Pad Warming Party
Subject: Pad Warming Party
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 12:51:17 -0700
From: David Barto <barto@ultra-rabbit.visionpro.com>
Exerpt from 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' page 634784, section 5a, Entry: Magrathea.
Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free.
Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. 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. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before - and thus the Empire was forged.
Many men, of course, became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of. And for all the richest and most successful merchants life inevitably became rather dull and niggly, and they began to imagine that this was therefore the fault of the worlds they'd settled on. None of them was entirely satisfactory: either the climate wasn't quite right in the later half of the afternoon, or the day was half an hour too long, or the sea was exactly the wrong shade of pink.
And thus were created the conditions for a staggering new form of specialist: custom-made luxury house building. The home was Magrathea, where hyperspatial engineers sucked matter through white holes in space to form it into this dream house.
But so long was this venture that Magrathea itself soon became the longest running house building project of all time. And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, and a long sullen silence settled over a billion hungry worlds, disturbed only by the pen scratchings of scholars as they labored into the night over smug little treatises on the value of a planned housing economy.
Magrathea itself disappeared and its memory soon passed into the obscurity of legend.
In these enlightened days, of course, no on believes a word of it.
Ford: You're crazy Zaphod, Magrathea is a myth, a fairy story, it's what parents tell their kids about at night when they want them to grow up to live in tract housing.
Zaphod: And that is what I'm going to see the foundation breaking party of.
Triallian: When?
Zaphod: On Saturday, the 29th of April. Starting at 4:00, meeting at 13514 Maryearl Lane.
Marvin: I'm sorry that this is happening now, and no one got any real notice about it.
Zaphod: Well you don't just steal space ships and jump to Denmark at the drop of a hat.
Triallian: Well I'm calling 111 555 1234 and telling them that I'll be there.
Ford: Ah, what the hell, I'll go too.
-- David Barto
From a Marketing type:
Don't give me any technical reason why something can't be done.
If you really believed in the product you'd make it work.
