I’m writing this one a little earlier in the week to accommodate for the fact that Wednesday (my usual writing day) will be spent doing all of the last minute cleaning and prep work for Thursday’s company. We usually host the family for Thanksgiving dinner, so this is nothing new. I’ve spent the last few days dusting, cleaning, making sure that we have enough chairs, and generally getting things ready. At this point all that is left to do will be to give Tesla a bath, clean the bathrooms (to be done after the bath), and sweep the hardwood floors.

Yep, the turkey is thawing in the fridge, all of the ingredients have been purchased (I hope), and yes, we do have enough chairs. I won’t even have to get the folding chairs from the con stuff.

Other than that, the hasn’t been a whole lot going on. I got to celebrate Dr. David C. Hayes’ birthday by attending an invite only showing at the Historic Howell Theater. The double bill included the short Shake Hands With Danger, a 70s era training film for construction worker and the classic Killdozer with an extremely young Robert Urich. While I would like to say that Urich will always be Spenser from the TV show Spenser for Hire, adapted from the novels by Robert Parker and featuring Captain Sisko himself Avery Brooks, I can’t deny that I also see him as Jason from Ice Pirates.

If you would like to see me review Frankenstein (2025), the Dead On Movie Review podcast is available here. You will also get reviews of Him (2025), House of Wax (2005), and Ghostwatch (1992).

And if you are looking for something to do while in a tryptophan haze, tune in this Thursday 8pm EDT for Now Streaming where I will be one of the people discussing the Roku holiday film Jingle Bell Love. I watched it so you don’t have to.

Listening To: I finished listening to Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove today. It’s a fun story which features multiple classic monsters in space told from multiple POVs including the AI controlling the ship Demeter and a medical AI. I still had work to do, so I moved on to Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose which had grabbed me right away.

Currently Reading: I did hold true to my prediction from last week. King Sorrow by Joe Hill is pretty gripping, although I haven’t gotten to the real meat of the story yet. This is a big book, perfect for doing arm curls, so expect to see it listed here for a couple of weeks.

And yes, there were two days where I had the father/son overlap as I finished up King’s Never Flinch on audio.

Current Obsession: Wondering how one not very big dog can generate so much loose fur.

We spent about an hour today tending to one of my least favorite aspects of being a publisher—sending out DMCA notices to a pirate website. They had three DRP titles listed—one of them three times. That means that it is time once again for the appeal. Please do not download ebooks from pirate websites. The primary reason for this is that authors do not get paid when you do. Writing is not the glamorous, well paying career that you see on reruns of Castle. If you want to read one of our titles but do not have the funds to do so, please check your local library. Also, as this should go without saying, shifty websites that steal the results of author’s hard work are also well known for slipping malware in among the downloads. In fact, a couple of the downloads on this particular site were too small to actually be the book, so we can only assume that clicking on their links would be like licking the doorknob of a doctor’s office for your computer.

It is currently award season, so if anyone is interested in nominating or receiving a review copy of one of the titles we published this year, please contact us. Eligible titles (our 2025 publications) are:

Dark Workings of Wild Women by Donna J.W. Munro

Some People I Have Killed by Ken MacGregor

Nightmerica: Corruptions of the American Dream editor Amanda Worthington

Here There Be Horrors by Peggy Christie

It’s Dark In Here: Twenty-One Weird Tales and One Poem About Squirrels by Frank Oreto.

Despite how much I ranted last week, we do want to do something special for our readers so we are announcing our discount code early, but only here! Visit our ebook store and enter code gruesome25 at checkout to receive 10% your purchases. This code is good through 3 December 2025 so you are all set for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.

Due to the holiday, I thought it might be nice to take a break from the insane rants and just list a couple of things that I am thankful for. This is by no means all inclusive.

Family

Friends

Dogs

Books

Our New Home™️

I hope you all have a wonderful week. We will return in December with your regularly scheduled insanity.