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In gratitude forever … .

I love Peanuts!

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There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
~Diana Cortes

http://newsthump.com/2015/04/01/hobbits ... aily-mail/

I think I just found a new reliable news source.

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In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

~ Albert Camus

Next will be a carefully measured "But on the other hand/What is rarely considered in the light of" editorial sympathetic to Sauron.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

File under "so bad it's funny" (and gets funnier the longer you watch).

Mild lampoons-style raunch warning.

http://nerdist.com/heres-an-absurd-refr ... the-rings/

The writers did their homework, I'll give them that.

This and other classic book jackets come to life in animated .gifs

(the above was the only Tolkien one)

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The Shire in Minecraft

https://imgur.com/a/yDc7E?gallery

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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End

That's cool! Now someone needs to build Minas Tirith!

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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End

Why am I suddenly muttering "Trebuchets are not a defensive weapon!"?

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

While the trebuchet was predominantly an offensive siege weapon, evidence exists that trebuchets – in other parts of Europe known as Fundíbul (Spanish), Tribok (German), or Valslynge (Norse) – were also occasionally employed by castle defenders:

In chapters 39 of the thirteenth-century Norwegian speculum text “King’s Mirror” (Konungs skuggsjá) a father informs his son of “Military Engines”.

“If one is to attack a castle with the weapons which I have enumerated, he will also have a need (of) trebuchets; a few powerful ones with which to throw large rocks against stone walls to determine whether they are able to resist such violent blows, and weaker trebuchets for throwing missiles over the walls to demolish the houses within the castle (…) Those who have to defend a castle may also make use of these weapons which I have now enumerated and many more: trebuchets both large and small, hand slings and staff slings.”

It can therefore be said that the use of such trebuchets in the films is not pure fantasy (pun intended). Why the defenders of the White City use highly non-aerodynamic building parts as projectiles however remains a mystery. A nearly spherical projectile on the other hand could be used against farther away targets, and even has the possibility to roll some distance after touching the ground. I for once, would have loved to have seen a shot of a trebuchet projectile bowling down a couple of dozen orcs.

PS: It should be said though, worse projectiles exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wVADKznOhY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14zsAqA8FXU

Sources:
http://deremilitari.org/2014/04/medieva ... gian-text/
https://books.google.at/books?vid=OCLC0 ... &q&f=false

Mordor National Park now has a Twitter account, so it must be open for business!

https://twitter.com/MordorNPS

Sample tweets:




and

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Awesome.

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I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists

For those who came in after the credits, some employees of the U.S. National Park Service have been tweeting in defiance of Our Dear Leader for the past few days (tweeting science facts, explaining why the parks won't function this summer if they can't hire any summer staff because of the new hiring freeze, that kind of subversive stuff), and today they formed their own unofficial NPS Twitter feed and moved the politically tinged tweets there. This is possibly an offshoot of that.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

German students creates a hand-illuminated copy of Silmarillion

It is absolutely spectacular.

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“I am not so blind that I can't see darkness.”
Dangerous Beans
Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

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Now that's a book!

Thanks for the updated link, Jude.

It definitely looks like something out of Elrond's library!

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

In honor of Tolkien's recent birthday:

http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2018/1/7 ... reats.html

Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

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In gratitude forever … .