neonvincent

On my blog's Facebook page, I wrote the following a week ago:

Crazy Eddie's Motie News was feeling confused.*

The bot traffic, which stopped August 17th, has returned to the blog. At least I won't have to worry about making my page view goal this month (1173 page views per day for a total of 36,393 page views), but at what cost?**

*I chose confused because perplexed and paranoid weren't available on Facebook. They aren't available here, either, but at least I can write in my own choice, which is "suspicious."

**I made that page view goal on the 11th. The blog currently has 44,616 page views for October with the month less than halfway over and 53,700 for the past 30 days. As for the cost, it's wondering who or what is reading my blog and for what purpose. I can say that it's coming from inside the U.S. The Russians aren't nearly as interested as they were before the election.

Silly Squirrels for Happy Wester 2017!
I'm single-handedly keeping alive a fake holiday called Wester, which is the first Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Autumnal Equinox... The holiday has its own animal mascot, the Wester Squirrel, which goes around and gathers goodies to hide instead of hiding goodies to pass out like the Easter Bunny.

Over at the main blog, I have videos of squirrels stealing each others' nuts and squirrels using a tactic from "The Walking Dead" to evade snakes.  Here, I have flying squirrels going for distance from National Geographic.  Hey, it's football season!

I posted a list of my posts about speculative fiction winners at this year's Emmy Awards. It was incomplete, as I posted it before I wrote Emmy winners in animation and children's programming. Now that list is complete.

Speaking of complete lists, here are the links to the posts I wrote about the winning shows about politics, a follow up to my journal entry about the nominees.

Jeff Beal wins the only Emmy for 'House of Cards' this year
'Veep' leads comedy series with five Emmy Awards
'Atlanta' and 'Master of None' showcase diversity at the Emmy Awards
Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah win one Emmy Award each
'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver' examines corporate consolidation after winning four Emmy Awards
'Saturday Night Live' wins big on political satire with nine Emmy Awards

I'll post my list of entries about the nominees in the News and Documentary Emmys next. As I tell my readers at my main blog, stay tuned.

Four years ago, I wrote Finally, a Ringworld movie!

That's the one in which I repeated my twenty-year-old grousing about how I wrote an adventure for Chaosium's Ringworld table-top RPG, but lost all that effort because the movie rights to the book were sold and the movie production company asserted that they had the game rights, too. To add insult to injury, there was no movie. Apparently, that will change, as SyFy announced that they will develop the book into a four-hour miniseries.

The good news was that it became one of the two most read posts of that year. The bad news is that no "Ringworld" movie or miniseries came of it.

Not all is lost, as io9 reported this week Amazon Is Developing a Bonanza of Genre Titles: Ringworld, Snow Crash, and Lazarus.

Amazon just announced a virtual land grab of genre titles that it’s putting into development: Larry Niven’s scifi classic Ringworld; Neal Stephenson’s cult classic Snow Crash; and Greg Rucka’s acclaimed comic Lazarus. In a perfect world, we could be seeing all three made into drama series.

As Deadline reports, the announcement comes as the streaming network is hoping to land a “big-scope genre drama series in the mold of Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead.” There aren’t too many details yet, but the standout points include: the Ringworld project will likely draw not just from Niven’s 1970 original, but other books in the series; Rucka will be adapting Lazarus himself from page to screen; and Snow Crash will be co-produced by Joe Cornish, who at one time had the project on his own feature-directing slate.

I'm a lot more confident in Amazon pulling off "Ringworld" than I was about SyFy, so I'm looking forward to it. The other project I want to see is "Snow Crash." It may not be the best of Stephenson's novels, but it is the best-known and it's a lot of fun. Here's to both of them reaching the small screen before the decade is out!

I celebrated four holidays today at Crazy Eddie's Motie News in Elephants and hobbits but no cars on the Autumnal Equinox. I'm sharing one of them here as well, Hobbit Day.

Hobbit Day is observed annually on September 22.

In the world of Middle-earth, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins share a birthday which is celebrated on September 22nd. According to the books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy written by J.R.R. Tolkien, Bilbo and Frodo were born during the Third Age in the years 2890 and 2968 respectively. Translated to Shire-reckoning, Bilbo was born in 1290 and Frodo in 1368.

