The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. Is there another fictional (or even real-world) mixed drink as well-known to geeks and nerds everywhere? Like much of the larger Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy universe, it doesn’t make much of a direct appearance in the story itself, but establishes the character of the setting and the people who occupy it, especially given how early it appears in the story. The original 1978 radio play text ( unchanged in the 1981 television version ) is a great bit of writing, but it’s expanded upon greatly in the 1979 novel with the actual recipe for the “best drink in existence.” Each ingredient comes from a different planet, each with its own story or tradition, and, even though we never get to see any of these worlds (or their contribution to the Gargle Blaster), the sequence does a massive amount of worldbuilding and tone setting. And that’s one thing that’s interesting about cocktails - unlike most real food, they’re specialty preparations that stand out on ...

Towel Day?!? Hasn’t the blog covered that before ? Well, yes, and a few other Douglas Adams-related things . How could we not? This year, the day itself even falls on one of our (intended) blog posting days: May 25th. (It isn’t like we’d post on a Thursday... never could get the hang of Thursdays.) The writings of Douglas Adams seem to be one of those touchstones that most nerds of all ages and backgrounds can agree upon. You might prefer Star Wars to Star Trek, or Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings, but all of those people seem to appreciate the absurd, yet dry humor of Douglas Adams. Though he may have left us almost a quarter century ago, his daft spirit lives on in all of his fans. So what better way to celebrate than to once again appreciate the legendary towel! As if you weren’t already familiar: “Just about the most massively useful thing any interstellar hitch hiker can carry. For one thing it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth on the cold moons of...

Douglas Adams would have turned 70 this year, and, over two decades after his untimely death, the impact he made on all our lives and culture, particularly through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, remains largely unknown… just the way he liked it. Adams loved to blend the precisely known with the manifestly unknowable by turning the very concepts on their heads, filling his stories with asides, detours, and commentaries, usually(but not always) for their own sake, even especially when there was no way the characters themselves could possibly be aware of it. He took a shortcut through the entirety of human philosophy and religion by giving us the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything... but kept the question itself a mystery all the way up to the end of the series. He never shied away from the very real massiveness and incomprehensible scope of the universe, but addressed the problems of long-distance space travel in some of the silliest (and most imagi...