As many of you know, I had the honor of meeting Douglas Adams a month before he suddenly died. He spoke at my university, and I thoroughly embarassed Princess Blogonoke (whom had joined me at the event) because Douglas Adams kept calling for questions, and so I kept raising my hand. This ultimately led to the greatest pickup line I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I asked him how tall he was, because the man was tall... We're talking taller than a Zappo here... and he said, "Six foot five and worth the climb." The auditorium errupted in laughter and my dear, sweet friend Princess Blogonoke hid her face in shame (and I think pride, just a little bit, it's not often your friend gets hit on by a best-selling author in front of an entire university). But seriously, it wasn't a real come on or anything, Douglas Adams was a classy guy--not to mention hilarious, even more so in person.

And so, in memory of one of the funniest writers of the modern era, and in memory of one of the best memories I'll probably ever have in my entire life, I have instituted the Babelfish on my website. I noticed that I have been visited by many countries, most of which are not entirely English-speaking. So, for my international friends from Japan, Germany, Italy, India, Poland, Israel, Argentina, Norway, Ghana, and Sweden (not to mention the English speaking countries of Canda, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), I have decided to include the Babelfish, as first popularized in Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

As a sidenote to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Princess Blogonoke can attest to this since she was there when Douglas Adams spoke about the possible movie venture, if the cinematic counterpart to the wonderful novel is really and truly sadistically bad: Don't blame Douglas Adams. He didn't want the film made because the script was not ready. Plus, none of the actors he wanted to play the roles were signed. For instance, he wanted Colin Firth since Colin is 1) great actor and 2) originally was Arthur Dent in the British television series. He thought no actor would be able to bring the same kind of humanity and humor to the role as Colin could have done. But what happened 3 months within Douglas's death? The movie was greenlighted. I remember the day I read that news I felt extremely sad, because a potentially great movie was not going to be made. Instead, a mediocre one was going to take its place.

So if you've written a scifi series of books yourself and were afraid that should they get turned into movies someday they may turn out like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (should it be a poor film), don't let that dissuade you from continuing to write or continuing to dream. You know who you are.

( 1comments )

at May 2, 2005 8:49 PM  Princess Blogonoke said...

Oh my gosh! I don't even remember how we got those tickets, but they were right in the middle of the theatre in the most awesome seats ever.

I was proud...and embarassed. Proud because my friend is brave enough to ask a famous writer a question in front of 1500 people (or however many can fit in that auditorium) and still have a cheery and delightful demeanor (as if she were talking to a guy who was right in front of her in a park and not fifteen feet away on a stage) and embarassed because I knew everyone who was looking at her could see me and probably a lot of people knew I fell asleep.

Wanna know something else embarassing? I fell asleep during his lecture. Why? It was a LECTURE! I can't stay awake during lectures! It's amazing I even made it through classes!

But anyway, yeah :-) That was one of my most fondest memories of college. Thanks.