It’s been a fairly quiet week here at the old Dragon’s Roost. In fact, it was pleasantly quiet. No big projects to worry about.

Heck, it’s been downright dull.

And I love it.

Having married into a family raised in the Armenian Orthodox Church, I still have one more Christmas dinner to go to, but I’ve been told that we have no responsibilities regarding bringing food (this dinner will not be at our house). So…

It’s currently unseasonably warm here. The view from my window reveals a tree line shrouded in fog (and you can bet I took some reference photos and wrote out a nice description to be used later).

The warm weather is weird because I got my first haircut of the year yesterday (the last one was before Thanksgiving). Usually it is freezing after I get my mane shorn.

I’m working on doing more actual writing this year. So far it’s been a lot of note taking. I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to start on, but the clear winner hasn’t reared its head yet so I’ve been dawdling. Last year was a crap year as far as my own writing went and it’s taking me a bit to get back into the groove. I have noticed that my note taking is starting to venture more and more into writing out entire scenes, so it seems like those creative muscles are starting to warm up.

On the wildlife front, we have had a small herd of deer (up to seven at a time) and three turkeys in our yard every day. The Mrs has been providing old pumpkins for the deer, which explains the photo accompanying today’s post.

Listening To: Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie. You may recall that DiLouie’s My Ex, The Antichrist made my best of last year and How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive got four stars in 2024. He’s succeeded again with this tale of a crew from a ghost hunting TV show which is exploring the headquarters of a group which tried to contact the other side back in the ‘70s.

Currently Reading: It’s been a waiting room kind of week, so my physical reading has been split between King Sorrow in hardcover and The Rack on my phone.

Current Obsession: We started watching Barry on HBOMax, or whatever it’s called now. We’re absolutely loving it. We’re already most of the way through season three after only a few days. The Mrs refused to believe that Bill Hader is the same guy who played Stefon on SNL. And, like everyone else, we watched the series finale of Stranger Things (see below).

If you are in the area this weekend, make sure to swing by the Historic Howell Theater for the first Midnight Creature Feature Show. Deadly Weapons will start at 9pm, Saturday the 10th, sponsored by Dragon’s Roost Press.

This Spring we will be opening up for novel/novella submissions. We will make the announcement in a few weeks, but we wanted to give readers of Dragon Scratchings an early heads up.

I was going to comment on the blatant disregard for international law that was perpetuated by Temu Nero and his cronies, but to be honest, I still can’t wrap my head around it. For now all I will say that is if it is currently acceptable for a foreign government to kidnap the head of another country’s leader because of criminal behavior, well, it’s pretty easy to find Mar-a-Lago.

Instead of that, why don’t we look at the finale of Stranger Things?

We were on board with Stranger Things from the very beginning. I mean, how could I not be? A show that blended sci-fi and horror, based in the greatest decade, and featuring a healthy dose of D&D? Yes, the show had some ups and downs (not to mention an Upside Down). Over time it moved away from concentrating on the small main group and bringing in an increasingly large complement of characters, some of whom I cared for less than others. Still, I enjoyed most of the story telling. Then only character I really didn’t care about was the military leader—total waste of Linda Hamilton.

With regard to the finale, I’ve seen a lot of people online complaining about the amount of time that was spent with the characters after the final showdown. I actually enjoyed being able to spend time with each group (I won’t go into too much detail in case some of you haven’t watched it yet). I loved the final D&D session.

The next bit is a little spoilery. Feel free to sign off here if you need to.

Everyone still here? All right then.

My only real complaint was that Vecna was underutilized. After a huge build-up as the Big Bad, the final fight with Vecna as Vecna (in full make up), was rather underwhelming.

I will miss the show, but I’m glad it wrapped when it did. I think the quality would have dropped considerably if it was stretched out. I also hope that they don’t try to resurrect it with spin-offs, but I feel that this is probably inevitable.

It will be interesting to see which actors are able to translate their ST fame into full careers.

That’s all for this week. One down, fifty-one more to go.

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