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diff --git a/fortune-mod/.local/share/fortune/hitchhiker b/fortune-mod/.local/share/fortune/hitchhiker new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ea3338 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/.local/share/fortune/hitchhiker @@ -0,0 +1,667 @@ +"`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call +attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling +anyone or anything.' +`But the plans were on display...' +`On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to +find them.' +`That's the display department.' +`With a torch.' +`Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' +`So had the stairs.' +`But look you found the notice didn't you?' +`Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the +bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused +lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The +Leopard".'" + +- Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning department. +% +"`Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.' +`Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the +"Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'" + +- Ford convincing Arthur to drink three pints in ten minutes at lunchtime. +% +"`This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking +low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of +Thursdays.'" + +- Arthur, on what was to be his last Thursday on Earth. +% +"Pages one and two [of Zaphod's presidential speech] had +been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had +already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form +of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed +largely of papier mache and it was virtually impossible for +a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran +Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of +the species but wanted no truck with it." + +- An example of Damogran wildlife. +% +"`How do you feel?' he asked him. +`Like a military academy,' said Arthur, `bits of me keep +passing out.'" .... +`We're safe,' he said. +`Oh good,' said Arthur. +`We're in a small galley cabin,' said Ford, `in one of the +spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.' +`Ah,' said Arthur, `this is obviously some strange usage of +the word "safe" that I wasn't previously aware of.' + +- Arthur after his first ever teleport ride. +% +"`The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick +your finger down his throat...'" + +- The Book, on one of the Vogon's social inadequacies. +% +"`You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. +It's unpleasantly like being drunk.' +`What's so unpleasant about being drunk?' +`You ask a glass of water.'" + +- Arthur getting ready for his first jump into hyperspace. +% +"`You know,' said Arthur, `it's at times like this, when +I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, +and about to die from asphyxiation in deep space that I +really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I +was young.' +`Why, what did she tell you?' +`I don't know, I didn't listen.'" + +- Arthur coping with certain death as best as he could. +% +"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" + +- Arthur experiences the improbability drive at work. +% +"`I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very +depressed.'" +"`Life, don't talk to me about life.'" +"`Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to +take you down to the bridge. Call that "job satisfaction"? +'Cos I don't.'" +"`I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my +left side.'" + +- Guess who. +% +"`If there's anything more important than my ego around, I +want it caught and shot now.'" + +- Zaphod. +% +"`In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, +men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry +creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry +creatures from Aplha Centauri.'" + +- The Book getting all nostalgic. +% +"`Hey this is terrific!' Zaphod said. `Someone down there +is trying to kill us!' +`Terrific,' said Arthur. +`But don't you see what this means?' +`Yes. We are going to die.' +`Yes, but apart from that.' +`APART from that?' +`It means we must be on to something!' +`How soon can we get off it?'" + +- Zaphod and Arthur in a certain death situation over Magrathea. +% +"And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very +fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a +big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... +ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! +I wonder if it will be friends with me?" + +- For the sperm whale, it wasn't. +% +"Oh no, not again." + +- A bowl of petunias on it's way to certain death. +% +"`Er, hey Earthman...' +`Arthur,' said Arthur. +`Yeah, could you just sort of keep this robot with you and +guard this end of the passageway. OK?' +`Guard?' said Arthur. `What from? You just said there's no +one here.' +`Yeah, well, just for safety, OK?' said Zaphod. +`Whose? Yours or mine?'" + +- Arthur drawing the short straw on Magrathea. +% +"There are of course many problems connected with life, of +which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?' +`Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the +intervening time wearing digital watches?'" + +- The Book. +% +"`Right,' said Ford, `I'm going to have a look.' +He glanced round at the others. +`Is no one going to say, "No you can't possibly, let me go +instead"?' +They all shook their heads. +`Oh well.'" + +- Ford attempting to be heroic whilst being seiged by Shooty and Bangbang. +% +"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a +lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad +move." - The Book just recapping what happened in the last +book. +"`I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in +me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over +my pelvis.'" + +- Zaphod being cool. +% +"`You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' +`Yeah,' said Zaphod, `but don't shout it out or they'll all +want one.' +`THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' +`No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn't you hear I come in +six packs?' +`But