tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post978022460196444516..comments2023-09-02T14:13:10.364-07:00Comments on Mouse's Musings: You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat it Too! Stop Trying!Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11936002393931074811noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-15371708829072669252016-04-23T23:08:38.298-07:002016-04-23T23:08:38.298-07:00Can't wait for the next chapter...
http://hac...Can't wait for the next chapter...<br /><br />http://hackaday.com/2016/04/12/rotating-plasma-vortex-speaker/ you know those weird plasma speakers that I describe in Tripocalypse? Someone went and built one. So the whole thing is plausible.spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-60263891390840681952016-04-19T08:07:27.057-07:002016-04-19T08:07:27.057-07:00True, but it could also end up like http://www.bay...True, but it could also end up like http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=65024.0spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-75078703408194831102016-04-18T07:57:19.652-07:002016-04-18T07:57:19.652-07:00"He leaves a bunch of dwarves alone, in an en..."He leaves a bunch of dwarves alone, in an enclosed space, with few provisions and an unshakable desired to do things their own way."<br /><br />Given the self-destructive potential of most dorfs, he was betting it would turn out like Boatmurdered. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-12671106200927931142016-04-18T05:13:09.810-07:002016-04-18T05:13:09.810-07:00Nearly there! The victory lounge is just round the...Nearly there! The victory lounge is just round the corner! (Probably with beer and 24/7 death metal.)<br /><br />Doesn't matter if they don't get the point, as long as the checks clear.<br /><br />People whose school days were the best time of their lives have failed at adulting.<br /><br />Oh, there's interesting. That bit where Nicky says "Please meet Ashtaroth, Baal, and Cankerworm. They are the most convincing and persuasive spirits it has ever been my pleasure to know." - it's straight out of Adult-LB #11. So the poor bugger who had to churn out these books didn't get to write his own dialogue even apart from the Bible™ bits.<br /><br />"Learning to love yourself, is the greatest sin of all"? I believe the demons are our future…<br /><br />Blank Ron: of course Lewis understood the religious experience. He'd had one; and I believe it was real to him, because he had it in a time and place where it wasn't expedient for him to do so.Firedrakenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-57470423729235113752016-04-17T21:56:03.020-07:002016-04-17T21:56:03.020-07:00I really hated the whole "Hmm. My guys lost t...I really hated the whole "Hmm. My guys lost the final battle. Game over. Better push the reset button on the universe" ending of The Last Battle, although the part with the one good Calormene soldier was legitimately heartwarming (can you imagine TurboJesus giving that speech to a sincere and altruistic follower of Carpathia?).<br /><br />However, the main issue with TLB is that Aslan makes a massive strategic mistake.<br /><br />He leaves a bunch of dwarves alone, in an enclosed space, with few provisions and an unshakable desired to do things their own way.<br /><br />http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Awesome/DwarfFortressspiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-4048865311827672122016-04-17T21:23:24.030-07:002016-04-17T21:23:24.030-07:00I dunno. I think Ehud has said The Prayer, so he l...I dunno. I think Ehud has said The Prayer, so he loves Big Brother, so Ehud is out. Though I share in all the C.S. Lewis love. If given a choice between Narnia at its worse or LB at its best (the first book is considered the best if you're wondering), I'll take The Last Battle an infinite number of times before I'd ever choose Left Behind. I agree with all the criticisms of The Last Battle, but for all its faults, C.S. Lewis did have some damn beautiful prose in it. Yeah, the Calormenes are Arab stereotypes and there's the whole Problem of Susan, but you can't say that Lewis wasn't putting forth effort to create a good, quality product. He didn't just slap a Jesus fish on the spine and call it a day. <br /><br />Now Aron, aka Joel's brother, I'm wondering if we could induct him into the League. Because as I recall, while he does go to Petra, after he arrives, he is neither seen nor mentioned again and there's no scene of him saying The Prayer. So maybe he escaped. Mousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11936002393931074811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-67806217342318885582016-04-17T20:59:26.525-07:002016-04-17T20:59:26.525-07:00Should we come up with a cool backstory for Ehud?Should we come up with a cool backstory for Ehud?spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-5478139505186820152016-04-17T20:21:01.901-07:002016-04-17T20:21:01.901-07:00Aunursa, that's exactly why I have Nicolae bui...Aunursa, that's exactly why I have Nicolae build a nuclear minefield: if you know where your enemy is going to be with some precision, it's really the most effective system.<br /><br />As for the ending of Kingdom Come, even the characters lampshade the "final final battle, for realz guys" as anticlimactic.