Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams!
Douglas Adams was a genius, one of the greatest and wittiest writers that ever lived and certainly one of the most endearingly curious. In addition to all the brilliant sci fi and holistic detective stories you know all about of course ( Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency ), he wrote non-fiction just as astonishingly well, which also makes him a superb journalist. One of my favorite things he ever wrote was an interview with Straun Sutherland, a medical researcher and expert in venomous creatures, whom Adams met with en route to Komodo for the book Last Chance to See about endangered species. The interview is reprinted here on Life in the Fast Lane and the last line of this story is one of my favorites of all time - short and sweet and everyone has been there. It's one of the funniest interviews ever and I'm so glad to have found it online. Happy Birthday, Douglas!