Introducing ScapeBook™!

Has this happened to you? You're reading a new book, and you have a sudden desire to introduce Mr. Book to Mr. Wall. At high velocity. Is it the cardboard characters? The intrusive message? The pathetic world building? The wordy but unspecific setting? Perhaps it's the plot hole big enough to sail interstellar dreadnoughts though in line abreast. Perhaps the eight deadly words "I don't care what happens to these people" have come unbidden to your lips. Maybe it's just pompous verbosity or excessive weapons porn.

Traditionally, this is followed by the consoling thump of the book hitting the wall and a moment of healthy catharsis. But what if you are using an e-reader or, worse yet, your computer?

Now, ScapeBook™ offers the answer. Handy, sacrificial ScapeBook™ sits within easy reach when you read digitally. Available in hardback, trade and mass-market paperback and Neal Stephenson doorstop, ScapeBook™ mimics the look and feel of a traditional book. Interior text is lorem ipsum filler and the back cover is equipped with the usual non-specific and deceptively edited blurbs. The generic cover can be customized with self-adhesive stickers printable on your home printer to more closely match the work you are currently reading digitally.

ScapeBook™. Your e-reader will thank you, and you'll just plain feel better.

My Pitch for a Buck Rogers Remake

Buck Rogers is put into suspended animation after being overcome by a mysterious gas while exploring a mineshaft/being frozen after crashing on a glacier/mumblemumble. He awakens in the 25th century to discover a world just beginning to claw its way back to advanced civilization after the centuries of barbarism that followed the collapse of society after the SpamBot Wars.

Little has survived from the old civilization, and much of it irrelevant to recreating modern technology. Among the most treasured of the Historical Documents is a series of illustrated texts that show the technology of the the 20th century: rockets with tail fins, analog gauges and vacuum tube electronics, rocket belts, leather flying helmets, and so on.

The engineers of the reborn civilization use the Historical Documents to recreate the technology of the past, tail fins and all. They quickly discover that single stage spaceships could not achieve interplanetary travel, or the flying belts the performance shown in the texts, through chemical rocket power alone. They deduce that the rockets were used only for maneuvering and rapid acceleration: the ancients must have had some other form of of primary propulsion!

This spurs them on to the research that accomplishes what they believe be the rediscovery of the Reactionless Drive. (Like the most practical form of artificial gravity it's something of a misnomer, but the important thing is that you don't need to carry reaction mass on board. Newton is not dissed.)

Dieselpunk hijinks ensue.

No Twiki.

The Dunning-Krugerrand Effect

This is a cognitive bias in which incompetent individuals overestimate their own competence, and so make excessive investments in a bright and shiny commodity metal, in the false belief that it is undervalued compared to other investments.

Five Reasons Why You’re Too Dumb to Vote

1) You read arguments written by Lena Dunham, a "distinctly unappealing actress". This is an important consideration, which is why I mention it. Her lack of appeal eliminates any need to consider her arguments on their merits. I, on the other hand, shave my skull with a razor and my beard with a fork. My hotness makes my arguments incontestable.

 2) Psephelogical. I use obscure words because I can. You googled it, didn't you?  I could have said "pertaining to elections" but that would not have demonstrated your ignorance relative to my Jovian vocabulary.

3) "As a procedure for sorting out complex policy issues, voting is of distinctly limited value". Fortunately, I have a practical alternative. Consent to the policies I prefer. Because you're too dumb to vote.

4) Shut up. Because you're too dumb to vote.

5) Shut up, you ignorant slut. Because you're too dumb to vote. If you read Lena Dunham instead of my brilliant subpontine essays, you are unfitted to exercise your homeopathic voting rights. If only you were a responsible citizen of the republic, you might have justly exercised those same practically homeopathic voting rights in favor of enlightened policies I support, such as hanging women that have abortions from the neck until dead.

Seven Amazing Listicles that Will Totally Blow You Away, According to the Publisher with a Vested Interest in Harvesting Your Clicks

1: 7 highly attractive celebrities that fall into some arbitrary category and are easy to find photographs of.

2: 7 highly attractive less famous people that are married to celebrities that fall into some arbitrary category and are easy to find photographs of.

3: 7 people who were well known young television personalities 40 years ago that, surprisingly, look different 40 years later, and are easy to find photographs of.

4: 7 female celebrities who wore revealing clothing at a recent event where female celebrities are expected to wear revealing clothing and pose for photographs.

5: #1 but with a different arbitrary category.

6 #2, as above.

7: 7 humanitarian crises you should care about. Just kidding, that's too much work. 7 celebrity sideboobs.

Clickety clickety clickety.

Excerpt: A Ballad

The lady looked o'er her own castle-wall
To a bloody scene like writ by Mr. Martin
And said "The blood is like the medieval age
But where are the jokes about fartin'?"

