I’m off to Southend to spend Christmas with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew, having wrapped all my safely-euclidian presents. Blogging will be non-existant for the next few days.
May I wish you all a very happy Christmas! Don’t drink too much, and eat brussels sprouts only if you actually like them!
From the Straight Dope Message Board - If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!?. See Lord of The Rings in the styles of Ernest Hemingway, Tom Clancy, E E ‘Doc’ Smith, James Joyce, Ian Fleming and more!
For example, Jack Vance
The party emerged from Mordor, each looking thoughtful. Aragorn spoke first.
‘It is needless to say that we all regret the loss of Gandalf. He was truly a person of eminence and grace’.
‘Yet’, interrupted Legolas, ‘The cynical and suspicious might find your heartfelt grief at his untimely demise perhaps lacking a touch of sincerity, given that his death at this time perforce elects you to leader of our little group’
‘ The implication in your words, Legolas, I find disturbing in the extreme’, answered Aragorn.
‘As do I, although the implication in question is perhaps a different one’, said Boromir. ‘Why is Aragorn, as you say, ‘perforced elected’ to leadership? Surely this matter should be referred to a larger referendum than just yourself, Legolas, intelligent though you may be’
‘I used the specific appellation…’, began Legolas. Gimli interrupted.
‘Regardless, and I must say I find these small-minded squabbles of yours irksome and inappropriate, we are on the borders of Lothlorien, a realm whose inhabitants have certain unusual customs, which the unwary traveller often falls foul of. I suggest that our friend Frodo renders the Ring on to me until we are through Lothlorien and in a place of more condign safety, or perhaps an even greater period of time’.
Pippin frowned. ‘Your suggestion has merit, although I would deem it wiser that someone more suitable, for instance I, should have the laborious and dangerous duty of actually carrying the Ring…’
Or William F. McGonagall
Beautiful Stony Bridge of the Dwarven mines!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That two lives have been taken away
On the last (Third Age) day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.‘Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the Balrog it burn’t with all its might,
And the fire came pouring down,
And the dark orcs seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the fire seem’d to say-
“I’ll pass across the Bridge today.”When the party left Rivendell
The Fellowship’s hearts were light and they felt quite well,
But Boromir threw a terrific strop,
Which made their hearts for to stop,
And many of the Fellowship with fear did hum-
“I hope Elbereth Gilthoniel will send us safe across the Bridge of Khazad-dum.”But when the hobbits were ready to feed their tum,
The Balrog he gathered his orcish scum,
And shook the whole structure of the Bridge of Khazad-dum
On the last (Third Age) day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.So the Wizard mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Khazad-dum,
Until he was looking at the Balrog’s bum,
Then the whole bridge gave way with a hiss,
And down went Gandalf and Fiend into the abyss!
The Fiery Fiend did loudly quip,
Because he’d gotten Gandalf with his whip,
On the last (Third Age) day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.As soon as the catastrophe which could not have been worse
The alarm from mouth to mouth spread from river to firth,
And the cry rang out all o’er Middle Earth,
The Khazad-dum Bridge is blown down - O Elbereth!
And in the Fellowship from Rivendell,
Of which all the people were scared as h*ll,
Because they all heard Gandalf’s yell
“Fly, you fools!” Well, none had breath to to tell
How the disaster happen’d on the last last (Third Age) day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
As an unrepentant prog-rock fan, I was never really a fan of The Clash. My memories of the 70s and early 80s was being told by punk fans that all the music I liked was by obsolete dinosaurs. However, I have to admit they were probably the most significant band from the British punk scene. Quite possibly, had there been no clash to counter the mindless nihilism of the Sex Pistols, punk would just have been a footnote in music history.
Michele has posted a eulogy of sorts. On the other hand, Lawrence, not a fan of The Clash at all, is more interested in how many points he would have been worth in the Dead Pool
Michele has some politically-correct Christmas carols. “Supreme Being of Your Choice Rest Ye Merry Gentlepeople” indeed!
What is it about the success of the second “Lord of the Rings” film (which I sadly have yet to see) that brings out the worst snobbish attitudes of the self-appointed “cultural elite”?
The stupid rant in The Times by an ivory-towered academic is a typical exampled, perfectly summed up by Andrea Harris:
Average price of ticket to see The Two Towers in the theater: US$7.50. Box office earnings of said film over its five-day debut: $75.1 million. Expression on the face of a postmodern academic who realizes that none of the theories of Deconstruction that he devoted his life to have made any impression on society: priceless.
Personally I loved it when a bookshop poll a few years back nominated Lord of the Rings as the greatest novel of all time, and seeing the critics like the odious Tony Parsons aghast.
