Moe Lane's Blog, page 702

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.

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.

‘Pretty Good Year.’

Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos

Tweet of the Day, Stop DOING That edition.

If people are going to be this willfully reckless, then why do we even have spooky horror movies, people?

Do. Not. Remove. The. Golden. Eye. From. The. Unnaturally. Large. Holy. Woman's. SKELETON.

Please. https://t.co/RC5ePBXsZS

— Like Kurosawa, I Make Mad (@the_moviebob) August 5, 2021

I mean, Jesus CHRIST. I don’t even BELIEVE in magic or curses and if I ever found this on a dig, I’d carefully cover it back up, then go somewhere else for a while. There’s skeptical, and then there’s just asking for it. Great googly moogly.

E-Racing tonight!

Hrm. I should inquire if anybody on the PA League circuit wants to be a sponsored racer for the new book. I dunno if I actually sold any copies of TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION, last time, but it was remarkably cool to be a sponsor and the money all went to Child’s Play anyway.

It all starts up in an hour.

In the e-mail: Battle for the Wastelands: A Steampunk Military Fantasy.

The combination of the title, the cover art, and the 99 cents sale was enough to get me to pull the trigger on Battle for the Wastelands: A Steampunk Military Fantasy. What can I say? I’m a sucker for zeppelins.

This HBO Max BATMAN: THE AUDIO ADVENTURES podcast thing looks… promising?

I’m as surprised as you are:

HBO Max is producing a new Batman podcast titled Batman: The Audio Adventures. The series stars Jeffrey Wright as the Dark Knight, and he’s joined by a great ensemble cast, which includes the recent additions of Rosario Dawson, who will take on the role of Catwoman, and John Leguizamo, who will play the Riddler.

The rest of the supporting cast includes Chris Parnell, Melissa Villaseñor, Seth Meyers, Brent Spiner, John Leguizamo, Ike Barinholtz, Bobby Moynihan, Kenan Thompson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Sudeikis, Alan Tudyk, Heidi Gardner, Brooke Shields, Paul Scheer, Tim Meadows, Fred Armisen, Ray Wise, Ben Rodgers, Katie Rich, Pete Schultz, Paula Pell, Toby Huss, and McNicholas.

…but, comes down to it: why not make radio plays. and call them ‘podcasts?’ People like audio-only spoken-word entertainment! I myself buy every new Dark Adventure Radio Theater as soon as it comes out… hold on, let me check.

:pause:

Dammit. Two more weeks before The Horror in the Museum drops. Anyway, I look forward to see how this experiment plays out. I could see the voice actors having a hell of a lot of fun with this format — and if you can get that, you’re halfway to success, right there.