Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
Douglas AdamsRead
It is most gratifying," it said, "that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives ... thank you.
Interpretation
The quote humorously highlights the absurdity of corporate enthusiasm while juxtaposing it with a deadly threat.
This quote from Douglas Adams satirically comments on the often ridiculous nature of customer service, showing how businesses can be overly enthusiastic and reassuring even in the face of dire consequences, like missiles aimed at a spaceship. It serves to emphasize the absurdity of prioritizing customer satisfaction so much that it becomes ludicrous, suggesting a disconnection from reality that is often seen in bureaucratic environments.
In practice
Use this quote in a comedy sketch that explores the absurdity of corporate jargon.
Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
The Welsh are all actors. It's only the bad ones who become professional.
You have to have a thick skin, yes. If you're going to do something as foolhardy as standup, you've got to be able to take it on the chin if someone has a go at you.
Hungry Joe collected lists of fatal diseases and arranged them in alphabetical order so that he could put his finger without delay on any one he wanted to worry about.
What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
…a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper --a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.
Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until the computer says you're out of it.
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