Moe Lane's Blog, page 685
August 8, 2021
Patreon Microfiction: Sympathy.
Probably the narrator in ‘Sympathy’ was intellectually aware about human limitations. But did he know it, deep in his guts? Probably not. Well, definitely not, because I wrote him that way. And plausibly, I feel.
Patreon!
Pic of the Day, This Is One Of The Better Fake Ads Out There edition.
It actually had me going for half a minute.
Today's episode of #DavesCarIDService is brought to you by the all new 1952 Dodge Coronet. Bring your friends to your local Dodge dealer and take one out for the blindfold test! pic.twitter.com/WCOHr7At9a
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 8, 2021
Possibly because it’s based on a real ad campaign. Which is extra-clever, because “Dodge Blindfold Test” brings back real hits. You have to look at the pictures before you realize that the picture above is a parody of something that actually existed.
August 7, 2021
It’s not that I don’t want an Elder-Scrolls style RPG (The Wayward Realms).
It’s that I’m not impressed by THE WAYWARD REALMS trailer.
Yes, it’s a teaser and the final version won’t be out for years. But it feels a little… non triple-A. I’d have been happier if they had delayed the trailer for a few more months.
And get off my lawn!
See, THIS is what I was expecting out of The Future.
It’s not quite right. Yet. But I don’t think I’m getting a Bradbury or Heinlein-style rocketship – self-contained, easy to refuel, and with a turnaround time in hours – until we get a few more iterations of our engines. Or, hey, a reactionless drive, since I’m blue-skying it. But this would do, for my fifties. This would very well do.
Starship Fully Stacked pic.twitter.com/Fs88RNsmfH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2021
Movie and Book of the Week: THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE.
For various reasons I’m watching THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE tonight; there’s also a book. The 1974 Matthau flick reminds me vividly of the NYC of my childhood; which is to say, remarkably [expletive deleted] up*. And this is a personal recollection, too. My dad was on the Staten Island railroad for decades, and we moved out of Brooklyn when I was eight, so while I don’t remember the details about living in the City back then I still vividly remember the feel. This movie captures the feel.
*I know I’m supposed to be romanticizing the past and everything. But seriously, 1970s NYC < 1980s NYC < 1990s NYC > 2000s and later NYC. Forget ‘character.’ What I enjoyed was the ability to walk through Times Square without being solicited for various criminal activities.
08/07/21 Snippet, RESCUE.
Setting!
Patreon!Being the newest guy and only American on board, he got all the shit jobs. The literal shit jobs; whenever he didn’t have anything to do, he could always clean the heads. The sailors’ hygiene on the Paul Féval was exactly as Ted expected, but at least the big communal bathroom was easy to clean, with tile floors and big drains. Somebody had even rigged up a hose to one of the sink faucets, which was a real help with cleaning up the accumulated funk.
But Ted spent most of his time helping cook. Or, rather, he picked up stuff and stowed stuff and pulled stuff out of various lockers and did whatever the actual cook yelled at him to do. That wasn’t too bad, either. The food was always unidentifiable but usually no worse than bland, and after the first couple of days he was only getting screamed at some of the time.
Ted had worried about getting hazed by the crew, until he realized that being on head cleaning detail was the hazing. He figured that as long as he looked miserable enough from both that, and being screamed at by the cook, that’d keep the crewmembers from getting more creative in their amusements. Hell, if everything only stayed the same, he could manage two months, easy. Being at sea wasn’t romantic at all, but it beat sleeping on the streets.
August 6, 2021
Mental Health Day.
Wife’s on vacation and the hernia thing is next week, so I just decided after my COVID test* this morning that I was done for the day. Took some naps, grilled burgers, had a beer. It was a thing.
Tweet of the Day, The Real Spark Is The Wind Beneath Flight Attendants’ Wings edition.
As my wife notes: real flight attendants are not allowed to talk like this. They have to route everything through PR. So I can only imagine the sheer bliss that they must have felt by seeing somebody else talk like this – because I believe The Real Spark gave the interview that lives in all of their hearts.
A contender for the best PR spokesperson of all time. pic.twitter.com/h0WnpkHr51
— Andrew Bloch (@AndrewBloch) August 6, 2021
Via @presjpolk.
