It could be that the answer to life, the universe and everything is found on page 42 of the Vogon Poetry Anthology. If so, give up all hope.

"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story."
~ Douglas Adams

42 was chosen as the answer, as Douglas Adams wanted to find the most unremarkable or boring number to produce the biggest anti-climax possible. Sorry for destroying anyones hopes. The only meaning that could be made is the mundane.

I love what he finds outrageous... One of my favorite scenes is when President beeblebrox (don't kill me for spelling) is asked what he thinks and the alien spatula thing smacks him dead in the face

I love Douglas and have to believe that he was inspired by Robert Sheckly. If I recall, Terry Pratchett was inspired by both, even incorporating 'The Luggage' as an homage to Sheckly. All great authors, great wit and have brought me many happy hours of reading and laughing out loud - especially in public places.

I was always kind of hoping that something awesome would happen when I turned 42. Sadly, it did not.

ASCII is an incedibly simple and elegant solution to the translation of machine mathematics into human language. Douglas Adams provides a similar path in his four part trilogy. My family still finds its way through traffic by finding a car that looks like it knows where it is going and following it

Another interesting fact is that "it's the answer to life, the universe and everything" is 42 letters.

I like the hitch hikers to the universe