What happened to the Nine Rings at the end of the Second Age?

After Sauron’s defeat at the hands of Elendil and Gil-Galad in the last alliance of Elves and Men, his body was destroyed. It would take him nearly a thousand years to regain power, and over two thousand years to fully reincarnate in Middle-earth. During that time, the Nazgûl retreated to the East, then slowly began

The importance of escapism (or: why obsess over Tolkien’s work)

Amanda Hocking once wrote, “I like to obsess over things that don’t matter because it’s more fun than obsessing over things that do.” I think there’s a germ of incredible truth to this statement[1].

Why did Treebeard say that nobody cares for the woods?

Treebeard seems to think he got a bit of a raw deal. He says: I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me: nobody cares for the woods as I care for them, not even Elves nowadays J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two

Is Tom Bombadil one of the nameless things?

I know I have a whole different website that I use to talk about Tolkien, but sometimes in writing I get a bit stuck. Oddly, perhaps one of the best ways to become unstuck is to write. I beg your indulgence as I write my way out of my hole.

Spell “Silhouette”

When I was in high school, I competed with the academic challenge team known as Scholars’ Bowl. We traveled to other teams in the area to play in tournaments, and even participated in a PBS-televised tournament each year. Imagine Jeopardy!, but with teams.

Less Brown

As I’ve occasionally mentioned before, while in high school I played on the academic challenge team, called Scholars’ Bowl. It was pretty fun and generally one of the more positive memories from that time.

The Unexpected Party

For a few years (quite a few, actually, since post-graduate education can take the better part of a decade!) my brother was remotely working on a doctorate program offered by a college not too far from where I live in North Carolina. This was nice, since it meant that occasionally he would have to stop

The Road to a Marriage, Part 3

I am slowly but surely working my way through the story of how I proposed to my wife. Last time I told about talking to her parents. But I had two more tasks to complete: I needed to buy a ring, and I needed to find a place to propose. This is the story of

The Replacement Computer

When I went off to college, I brought with me my computer that my parents bought me in high school. Since I was majoring in computer science, having a working and good computer was pretty important. It would have been a shame if something happened to it….

The Nerf War

When I was a kid, one of the most anticipated events put on by the church youth group I attended was the somewhat-annual Nerf War. The group would rent out a gymnasium, we would set up cardboard forts, and many dozens of kids would wage war all evening. We’d spend the night in the gym,