Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – News ???

I just noitced something wonderful last night while surfing the high seas of Bit Torrent. There floating amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the bad camcorder copies of the French version of the Bourne Supremecy, mis-titled copies of other recent releases, and and n’ar endless slew of porn and mp3’s of bands I’ve never even heard of… I saw mention of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide Radio Series – New episode – episode 3’. Yeah right.. new episodes, some dork thinks the radio series recorded in the 80’s is new.. but then a minute later, there was another file… ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide – Tertiary phase – episode 1’… Tertiary phase? Is that just some ‘warez pirates’ moniker or is this legit.. ah what the heck, I’ll try it.

So last night I went to sleep in my hotel room with the laptop slurping down recent daily shows and this probably misnamed audio file. This morning after calling Emily i started it up.. yup must be the old version there’s that familiar Eagles tune, Journey of the Sorcerer, and there’s Simon Jones, the narrator of the original series saying the book title etc…. but then his voice modulates and he says ‘Tertiary Phase’. Huh? I don’t remember that.. especially near the title like that. Did someone edit the original books or something?

Then his voice starts really modulating.. is this file damaged? Does this audio player have problems with ogg vorbis files? No wait .. those are completely different voices mixed in there.. by gods… IT’S NEW.

BBC Radio 4 presents an Above the Title Production of – THE HITCHHIKERĂ•S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by DOUGLAS ADAMS.

I am very very very happy about this, that book was sufficiently warped and weird and I read all of them in High School where I too became rather warped and weird. I suspect my sense of humor was forged in part from these books, and the excellent radio productions I snagged at a Star Trek Convention in NYC back in 1985 or so. Anyways, suffice to say I plan to try to listen to all of these productions and will buy the CD version once it’s out. Hip Hip Horray!

What’s more.. they are even making a Film version of the book! Huzzah! Can’t wait.

Ok that’s my joyous rant for the morning. We now return you to the slow train wreck that is our current political landscape and reality. 🙂 Remember folks, we’re ‘Mostly Harmless’, let’s keep it that way.

Lost in Boston

(Second attempt to write this, obviously the spirits of Boston are sneaky and can crash Firefox at will!)


“Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat’s Cradle

Ok so here I am in Boston (Ok Newton, for you purists), down here for the week for training with Veritas, and as fate would have it my friend Adam is both busy, and not feeling well, and Ozz hasn’t gotten back to me yet about getting together, so I guess I’m on my own. After looking around at what’s out in the Theaters now, I find ‘Shaun of the Dead’ a film that appears to be just silly enough to fit my mood, and I find a nearby relatively easy-to-find theater that has it starting at 7:20 so I quickly get directions from Mapquest and rush to my car.

The directions seemed simple enough, get on 95/128S to exit 20A, get on rt 9, turn left on Chestnut Hill and the theater is right there. HAH. Boston, the town where road signs are optional, wins this round. I happen upon another theater though and optimistically park to see whats playing. The only thing starting anytime close to when I arrived there was ‘The First Daughter’, a movie that I think i’d pay NOT to see.

So, defeated, a wander back to my car and decide that I’ll wander off into the streets of Boston. To Rt 20 to Rt 60E to 2A (or something paralell to it) till suddently the fates finally smiled upon me and led me to ..tah dah!…Davis Square, a place I have been to with friends and via the T in the past, and I even found a restaurant I liked, and parking nearby.

I had a yummy quick dinner at Anna’s Taqueria, a restaurant my friend Totally had taken me to years ago. Yum.

I then wandered around Davis Square looking for a payphone since i’m pretty sure Davis Square is relatively close to either Adam or Ozz and, if nothing else, they could tell me how to get out of there without the risk of ending with a ‘bonfire of the vanities’ type but apparently payphones in Boston are few and far between.

I poked my head in the Somervilel Theater but all their movies were not beginning at a convenient time. There was a line of about 20+ ‘Gothy College Kids’ and I couldn’t figure out what they were buying tickets to go see, my only guess is that they were pre-selling tickets to Rocky Horror or something else. As far as I can tell from the website though, this is not the case so that mystery will remain unsolved. What are those crazy kids up to?

I poked my head into Johnny D’s since it was singer songwriter night. However, the room had like 5 people in it and the woman at the door told me it was $7 to hear the performers. The person on stage at the time was playing an electric keyboard and singing a jazzy song, which wasnt my thing anyways, and for $7..er no.. She told me I could sit at the bar and listen, but that interested me about as much as the bad jazz vocals so I left. Had there been a person with a guitar performing, or had the music been a little more up beat I might have forked over the cash. I’m a sucker for a singer songwriter, just ask all the street performers I’ve funded over the years 🙂

So finally I gave up on the payphone quest, hopped in my car and picked a direction to drive in. Eventually I hit 93 and headed north on it until in T’s with 95 and found my way home while listening to part of the debates on the radio.

So while Boston prevented my from finding the theater I wanted, it did arrange for a yummy dinner and a quick return home, so it could have been worse. It’s not so bad being lost in Boston if you don’t have a destination in mind when you set out.

Also – Is it sad that as I was getting lost i was thinking about writing this entry? My title, before I found Anna’s was going to be ‘Boston you fickle bitch’ 🙂

-Matt