sir,' it squealed, `I just heard on the sub-ether +radio report. It said you were dead...' +`Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet.'" + +- Zaphod and the Guide's receptionist. +% +"The fronting for the eighty-yard-long marble-topped bar +had been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand +Antarean Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the +twenty thousand lizards concerned had needed them to keep +their insides in." + +- The Book decribing Milliways' politically incorrect decor. +% +"`...and the Universe,' continued the waiter, determined +not to be deflected on his home stretch, `will explode +later for your pleasure.' +Ford's head swivelled slowly towards him. He spoke with +feeling. +`Wow,' he said, `What sort of drinks do you serve in this +place?' +The waiter laughed a polite little waiter's laugh. +`Ah,' he said, `I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me.' +`Oh, I hope not,' breathed Ford." + +- Ford in paradise. +% +"Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar +and bought most of it." + +- Zaphod in paradise. +% +"`Maybe somebody here tipped off the Galactic Police,' said +Trillian. `Everybody saw you come in.' +`You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?' said +Zaphod, `Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm +cornered.' +`Yeah,' said a voice from under the table [Ford's now +completely rat-arsed at this point], `you go to pieces so +fast people get hit by the shrapnel.'" + +- Zaphod getting paranoid over a phone call. +% +"`Hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain.' +The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in +confusion. +`I beg your pardon, sir?' he said. +`The phone, waiter,' said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. +`Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't +fall off.'" + +- Zaphod discovers that waiters are the least hip people in the Universe. +% +"The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford +nevertheless weaved his way through it." + +- Ford making his way out of Milliways whilst under the +influence of enough alcohol to make a rhino sing. +% +"`The first ten million years were the worst,' said Marvin, +`and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The +third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went +into a bit of a decline.'" + +- Marvin reflecting back on his 576,000,003,579 year +career as Milliways' car park attendent. +% +"`Incidentally,' he said, `what does teleport mean?' +Another moment passed. +Slowly, the others turned to face him. +`Probably the wrong moment to ask,' said Arthur, `It's just +I remember you use the word a short while ago and I only +bring it up because...' +`Where,' said Ford quietly, `does it say teleport?' +`Well, just over here in fact,' said Arthur, pointing at a +dark control box in the rear of the cabin, `Just under the +word "emergency", above the word "system" and beside the +sign saying "out of order".'" + +- Arthur finding an escape route from a certain death situation. +% +"I teleported home one night +With Ron and Sid and Meg. +Ron stole Meggie's heart away +And I got Sidney's leg." + +- A poem about matter transference beams. +% +"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President +should on no account be allowed to do the job." + +- Some wisdom from The Book. +% +"`We've got to find out what people want from fire, how +they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.' +The crowd were tense. They were expecting something +wonderful from Ford. +`Stick it up your nose,' he said. +`Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,' +insisted the girl, `Do people want fire that can be fitted +nasally?'" + +- Ford "debating" what to do with fire with a marketing +girl. +% +"The story goes that I first had the idea for THHGTTG while +lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck (or `Spain' as the BBC +TV publicity department authoritatively has it, probably +because it's easier to spell)." - Foreward by DNA. + +FORD Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the world's about to + end. +BARMAN Oh yes, sir? Nice weather for it. +% +BOOK Meanwhile, the starship has landed on the surface of Magrathea + and Trillian is about to make one of the most important + statements of her life. Its importance is not immediately + recognised by her companions. +TRILL. Hey, my white mice have escaped. +ZAPHOD Nuts to your white mice. +% +BOOK ...Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than + dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, + wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck + about in the water having a good time. But conversely the + dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for + precisely the same reasons. +% +ARTHUR What is an Algolian Zylatburger anyway? +FORD They're a kind of meatburger made from the most unpleasant parts + of a creature well known for its total lack of any pleasant + parts. +ARTHUR So you mean that the Universe does actually end not with a bang + but with a Wimpy? + +- Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth. +% +BOOK There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers + exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will + instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more + bizarrely inexplicable. + There is another theory which states that this has already happened. + +- Introduction to Fit the Seventh. +% +FORD Tell me Arthur... +ARTHUR Yes? +FORD This boulder we're stuck under, how big would you say it was? Roughly? +ARTHUR Oh, about the size of Coventry Cathedral. +FORD Do you think we could move it? (Arthur doesn't reply) Just asking. + +- Ford and Arthur in a tricky situation, Fit the Eighth. +% +BOOK What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground + underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of + rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to + you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so + far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, + consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much + longer. + +- Comforting advice for Ford and Arthur in this current +situation, Fit the