Moe Lane's Blog, page 826
November 29, 2020
Tweet of the Day, With A Pitch Like This, How Could I Say No?
Mind you, I’m going to open my wallet for a classic theater with its original pipe organ that shows classic movies and is available for community projects. You gotta protect civilization, man. You just gotta.
ALL YOU ASSHOLES SHOULD BE DONATING TO THE REDFORD THEATER. I SUPPORT THIS CAUSE SO YOU WILL TOOhttps://t.co/ktl4Z4Te5a
— ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER (@ZODIAC_MF) November 29, 2020
Patreon: Microfiction: ‘You’ll Be Sorry.’
‘You’ll Be Sorry’ is based on a thought I’ve had. To wit: everybody talks about the Great Old Ones, and how corrosive they can be to other species. Nobody ever asks if they want to be.
Patreon!Day 29, TINSEL RAIN NaNoWriMo: 60027/60000.
It’s done.
Ha. Haha! HAhhaHAHA! IT’S DONE! Oh, it’s not a real book yet. It’s got twenty thousand words’ worth of connective tissue to establish and more characterization to develop and there’s a plot hole or three to fix and at least one scene to write, but: 60000 words! I made it! With a day to spare!
:twitch: :twitch:
Patreon!Nobody wanted to talk to me about the venerable Jermaine Afanador Rollins. Not his secretary, not his proteges, not ATSE artisans, not his wife, not his family, nobody, nothing. My Syndicate contacts didn’t want to dish, either. I was annoying about it to the point where I was actually thrown out of a couple of offices, which happens less often than Shamuses like to pretend. It’s not like the old days, when we were tolerated as necessary nuisances. Lately, too many people in positions of power have decided that we’re useful. Which meant that I’d have to start ferreting out more of the kingdom’s dirty laundry. Try to bring some balance to the Force, as the virtuous pagans used to say.
After the third out-on-my-ear, I decided that was enough work for one morning. So I picked up Graciella and sent her off to canvass the warehouse district to look for Brigham. It was make-work, but real work; you literally never know when the boring stuff gets you a clue or two. Also: it let me go off and have a certain talk.
“Shamus,” Dory said as I swept my way into her office. “What a completely expected surprise.”
“Your Excellency,” I said as I took a seat uninvited. I looked at the flunky that had come in behind me, fussing over how I didn’t have an appointment. “Whatever sandwich you can make within five minutes, my good man,” I said. “Nothing to drink, and I’ll be having it to go. Go on now: the clock’s ticking.”
“You’re taking an official Five Minutes?” Dory said, referring to a Shamus’s official privilege of being allowed to stay anywhere for five minutes before he (or she) could be thrown out. “Guess it’s serious, then.”
“Pretty much,” I said, “and you can probably guess why.”
“The Afanador incident,” she said.
November 28, 2020
Book of the Week: …I got nothing, sorry.
I’m putting this up, inviting people to give book recommendations for any good books on Amazon, putting up the music video, and going to bed. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep, too.
Day 28, TINSEL RAIN NaNoWriMo: 57668/60000
I feel like junk (not the coronavirus: more like a gas attack of some kind), but I was able to get wordcount out. It may be all crap, though. I’ll know… later.
Patreon!“So, what can you tell me about Brigham?” More like what will you tell me about Brigham, I thought as I looked Chuck over. He had the look of a guy who’d try to squeeze every single red thalía out of the info he’d deign to pass along, and the gory details were never worth the asking price. Normally I don’t care so much, but one annoying ongoing thing about this Case was the lack of an expense account.
But it turned out Chuck was ready to flap his gums over Those Damn Mormons, Coming And Stealing Our Jobs: “That Brigham kid? He was a real pain in the ass. Real kiss-ass, too. They started him out, a couple hours a week; next thing I know, he’s got a full shift, just like that! I might’ve wanted those hours, hey. I got, you know, expenses.”
“They didn’t offer you any?” I pulled out the cigarettes I offer people who aren’t Shamuses and offered him a smoke. The gilipollas took three.
“We talked about it, but the boss, he didn’t wanna make it worth my while. Then this jerk shows up, takes their first offer, and then where am I? Not getting overtime, that’s where I am.” He shook his head. “There oughta be a law.”
“So, he was a rude kid, then? Pushy? No respect?” I hadn’t gotten that impression about Brigham, but I wanted to see what Chuck said.
