Random Thread ~Usagi-Chan ☮ Tūsurī~

[Celedam]

If anyone is wondering, given current events…

[resop2]

As for alarms, I use firefox and none of the ones I tried worked.

I then tried the MS "app": alarm. Wow, that was a traumatizing mistake. I had no idea that it was possible to screw up a alarm program in as many ways that they did.

[esm]

Just got an iPhone 11 because I’ve been doing good on having extra savings despite already putting in a lot more towards paying off debt every month (but then I work like over 70 hrs a week). I had the 8 before this so this is significantly bigger, which is nice. I used to like smaller phones but these days you do so much on your phone that a bigger one is nice. The front camera is much, much better.

[TotallyUncool]

70+ hours a week is hard!
You deserve much better, but I know - these days, it's not easy.

My Samsung Galaxy S4 had a bad USB port and finally stopped charging a few months ago, so I got an A50. It's the high end of Samsung's budget line, but still much more advanced than the S4 - and bigger, too.

I ordered a replacement USB port for the S4 from Amazon, just because I didn't want it so sit around unrepaired if I could do something about it -at some point, I'll find out if I'm too much a klutz to actually do the repair.

[Moh]

Severe storms rolled through middle Tennessee last night, which spawned a tornado that went through Nashville, and so far the death toll is 19. Right now the NWS is saying it was an EF-3, but I think it'll be increased once they finish surveying all the damage.

I'm really bothered by this, and I haven't even been in Tennessee for almost 5 years.

[TotallyUncool]

From the pictures I've seen, it looks really bad!

[Celedam]

My random thought of the day: “Quenta Silmarillion” (i.e., the central part of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion) is really just the story of how Elrond’s parents met. His mother Elwing fleeing Doriath, his father Eärendil fleeing Gondolin, the two of them meeting at the mouths of Sirion during what they thought was the end of the world... Everything else is just a long and complicated explanation of how those circumstances came to be.

I’m only half-joking. Of course it is the nature of history — even fictional history — that the present is the culmination of the past. But “Quenta Silmarillion” isn’t a history text in the academic sense, it’s a collection of stories that follows a relative handful of threads through historic times. And those threads all lead to Elrond.

Why? Because in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Elrond is the link to the past. Gandalf, Saruman, and Galadriel technically are all older than Elrond, but they serve different roles in the narrative. Elrond is the one whom readers associate with the history and lore of that world, so when a reader comes to “Quenta Silmarillion”, Elrond is there again at the end to provide the same link.

[erilaz]

There is, of course, a certain amount of truth to your "random thought." It's undeniable that Elrond is a linchpin (and arguably the main linchpin) that connects The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on the one hand with The Silmarillion on the other. But it should be noted that although the character of Elrond predates the writing of The Hobbit (published in 1937) and its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he is not present in the earliest versions of Tolkien's mythology, seen in The Book of Lost Tales and The Lays of Beleriand. Elrond first appears in the 1926 "Sketch of the Mythology": "Their son (Elrond) who is half-mortal and half-elfin, a child, was saved however by Maidros" (The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 38).

Note that his brother Elros, who would become the first King of Númenor, does not yet exist at this stage. His creation would be very significant for The Lord of the Rings, which (to extend your random thought) is the story behind the reunion of the lines of the Half-elven, namely the marriage of Arwen (granddaughter of Eärendil and Elwing, via Elrond) and Aragorn (great-great-great-great-etc.-grandson of Eärendil and Elwing, via Elros).

"Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?" — Samwise Gamgee

[Celedam]

Yeah, I didn’t want to get into Elros or Númenor or the fact that Arwen and Aragorn are kissing cousins because it was late and I typed all of that on my phone while in bed. That’s why I limited my random thought to “Quenta Silmarillion” as published.

And again, I’m only talking about the narrative flow of that particular work, and for all I know that could be due more to Christopher Tolkien’s editing of his father’s notes than to a specific intent in the mind of Tolkien. You’re the scholar.

Anyhow, the thought came because I have the audiobook read by Martin Shaw on my phone to listen to when I go to sleep. The Elvish names and archaic grammar, in Shaw’s droning voice, usually puts me right out. But this time I’ve really been trying to pay attention.

[erilaz]

Thanks to COVID-19, SXSW was cancelled on Friday, and now (not surprisingly) the entire Japan Nite tour has apparently been cancelled, as well. I just got a refund for the San Francisco show last night. It's particularly sad because this was going to be Japan Nite's 25th anniversary.

It remains to be seen how many of my other concert ticket purchases will be refunded in the coming months. I'll be surprised if I actually get to see The Warning on April 2nd.