Return of the Friday Linky

For just shy of ten years, each week I’d share a collection of interesting things I’d seen in the wilds of the internet for the entertainment of my readers. (First one, November 2006: https://morgue.isprettyawesome.com/?p=448; last one, July 2016: https://morgue.isprettyawesome.com/?p=7614.)

Let’s do that again for a bit, because of one thing and another. (Lots of free stuff this week because of one thing and another.)

The wonderful Sarah Laing (Mansfield & Me) is making diary comics again about lockdown life: https://sarahelaing.com/2020/03/24/the-covid-19-diaries-lockdown/

Audible has released a bunch of audiobooks free to stream from their website. Mostly for kids but there are some gems in the classics selection: https://nerdist.com/article/audible-hundred-free-audiobooks/

Climate change has been a preoccupation of this blog since long before I started the Friday Linky, and I’ve been delighted to see how major NZ news outlet Stuff has started covering it. This launch of a major new initiative is weirdly timed with all the coronavirus happenings, but when you’re talking about one existential threat to business as usual, the other one is a natural next step in the conversation. Anyway, please support this with your eyeballs and clicks: https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/120169658/introducing-the-forever-project-lasting-meaningful-coverage-of-the-climate-challenge

Are you one of the many Kiwis who’ve been thinking about learning te reo Māori over the last few years? If at home with time on your hands, Massey have been promoting this free programme of study: https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/international/where-can-i-study/study-online/toromai/toromai_home.cfm

Have you heard of AFK? It’s a webseries about people who get stuck in a fantasy video game world. They just withdrew their kickstarter for a third season, due to current events, but that just means you have a bit more time to check out their first couple of seasons. It’s really quite impressive work. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pghaynes/afk-season-three

D&D types, and other curious folks, will enjoy playing with this toy: Simon Carryer has created the best automatic dungeon generator I’ve ever seen. Every refresh spits out coherent, fascinating environments that hang together beautifully in a way simple random generation never achieves. Marvellous. http://onemilliondungeons.com

How about an archive of the deliciously spooky Lights Out radio show from back in the day? https://archive.org/details/LightsOutoldTimeRadio (Via Theron, with whom I was discussing the lovely BBC podcast adaptations/reimaginings of some Lovecraft stories, the Whisperer in Darkness https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06w5zwg)

Hey, have a text adventure version of Halo Jones: http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/3yh_lgowrkqb5oi-1dvfvq/halo-jones-book-1?

And some free Kindle-edition gamebooks from the legendary gamebook creator Dave Morris – this link is to the regular editions: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B086BG3H2N?ref_=pe_584750_33951330 and the first one doesn’t have a full discount but you can find it free here: https://woodendice.org/flamekebab/heart_of_ice/heart_of_ice_v.1.0.7.html

And why not watch largely-forgotten NZ sitcom Lovebites, spun off from cult film Hopeless: https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=102522

An homage to Delia Derbyshire: http://drproductionsaus.org/homage-to-delia-derbyshire/

The National Theatre is chucking great plays on youtube free to stream: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/at-home (first up stars James Corden, which might be a barrier to some) (via Pearce)

Nine Inch Nails have dropped two free albums of ambient stuff https://www.nin.com/ (via Pearce again)

Which brings me to… THE MOON. The Moon is a screenplay for a film that will never be made. It’s written in such an engaging, funny way – the most enjoyable screenplay I’ve ever read – and the imagined film it describes is just delightful. Funny, creepy, weird, unsettling, emotional, sexy, really really weird. It’s currently approaching the climax but you can catch up easily enough, you’re in isolation right? Do not sleep on this, it’s great! https://theinnercinema.wordpress.com/moon-navigation/

And finally… (by Ryan Lynch, seen via Lauren D)

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