Leibniz Clockwork

I’m surfing for games on my phone when I see this 1-star review.

“Pass this game by! No tutorial!”

No tutorial, you say?

…Install

Apropos of nothing, I really liked Common’s character Cassian in John Wick 2.

Cassian had an upper level he was capable of, but he didn’t go there. He could have. The character had ceiling in his will to violence, ceiling Clausewitz would have urged him to explore. And in his first meeting with John, when John basically admits he killed Gianna, Cassian goes nearly to that level, drawing and shooting in a crowd. But after that Cassian is subdued, playing with the line between repressed and controlled. I rarely see that.

It might have been more intense for Common to play a screaming psycho, but it would have been less enjoyable. The character wouldn’t have been as cool. For a series like the John Wick movies that are anchored in their shtick, it would have been the wrong move. Common played Cassian exactly right. He fit the texture of the story. His character matched.

I hope there’s no bad blood in there (between actors/directors/etc. in the real world). I’d love to see a John vs Cassian movie, just two assassins going at it.

The High Table could be supporting Cassian as a patsy. Cassian might even know and not care. But I’d like a full movie of those two trying to kill each other, set against the backdrop of assassin politics.

I have no idea how to do it without waving my hands and saying, ‘Sorcery!’

I write fantasy.

How do the phases of the Moon work in my geocentric world?

SORCERY!

I think it’s time to find an alternative to WordPress.

The techbros who write software have a hard problem recognizing anything that isn’t right in front of them. They update software in an annoying and less userfriendly way, but it solves some backend problems of theirs so they like the update. The users don’t, but the devs just say ‘you’ll get over it.’

And we do. We get over the software.

Facebook did this. Their user growth finally stagnated.

A few games I used to play did this. They’re all in the glide path now.

WordPress is making it more and more difficult for me to just do what I want to do. They shove me toward features I don’t want and take away features I do. ‘You’ll get over it,’ they say.

They’re right. I’m over WordPress.

I forgot a function and all my Matlabbery is Matwrongery.

Ach.

Hold on.

I gotta uninstall my video games. I have the attention span of a gnat.

Of old there was Sauron the Maia, whom the Sindar in Beleriand named Gorthaur. In the beginning of Arda Melkor seduced him to his allegiance, and he became the greatest and most trusted of the servants of the Enemy, and the most perilous, for he could assume many forms, and for long if he willed he could still appear noble and beautiful, so as to deceive all but the most wary.

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. But it was not within the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order, and he commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgement of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong.
-JRR Tolkien