Moe Lane's Blog, page 866
August 7, 2020
Tweet of the Day, Too Good To Check edition.
I laughed, even though I do suspect that it’s fake.
Sometimes click bait is worth it pic.twitter.com/uKhQx0LEnI
— Laraine Newman (@larainenewman) August 7, 2020
08/07/2020 Snippet, OMBUDSMAN.
Meetings! And bad language!
Patreon!Bad Jack was worried enough to call in his two top cronies for a late-night meeting. Hell, he was worried enough to pass around some cigars from his private stock. This was no time to get his people’s noses out of shape.
Gumball Goro was his fixer in the old days; lately he tried to dress like a Kentucky Free State lawyer. He was doing better at it than Bad Jack thought he would, but there’s only so much seersucker can do. But he knew his cigars. “These Cubans, boss?” he said, before lighting one up.
“Yeah,” said Bad Jack. “The knife-ears are exporting ‘em now. Excuse me: the elves.” He shook his head. “They charge enough for ‘em.”His other crony was Just Jimmy; maybe not the smartest guy in the world, but he was big, he did what he was told, and he knew how to make people do what they were told. It was like a gift with him. Bad Jack had Just Jimmy in charge of keeping the workers quiet, and so far it was working out fine.
But Just Jimmy wasn’t looking that happy. “Respect, boss, but I don’t wanna talk about cigars. I want to talk about this asshole the Hershey fuckers sent here. I don’t trust him.”
08/07/2020 Snippet, MORGAN BAROD AND THE ELDRITCH TOME.
ACTION!
Patreon!Ten minutes later…
“OKAY, FINE!” yelled Ben as the three of them dodged another thick strand of wire and jagged metal bits. “That was a stupid thing to say! Happy, now?”
“All I wanted to hear,” replied Morgan as he slashed at the strand the second it caught on something, and went taut. The strand at least cut when you sliced it, which probably wasn’t doing his sword any good but better that the blade get cut up than Morgan did. “How many wires does this fu-” he stopped himself, out of deference to their new friend’s age, and instead said “-thing have, anyway?”
He didn’t get an answer out of her. Morgan wasn’t even sure that she spoke English; the kid was maybe six, seven years old, and looked like she had spent all of it living rough. But she did understand enough English to follow directions, like ‘run away!’ and ‘duck!’ Mind you, those were real easy ones to learn.
All in all, Morgan didn’t mind: good English or not, the kid had saved his ass. One of the piles of junk had opened itself up while he and Ben were looking elsewhere; expanded, it looked like an automower with little stumpy legs — and whirling strands of vicious wire coming out of its arms. If the kid hadn’t pegged one of the strands with a slingshot, that strand would have wrapped itself around Morgan’s legs. He was wearing armor, but it still wouldn’t have been fun.
08/07/2020 Snippet, VERDICT OF HISTORY.
This is going well. I’m two days in, and already I absolutely f*cking hate this particular viewpoint character. I’m going to hate his buddy, too. Which is the plan.
Patreon!2445 AD
Wendigo Island
(Isle Royale National Park, Michigan)Back in his pavilion there was the usual paperwork and nonsense associated with a successful campaign: logistic reports, checklists of objectives, disciplinary actions among the lesser Warmages and their apprentices, and — a message from Grand Moingoana about the salt reserves, marked ‘Immediate Top Interest.’ Firebrand handled that one first, naturally. He had been given a lot of discretion on this campaign, which meant that people back at court were itching at the chance to prove he was unworthy of that kind of trust. They were probably right, too, at least from their point of view. After all, Commanding Warmages were at their most dangerous when fresh off of a successful campaign.
And Firebrand’s conquest of the Great Lakes had been very successful indeed. He hadn’t just beaten the enemy; he had taken them. By now the last of the enemy fighters were being conditioned to servile obedience. There had been even more surrenders than expected. Apparently even mundane bandits will sell their souls to save their drabs and brats, Firebrand thought, and chuckled at the thought. But I mustn’t keep Herself waiting. He activated the crystal ball dedicated for the most rarefied of communications, spoke a certain phrase, and waited.
An image of the Supreme Archmage appeared in the ball within half a minute. Ah, thought Firebrand, she was waiting for news, but knows better than to jiggle a wizard’s elbow while he’s casting. And since a direct message from the Supreme Archmage always had to be answered right now, sending a trivial order at an absurdly high priority level had to suffice as a subterfuge and sop to her dignity.
There were times, Firebrand mused, when one wondered how the Dominion ever got anything done quickly.
ByteDance/WeChat Executive Order not to include Tencent’s video game holdings.
Short version: there’s an executive order now targeting ByteDance and WeChat. They’ll be banned from doing business with American companies in a month and a half, and everybody in gaming started going “Hubaba-WHAT?” because Tencent (owner of WeChat) owns a metric butt-ton of gaming companies now. Fortnite in particular, although this is of personal interest to me because they just bought FunCom (Secret World Legends, Conan Exiles).
