My Wednesday looks like it is going to be incredibly busy, so I am starting this on Monday. I’m sitting in the media room with two puppies snoring on the couch next to me and the live broadcast from the Artemis II on the big TV. To let you understand how exciting this is for me, you have to know a couple of things:

The Apollo 11 astronauts were on their way home when I was born.

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, until I learned how much math was involved.

I snuck a transistor radio into class when I was in grade school so I could listen to the first space shuttle launch.

I’ve been to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum so many times that I have lost count.

Despite all of the absolutely insane and idiotic shit that the government is doing right now, we still managed to launch people further from Earth than we ever have. It gives me hope.

In more mundane news, The Mrs was very pleased with her Easter basket which consisted almost entirely of Reese’s branded material. There were also some Ghirardelli sea salt caramel bunnies and a box of Thin Mints that I bought at Penguicon (and hid among my books until Easter Sunday).

I know that some of you are really looking for the news about Finnigan and Quinn, so I made that easier to find. Just scroll down a bit.

Listening To: The October Film Haunt. My audiobook reading has been a little light lately. I usually listen with headphones on while doing house work or while driving. I haven’t been doing a lot of distance driving lately and I’ve been eschewing the use of headphones so I can keep one ear open for the puppies going crazy or being so quiet that I know that something is going on.

Currently Reading: Thrall by Rebecca Mahoney. I’m trying to put aside a little time each day so I can get this review out before the book is released on the 21st of this month.

Current Obsession: Watching the moon get closer and closer.

Welcome to the new section of the newsletter. It won’t appear every time, but will probably be here for the near future.

The kids are getting so big. It seems like they are bigger each day. Yesterday The Mrs kept asking “Is Quinn taller? Did her legs grow?” They’ve lost their little puppy bellies. Quinn seems much leaner and Finn is built like a little tanks. He’s definitely going to be the bigger of the two, but I suspect that Quinn will be able to hold her own.

They met their cousin Myles (and the Mrs’ brother and sister-in-law) on Saturday. He’s about 80 pounds and the puppies were both a little intimidated by him. Quinn got over it once she realized that Myles was ignoring his treats and she could snake them when he wasn’t looking. Finn stayed curled up in the corner, shaking occasionally. This total reversal of how they act in class was surprising, but may have had something to do with the fact that his stomach was still bothering him. It looks like things have gotten better on the digestive front.

<furiously knocks on wood>

The Mrs purchased something called a Lick and Flick. It has two levels that you can fill with treats and requires the dog to figure out how to access them. We’ve been putting his meals in it to slow down the speed of his consumption.

April is a bye month for us here at the Dragon’s Roost. We will be using this time to get caught up on the submissions we have sitting in our ToDo box.

But don’t think we get to rest too much. Our next show will be the second weekend of May (just a little over 4 weeks away!) in Ann Arbor, MI. Look for us and a number of DRP authors at the Halfway to Halloween Expo Friday night and all day Saturday. We’ll post more information as we get closer to the date, but this is one you won’t want to miss.

Next Thursday (the 15th), you can tune in to Dead on Movie Reviews for my thoughts on…

I’ve mentioned before how important the various Monster Weeks of local television were when I was growing up. Chief among these was the week when one would show Godzilla movies, one each day, Monday through Friday. My mom would set up a black and white TV, sometimes propped on the window sill, so my friends and I could sit in my room and bask in all of the Kaiju glory.

Granted, this was the late ‘70s and early ‘80s so they were showing the Showa-Era films. Godzilla was usually not a threatening force of nature or stand in for the horrors of nuclear development and more a protector of Earth fighting other giant monsters. And we absolutely loved it.

Well this is a banner time for lovers of Big G living near me. The Historic Howell Theatre is running a Monster-Sized Movie Series. They are showing the original Godzilla (the 1954 version, not the Americanized ’56 version with Raymond Burr), Starship Troopers, Godzilla vs. Destroyah, Tremors (a favorite of myself and The Mrs due to her unnatural love of all things Kevin Bacon), King Kong (1953), Them!, and Mothra (1961). For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

There is also a channel on YouTube which has been showing Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and Invasion of Astro-Monster. There’s one other film in rotation too, but I seem to keep catching one of those two.

I’m looking forward to seeing Godzilla on the big screen again. I haven’t seen the original in the theater before. In fact, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen the Japanese version instead of the watered down version edited for the US. I have to remember to give myself some time post film to process the film, because this is a heart wrenching flick.

And if this wasn’t enough to get me out of the house, the Michigan Theatre is showing the first season of Twin Peaks, two episodes at a time, every Wednesday starting on the 8th, Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams,  AND they are presenting my all time favorite Universal Movie Monster The Creature from the Black Lagoon in glorious 3D on Saturday the 18th!

Looks like I will be spending an unprecedented amount of time outside of the house despite not having any upcoming conventions.