I was just reading Poul Anderson's classic essay on heroic fantasy, On Thud and Blunder, and he noted that you can't ride a stallion around a woman who's menstruating because the change in her scent will apparently affect the horse (make it horny, I suppose?). This relates to a problem with my NaNoWriMo writing project.( Read more... )

Please check out this link if you hsve any interest at all in swords, swordsmanship, and similar topics: Hank Reinhardt's memorial site, and look at the links for his recently released Baen title Book of the Sword. It is an amazing work on the history of the blade as a weapon, its development and (probable) use, and the effect it had on humans.

Mister Reinhardt knows what he is talking about. He collected, studied, and practiced with swords as a serious student for something like 50 years. His book manages to be both informative and dryly humorous without sacrificing any usefulness. He also takes a no-bull approach towards the subject, avoiding any mysticism while still admitting that it's possible that weapons masters and swordsmiths who studied for a lifetime could have known and done things we moderns can't. The book also has a heck of a bibliography.

Mister Reinhardt was a major force behind the creation of the Historical Armed Combat Association (which strives to recreate European martial arts involving weapons use), and helped create Museum Replicas Inc, a company that makes duplicates of medieval and earlier melee weapons (and many of whose weapons he personally tested, sometimes to destruction).

That and his widow, Toni Weisskopf, is selling off most of his weapons collection, so hey, if you ever wanted a combat-ready cavalry saber or Viking sword, this is as good a time as any!

You might also want to check out a documentary titled Reclaiming the sword, which is about the sword as presented in modern culture and in film, and the differences between the reality and the fictional image. If nothing else, it's narrated by John Rhys-Davies, and he always does a good professional job.

Best all. Have a fun time cleaving skulls.

Okay, we're about to head into the Christmas season, which means four weeks of kitschy TV specials and movies, relentless advertising, and perhaps worst of all, four weeks on nonstop Christmas carols, most of them done very badly indeed.

Now, mind, I like hearing carols when they're well sung... but not for four weeks.

That however is not what drives me up the wall every year. What drives me up the wall every year is this: why is it that you will be hearing those carols everywhere you go for the next four weeks except for one single solitary place, the inside of a church?

Just found this on Furaffinity:

Furry New Year. It happens in my home area of Quakertown (well, close to home, anyway). Just thought I'd post this in case anyone here knows anyone else local to the SE PA area who might be interested in attending. It's not very expensive ($10 attendance fee) and I never have been ableto go to a local event before. Maybe I'll give it a try depending on how things go.

Best all.

Passed 30,000 words today -- over 4,000 in one sitting! Woohoo! For me that's downright amazing.

Also, I just introduced a character who I really like (she reminds me of a cute tomboy from grade school who become a lovely and very unpretentious young woman in high school) and I feel like cr*p because I know she's going to die very badly, very soon.

Okay, now I've seen it all.

I give you Dragon Dragon, a wrestling dragon fursuiter. Sad to say, he comes off as more over with the fans and more athletic that about half the current WWE roster.

And it's all thanks to Tani DaReal her her fursuits.

See for yourself!

Some news that may delight (or horrify) fans of 60's British SF:

"The Prisoner," a three-night television event, begins
this Sunday at 8/7c on AMC.

A man wakes up in a new place he doesn't recognize, a place where people have
numbers instead of names, a place called "The Village" where all traces of his
former life are renounced as delusions.

"The Prisoner," starring Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel is the story of one man's
desperate quest to find his way back to his old life and reclaim his freedom.
But with each step, the journey becomes more complicated. And as secrets
unravel, the way out becomes less clear. It's an adrenaline-pumping,
edge-of-your-seat thriller that will ultimately make you question what you think
is real. The Prisoner: You Only Think You're Free.

Catch the AMC television event of the year beginning this Sunday 8/7c.

About the Show
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner/

Check Local Listings
http://www.imdb.com/sections/tv/

Photo Gallery
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043714/mediaindex

Here's hoping for the sake of fans of the old show that they don't botch it.

One by the master: Last of the Light Brigade

Having seen what became of the vets in my own family, it rings sadly true -- no, none of them died out in the street, but when they came back home with holes in their souls from what they'd seen, none of the concerned-and-compassionate crowd of the time cared. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the idea of the noble death found in so many cultures, from the Vikings to the samurai to Christian chivalry's disdain for death to more than I can even begin to count right now. For many an old veteran, I can only wonder how many of them would have preferred a few instants of pain before finding their peace as compared to a lifetime of scorn and contempt afterwards.

Some footage from the Discovery Channel about the lost army of Cambyses in the Egyptian desert. Man, just look at all those bones!

http://news.discovery.com/videos/archaeology-ancient-lost-army-found.html

On a side note, I do hope my entries about scientific and scholarly discoveries are drawing as much attention as the freaky stuff I find like Giant Carnival Wiener Slide. Sometimes I like to exercise the few brains I've got by talking about something intelligent, you know! ;)