<br /><br />So I went a different direction for that one: <br /><br />http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Tripocalypse.KingdomComeEndingspiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-81311620628505693422016-04-17T20:11:58.744-07:002016-04-17T20:11:58.744-07:00In the penultimate chapter of Book #16 "Kingd...In the penultimate chapter of Book #16 "Kingdom Come," Satan is temporarily released from the Lake of Fire™ at the end of the millennium in order to lead another war against God. Jesus destroys Satan's multi-million man army with a wave of his hand.<br /><br />"David retreated and Jesus merely lifted a hand and opened His palm. A seam in the cosmos opened before Satan. Flames and black smoke poured from where the Beast and the False Prophet writhed on their knees screaming, 'Jesus is Lord!'<br /><br />Satan cried out 'Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord!'<br /><br />Jesus closed his fist and Satan was thrown into the abyss, the seam sealing to muffle the screams of the three who would be tormented day and night forever and ever in the lake of fire and brimstone."<br /><br />Bear in mind that Nicolae and Fortunato have been in utter agony and torment, screaming "Jesus is Lord!", for a thousand years.aunursanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-25945716185602635062016-04-17T20:01:11.274-07:002016-04-17T20:01:11.274-07:00I read that L&J didn't feel worthy to put ...I read that L&J didn't feel worthy to put words into the mouth of Jesus, so they just quoted from the Bible.<br /><br /><i>I ran their names through the search engine on my blog and it turns out, they were mentioned a grand total of once in this series. I'll be charitable and say that maybe they did more in the adult books, but in the kids series, they did nothing.</i><br /><br />A, B, and C appear in Book #11 in a meeting of Nicky/Satan and his top advisors. Nicky/Satan tells his advisors of his plan to defeat God and Jesus. "We know where they'll be. It says right here in the Bible."<br />aunursanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-82843963680413615352016-04-17T19:23:45.199-07:002016-04-17T19:23:45.199-07:00http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Tripocalypse....http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Tripocalypse.PrologueKids If you prefer something less grimdark (I personally do), here it is. I think this is the end of the story for me :) spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-8410081575084482702016-04-17T19:17:18.649-07:002016-04-17T19:17:18.649-07:00Gabriel addressed the people. "Jesus is the t...Gabriel addressed the people. "Jesus is the true light, who gives light to everyone...."<br /><br />And then there was light.<br /><br />Jesus, strong in His divinity, was left untouched by the all-consuming nuclear fire. All around Him, a glass crater the size of a county. The Mount of Olives had not split in two; it had been vaporized. Nothing was left save for the Son of God, and a precarious pillar of rock directly under His feet.<br /><br />All the believers in the world, supernaturally gathered in front of their Savior, had been turned to protons. There was no trace of Satan or the archangels.<br /><br />Jesus surveyed a beautiful desolation, the Earth scorched to the bone horizon to horizon, the sky raging with two dozen mushroom clouds mingling with each other, ash grey and dull red. Then, the pillar of rock under His feet gave out, and He fell flat on his ass.<br /><br />All across the planet, with the exception of the devastated Middle Eastern zone, the emergency broadcasting system's timer counted to three hundred, took over the airwaves, and broadcast through every surviving speaker to the remaining population of the Earth, with audio snow and digital skips over the immense amount of electromagnetic noise created by the largest nuclear initiation in history.<br /><br />"Friends! Citizens! HUMANS! Your leader, Nicolae Carpathia, has sacrificed himself to bring an end to the horror. It is possible that the Risen Savior, the one who would destroy the world and genocide its people, still walks among you. His power is broken. The iron grip of prophecy has been shattered. Here is the last command of your leader, the last request of your rescuer, the dying wish of a man who gave all. Shun the Nazarene. Where He walks, make way. What food or water He wants, let him take. What He speaks, answer not. If He finds a door, open it not. If He boards a train, stop it and get off. Even if He walks out of the disaster He caused, let Him experience the Hell of solitude. Let Him see as the world rises from the ashes, by your hands and your brains, that He is no longer welcome in it!"<br /><br />Jesus looked up. The sky had been darkened by iron couds. His perfect flesh and His immaculate tunic were glowing slightly. He picked a direction, and walked.<br /><br />Everywhere else, raid sirens turned off, and people settled their shoulders and went back to work.spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-68088902946321850232016-04-17T19:17:04.778-07:002016-04-17T19:17:04.778-07:00"Ultimately your plans and your regime have f..."Ultimately your plans and your regime have failed. And now, who do you say that I am?"<br /> Silence. Then a weak voice said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who died for the sins of the world and rose again the third day as the<br />Scriptures predicted."