This story about getting Darth Vader’s autograph is the best autograph story ever. You have to admire an evil that has such excellent attention to detail. Luke was just darned lucky that Vader turned from the dark side; if he’d stayed true to his path the Rebels wouldn’t have had a chance.
Our mashup for the first of December (did you remember to say “rabbit” three times?) is Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. It’s all about man versus nature, with themes of ecological awareness and man competing with man as side dishes. Great book, even if there’s controversy (original) about what exactly happened up there.
Beth Bartel’s iceblog! (original) comes to us straight from Antarctica, and how cool is that? See also Antarctica 2003 (which has wrapped up) and Life on the ice (original) (which has not). Felix Salmon’s sister, Rhian, is still blogging from down there — here’s a quick link to just her entries (original) — and I found 75 Degrees South (original) via Rhian. Plus Shackleton diaries (original). Man, Antarctica is a hotbed of blogging. (Props to Metafilter.)
In honor of that New Zealand flick I’ve been reading about in all the popular newsmagazines, we’ll mashup The Hobbit today. It’ll be kind of a relief to do a story that has something that more or less resembles the typical adventuring party for once. It’s one of those big adventuring parties I remember from massive sprawling college AD&D games, but it’s still an adventuring party.
I try to stay away from entries entitled “ Dave Winer has gone barking mad,” but from time to time I suspect I just won’t be able to avoid it. Background: Dave got miffed (original) because Lawrence Lessig’s big speech included an exhortation to get off your butts and do something about the political arena. Dave, to be perfectly fair, is in fact fairly active in a scattershot kind of a way. He also deserves applause for his rejection of patents, although he couldn’t have actually patented everything he thinks he could. ...
Above the main door of the Cambridge City Hall is a stone bearing these words: God has given Commandments unto Men. From these Commandments Men have framed Laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these Laws. If the Laws are not enforced, the People are not well governed. The asserted motivation behind Roy Moore’s monument to the 10 Commandments (original) was acknowledgement of the law’s moral foundation: namely, the Commandments inscribed on his monument, which are certainly the Commandments referenced in the inscription above. ...
If I wind up buying the World of Darkness end-times books (and who am I kidding, of course I will), the WoD metaplot summaries will be of huge enormous use.
This David Eyre’s Pancakes recipe is ripped whole from the pages of Kids Are Natural Cooks, a cookbook I remember fondly from my childhood. Despite the fact that my name is clearly written in ink on the inside front cover, the cookbook itself is lodged firmly in the hands of my mother. Well, it’s Christmas time, so I shaln’t steal it back. But I will transcribe the recipe. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. ...
The Google/Amazon convergence continues, as Google adds book search (original) to its repertoire. It’s a step. It looks like only short excerpts of each book are stored, but Google implies full text search. There’s more interesting discussion of this, including the revenue model, over on Metafilter.
If the Gospels mashup didn’t quite satisfy your yen for Christian gaming, allow me to recommend the RPGnet thread dedicated to statting up Jesus (original). I must be in a mood this week or something.