What do you assign to Orthanc?

[Lindale]

Paul the Octopus. I won one bet but lost another, because of him.

And the fact that half my friends weren't able to understand me when I ranted about the Spanish victory. Football isn't even famous here in my country.

[Nogrod]

I assign to Orthanc the fact of being surrounded by my native tongue after five weeks in the US. It's both soothing and weird...

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I assign getting awarded the funds for my Erasmus exchange program, but not having heard anything from the host university.

Basically this means I get the money for going abroad, but I don't have anywhere to go. . . University starts in a few weeks, so hopefully stuff will happen very soon.

[Nerwen]

So awhile ago, in the Mordor thread, I talked about a film I'd been involved with, in which it became increasingly apparent that the screenwriter/producer, for all she'd won some minor award and had (alleged) contacts in Hollywood, had no idea what she was doing.

Well, she rather suddenly had a crisis of faith and pulled the plug on the whole thing. While this has probably left some people, more closely involved than I was, in the lurch, I'd say it's a good thing.

However, I was just looking at various proposed independent productions, and honestly, it's quite depressing, the number of aspiring filmmakers who don't seem even to know what a story is, or at least how to describe one. I mean, if you're touting for funding, and for people to come on board with the production, and all you can say about your plot is: "X happens. Then Y happens", where X and Y are, seemingly, completely unconnected events... I don't think you're going to get very far.

The upside of this, though, is that if one happens to have some good ideas, there's not much competition.

[Pitchwife]

Surprisingly, I have to assign getting a gastroscopy - not so much the procedure itself, and certainly not the dratted ulcer which made it necessary in the first place (that goes straight to Mordor*), but the stuff they gave me for anaesthetic: woke up feeling all fuzzy, relaxed and blissfully detached from mundane reality for an hour or two, like after smoking a pipe of the best Longbottom Leaf, plus it's legal and paid for by health insurance!

*(and has arrived there by now - today was just a control check, and all is well, no need to worry)

[Mithalwen]

Caffe Nero's Mocha - I shouldn't drink it since I am lactose intolerant so Ishouldn't be drinking it at all, it is expensive and calorific I mustn't make it a habit.. but by golly it is good... I have resisted for ages, well over a year but I had one yesterday and again to day.. far too nice...