Towel Day 2010

Yes, today is not only Geek Pride Day, it's Towel Day!  What's so great about towels, you might ask?  Well, if you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books or seen the movie, you know.  If know, I wholly suggest you celebrate the day by buying the book(s) or watching the movie. 

A Little History:
Towel Day began in 2001.  Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, died on May 11 in 2001.  Distraught fans got together and decided to commemorate D.A.'s death everywhere by proclaiming May 25 Towel Day.

From Wired.com:

"This year, as we do every year we take a moment to hoist our thumbs up in the air and hope we don’t end up in the cargo hold of a Vogon warship. However, if we have our towel on us we’ll be perfectly prepared for whatever may come. Or go. But we’ve been over that in an earlier paragraph. So why the towel? What’s so great about something seemingly so simple and basic? From Chapter 3 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, 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 hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker 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.

Let’s ponder that logic for a second. If you have a towel, you are not only ultimately prepared but others around you will become aware of your ultimate preparedness and be randomly willing to assist to make sure you are even further prepared for you journey. Could you ask for anything more? This is what having a towel handy can do for you."

Read More http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/dont-panic-its-towel-day/#ixzz0oy674SAB

Interested in seeing what Towel Day festivities your country/city might be holding?  Check out TowelDay.org.  Also, check out ThinkGeek.com, my favorite geeky online store, for "Don't Panic" towels, "42" towels, "Don't Panic and Carry a Towel" t-shirts, and more HGG (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) related items.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!!!