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. ~Bilbo Baggins ~ Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

HOW TO OBSERVE

Join Hobbit Day celebrations or have a Hobbit Day party of your own. Reading the book or watching the movies are other ways to enjoy the day. Use #HobbitDay to post on social media.

HISTORY

The American Tolkien Society first proclaimed Hobbit Day and Tolkien Week in 1978.

Happy Hobbit Day!

'Westworld' and 'Stranger Things' lead drama series with five Creative Arts Emmy Awards each
I report on the five Emmy Awards both "Westworld" and "Stranger Things" have already won as well as the three statuettes "The Handmaid's Tale" earned, all of which put them in the lead for drama series, along with all the rest of the live-action speculative fiction winners, including the first Emmy Awards for "Gotham" and "Marvel's Luke Cage."
The five awards "Westworld" won last week were Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media Within A Scripted Program, Outstanding Make-up for a Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic), Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour), and Outstanding Special Visual Effects.
"Stranger Things" also won five awards, Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series, Outstanding Main Title Design, Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series, and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series.
"The Handmaid's Tale" came in third among drama series with three wins. The dystopian tale won Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for Alexis Bledel as Ofglen/Emily, Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour), and Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More).
"Gotham" won Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role, the show's first Emmy.
"Marvel's Luke Cage" won Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama Series, Limited Series, or Movie, the show's first Emmy.

'The Handmaid's Tale' sweeps last night of Emmys to win five awards
It went very well for "The Handmaid's Tale," as it won all five of the categories in which it was competing last night. In addition to Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, the show won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.

I've been following ICP's travails with the FBI declaring their fans a gang since 2012 with updates here and here.  Normally, I'd post this at Crazy Eddie's Motie News, but I posted Goodbye, Cassini! today instead.  I might follow up with the results of the march here or at my main blog later.

Happy Labor Day and Happy National Wildlife Day! Click on the link in the salutation for my thoughts on both holidays. Instead of writing about the day here, I'll post something a little more meta. I included three title sequences along with the theme songs at Crazy Eddie's Motie News in 'Westworld' leads drama series with 22 Emmy nominations, followed by 'Stranger Things' with 19 and 'The Handmaid's Tale' with 13 and "House of Cards" leads contemporary American political dramas with six nominations. I'll share them behind the cut. First, here's Opening Credits: How TV's Title Sequences Grew Up | WIRED.



( Title sequences for 'Stranger Things,' 'Westworld,' and 'The Good Fight' behind the cut. )

Last month, I posted here about the Teen Choice Awards nominees recognizing speculative fiction in movies and television. The awards were given out Sunday, so it's time to post about the winners. Here are the links to entries about the winners at Crazy Eddie's Motie News and the descriptions I used to promote them.

'Beauty and the Beast' the big winner at the Teen Choice Awards as speculative fiction dominates the movie categories
"Beauty and the Beast" won five awards, Choice Fantasy Film, Choice Fantasy Movie Actress for Emma Watson, Choice Movie Villain for Luke Evans, and Choice Movie Ship and Choice Liplock for Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. Emma Watson also won Choice Drama Movie Actress for her role in the thriller "The Circle."

'Riverdale' leads television shows with seven Teen Choice Awards
"Riverdale" was the most honored show last Sunday, earning seven surfboards: Choice Drama TV Show, Choice Drama TV Actor for Cole Sprouse, Choice Breakout TV Show, Choice Breakout TV Star for Lili Reinhart, Choice TV Ship for Sprouse and Reinhart, Choice Hissy Fit for Madelaine Petsch, and Choice Scene Stealer for Camila Mendes.

I'm posting about National Presidential Joke Day both here and at Crazy Eddie's Motie News. There, the post was SNL mocks Trump for Presidential Joke Day. Here, it's Colbert saying Stephen Doesn't Want The Earth To Blow Up.

As a homeowner and inhabitant of the planet, Stephen is really hoping Earth continues to be.

Doomer though I am, I'm with Colbert. I may repost this at Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Tuesday, after I post the worksheet for "Treasures of the Earth: Power" that I promised to post three weeks ago, the winners for Dramatic Presentation at the Hugo Awards, and the winners of the Teen Choice Awards.