud.

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