I don’t visit the Marillion web site as often as I should, or I would have picked up on this a few days ago.
When we asked you two years ago to take a leap of faith and BUY an album we hadn’t even written, 13,000 of you stepped forward, placed your trust in us, and helped launch an idea that is still being talked about in music industry circles and in the press over two years later, and YOU made this possible.
We are currently in the studio writing and recording our new album (with Dave Meegan in the producer’s chair). We think it’s our most important album ever and we’ve decided the time has come to make a big noise about it.
Once again we need a new strategy and we intend to break all the rules and do something revolutionary. We can’t do this without you, our fans. We have an idea of what we want to do and we need your feedback because your views are very important to us AND you might have an even better idea!
As you know, with Anoraknophobia we were signed worldwide to EMI Records. We were very happy with EMI’s distribution. We were disappointed, however, with EMI’s marketing and promotional strategy. In some countries around the world, very little money was spent and so therefore we had no chance of selling records outside of our existing fan base, and sometimes we didn’t manage to reach some of those fans either! We have decided we must address this problem before a point in the future where Marillion’s very existence comes under threat. As the old saying goes: “If you want a job doing properly DO IT YOURSELF!”
The solution is to “push” (ie promote and market) this band ourselves. To do this takes a lot of money and a lot of promotion. We have the capability to do the promotion but we unfortunately don’t have the money…yet.
What they’re trying to do this time is not only raise the money to make the album from their fans, but to raise enough money to promote the album by touring, including the US where they haven’t visited for years. Read the entire letter for more information on some of the things they’re considering doing.
The fan-funded album “Anoraknophobia” was their best release in years; let’s hope the new project is as much of a success!
Some odd choices in the top 10 from the BBC World Service poll to find the ‘Worlds favourite song’. Eric Olsen, naturally isn’t impressed, especially as the only American song is by Cher, and one of the three English-language songs is his favourite, “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
High on the list, but outside the top ten were such delights as the cheese-metal classic “Winds of Change”, and, for Cthulhu’s sake, “The Ketchup Song”.
Of course, these polls are ultimately meaningless; they’re prone to ballot-stuffing (how else could an Irish republican anthem get to #1?), and can produce distorted results, such as no Beatles songs because their votes were split between 10 different nominations. Although I’m glad there nothing there by The Smiths!
This sat tale got posted to the ModMod mailing list (dedicated to UK diesel and electric era railway modelling)
Anyone want a cat?
On My Workbench: The remains of a 1959 London Underground DMS
The moral of this story is: If you are part of a railway modelling household, and there are one or more cats in the house, do not on any account allow them to watch Japanese monster movies - it will only give them ideas!
This thread appeared on a message board that I won’t name…
Someone: I may need to start promoting a website at some point in the future. Are there any good ways to do this, outside of entering the URLs at search engines?
Someone Else: The personal, vanity site could be promoted through blogger-friends.
Original Someone: Yeesh. I’m of the opinion that friends shouldn’t let friends write blogs…
Me: Not sure how I should respond to that one….
Note that the URL of this blog always appears in my .sig
Original Someone: Well, let’s just say I don’t like reading other people’s online diaries and wouldn’t go out of my way to cultivate friends who did so.
Me: : Arrrghhh!
I think some people need some education as to what the Blogosphere’s about!
Update: Perhaps he things all blogs are like this? (Thanks to Bible Geek for the link!)
Turn of a Friendly Die: WISH 25: New PCs, Existing Party
I haven’t posted anything to the last couple of WISHes, because I couldn’t think of anything much to say. However:
How do you introduce a new PC to an existing group? Is it best if the GM takes special measures of some kind to integrate the new and existing characters, or should the GM just allow them to meet and let the players put it all together? Does it matter whether the game is oriented towards character cooperation or character competition?
I’ve tried both approaches. In one of my current on-line Kalyr games I’ve dropped two new PCs into the game just after the climactic battle of previous “chapter” of the game. The existing party had accidentally switched on an interplanar portal device which warped two people from 21st century Earth (the two new PCs) into Kalyr.
Previously I’ve started new PCs in their own threads, and had them meet up with other PCs when the plotlines called for it to happen. In another Kalyr game I don’t really have party as such at all; each PC has their own agenda and plotline, and PCs tend to meet up and split up, sometimes just passing ‘as ships in the night’.
In some ways, the ‘party’ is an artificial construct necessary for face-to-face gaming, that doesn’t always apply to gaming on-line. On the other hand, an on-line game without much PC-to-PC interaction can rapidly turn into half-a-dozen semi-independent one-to-one games.