Anyway, it’s just WeChat that’s now outside the Pale, not Tencent in general: “A White House official on Thursday night clarified that the executive order concerning WeChat only blocks transactions related to WeChat, not those involving other Tencent holdings.” (Via @SamAugustDean) At least, for now. But further speculation on my part would be pushing the Line, so I won’t. I’m pretty close to the edge to it as it is.
August 6, 2020
It has been the kind of day…
…where I discovered, at 11:30 PM, that the actual problem that I was having all day long was that I hadn’t had a beer. Seriously. I can feel the health bar going up from yellow to green as we speak. And I don’t even want another one*.
Weird. But a productive day, too.
Moe Lane
*I’d worry about wanting this one, except that I bought that particular six-pack a few weeks ago and it might last until September. Having kids really cut into my professional drinking, you know what I mean?
08/06/2020 Snippet, OMBUDSMAN.
Oopsie!
Patreon!“As you know from the corporate handbook, there’s always going to be a fine for embezzling,” said Morty. Bad Jack nodded, without commenting on how much of it he had actually read. “The embezzler’s full net worth for the past three years.” Bad Jack’s smile didn’t even flicker, but that bit wasn’t in the small part of the handbook that he had read.
Morty sighed. “I held a hearing on the case — sometimes there really are mitigating circumstances — but the embezzler didn’t have any reason to steal except ‘Because I wanted the money.’ Which was unacceptable, so he was facing the full fine. If only he had kept it at that!”
“Really? What’s worse than stealing from the Consortium?” asked Bad Jack, just like he really cared. I wonder if this is supposed to be a warning. Ha! I didn’t do anything… yet. Good thing I decided to live on my salary for a while until I figured out the best way to skim. Well, except for the coffee thing. But that I checked, and administration fees were allowed. I’m in the clear there.
“Many things, starting with slavery or mass murder,” said Morty. “But in this case the fool tried to offer me a bribe. Twenty percent of the fine.” The Ombudsman took another sip of coffee, then put it back down. “So I threw him out the window.”
Bad Jack did bobble a little at that; it was the matter-of-fact tone that threw him off. “Oh,” he eventually managed. “Without a…” What’s the old-time word? “…trial?”
“I didn’t see the need for one,” said Morty, in that scary-casual way he had. “The man offered me the bribe, after all. So I knew he did it; and the Board has authorized me with the right to adjudicate on the spot when it comes to capital crimes like bribery. Why bother with a trial, when I could administer High Justice right there and then?
“Although, come to think of it? It wasn’t High Justice for very long.”
JOHN WICK 4 and 5 to be filmed at the same time.
On today’s Lionsgate earnings call, the studio’s CEO John Feltheimer said, “We’re also busy preparing scripts for the next two installments of our John Wick action franchise, with John Wick 4 slated to hit theatres Memorial Day weekend 2022. We hope to shoot both John Wick 4 & 5 back to back when Keanu becomes available early next year.”
(H/t: Coming Soon) I mean, there’s gotta be a limit to how much longer Keanu Reeves is prepared to get himself thrown around a production set the way that he does. Get all that good action footage for both movies out of the way, when he’s still pumped up on endorphins, and then let the guy sit down or something. Maybe have a sandwich made from the food Keanu’s not allowed to eat during filming.
…What? I’m not a monster. Besides, John Wick is a good trilogy. The man’s allowed some reward for that.
08/06/2020 Snippet, MORGAN BAROD AND THE ELDRITCH TOME.
Famous last words?
Patreon!Ben looked around. “Really? So what’s eating the grass? It should be chest high here.”
“I don’t think anything’s eating the grass,” said Morgan. He kicked at the ground at his feet. “I think something’s been cutting it.”
Ben joined him to take a look. In the dirt was what looked like rough-cut grass, at every stage of decay from new-mowed to peaty sludge. The grass wasn’t exactly cut evenly, either; it had been sliced up with power but not much precision. After a moment, Ben said, “Well. Maybe one of the automowers is still working?”
“Maybe?” said Morgan. “But only if it had gotten enchanted somehow. Anything like that should be long out of juice.”
“What kind of enchantment?”
“I don’t know. You’re the wizard, Ben.”
“Crap, yeah, I am. Awkward, because I don’t have a clue.”
“God, that’s like the motto of the 22nd Century,” said Morgan. “You think it’d be dangerous?”
“They weren’t designed to be, so: yeah, a rogue automower would have to be totally dangerous now.” Ben said. “On the bright side: look at the trees.” The wizard pointed at the foliage. “See how they don’t look trimmed? Whatever it is that’s cutting the grass, at least it doesn’t have much range.”
