Month: December 2017

Belated New Year’s Eve warning: please be careful out there.

I have no plans. Well, not true: I had plans — putting the finishing touches on this month’s gaming supplement for Patreon — and now they are done.  2017 was not actually the dog’s breakfast for me that it seems to have been for most of my Twitter and Facebook feeds; we’re all in good shape here at the house, I saw some movies I liked, and I sold a thing!  So let’s not have anything bad happen on the roads tonight, OK?  Stay safe and raise a glass at midnight where you’re going to be OK.

Moe Lane

PS: My usual toast.  To the truly deserving! — There’s so damned few of us left.

Annnnnd the Internet’s back.

Alarmingly, quite a bit of my entertainment choices rely on my being able to be online.  To say nothing of you know, actually putting stuff on this website. Then again, I’m sick, right?

…And I’ve just started reading yet another Jack Campbell series: Stark’s War. I swear to God, they should declare his books to be controlled substances, or something.  No, wait, then I’d have difficulty reading them. Never mind.

I don’t know what the maximum crime is in this Wichita swatting homicide case.

[UPDATE: Apparently there’s an Asshole #3, who made the call on Asshole #1’s behalf. Constant Reader BigGator5 used the term ‘psychopath,’ which I feel fits.]

Short version: Asshole #1 threatened Asshole #2 over a Call of Duty situation. Asshole #2 gave Asshole #1 a fake address.  Asshole #1 called the cops and sent them to that address with a false report of a shooting and hostage situation (‘swatting’). Cops show up, shoot and kill the guy who answered the door. In my opinion, it is exceedingly unlikely that the guy who got shot by the cops did anything to deserve that, but I don’t have the actual details on just what caused the shooting. Continue reading I don’t know what the maximum crime is in this Wichita swatting homicide case.

A cold, in case you were wondering.

The usual: kids got it, I got it, wife got it, everybody’s cranky. Between that and the cold snap I ain’t doing nothing this weekend, and I can’t make myself feel bad about that.  I’m just generally going to get more sleep and fluids, and hopefully we’ll all be better by Tuesday.

The very promising ‘7 Days in Entebbe’ trailer.

‘Very promising’ because 7 Days in Entebbe looks like they’re not going to be playing around with the narrative. Here are the bad guys (the terrorists); there are the good guys (Mossad). When the two intersect, the bad guys go away.  Which is just what we all want to see.

Continue reading The very promising ‘7 Days in Entebbe’ trailer.

Read of the Day: ‘A HISTORY OF THE SILMARILS IN THE FIFTH AGE.’

I was originally going to render that title down from all-caps, but if you’re a Tolkien geek then you’re absolutely going to agree with me that this concept deserves it. I need a word for “one step up from brilliant,” because this qualifies. This absolutely qualifies.

The Silmarillion describes the fate of the three Silmarils. Earendil kept one, and traveled with it through the sky, where it became the planet Venus. Maedhros stole another, but regretted his deed and jumped into a fiery chasm. And Maglor took the last one, but threw it into the sea in despair.

Well, Venus is still around. But what happened to the latter two? Surely over all the intervening millennia, with so many people wanting a Silmaril, they haven’t just hung around in the earth and ocean?

There’s a lot of spoilers in that link, so be careful.

Via @TimHarford.