Moe Lane's Blog, page 611
January 15, 2022
01/15/21 Snippet, ‘Desert’ (Working title).
Does this work as an introduction?
Patreon!Joe Grushnark-Baxter shook his head as the last gunman tumbled down the hill. Damned fool should have known when to leave well enough alone. Him and his friends.
He looked down, saw that the aforementioned damned fool was still kicking from the bullet in his head, and aimed down the barrel — and then stopped. Bullets weren’t cheap. Besides… Joe looked back over his shoulder and asked, “These all of the point-ears?”
One of the halflings now crowded up against the bars of their jail-cart snorted. There were five of them, all looking more than a little battered, but this one had a spectacular shiner. “And just why should I tell you, tusk-mouth?”
Joe thought about getting mad for a moment, before conceding it was a fair question. He stooped, shucked a hoop of keys off of one dead elf’s belt, and tossed the hoop at Shiner. The halfling might have only one eye working at the moment, but he still snapped it out of the air like a frog snagging a fly.
“Because I said please?” Joe said, taking pains to be polite.
Shiner had already somehow gotten the right key in the door lock. “I’m sorry to say you did not, good sir,” he said as the door popped open. That just left his and the other halflings’ neck chains, but Shiner was working on that as he talked. “Say please, I mean.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. Fine. These all of the point-ears, please?”
It was amazing, how fast short halfling fingers could move. “All in this slaver party, sure.” Shiner grinned at him. “There’s another five outriders, scouting out for trouble and more folks to grab. I figure they’ll be coming back hells for leather, now that they heard the shots.”
“Well, damn.” Joe had been reloading his revolvers and checking his rifle; they looked fine, but you always checked. “Shame they’re not four. I don’t care about their guns, or the mules. You want ‘em, take ‘em. But get somebody to put that poor bastard down there out of his misery.”
“Oh, I figure one of the boys is taking care of that,” Shiner said as there was a sudden, if brief, commotion at the bottom of the hill. “But you ain’t gonna ask us to stick around?”
“Nope,” Joe said. “Skedaddling’s smart, even if it’s on a mule. And if there’s five outriders here, then there’s probably a damn regiment or two of the point-ears real close by. They’re not gonna get any happier about what happened here.”
“Sure. So why ain’t you running? This an orc thing?”
“Nope.” Joe wished he had some tobacco to chew, so that he could spit it. “This all started when these sons of bitches shot my horse.”
Footage of the Tonga Volcano.
Via @EsotericCD. I’ve already bored my children with it, so now it’s your turn. Note that this is from yesterday: supposedly the eruption today in Tonga was even more dramatic.
I can't fathom seeing the #tonga Volcanic eruption in real-time from boat. This is insane.pic.twitter.com/1dXRa0lX25
— Doc V (@MJVentrice) January 15, 2022
No reliable reports of mass casualties yet, and I’m praying that it stays that way. Expect maybe some spectacular sunsets in that region for a while.
My mini-review of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME.
Short version: I put real pants on to go see this movie, and I don’t regret it.
Slightly longer version: …SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME was a lot of fun. Good plot, good use of past flicks (and… other stuff) to sustain this one, and good (and fun) action scenes. Also, apparently somebody at Sony noticed that Zendaya can actually act, so they decided to let her do some of that in this movie. Which is nice.
Anyway: excellent flick, go see it, stop by the bar first to have a hot meal and a cold beer. I’ve got it down to a science by now.
Moe Lane
PS: No spoilers, but… you know That Guy? You know, the guy that kinda got a raw deal in the franchise? They do all right by That Guy.
Book of the Week: Ranks of Bronze.
Ranks of Bronze is David Drake’s classic ‘Romans captured and forced to fight alien wars’ stories; and if that doesn’t sound weird, it’s only because he did such a good job with it. Don’t mind the cover, though. Baen has always had its little ways.
January 14, 2022
Back to a regular schedule tomorrow.
It occurs to me now that I should have remembered that, thanks to the unexpected snow storms last week, this was the first full week the kids were back to school after winter break. It went… excitedly. It’s also the week before the end of the marking period, and that’s always fun.
Anyway: I probably should have taken more time off formally, but that’s water under the bridge. I’m gonna get back to something approaching normalcy, including more stuff that’s maybe not directly feeding the growing Moe Lane Authorial Empire. That part of my brain’s important, too.
Tweet of the Day, …Oh, boy. edition.
I’m with Brian on this one.
Could be great; could be terrible. But Quantum Leap is coming back!https://t.co/TlFpW3G5Sv
— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) January 14, 2022
Scott Bakula’s aware, not upset, but not currently involved. I am… skeptical that they can catch QUANTUM LEAP in another bottle. And, dammit, but Dean Stockwell was a great character actor. So we’ll see!
January 13, 2022
My internet’s been weird all day.
As in slooooooooooow. To the point where I’ve started keeping a book handy. I’m gonna try to reboot the computer, see if that helps. If it doesn’t… I may actually go to bed early. The idea is peculiarly fascinating.
RIP, Terry Teachout.
Very sad news. He was Old School, yet well-liked (two qualities… not always yoked in tandem, for folks like us). My condolences and prayers for his family and loved ones.
We are devastated to report the death of Terry Teachout. In his sleep a few hours ago.
— lynnchu (@lynnchu) January 13, 2022
