I am pleased to announce that the long wait is over and The Mrs couldn’t be happier. After months of problems and down time, the hot tub if finally operational again. On top of that, we got lucky and had one of those warm days when the service dude came out so he was able to drain the tub so he could work on it without getting electrocuted.

Because life continues to be one of those Good News/Bad News books that were all the rage when I was a kid, the following day had 40mph wind gusts. While I was balancing the water, the curtains that I have around the tub scooped up a double handful of dirt and dropped it in said tub. I’m hoping that most of it has been filtered out by now. If not, the hot tub and I have a date with the shop vac.

The other good news was that despite my generally horrible food intake, my A1C held steady at my recent doctor’s visit. This pleases me to no end.

The first Midnight Creature Feature Show at the Historic Howell Theater was a success. At least a score of people braved the crappy weather to enjoy Deadly Weapons. We ran a special where all of the books were $10 and purchasers received a free ticket for the show. Look below for information on our next outing.

Finally, I would like to apologize once again for that horrible screeching sound you might have heard. If your ears picked up the grating grinding of an engine trying to start on a cold day after sitting for months, don’t worry. That was just my brain trying to get back in the groove of writing fiction.

Listening To: Crafting for Sinners by Jenny Kiefer. The setting is a town under the influence of a conservative mega-church. The main character is a bi crafter who has just been captured in the Hobby Lobby from Hell. I’m looking forward to housework so I have more time to listen.

Currently Reading: An ARC of The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own by Gwendolyn Kiste. I’m super excited to have early access to this collection of short fiction by one of my favorite authors. I read the first story, “A New Mother’s Guide to Raising an Abomination” in the waiting room today and really wanted to just stay there and keep reading.

Current Obsession: Unfortunately, the news.

All right, we’re getting into the swing of 2026 now. We have a couple of Saturday’s free, then the travel begins again.

30 Jan - 1 Feb Michael will be at Confusion.

7 Feb Look for Dragon’s Roost Press at Akronomicon in Akron.

21 Feb We will be back at the Historic Howell Theater for Gator Bait.

27 Feb - 1 March Dragon’s Roost Press will be at Horror Realm in Pittsburgh.

This isn’t going to just be a rant, this is going to be a collection of rants. I totally understand if you are not in the right headspace to read a bunch of vitriol right now. If this is where you are at, stop reading right here and have a good rest of the week.

For those of you who stuck with me, buckle up.

Let’s get the political stuff out of the way right up top. Temu Nero has broken International Law and gone to war without the approval of or even notifying Congress. And Congress isn’t doing a damn thing about it. We’re supposed to have a series of checks and balances and Congress isn’t doing its job of checking or balancing. Fine. Let’s stop paying them.

Attacking or threatening to attack a foreign nation because they have something you want isn’t allowed. Period. This is what happens when you elect someone who has never been told “no” in his whole fucking life. If only his parents, or whatever raised him, had slapped his hand when he reached for seconds, none of this would be happening.

One of my recent posts: Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, pretty much all of Central and South America, Greenland. I can only assume that this means that the Epstein Files have evidence of Temu Nero kicking puppies and eating babies. You know, the shit that the Cons have been saying the Libs did in Pizzagate.

Oh yeah, if they are calling the left the Libs, I’m calling them the Cons. Fits, don’t it?

If seen too many people stating that Jonathon Ross, the trigger happy goon who MURDERED A WOMAN in Minnesota reacted that way because he had been previously dragged behind a car. if this mother fucker was that traumatized, what was he doing back in the field?

Also, there is no excuse for drawing your weapon and shooting an unarmed person in the face. In a public place where a stray bullet could have hit anyone. Period.

Also, also, I understand that this is what is finally getting some of the people who are accountable for getting Temu Nero elected to reconsider their stance. As others have pointed out, murders, abductions, violence, etc. has been going on for months. Naturally it took the killing of a white person to make them finally give a shit.

All right, moving from politics to publishing. If I see one more asshole trying to gate-keep reading I am going to lose it. This comes from a number of people who argued that audiobooks don’t count as reading. So, blind people can’t read? Fuck off. Audiobooks, paperbacks, hard covers, ebooks, graphic novels, traditional publishing, self-publishing—it’s all reading. Stop telling people what is and is not a book.

I’m old enough to remember when self-publishing was looked down on because it was assumed that if you were not published by a traditional publisher it was because you weren’t good enough. I’m not going to say that there aren’t books out there that have cut corners, for example, not paid to have an editor actually edit their book. But we have, at least in part, moved away from this view.

Aside—if you are self-published, do yourself a favor and pay the money for an editor. Someone who does it for a living, not your mom or your best friend. Unless your mom or your best friend is a professional editor. In that case, lucky you.

Finally, AI. Fuck AI being used for creative purposes. By using it you are taking money away from people who actually create art, be it the written word, drawings, anything. Also, these systems “learn” by stealing copyrighted material. The authors and artists do not get paid when one of their works “trains” an AI system. If this isn’t bad enough, the computing power needed to make that cute doodle requires an incredible expenditure of resources in the form of electricity and water. You’re fucking up the planet.

This last rant was caused by a number of things I saw online. One was a college student who stated that his art teachers said that AI was bad if used to make art but it was OK to use it for writing. Their writing teachers said that it was OK for artwork but not for writing. Damn it! We’re all creatives and we’re all getting fucked over by the corporations who keep jamming this shit down our throats by including it in everything. It’s time to stand together, not pull some not me but thee bullshit.

If you want to know exactly how I feel about it, let me tell you the really mean post that I made in reply to someone who was moaning about how it cost too much to pay an artist for a professional cover when they could just get ChatGPT to make one for them. They wanted a reason. Others had noted what I said above, but I summarized it thusly:

Why should anyone pay for your book when they can just throw some prompts into ChatGPT and read whatever it spews out for free instead?

That’s why you pay artists.

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