Birnam Wood Comes to Pelennor Fields

"It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. "But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

The winged creature screamed at her, but then the Ringwraith was silent, as if in sudden doubt. Very amazement for a moment conquered Merry's fear. He opened his eyes and the blackness was lifted from them. There some paces from him sat the great beast, and all seemed dark about it, and above it loomed the Nazgul Lord like a shadow of despair. A little to the left facing them stood whom he had called Dernhelm. But the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her, and and her bright hair, released from its bonds, gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders. Her eyes grey as the sea were hard and fell, and yet tears gleamed in them. A sword was in her hand, and she raised her shield against the horror of her enemy's eyes.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

In Case of Nazgul

In the Third Age, all the best families had heirloom blades handed down from generation to generation, graven or inlayed with ancient runes. The runes usually said something like this:

In case of Nazgul, insert blade. If you are a living man, please find the nearest person that isn't, and ask them to insert blade. Possible options may include dwarves, elves, hobbits, ents, orcs, wizards and helpful undead with a debt to repay. Or, and this is a wild shot but hear me out, maybe you might find a female who might insert blade. While inserting blade, please wear safety glasses and protective clothing, as blade is likely to explode in shards of flaming metal. Other side effects of inserting blade may include numbness, disorientation, confusion, coma, and a temporary or permanent impairment of your will to live.

If possible, insert blade some place in the Nazgul likely to terminate the Nazgul, because, if you've been paying attention so far, you understand that your first attempt may be your only attempt.

Frazetta and Eowyn

One does not simply ride into Gondor. Wearing a thong. Because that outfit is going to seriously chafe on a long horseback ride.

Also, which part of disguised as a man didn't Frazetta understand?

Granted, the Witch-king's ability to pick up sexual cues from the living was doubtless withered from disuse. But I think the rest of the Rohirrim present would have noticed within the first mile.

It's like a Hot Babes of Rohan cheesecake calendar.

More from Eowyn

Dear Diary:

I don't think Aragorn liked my stew. At all. He was, as always, a perfect gentleman, and he said he liked it, but I think he was just trying to spare my feelings. Because that's the way he is.

He's still carrying a torch for Arwen. I can tell. How can I compete with telepathic elfsex? Also, I'm pretty sure she's better at embroidery. Elves, with their "Ooh, look at me. I'm an elf. I can walk on snow, and I'm more dexterous than you, and also I'm immortal. And I'm totally hot, if you like that Eurotrash thing where we bleach our hair but not our eyebrows."

Well, mustn't weaken. Uncle still needs me. Note to self: bring hobbit.

I think I'm better at shield-maiden than stew, actually. A woman has to know her limitations. I can live with that.

This is all making me really, really cranky. I think I'll feel better if I put a sword into something. Preferably Wormtongue, but I'll take what I can get.

Hello. My Name is Eowyn, Eomund's Daughter. You Killed my Uncle. Prepare to Die.

Not technically alive at this time? Well then, we'll need to improvise.

"No Living Man May Hinder Me."

Eowyn: So. You've been in this campaign for 3,000 years. And, in a continent with at least five nonhuman races, plus undead, plus nonhuman wizards, plus women, you still think that "No living man may hinder me " has you covered.

I can see why Sauron gave you a ring of power. You were perfect. I'll bet you didn't even read the User Agreement.

I saw that twitch. You didn't, did you?

That prophesy. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Also, I know something you don't know.

You make me laugh. Not in a good way, you miserable noncorporeal wraith. But at least it will cheer up the hobbit.

Oh. Right. That's another thing you don't know.

Climate Science from Radagast the Brown

"Los Angeles and western Texas are notable for being among the most Mordor-like regions in the USA"

Using only construction paper and Scotch tape, the T. Rex lured in the Pachycephalosaurus with a masterful Stegosaurus disguise.

Let's just say the pterosaur loves scrapbooking and owes a few favors.

Don't Be Misled by Satire Quotes

The Internet makes it easy to encounter quotes from satire sites divorced from their original context. Pay attention to the source! The Onion is well known as a satire site, but there are others: The Daily Currant, The Borowitz Report, and of course the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Poe's Law

If it appears that a member of a group that you disagree with has written something of staggering idiocy, like this, please consider that it may well be a parody. There is, in fact nothing in Deuteronomy or Ephesians about LOTR being an abomination. That's Leviticus, and only with respect to the Bakshi version: "Thou shalt not draw ents as giant mutant radishes, for that is an abomination unto the LORD"

A Pennsic Privateer Song

God damn them all!
I was told that all the girls would be saucy and bold
The half-clad babes would be our dears
Now I'm broke and I'm hot and I'm all out of beer
The last of Pennsic privateers.

A Pennsic Pirate Song

Oh, I have sailed the seven seas:
The broad seas and the narrow
And that is why ye see me here
Dressed up like Jack Sparrow.

Oh, in my floppy hat ye see
I wears a bonny feather,
And even though it's August I
Am dressed up in black leather!

Oh, I have sailed the seven seas:
The broad seas and the narrow
And that is why ye see me here
Dressed up like Jack Sparrow

The Eerie Prescience of the Elite Liberal Media

Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bane?

So Rush Limbaugh speculated on his July 17, 2012 broadcast. Bane first appeared in the comic in 1993, broke Batman's back in 1997, and appeared repeatedly in the animated series, video games and the 1997 Batman & Robin (Although forgetting anything you ever knew about that one is understandable. I wish I could.)

So, it would appear that the best and simplest explanation of the above is that liberals are so reckless in their pursuit of victory in this election that they would violate causality itself. Just as they did when they planted the Obama birth announcements in both Honolulu newspapers in 1961.

Chivalry Quest

In which credulous squidlike aliens attempt to recreate the Middle Ages based on YouTube videos of SCA events.

"They're not all "historical documents." Surely, you don't think people actually die in Crown Tourney..."

"Those poor people."