ANNOUNCEMENT!
Today I introduce not one but two, yes you read that right, two new regular features to my blog. These will complement the nonsense and occasional sense that is currently found here, so it's just an addition and another crutch for me to lean on when I can't think of something highly original.


For a long time I have loved two things above most other hobbies: Tolkien Lore and Science & Nature. The science part we will leave out for now; I've shared some of my feelings about that from time to time as it is. And "Nature" is an very generic term, so I'm going to focus on one part of nature: Animals. I love animals of all shapes and sizes (mostly) and they are such a rich part of the world that it's alarming and tragic to see so many dying and losing their habitats to the relentless growth of an out-of-control mankind. So what do I plan to do? We're going to kill a bunch of them.



Not literally of course, but in the style of American Idol or Survivor (actually more like the NCAA men's basketball tourney), we're going to take the most vicious, ruthless animals from across the animal kingdom and match them up in a bracket-style gladiator tournament, where in each round and each individual pairing, one animal eats the other one and after the round is completed, the number of survivors is half what it was before. In other words, we'll go from a field of 64 to 32 to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to 1. Like I said, just like the Tourney. The arbiter of which animals wins each fight is determined by me based on research, logic, and personal bias, but hopefully as little bias as possible. If there were enough readers I could have some kind of reality-TV voting system, but as it is, if I have two or three viewers, that just not enough to provide any kind of reliable result statistically. So I will allow speculation and then reveal the winners, and will maintain an open mind toward debates on the the outcome - people telling me I'm an idiot and my answer is bollocks because they once saw an X kill and eat a Y... I will evaluate any dissenting opinions and keep and open enough mind to reconsider my original decision, but there had better be some good evidence or reasoning to support the contrary view.

The other regular installment is interactive will remain regular as long as anyone at all participates in it. If no one plays, I'll stop of course, because it's a quiz! A Tolkien Quiz to be precise, though if the interest was there I could be persuaded to write quizzes on other topics, say ones submitted by my readers. But for now I will channel my love of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and the Children of Húrin into a fun quiz (I shall think it fun at any rate) of something like ten questions a week, with some sort of theme. Answer types will be consistent within a single quiz but may vary from quiz to quiz - one week it could be multiple choice, another week fill in the blank or simply provide an answer to the question asked, and yet another week it might involve matching items from two columns (please don't physically write on your monitors, it doesn't work). This one is a little more open ended as I find out a) if I had an audience at all, b) who that audience consistents of and what their interests are, and c) from seems empiracally to work versus what doesn't. I already have a number of questions written and will probably struggle to keep up as the Quiz rolls along.

We'll get into the specific rules and regulations of both the Animal Tourney and the Tolkien Quiz when the first installment of each of those items is posted, which should be very soon - within days I would hope. I'll probably stagger the games so the don't fall on the same day of the week, and I may not always rigorously stick to schedule of posting each on a given weekday every time, though I'll try to not be far off. I'm trying to make this as easy for myself to actually stick to, while keeping my readers somewhat in the know about when certain game times will be. I haven't decided on cut-off dates for the Quiz yet, but it will probably be just before the next Quiz, to give everyone time to submit their answers, even transients who show up, take the Quiz, and then leave again without a trace. I haven't decided if I should install a point system to keep track of how everyone is doing from week to week, but I probably won't because I don't want this to be anything competitive, just fun. And I will rate my opinion of the difficulty of the quiz when it is first presented by an extremely ingenious system which I have devised but cannot tell tou about yet. THIS post, merely the announcement, the cry of heraldry, the rallying to arms of my brethren and sistren to support these worthy causes, is at its end. Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions in general on this post, and look for the first installments of both games within a few days!