Moe Lane's Blog, page 468
November 8, 2022
A map for BANSHEE BEACH!
It’s very important to have a map for this stuff, so that you know where everything is. Therefore: behold! A very crude map of Red Beach, jeweled resort of the northern Gulf of California! Don’t worry, I’ll have somebody competent make the real one.
Also, funny story: today was the day that I realized that I know virtually nothing about surfing. After careful consideration, I have decided to handle this problem in the time-honored pulp tradition of not giving a damn.
11/08/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 2127/20350.
Back to being only 450 words behind. A concerted push, and I’m back on track! Go, me.
When in doubt, find a native guide.
Maravilloso was bigger, shabbier, and a lot more interesting than the beaches on the other side of town. It didn’t have many buildings, but there were a ton of sheds and shacks. What’s the difference? The shacks had hammocks and windows. The sheds had… stuff in them: wood, bits of metal, mismatched tools, and tons and tons of beeswax. The whole thing was ‘picturesque,’ which is what people call open spaces when they can’t smell the cows.
The cows weren’t so bad, though. They were all a ways in, behind some impressively large fences. I mean, the damn things were as high as my shoulder. “I didn’t think cows could jump that high,” I muttered.
“They can’t, mister,” came a voice behind me. Young — teenager young — and female. “That’s to repel boarders.”
I turned around. Yup, it was a teenaged girl. Maybe fifteen, dressed in the snug-fitting body suits the surfers around here wore. Well, in her case the snug-fitting part would have to wait a year or two more, but that’s the price of hand-me-downs. Black hair, green eyes over a smirking, gum-chewing mouth, and the clearly she had gotten a gift from the Freckle Fairy at birth.
“Ain’t this a school night?” I asked mildly as I wiped my head. She noted the hat, and flushed slightly. To be fair, I wasn’t wearing the suit.
“No school on weekends, Shamus. And it ain’t even noon yet. You on a Case?”
“I hope not,” I said, without much conviction.
Tweet of the Year, @alyankovic Should Have Charged Money For This edition.
You should feel honored to see a master at work.
Oh no, they suspended @danielradcliffe's Twitter account! Wasn't it obvious he was doing a PARODY???
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) November 7, 2022
I’ll assume you already knew that Elon Musk has been throwing out people who pretend to be someone else; and that he’s been ignoring the Holy Blue-Check when doing it. What you may not know is that Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t use social media. Which is something Weird Al knows perfectly well, unlike all the people who immediately started freaking out about this*. Perfect timing, perfect execution, and the ultimate targets of the joke were the ones who went off half-cocked over something they saw on the Internet.
…God, that is beautiful. It’s inspiring, even. We should all take a moment.
*I must also gently note that the aforementioned mass freak-outs are excellent evidence for why Twitter should have a strict policy against having impersonation accounts.
November 7, 2022
‘Here Comes The Sun.’
Here Comes The Sun, The Beatles
#commissionearned
Quote of the Day, Can Movies Commit War Crimes? edition.
Did you know there was a Garbage Pail Kids movie? Well, there was: and it was everything you might imagine, and less. This is supposedly a quote from the director, and even for 1987 this is some freaky-a*s sh*t, man:
“We got dwarves and put heads on them, and found out how long they could survive in there without breathing, and it turned out to be about five, seven minutes. So you had to rehearse everything without the heads on, put the heads on, have a paramedic [with] a stop watch. Little sons of bitches go in there, and you say ‘action’, and you shoot until they can’t breathe.”
I’ll wait for the horrified laughter to stop. Note, also, that I have not put up an Amazon link. I have my pride. And a basic sense of humanity.
11/07/2022 NaNoWriMo, BANSHEE BEACH: 3013/18223
Real nose to the grindstone today. I’m not quite back on track, but I did a good bit of it. I also finally formally blocked out the plot. That’s a bad habit to get into – not blocking out the plot, I mean – so I don’t recommend it.
“Compliments of the lady over there, Shamus.”
I raised one eyebrow in surprise at the orange slice-garlanded drink, and some more at the smell. It was some of the local booze: the locals called it ‘damiana,’ but I wasn’t sure which Queen of Virginia the stuff had been named after. Supposedly it’d been used in the real old days to encourage one’s ‘passion,’ if you know what I mean: a woman sending a glass of it over to a man wasn’t exactly what you’d call a subtle hint.
Or maybe it was, because when I looked over to see who my sudden benefactress was who did I see, but Dolores? She was all nicely dolled up tonight, too. She wasn’t trying to hide her age, and she sure wasn’t ashamed of what she had. When she saw me see her, she raised her own glass and toasted me.
Naturally, I took myself and my drink over to her. No need not to be polite. Besides, I was on vacation.
“You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me, dollface,” I drawled as I joined her at her table. “I’m a bad penny and a plugged nickel, all rolled up into one.”
“Well, you’re certainly as funny as a three dollar bill,” she cracked wise, right back. “That’s the only bad old joke I know about money, sorry.”
“There’s the one about rubber checks bouncing, but trying to shove that in would strain the patter,” I told her. “Hope you understand that I ain’t finishing, or even starting, this. No offense.”
Coming soon: Robin Laws’s FIFTH IMPERATIVE.
Coming from Pelgrane Press, Fifth Imperative, my second novel in the Technician series.
Reluctantly campaigning for Senate in post-dictatorship America, the Technician digs into the case of a stray bullet, and smells parageometry at work.https://t.co/RaDI1wOU0l pic.twitter.com/nAPUkOWOaX
— Robin D. Laws (@RobinDLaws) November 7, 2022
Robin Laws’s FIFTH IMPERATIVE is the sequel to THE MISSING AND THE LOST, which is one the best damn books you’ll never be able to find on Amazon.com. The book is set in a world where a dictator tainted with the Yellow Sign took power, and formed an Imperial Dynasty that ruled America for a century before it was overthrown and replaced by a democratic government; if that sounds a lot like one of the settings in Pelgrane Press’s THE YELLOW KING RPG, that’s because it is. The new book isn’t out yet, but the first one is really cool. So’s the game. Check them out.
#commissionearned
November 6, 2022
11/06/2022 NaNoWriMo BANSHEE BEACH: 907/15210
Not a great day for writing. I blame Daylight Savings Time. I also need to catch up.
It took me half an hour to lose the grubstake Lucas had passed me at the gaming tables. What? Look, I’m a Shamus. No way am I gonna throw away my own money. Or worse, win with it. When one of us gets lucky at cards or the roulette table, well, we make up for it somewhere else.
Gotta say, though: the Espejismo was the kind of place where you didn’t mind getting taken for everything except your pocket lint. They had brought somebody in to fake up some real class for the joint, and not just the usual more-money-than-sense kind, either. Everywhere you looked, there were sharp-dressed dealers and green velvet tables and soft rugs that seemed to absorb the noise. Lots of laughter and cheers, and nobody crying or shouting their troubles. You could almost believe that this was the sort of place that cared for something else besides moving money from you to them, with plenty of food and drink to smooth the way.
Now, I’m don’t judge the Espejismo, or any of its siblings. Predators are gonna predate, because that’s what they do. You don’t judge the chupacabra for hunting the goat. I also don’t judge the people who work in places like this, either. Even in New California, a guy or girl’s gotta eat. I can’t even judge the owners. The Espejismo catered to people with money to throw away, and I don’t see why somebody should get sneered at for holding the trash bag.
So who do I judge? Damned if I know, but if I ever figure out who, they’re gonna get an earful.