Eighth. +% +ZAPHOD Hey, this rock... +FORD Marble... +ZAPHOD Marble... +FORD Ice-covered marble... +ZAPHOD Right... it's as slippery as... as... What's the slipperiest + thing you can think of? +FORD At the moment? This marble. +ZAPHOD Right. This marble is as slippery as this marble. + +- Zaphod and Ford trying to get a grip on things in Brontitall, Fit the Tenth. +% +ARTHUR It's not a question of whose habitat it is, it's a + question of how hard you hit it. + +- Arthur pointing out one of the disadvantages of gravity, Fit the Tenth. +% +ARTHUR It probably seems a terrible thing to say, but you + know what I sometimes think would be useful in these situations? +LINT. What? +ARTHUR A gun of some sort. +LINT.2 Will this help? +ARTHUR What is it? +LINT.2 A gun of some sort. +ARTHUR Oh, that'll help. Can you make it fire? +LINT. Er... +F/X DEAFENING ROAR +LINT. Yes. + +- Arthur and the Lintillas gaining the upper hand, Fit the Twelfth. +% +"He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the +fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the +rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arms out wide. `I +will go mad!' he announced." + +- Arthur discovering a way of coping with life on Prehistoric Earth. +% +"`... then I decided that I was a lemon for a couple of +weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and +out of a gin and tonic.' +Arthur cleared his throat, and then did it again. +`Where,' he said, `did you...?' +`Find a gin and tonic?' said Ford brightly. `I found a +small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped +in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a +gin and tonic.' +`I may,' he addded with a grin which would have sent sane +men scampering into the trees, `have been imagining it.'" + +- Ford updating Arthur about what he's been doing for the past four years. +% +"`Eddies,' said Ford, `in the space-time continuum.' +`Ah,' nodded Arthur, `is he? Is he?'" + +- Arthur failing in his first lesson of galactic physics in four years. +% +"Ford grabbed him by the lapels of his dressing gown and +spoke to him as slowly and distinctly and patiently as if +he were somebody from a telephone company accounts +department." + +- Ford trying to rectify that situation. +% +"...[Arthur] leapt to his feet like an author hearing the +phone ring..." + +- Who says that the character of Arthur isn't autobiographical? +% +"Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great +distance, and reluctantly. It had had some bad times in +there. Slowly, nervously, it entered and settled down into +its accustomed position. +Arthur sat up. +`Where am I?' he said. +`Lord's Cricket Ground,' said Ford. +`Fine,' said Arthur, and his consciousness stepped out +again for a quick breather. His body flopped back on the +grass." + +- Arthur coping with his return to Earth as best as he could. +% +"`A curse,' said Slartibartfast, `which will engulf the +Galaxy in fire and destruction, and possibly bring the +Universe to a premature doom. I mean it,' he added. +`Sounds like a bad time,' said Ford, `with luck I'll be +drunk enough not to notice.'" + +- Ford ensuring everyone knew where his priorities lay. +% +"`My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland +and a natural deficiency in moral fibre, and that I am +therefore excused from saving Universes.'" + +- Ford's last-ditch attempt to get out of helping Slartibartfast. +% +"Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of +THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness. +`Go to it,' it said, `and good luck.' +It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of +the Universe and ways of coping with that." + +- One of the more preferable pieces of advice contained in the Guide. +% +"His eyes seemed to be popping out of his head. He wasn't +certain if this was because they were trying to see more +clearly, or if they simply wanted to leave at this point." + +- Arthur trying to see who had diverted him from going to a party. +% +"Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and +his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out +which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of. +`Bet you weren't expecting to see me again,' said the +monster, which Arthur couldn't help thinking was a strange +remark for it to make, seeing as he had never met the +creature before. He could tell that he hadn't met the +creature before from the simple fact that he was able to +sleep at nights." + +- Arthur discovering who had diverted him from going to a party. +% +"`That young girl is one of the least benightedly +unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound +lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.'" + +- Marvin's first ever compliment about anybody. +% +"Arthur hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. +Then he realised there was a contradiction there and merely +hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." + +- Arthur realising that he's in a certain death situation +with a supernova bomb that is shaped like a cricket ball. +% +"`Credit?' he said. `Aaaargggh...' +These two words are usually coupled together in the Old +Pink Dog Bar." + +- Ford in a spot of bother. +% +"`...we might as well start with where your hand is now.' +Arthur said, `So which way do I go?' +`Down,' said Fenchurch, `on this occasion.' +He moved his hand. +`Down,' she said, `is in fact the other way.' +`Oh yes.'" + +- Arthur trying to discover which part of Fenchurch is wrong. +% +"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily +escaped the chronicler's mind." + +- This line perhaps best sums up the whole book. +% +"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred +character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in +at number 79. .... +When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's +been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe the +best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a +building." + +- Nuff said?? +% +"`What's been happening here?' he demanded. +`Oh just the nicest things, sir, just the nicest things. +can I sit on your lap please?'" +"`Colin, I am going to abandon you to your fate.' +`I'm so happy.'" +"`It will be very, very nasty for you, and