Moe Lane's Blog, page 473
October 28, 2022
‘Hotel California.’
Still a vampire song! The band is still wrong!
Anybody playing The Planet Crafters?
The Planet Crafters is an Early Access terraforming sim with no combat, but I guess survival mechanics. It looks like the kind of thing I could obsess over, only I don’t have time to obsess over a game right now. Is it too good for me to resist anyway?
(Via Fark)
Movie of the Night: BEACH PARTY.
I’m finally getting around to watching all those beach party flicks as research for writing BANSHEE BEACH, and started in with BEACH PARTY. And it’s… it’s real weird, man. These people have never heard of the Beatles, psychedelics, and/or hippies; also, I had somehow forgotten that folks were going to keep breaking out in song. It’s not a deal breaker for BANSHEE BEACH as a concept — but I can already tell, one movie in, that this book is gonna be a little bit different.
Daddy-O.
10/28/2022 Snippet, UNHOLY ANGLES.
Not much today. Gonna watch beach movies tonight!
Patreon!Okay, okay, getting ahead of myself. So you’re in a weak spot, somewhere you could hop universes and survive. Do you flip? Depends. Do you like where you are? You like who you are? You married, got kids, got a sick mom or a Friday night bowling league? Those are all great for keeping you fixed to your home universe. And it’s not just the positive stuff. Depressing or oppressive situations will do the trick, just as well. Chronic pain or anxiety keeps you focused on your body and its limitations, and focused people don’t flip universes. Or, Hell, do you have a mortgage? Nothing keeps somebody anchored to the here-and-now than worrying about a mortgage.
Tweets of the Day, This Has Been A Glorious Day For Street Theater edition.
Point and Counterpoint:
You got conned.
— Dr. Randy J. Marsh ➐ (@WealthyCFO) October 28, 2022
Name is “Rahul LIGMA”
C’mon man pic.twitter.com/EdcuIk6jCP
God, that’s beautiful. You have to respect that kind of performance art: these two saw an opportunity, and audaciously seized it. You can’t play small if you want to win big.
In the Mail: THE ONE RING: RUINS OF THE LOST REALM.
THE ONE RING: RUINS OF THE LOST REALM was a part of the THE ONE RING Kickstarter, and it’s obviously a sourcebook for the wilds of Eriador during the game’s time period (several generations prior to the War of the Ring). I’m curious to see how it contrasts with ICE’s old MERP/Rolemaster source books. Probably the two will be broadly similar, because they’re drawing from the same source material, but ICE chose a drastically earlier year for its game setting (Third Age 1640, just after the Great Plague). That should make a difference. So far, the book is very melancholy: given the setting, that makes absolute sense, so go them.
…Sorry for not explaining any of that.
October 27, 2022
‘Jump in the Line/’
Jump in the Line, Harry Belafonte
Watching ‘Pickman’s Model’ on Netflix now.
(Content warning on the show: gory as all get-out.)
It’s one of the episodes from Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. It’s… not what I was expecting. I don’t think that it’s bad, exactly. The director has clearly decided to start from the story itself, then go… elsewhere with it. The overall effect is tonally similar to the original story, but I can fully understand why Lovecraft purists might disapprove. I was hoping for a more faithful adaptation myself.
I should also note that I’ve taken a shot at ‘Pickman’s Model’ myself (see here). I flatter myself that it is a bit more purist, in a rather special sort of way.
10/27/2022 Snippet, UNHOLY ANGLES.
This flows better with the general theme of the story, I think. Sometimes, you just have to start over.
Patreon!Fractals. It’s all about fractals.
Yeah, yeah, you were promised there wouldn’t be any math. Say, who promised you that? Who is it that wants you thinking that mathematics is something you want to escape from? Because let me tell you, brothers and sisters: you won’t ever get to do that. Math is everywhere these days. Every-damn-where. It broke free from Newton and Leibniz, and now it’s gnawed its way into our world so deep, we couldn’t yank it out without killing ourselves in the process. You won’t see that metaphor in your calculus textbooks, let me tell you.
Don’t worry, though. I’m not talking about that kind of math. I want to tell you about Wild Math. You won’t learn about it in schools. Hell, God help you if you’re ever in one that teaches it, because Wild Math is the primal stuff, mathematics that’s never felt the sting of the whip, or the weight of a saddle on its back. It’s untamed and untameable — but it’s still math. That means you can do things with it. That’s why you can’t call it magic, not that I believe in magic.
What? Oh, you should totally decide to not believe in magic. It’s an amazing life hack. I wish I had learned it sooner.
Other Tweet of the Day, Obscure Reference edition.
At least, obscure for that hellsite. I’m sure my readers here will work it all out, easily enough.
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) October 28, 2022
