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Let's all kill time before the Apple event ...

1. I Am a Dark Elf. Sometimes readers e-mail me random links to things they've written. They are sometimes good and sometimes bad. But I don't often get sent something as interesting as this essay by a Muslim immigrant, born in Pakistan, about how Drizzt Do'Urden, from R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms series, helped him come of age in America:

When around the age of fourteen, newly arrived in America, I first read about Drizzt in The Crystal Shard, defending his friends with his double scimitars, fighting pirates, trolls, orcs, and the nefarious assassin Artemis Entreri (he with the soul sucking dagger), I only saw Drizzt as a warrior. We were at a mosque. I remember it was my cousin's birthday and we were supposed to be reading portions of the Quran in celebration. But I placed The Crystal Shard under the rehal (Quran holder) and went seafaring with Drizzt and his friends: Cattie-Brie, the red haired archer; her adopted father Bruenor, a blacksmith dwarf; and Wulfgar, the Norse Barbarian, armed with the glorious warhammer, aegis-fang (crafted from mithril). The more I read the more I realized that I was a nerd and that I wanted to be an expert fighter with dual scimitars.

2. I guess in Japan you can rent exoskeletons now. What? Man, the Western hemisphere is so lame. Dibs on this one.

3. The OTSD Trailer. Shed a tear for the Halo movie that might have been. Now wipe it away, loser! You'll miss the live-action ad for OTSD:

I actually played a little OTSD last night -- there was a preview event in NYC. Real interesting experience -- they brought a really different, open-world, film-noir vibe to the Halo world. I wouldn't have thunk it possible.

4. The teaser for Black Lightning, by Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director who did Wanted:

5. Did I mention about the Apple event? I did? OK, we're done.