<br /> "And what does that say about you and what you made of your life?"<br /> "I confess that my life was a waste," Nicolae whispered. "Worthless. A mistake. I rebelled against the God of the universe, whom I now know loved me."<br /><br /> But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.<br /><br />( Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5lsRk8G4OE&list=PLogKnAa0QO-8ki_rlRwMgtihrlP-Lye4H&index=3 )<br /><br /> When Gabriel moved, a hole a yard in diameter opened in the ground, and a stinky smell burst forth. Flames erupted from the hole, and the crowd backed away. Michael walked Nicolae and Leon forward. Leon cried like a baby and tried to get away, but Michael pushed him into the fire, his cries fading as he fell. Then Michael pushed<br />Nicolae in, and the man's screams echoed throughout Jerusalem. The hole closed, and the Beast and the False Prophet were gone.<br /><br />After an appreciable fraction of a second, 22000 miles into the sky, a geostationary satellite receiver found itself no longer picking up Nicolae Carpathia's "heartbeat" signal, from the bug he wore on his person. After three missed "beats", the satellite -- including a simialr, but larger, transmitter whose job it was to repeat the signal -- let its own program finish, turning off irrevocably.<br /><br />Across the hills of Megiddo, a number of similarly constructed receivers lost transmission. Simple analog circuits that had been energizing retainer solenoids once every time Nicolae's heart beat, brought into service after his indwelling, stopped doing their jobs and left the solenoids dry of electric charge.<br /><br />With the magnetic fields gone, the solenoids let go of their heavy cargo - doughnut-shaped lumps of enriched uranium built in a configuration that had only ever been used once in history. Obedient to the law of gravity, these lumps fell into matching doughnut holes made of the same material.<br /><br />Unlike the plutonoum bombs at Trinity and Nagasaki, the uranium bomb at Hiroshima had never been tested before being deployed; the mechanism was too simple to fail. Knowing how supernatural power would disrupt any technological means of retaliation, Carpathia had ordered these old, fail-deadly designs to be brought out of mothball for a small number of nuclear mines deployed under the Mount of Olives.<br /><br />In turn, all the modern nuclear fuel derived from dismantling all the remaining nuclear devices in the world had been buried around these simple machines. Pressurized canisters of deuterium provided a third layer.<br /><br />Each step in the initiation chain right up to the formation of the initial supercritical mass was designed to be triggered by a dead man's handle, something stopping rather than starting, specifically to prevent interference. Nicolae had hired Russian scientists, German engineers, Italian caterers, Swiss accountants and French prostitutes to ensure workmanship of the best possible quality.<br /><br />spiritplumberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11103152769766633350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-20268178596730632532016-04-17T16:39:30.306-07:002016-04-17T16:39:30.306-07:00Arynne: spot on about Aslan. One can't help bu...Arynne: spot on about Aslan. One can't help but compare this execrable nonsense with Lewis' descriptions of Aslan. I always thought that Aslan would be someone you'd WANT to meet (even if you were scared witless at the prospect) while TurboJesus is the kind of asshole you cross the street to avoid. I'm inclined to blame Lumpy&Jethro's KJV-skewed reading of the word 'fear.' In the original Hebrew the word used (<i>yirah</i>) means 'reverential awe' but in LB-world it seems to only mean 'pants-wetting terror.' I'm inclined to stick with Lewis' interpretation here. He had his faults, but he definitely knew how the 'religious experience' was supposed to work!Blank Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15979418686713358058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-84281584520964398932016-04-17T16:13:59.556-07:002016-04-17T16:13:59.556-07:00Good grief, this is just...gross.
I keep trying n...Good grief, this is just...gross.<br /><br />I keep trying <i>not</i> to compare Judd's feeling worse about himself in the presence of TurboJesus with the way Aslan's followers feel stronger and less afraid when he's there. <br /><br />And making someone grovel at your feet and say their whole life was worthless, and then punt them into the torture pit anyway? Don't LaJenkins ever watch any movies? Didn't they ever read comic books? Aren't they in the least bit aware that this is classic villain behavior? ARRGHHAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7882696241406815138.post-88007083871531171132016-04-17T15:21:56.556-07:002016-04-17T15:21:56.556-07:00Re: Richard III
I highly recommend the 1995 film ...Re: Richard III<br /><br />I highly recommend the 1995 film version (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/) starring Ian McKellen as Richard. It moves the setting of the play to Britain of the 1930s, casting Richard as a would-be fascist dictator, which (given the political climate of that time) is eerily convincing. Beautifully done all round.Blank Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15979418686713358058noreply@blogger.com