It snowed! We had actual honest-to-goodness snow falling from the sky last night. To many people, this is no big deal, but around here (South Carolina) it is a very big deal indeed; snow is a rare and wonderful thing here. I went outside with my little girl and we threw snowballs at each other and collected snow which we used to make snow cream (see below). This morning, she sledded down a small hill with the little girl across the street on an inflatable pool float and the plastic lid of Jessalyn’s toy box. (When I was growing up, we had sleds, but it didn’t snow much even back then, and it does so a good deal less nowadays, so there hasn’t been any reason to buy her a sled.)

The girls also made snow angels:

Back to snow cream. I have discovered to my surprise that many people have never heard of it. All it is is a sort of slushy, sweet faux ice cream made with snow, milk or cream, sugar, vanilla extract, and maybe whatever other flavorings you feel like adding. It takes a good bit of snow, and the snow must be very clean: don’t just go scrape all the snow off the hood of your car and figure that will do the trick — you’ll want to get just the top part or you’ll end up with grit cream, which is very much un-good.

Davy Spillane, Dublin, the pipes, . . .

It’s hard to get anything better than this.

The scientifically-engineered worst song in the world. Actually, I kinda liked it, except for the obnoxious shouting woman part.

Operatic cowboy rap — what’s not to like?

At Wal-Mart!

For those of you who enjoy a good, readable detective story, I can recommend a series of books (only five so far, but I hope there will be many more) set in Victorian-era England about a private detective — sorry, make that private “enquiry agent”– named Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn. The author is Will Thomas, and they are buckets of fun.

When I picked up the first one, I was expecting sort of a “Sherlock Holmes lite,” but the style is completely different, owing more to Rex Stout than to Arthur Conan Doyle. Barker and Llewelyn share the setting and their occupation with Holmes and Watson, but not much more.

Cyrus Barker is a rough-hewn, enigmatic man who hires Llewelyn, a short (5′4″), somewhat cheeky Welshman, as his assistant. Barker is large and strong, and well-versed in several martial arts. He is a Scot, but has a mysterious past, most of it spent in the Orient. Llewelyn is at the end of his rope, being university-educated but nearly unemployable due to having spent eight months in prison. Their cases involve them with groups in London ranging from Whitechapel’s poor to Irish patriots to Sicilian immigrants.

The books are not long, and I doubt they’ll make any “Top Ten Must-Reads of the Twenty-first Century” lists, but they are a lot of fun.

Personally, I have read all five books and I can’t wait for another to come out; I’m ready for more B&L adventures.

For those of you who aren’t aware, LOTRO has a presence on FaceBook. Also, for you Elendilmirians, Jewelled Bell has one, too!

[Jewelled Bell] goes *Jingle* *Jangle* *Oof!*

(Sigh. The posting gremlins ate my post. Let’s see if it works this time.)

I always get a kick out of the name generators you can find on the web. I ran across a page today with links to site that let you generate your Hobbit, Elven, or Pirate name, along with several others. You can get to it here.

And, for the record, my Pirate name is Iron John Kidd.

Just a quick shout out to all you Captains, Lore-masters, etc. out there who hit me with drive-by buffs while I’m running around in Moria or wherever: Thank you!

I frequently do not even realize I have been buffed for a little while after it happens, so I usually don’t get a chance to thank you in person via tell or emote or whatever, but I do appreciate it.

Disclaimer: I am not a roleplayer, nor do I play one on TV. The closest I have gotten in LOTRO to being a roleplayer is playing music and editing the bio on a couple of my characters. Even so, I was interested from a lore perspective when a couple of months ago I stumbled across this blog entry on Separating the Men from the Dorfs. Now, I don’t have a real problem with folks who want to role-play their dwarves as

“dorfs,” which is a particular form of Dwarf player character who seems to be common in LotRO. We are talking here about Dwarves who talk in a Scottish accent, who carry beer mugs into Carn Dum, and who fly into berserker rages at the sight of an Orc.

But the blog author, Jason Tondro, provided a good analysis of Dwarven speech and mannerisms in Middle Earth, some of which I already knew and some of which had never occurred to me. Some highlights:

1. Much of the problem with playing a Dwarf is that we have all these memorable scenes from the film that simply didn’t happen in the novel. Gimli belching in Theoden’s hall, then drying the beer off his mouth with his beard? Didn’t happen. Gimli calling Galadriel an “Elf-witch” as they enter Lorien? Didn’t happen (there’s a similar exchange, but the suspicious hero is Boromir, not Gimli.) . . . That business about the Dwarf being so loud “we coud shoot him in the dark”? No, that was Boromir too. [Note: it was actually Sam, not Boromir. -- SL]

2. And accents are not lore-appropriate. As I mentioned, they are very scarce in the novel. We do see a Cockney accent in a spot or two — but it is not spoken by Men. It is spoken by Orcs! That’s right, all of you players of Men: talking Cockney makes you sound like an Orc. Bree-landers don’t have a Cockney accent.

3. The Dwarves are an ancient and proud race, and they value courtesy. They expect other people to be polite to them, and they are naturally polite in return. Now, Dwarves can be rude. But their definition of “rude” does not involve direct insults.

4. Let’s look at that scene in the Hobbit when Thorin is brought before Thranduil. It is useful because it shows how a Dwarf and an Elf in a hostile situation might talk to one another. Where do they draw the line, and does their fight break out into violence or even death? The king looked sternly on Thorin, when he was brought before him, and asked him many questions. But Thorin would say only that he was starving. ‘Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking?’ asked the king. ‘We did not attack them,’ answered Thorin; ‘we came to beg, because we were starving.’ ‘Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?’ ‘I don’t know, but I expect starving in the forest.’ ‘What were you doing in the forest?’ ‘Looking for food and drink, because we were starving.’ ‘But what brought you into the forest at all?’ asked the king angrily. At that Thorin shut his mouth and would not say another word. Thorin never stoops so low as to insult Thranduil or assault him. That would be lowering himself to the level of his poor host. He answers truthfully when he can and shuts up when he can’t. But he is certainly stubborn, and he has a dark sense of humour you have to love.

Good stuff, to which I only need add: Khazad ai-menu!

There is a thread on the forums asking which parts of the books and/or movies gave people chills. There were some good pieces cited. Here are a couple of mine:

The Ride of the Rohirrim

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

. . .

Eomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in this speed, and the front of the first Eored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Theoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Orome the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the host of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

The Bridge of Khazad-dum

‘You cannot pass,’ he said. ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. You cannot pass.’

The Chamber of Mazarbul

‘It is grim reading,’ he said. ‘I fear their end was cruel. Listen! We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frar and Loni and Nali fell there. Then there are four lines smeared so that I can only read went 5 days ago. The last lines run the pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Oin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. I wonder what that means. The last thing written is in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters: they are coming. There is nothing more.’