Everybody's a critic

Let's do another by Bruce Eric Kaplan.  This one was in The New Yorker in January of 2000.  Everybody's a critic.  This would have been a more efficient way for Ford Prefect to get his Earth article written:

Ford Prefect was desperate that any flying saucer at all would arrive soon because fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindboggingly dull as the Earth.

Ford wished that a flying saucer would arrive soon because he knew how to flag flying saucers down and get lifts from them. He knew how to see the Marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altairan dollars a day.

In fact, Ford Prefect was a roving researcher for that wholly remarkable book The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.