that's just too +bad. Got it?' +`I gurgle with pleasure.'" + +- Ford and Colin the robot. +% +"What the hell, he thought, you're only young once, and +threw himself out of the window. That would at least keep +the element of surprise on his side." + +- Ford outwitting a Vogon with a rocket launcher by going +into another certain death situation. +% +"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong +and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a +thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually +turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." + +- One of the laws of computers and programming revealed. +% +"`You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for +insurance company directors?' +`Really?' said Arthur. `No I didn't. For what offence?' +Trillian frowned. +`What do you mean, offence?' +`I see.'" + +- Evidence that there will be some justice in the Universe eventually. +% +"`She hit me on the head with the rock again.' +`I think I can confirm that that was my daughter.' +`Sweet kid.' +`You have to get to know her,' said Arthur. +`She eases up does she?' +`No,' said Arthur, `but you get a better sense of when to +duck.'" + +- Ford and Arthur on Random. +% +"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable +end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small +unregarded yellow sun. " +% +"Ah, " said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage +of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of. " +% +"I don't know, " said the voice on the PA, "apathetic +bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all. " +% +"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that +anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely +by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the +final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. +"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove +that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and +without faith I am nothing.' +"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't +it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you +exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. +QED.' +% +"Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done +not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember +the sequence of muscle movements. " +% +"OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million +for good thinking, yeah? " +% +"In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, +men were real men, women were real women, and small furry +creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry +creatures from Alpha Centauri. " +% +"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or +so, nothing continued to happen. " +% +(aikamuotojen käyttö aikamatkustuksessa) +"You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you +like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you +can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to +your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen +presooning returningwenta retrohome.) " +% +"The suit into which the man's body had been stuffed looked +as if it's only purpose in life was to demonstrate how +difficult it was to get this sort of body into a suit. " +% +"He dropped his voice still lower. In the stillness, a fly +would not have dared clear its throat. " +% +"And finally, " said Max, quieting the audience down and +putting on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with +us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout +believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the +Great Prophet Zarquon. " ... "There they are, " said Max, +"sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and +he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's +hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left! " +% +"As he came into the light they could see his black and +gold uniform on which the buttons were so highly polished +that they shone with an intensity that would have made an +approaching motorist flash his lights in annoyance. " +% +"You're very sure of your facts, " he said at last, "I +couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe +- if there is one - for granted. " +% +"What are you talking about? " +"Never mind, eat the fruit. " +"You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden. +" +"Eat the fruit. " +"Sounds quite like it too. " +% +"Rome wasn't burned in a day. " +% +"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense? " +% +"One's never alone with a rubber duck. " +% +"Another world, another day, another dawn. " +% +"He expanded his chest to make it totally clear that here +was the sort of man you only dared to cross if you had a +team of Sherpas with you. " +% +"It was real. At least, if it wasn't real, it did support +them, and as that is what sofas are supposed to do, this, +by any test that mattered, was a real sofa. " +% +Arthur said, "So which way do I go? " +"Down, " said Fenchurch, "on this occasion. " +He moved his hand. +"Down, " she said, "is in fact the other way. " +"Oh yes. " +% +"You're one hundred percent positive that the ship which is +crashed on the bottom of this ocean is the ship which you +said you were one hundred percent positive could one +hundred percent positively never crash? " +% +"Yes, it's the right planet, all right, " he said again. +"Right planet, wrong universe. " +% +"Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn't much of one, +but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule +he made was never to buy his own drinks. He wasn't sure if +that counted as an ethic, but you have to go with what +you've got. " +% +"Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole Galaxy +of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was +churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just +two things: the world he was born on and the woman he +loved. " +% +"What was the self-sacrifice? " +"I jettisoned half of a much loved and I think +irreplaceable pair of shoes. " +"Why was that self-sacrifice? " +"Because they were mine! " said Ford crossly. +"I think we have different value systems. " +"Well mine's better. " +"That's according to your... oh never mind. " |