Click over to Google today (or check out the Doodle Archive page if you are coming late) to see the Doodle in all it’s glory. It’s got the requisite towel, cup of liquid that is exactly but not quite unlike tea, and of course the Guide itself, with “Don’t Panic” written on the front in large, friendly letters. And there’s a touch of Whovian/70’s scifi chic and sound effects to boot. Bonus tip: try actually using the Guide.
Douglas Adams would have been 61 years old today. He was one really, amazingly together guy. He was more than just a hoopy frood; he was so hip he had difficulty seeing over his pelvis. He was so cool you could store a side of beef in him for a month. He deserves not one Google Doodle, but 42 of them.
Douglas is terribly missed. His brand of humour was unique. But it does live on in others like Neil Gaiman, and in comic novels like THE MYOSHI EFFECT. Happy Bday DNA.
*Almost* got to see him live once.
Back when I was working for a .com, several of us were sent to a conference (the .com sent us to ESC and WDC, I don’t recall which it was; since Adams was a well-known Mac user, it was probably WDC) at which Douglas Adams gave the keynote.
My boss decide we needed a pre-conference breakfast get-together, so dragged us all down the street to a restaurant just before the keynote started. What could I do? I wasn’t in charge, so I had to wander off to the restaurant.
Turned out he had botched the setting of his watch to California time, so hadn’t realized the keynote was about to start, and had wanted to attend the keynote himself.
A couple of weeks later, Douglas Adams died.