He started to say something, grimaced, and said, “Nah, he was just a kid who didn’t know how to say no, you know what I mean? People leaned on him to get him to do their jobs. I would tell him what they were doing. Brigham, I’d say, you can’t just let them walk all over you. And he’d say, Thanks for the advice, Mister Charles, smile a little, and then just let people keep doing it. I would have figured he was simple, if he wasn’t, you know, that way.” Chuck wiggled his fingers a little. “Not that I ever saw him do anything like that. Even when his buddy showed up.”
Gypsy Shipping [The Day After Ragnarok]
Gypsy Shipping
Gypsy Shipping is a small company based out of California which does low-weight, high-value courier jobs between California, Texas, and Utah. The American successor states might talk a good game about tolls and borders and whatnot, but nobody has the manpower in the post-Serpentfall world to check all the traffic. Comes right down to it, nobody really wants to. Every Highway Patrolman or Ranger looking for contraband is a soldier that’s not killing mutated gila monsters or whatnot. So, if you don’t want anybody to know about a particular shipment, Gypsy Shipping will be happy to make sure it gets to where it needs to go without too much official interest. For a reasonable amount of money.
For a lot of money, Gypsy Shipping will go into the Poisoned Lands and bring somebody back. It’s usually somebody: there’s damned little in the Midwest or East Coast that’s worth sending somebody to fetch. But a lot of people got separated in the Evacuation of ‘46, and some of the people who made it to California are now rich enough to be able to afford sending somebody to collect their children, parents, or spouses.
To contract with Gypsy Shipping for this service, three things need to be understood:
Payment is in cash, and in advance. Including enough money to pay for the fuel to get there and back. And put up extra money anyway, because there’s going to be extra expenses and the courier is going to expect to be paid back for that.The client needs to provide good intelligence. Ideally, the package should be comfortably waiting at the destination, ready to go as soon as the courier hands over the ‘finders fee’ or ‘ransom’ or whatever else the local term is to the local warlord. …It’s never that easy, sure, but there has to be something that will let the courier track the package down. And if the situation is ‘he’s a slave in the local iron mines and the warlord’s a skull-and-spikes sort of person?’ Well, ‘hiring a band of mercenary raiders’ is going to be an expense. Fortunately, mercenary raiding bands go for pretty cheap in the Poisoned Lands.No guarantees. Rarely, a courier comes back empty-handed. They’re slightly more likely to not come back at all. This isn’t an easy job.
Darlene Dorgan (born 1910), CEO of Gypsy Shipping
Technically Darlene Bjorkman, but she uses her maiden name for the business. Darlene spent her prewar years driving all over the United States in a secondhand Model T Ford with a variety of companions, which proved to be remarkably good training for later events. Her first ‘run’ was to Bradford at the very height of the Evacuation (Dorgan was one of the few to drive east during the chaos), in order to rescue her parents and sisters. The success of that venture led to a few more high-paying jobs, and the success of those allowed Darlene to set up Gypsy Shipping as a courier company.
These days, Darlene and her first set of special couriers only rarely go on missions themselves, and only when the client is willing to pay ludicrous sums of money for the privilege. But there’s no shortage of people willing to risk their lives for the kind of money Gypsy Shipping can offer. Darlene is picky in who gets hired for special courier duty: she looks for a particular combination of skill, bravery, and stubbornness. They’re expected to know the geography of the Poisoned Lands at a level far beyond simply having an old gas station map; have the ability to repair or replace their vehicles as needed; and, naturally, be completely contemptuous of even the concept of giving up.
Orphans preferred.
November 27, 2020
Halfway through, and THE MANDALORIAN continues To Not Suck.
I was kind of worried that there would be bloat, but this last episode was excellent. While still being full of tons of references to all sorts of stuff from the video games and the animated shows and the Extended Universe and whatnot. I’m starting to wonder why the hell they just didn’t do all of this instead of all the movies except Rogue One (and, dammit, Solo). Alas, time travel is impossible and unethical.
Day 27, TINSEL RAIN NaNoWriMo: 55562/60000
Almost… there…
Patreon!“So, is this going to be dinner, or work?” Mira said as she looked at the menu.
“What’s the difference?”
“Dinner, I buy what I can afford. Work, I buy what you can expense.” Mira shook her head. “Really, Shamus, I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
I leaned back. “Let’s call it ‘work,’ then. It looks weird when somebody my age takes somebody yours age out to dinner.”
Mira shook her head. “Tell that to the rest of Cin City. And here I thought your job would require that you read the gossip rags!” she said, in a mock-disapproving tone.
“I do. It still looks weird.”
“Well, if you’re that old we’ll just have to make allowances. So, Tom – oh, can I call you Tom? Since this is work?”
“I think we can risk the familiarity,” I said gravely.
