Moe Lane's Blog, page 872

Tweet of the Day, That Poor Man edition.

I have the security system set to vaporize any copy of the 2019 version that comes within five feet of the house. I had argued twenty, but that wouldn’t have been appropriate, apparently.

Ripped from the headlines: pic.twitter.com/hjTN7Oib0i

— Gabe (@cwgabriel) July 27, 2020

Moe Lane

PS: Honestly, there is no reason not to have these in your library.

‘Fire and Rain.’

Fire and Rain, James Taylor

‘Rock and Roll Band.’

Rock and Roll Band, Boston

TENET on indefinite delay.

Nope, not happy about this at all. Especially since TENET’s rollout promises to be highly weird:

The studio is said to be planning an unconventional theatrical rollout which won’t be a global day-and-date one. According to Deadline, that means, “Essentially, with theaters reopening in China, and Asian markets like South Korea vibrant, and other offshore territories in Europe and Japan coming back on line, there is a good probability that the Christopher Nolan movie will open abroad first. In regards to the U.S. where drive-ins are dominating the business, and just over 1K of the nation’s 5K theaters open, Tenet is poised to open wherever and whenever it can and it’s safe to do so, even if New York City and Los Angeles aren’t back on line.”

I understand that it’s a pandemic, so I’m not blaming anybody involved*. Nor am I going to insist that they show the movie anyway. But I can and will be unhappy about this. I think that’s allowed.

Moe Lane

*Except, of course, for the PRC. Also: Free Hong Kong! Just to make it clear which side I’m on.

07/20/2020 Snippet, TIPPED ON A STIFF.

The title probably is going to go.

Patreon!

“Her name’s Irene,” Sofie told me as we went into the night. “She’s way in over her head, and I can’t go to the police. Do I need to say why?”

We weren’t attracting too much attention as we moved our way away from the bar. Rick had found me a spare shirt out of the grab box that fit all right; he runs the kind of joint whose regulars find it handy sometimes to leave dressed different than when they came in. I didn’t even have to leave a deposit. Getting stabbed on the premises apparently got you points there.

“Gonna guess she’s in the wrong line of work?” I said. “And you’re not going to tell me her full name, either?” Which worried me, a little. Usually the only time you were cagy about names like that was if there was magic involved somehow. Not that we have any mages in New California. Just ask anybody; they’ll tell you.

“I know the one she gave me,” Sofie said carefully. “I don’t think it was her real one. She’s from Deseret.”

I barely managed not to swear. “She a regular refugee, or on the run?” It’s not like the old days, when it seemed like half of Deseret fled south after the Universal Dominion beat them in their war, but we still get a trickle of refugees. And usually they’re bringing trouble with them, the poor bastards.

What I will do with the FERMI RESOLUTION RPG worldbook.

(Crossposted to Kickstarter)

The Fermi Resolution RPG manuscript has been updated and expanded, and rules for GUMSHOE added. However, the manuscript still requires text on how to handle necromancy, enchantment, and alchemy; and the whole thing needs to be blended. There’s also art to be included, and a lot of playtesting. A whole lot of playtesting.

Accordingly, what I’m going to do is get the magic stuff blocked out, do some preliminary fixes based on some stuff that I’ve already gotten feedback on, and rough-format a PDF once I’ve gotten all the art. It’ll be a playtest copy that I’ll distribute to my Kickstarter backers (and playtesters); then, based on the feedback I get on it, I’ll have the real layout work (and the other stuff that I’ve budgeted for) done at a later point*.

I feel this will fulfill the requirements of the stretch goal found here. But if folks (especially including my backers) have a strong opinion on the subject, feel free to let me know. [UPDATE: my wife points out that Kickstarter backers should get a digital copy of the commercial version, in PDF form. This is reasonable.]

Moe Lane

*This will be part of a print run for the worldbook, which is why I’ve been going round and round on this in the first place. I don’t want to pay for two layout jobs, and I can’t see how releasing this commercially before a print run can reasonably avoid that.

Tweet of the Day, These Are Simply Too Pretty To Quite Believe edition.

I mean, they’re real. But they look like they were made by a steampunk Faberge.

How beautiful are these Golden Tortoise Beetles. Wow

Happy Moon Day!

To emulate @iowahawk, here’s some iconic footage.

You’d think that eventually that would stop being funny.

‘Patience.’

Patience, Guns N’ Roses

Question about future books.

You think there’d be a market for the microfiction? If I, say, coupled some of them with commissioned black and white art and sold the whole thing as a book? I’d probably have to crowdfund it, because I don’t have the three grand I estimate that the project would cost to get a hundred sketches for a hundred pieces of microfiction. At that, I don’t know if I could raise that kind of money for that kind of project.

Thoughts?

Moe Lane

PS: It’s just something I’m kicking around in my head. I mean, I already got paid for the microfiction, right? No rush on it.