10.10.10 Is the Number of the Feast

Towel Day is May 25. 
Have a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Party!

Gwen and I enjoy throwing themed parties, especially long ones. The more pop cultural the better, and if we can work themed food in, well woe be to him who violates the theme. Like the Kung Fu Weekend of Death, complete with Shaw Brothers movies, a copious chinese dinner and dim sum breakfast. Or the Geek Movie Weekend, with back-to-back Holy Grail and Princess Bride.

Tangentially: We've spent waaaayyyy to many hours of our lives arguing over what is and is not a Geek Movie [Holy Grail IS, Total Recall is definitely NOT] and devising logical tests to determine it quickly and decisively. Eventually we'll be forced to post a Venn diagram to publish our research into this heady and debatable subject.  But I digress...

So when October 10, 2010 rolled around, my better half and I absolutely had to throw a themed party (Gwen attended of course).   We decided to make it a contest - a geek trivia scavenger hunt if you will - with clues and prizes for the first person to get it right. We thought long and hard for weeks about the clues, not wanting the game to be too easy or too hard, and using Guinea Pig Gwen to gauge their difficulty. We picked up some sweet ass prizes for the winners, including a D-n-D Red Box, Creationary (it's Lego Pictionary! Brilliant!), The Ladies of Star Wars playing cards, old USSR propaganda posters against drinking... We even prepared a Lamuella Sandwich Bar: a sumptuous buffet of fixin's for build-your-own sandwiches (including Perfectly Normal Beast, of course) and homemade mocha stout to keep everyone's spirits up.

The guests were gathered and the goal was explained:
Tell us what the theme of the party is, and why it's significant.

Clue #1: There are clues all around the house:

Sci-Fi + Britain	A dolphin, A Whale, and a Robot
Petunias	Bottles of Bitter and Salted Peanuts

Clue #2: Mice (Hyperintelligent pan-dimensional Beings)

Clue #3: Jack Handy (As in, Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts)

Clue #4: This party could only be held on 10/10/10.

The fourth clue was our favorite, and the inspiration for the party.  Serious Geeks will know that in Binary, 101010 = 42. 

We wanted the clues to be hard enough to be challenging and tailored to the audience, which is obsessed with pop culture references and quotes.  Unfortunately, we made them a little too hard, and nobody got it without hints.  But the guests had a good time, the sandwiches were worthy of Arthur Dent, and everyone loved the prizes, which we gave out anyway.

Here are some additional food ideas for future HHGTTG parties:
Gwen's Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster recipe

Fairy Cake
Milliway Steak Bites (Ameglion Major cow) and green Salad

Coconuts

So this Towel Day, have some friends over and raise a pint of bitter to the memory of Douglas Adams.   Stay Froody, Dude.  We miss you.

Douglas Adams 1952 - 2001