the first rule of ring club is..

you don’t talk about ring club.

The mountain we’re standing on won’t be here in ten minutes. You take a 98 percent concentration of a fuming portion of a dark lord’s power and add it to molten gold. Then, pour the gold into a mold in the shape of a ring. Take it out of the mold and remove the sprues in a closed environment, and you have a ring of power.

I know this because Frodo knows this.

sound familiar? this and many other brilliant (and some not-so-brilliant) acts of extemporaneous parody are happening over at the straight dope message board. the inspiration: what if someone else had written lord of the rings?

as for me, i’m just too dang tired to be all that creative right now.