A little Dwarf music, the sequel

Wow.

I knew I liked the song “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran, which runs at the end of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. But seeing this video just blew me away. It’s put together with clips from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and it’s very well done. If you’re a Hobbit fan, you’ll definitely want to give it a look.

Pinterest knows me better than most

Earlier today, I was stalling on Pinterest. I ran out of fresh pins on my home page, so I clicked the new option “Preview! Explore Interests” to see what that might yield. It turns out that Pinterest has analyzed my 2500+ pins and now has a really, really good idea of what I like. I was extremely impressed with how accurate it was, especially since there were a few items like magic, spell books and wizards that I couldn’t really connect to my pinning activity. About the only things missing are otters and chocolate.

I admit, there were a handful of categories that had me scratching my head (John Steinbeck? January Jones? Trailer homes?!?), but most of it is spot-on. I also liked the way it made bigger photos for more frequently pinned subjects like writing and board games. And there were multiple variations on my favorite pinning topics: the Avengers, Doctor Who, the Hobbit, Sherlock and writing.

Here’s the abridged version, eliminating outliers and redundancy; links go to Pinterest:

red pandasmandalasstress relief
Tom Hiddlestonavengers teas
writingnovels terry pratchett
richard armitagecastleskittens
board gamesdr horriblefirefly
sherlockbritishdoctor who
swordschristian kanegerard butler
cosplaybraceletssteampunk
hobbitmagicwarriors

Writing Prompt: Misunderstood

thorin-squareBear with me: you’re getting a Hobbit-inspired prompt this week. (Because it’s my favorite film du jour, that’s why. And it’s not been given that exalted status just because it’s got Richard Armitage in it, although that certainly didn’t hurt.)

There’s a scene near the end of the first Hobbit film when Thorin suddenly realizes that he’s been a total jerk to Bilbo, who has just saved Thorin’s life. It’s lucky that Bilbo is a fairly patient soul, because Thorin’s apology starts off all wrong and sounds an awful lot like he’s chewing Bilbo out (again). In this case, things ended well — Thorin eventually made his intention clear and we all realized that he was mad at himself rather than being mad at Bilbo. But with two other characters, the encounter could have gone differently and the apology might have been cut off before it could be adequately expressed. Your challenge this week is to write a scene or story where a character is trying to express something important and doing it very badly. I’ll leave it to you to decide if the characters eventually manage to communicate or if a vital opportunity is lost forever.

Thorin Dreamboatshield… I mean, Oakenshield

I’ve been a fan of Richard Armitage for ages, so I was pretty excited to hear that he’d been cast in The Hobbit films. Sadly, with all the holiday rush (including some travel), I haven’t gotten to a theater yet, but I did read a funny parody of the first film that I just have to share. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Thorin Dreamboatshield: An Unexpected Hotness of Dwarves

If you have trouble connecting to LiveJournal, here’s an alternate link, which goes to the author’s formal website:

http://sarahreesbrennan.com/2012/12/thorin-dreamboatshield-an-unexpected-hotness-of-dwarves/