Sorry I've been a bit slack here lately. This past week or two I've been paying rather a lot of attention to the developing Middle-Earth Online "massively multiplayer online role playing game," abbreviated MEO and MMORPG (or just MMOG), respectively. No, the game is not available yet. No, not even in beta. Yes, I am mildly Lord of the Rings obsessed.

I've been participating in the forum bulletin boards, both of MEO and of the "kinship" (clan/guild association) that I am hoping to join (Elves of Imladris). I had a wave of similar forum-obsession back around May and early June, when the MEO boards first opened, but drifted away over the summer when there wasn't much to discuss that hadn't already been thrashed thoroughly to death. I think this time I'll approach a reasonable medium though, since information is likely to trickle out at an increasing pace over the next few months, and I will have to maintain a kinship participation level.

I tell you, society will be facing some massive addiction problems if/when someone manages to invent a holodeck, where people can adventure entirely, physically "inside" their favorite stories and fantasy worlds. We are far far away from that, but being even this close is... interesting.

Did I mention that I will have to buy or otherwise get hold of a PC (as opposed to a Mac) in order to play this game? (Traitor!)

However, and this will shock some people, I did not get tickets to the "Trilogy Tuesday," where on December 16 (the day before Return of the King opens) selected theaters will play a marathon consisting of the extended (DVD 30-min-longer version) Fellowship of the Ring, the extended Two Towers, and then at 11 pm the brand new Return of the King. I thought about it, for days. But I didn't do it. I draw the line at taking a day off work.

I will go to some midnight show or other, though. It's hard to beat seeing these movies in the midst of your fellow rabid fans.

Thinking about games too much this week. Burnt out brain cells studying Sindarin at the Ardalambion, in order to translate kinship "job" titles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

but I'm having fun. whee!

ps. go sox.

contents of the purple tricycle are copyright 2003 carrie lynn king unless otherwise noted.