DNA

I have practically no time to post this blog entry today, so I’ll make it quick.

To continue our Monty Python theme, it occurred to me that we ought to feature the one person who was close to all the Pythons, but wasn’t actually a Python himself. Namely, Douglas Noel Adams, or DNA.

He was actually in episodes 42 and 44 of Monty Pythons Flying Circius. In episode 42, he was a surgeon in a sketch near the beginning of the episode that never got started, and in epsode 44, he was one of the pepperpot ladies who put a missile on the truck that was collecting metal.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t having much luck finding the sketch minus the episode.

He is best known for his Hitchhiker series. He also wrote the Dirk Gently series, several episodes of Dr. Who, and Last Chance to See, which was about him going all over the world finding endangered species.

Here is a talk he did at UCSB shortly before his death where he talks about it:

Parrots, the Universe, and Everything

And, yes, it’s almost 1 1/2 hours. He’s a good speaker, though.

He was also very into computers (he had a full network of Macs in his home) and music. Here is a clip where he is actually playing backing guitar for Pink Floyd:

Brain Damage / Eclipse

Don’t recall the full story behind that.I know he was good friends with one of the members of Pink Floyd, and had always wanted to play with them, though.

Anyways, he was a talented witty person, a well-known atheist and friend of Richard Dawkins, who died far too soon (in 2001 of a heart attack). We need more like him.

And if I wasn’t cramming a post between dinner and going to bed, I’m sure I could do him better justice.

(And what some of you may find scary is that I only referred to an external source once on this post. The rest was from memory. I’m a *big* fan of his.)