Moe Lane's Blog, page 136

Fascinating exercise in a whole different world: Christmas Under Wraps.

My troubles with getting TIMMY AND THE BAD PLACE out the door stems from a single source: I don’t know enough about Hallmark Christmas movies. I mean, I could fake it, and to a certain extent I have gotten about a thousand words out by getting some of the plot elements down, but I need to actually watch this stuff. Because the goal isn’t actually to make fun of Hallmark Christmas movies, believe it or not.

So I started out today by watching Christmas Under Wraps. It’s considered one of the best Hallmark Christmas flicks, and it’s… actually not bad. But it’s one of those movies that is one ominous soundtrack and just a slightly flatter/creepier mass affect away from being a horror flick. It’s like watching a story about a woman being infected by a parasitical hive mind, only the hive mind isn’t actually horrible and won’t lock her in her room when she tries to leave.

…Which isn’t a bad idea for a story, come to think of it. I imagine a hive mind must be desperate to have other people, after a while. If only because that way it could get a cribbage game in.

Anyway: I’m mildly curious to see how many of these flicks I can watch before I crack.

Moe Lane

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‘Fairytale of New York.’

This is a very Irish carol. Or Irish-American carol. Or East Coast Irish-American carol. I dunno, man.

Fairytale of New York, The Pogues

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Some days have more inertia than others.

This was one of them. I’m lucky to have made wordcount.

12/11/2024 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.

A double helping of wordcount, today.

Patreon!

Abbie was a better codesmacker than Tobias was, so he let her navigate the barely stable mess that was their current electronic mail system. He also pulled in Ward, for reasons he tried not to think about. The good doctor had a certain viewpoint that was proving increasingly helpful for… anomalous cases. It made sense to have him along for the ride from the start.

It wasn’t that easy. Grabinski hadn’t logged into the system in the last twenty-four hours. But he had been checking his mail before that. He had even sent a message. The message file had been thoroughly corrupted, to the point of making the recipient unintelligible, but at least it was a sign of some activity.

“Why didn’t we think of this before?” grumbled Abbie. “Are we just assuming that a crazy person’s too crazy to even use email?”

“Yes,” Dr. Ward snickered. “We weren’t even wrong. Nobody on base these days sends an email when a face-to-face meeting will do. I’ve been encouraging it, actually. Too many neverwokes happening to people who stayed in their rooms and never saw anybody. I’m hoping bunking up two to a room will help with that in the future.”

My short-short ‘Turn The Page’ is up on Patreon for free-tier patrons.

‘Turn the Page‘ is my latest didn’t-win flash fiction contest entry. I like it anyway. I made it free-tier to encourage people to sign up for free. Always working the angles, me…

Patreon!

Tweet of the Day, Don’t Mess With The Chick-fil-A Drive-Thru Line edition.

Somewhere, there’s a bunch of Waffle House employees going over this video, and taking notes. Why? Because the true professional recognizes that there’s always more to learn. Waffle House doesn’t do much with parking lot brawls except let the cops deal with it, because no drive-thrus. They can analyze this with fresh eyes.

Besides, it’s interesting to see how terrain can change a takedown.

A Chick-Fil-A employee heroically tackles an attempted car-jacker in the parking lot pic.twitter.com/FL4rETHujf

— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) December 11, 2024

Via @RocketPulpHack. Also: old, but real.

‘Santa Baby.’

Santa Baby, Eartha Kitt

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FINALLY got around to plotting out TIMMY AND THE BAD PLACE.

You’d think that I’d start with that, especially when I just have the basic conceit and not any of the details. But I know what the story is, finally. All I have to do… is watch some Hallmark Christmas movies. Which I absolutely do not want to do, but this won’t work if I don’t do the work.

Ah, the suffering one does for one’s art.

12/10/2024 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.

Accomodations!

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“Only none of them have seen hide or hair of the man.” Tobias scowled at the tablet. “He’s not drawing rations anywhere, either. That concerns me more.”

“Because it means he has a food source we don’t know about?”

“Exactly. I don’t care if he’s living on thrown-out shipping nuggets; we need to know where every calorie is.” He scowled. “Hell, we need more shipping nuggets. They’d be perfect for the Lifeboat.”

“Hmm. What does Asenath think?” Lillian smiled at Tobias’s startled look. “She may just be a manifestation of your current mental state, but you do have the advantage of being a very smart man. I assume that would extend to your hallucinations. We have to use everything we can.”

Tobias decided — not for the first time — that Lillian was very smart herself. Well, Asenath, what do you think? Oh, and sorry about Lillian…

There is nothing to forgive, Commander. She does not dislike or even disapprove of either me, or our working together. She simply believes that I do not exist. This hardly makes her unique. Dr. Peters is also better at making you practice self-care than I am, sometimes. It is in my best interest to maintain a good working relationship with her, even by proxy.

The “…Huh.” 28 YEARS LATER trailer.

28 DAYS LATER was excellent. 28 WEEKS LATER was… an ambitious failure. I am very much a minority opinion in that assessment, I know, but I felt the movie did not sufficiently sell to me the contrived set of screw-ups that allowed the virus to propagate again. So I wasn’t enthralled at the thought of 28 YEARS LATER.

And yet: this doesn’t look half bad.

I also give a movie points for having the guts to use Rudyard Kipling in a trailer. And not in an obnoxiously snarky fashion, either. Nice.

Moe Lane

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