Important notice for my editing and project management clients – this year, due to rising costs, I've unfortunately had to implement a rates change. Please email me for any queries regarding availability.

It is so weird seeing these in the wild even though I personally handed a batch of them to the store. It's my little paper babies that I hand cut and stapled myself - every single one!

A patron is mad at me because Google now has a '+' in the search bar

This is futzing with my brain, where DnD should be... to the point where I'm trying to work out the level of appropriateness of a middle aged crusty old dude (me), with less than mediocre writing ability - writing ghost Marissa Copper fanfic about 19 years too late.

Congratulations to @lisayee.bsky.social and @dansantat.bsky.social on the release of the third book in their wonderful New York Times bestselling middle grade series, THE MISFITS. Happy book birthday and welcome to the world to THE MISFITS: A SEA MONSTER CONUNDRUM!

Hi library friends & colleagues in the UK! Check out @thelibrariansfilm.bsky.social on BBC 4 Storyville: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... 📚 📜

Join our Patreon to unlock monthly giveaways, digital issues, rare author content, ad space for your business or project, and at the higher tiers: short story critiques, invites to exclusive industry events! Here's a treasurE from our archives ;) patreon.com/locus

A statistical analysis on when Rock became Classic Rock. Trigger Warning: Reference to Bowling for Soup's 1985 will make you play the song. #Monday www.statsignificant.com/p/when-did-r...

Finished The OC: Key takeaway. Marissa Cooper's ghost is going to be stuck on that driveway forever. While everyone moved on to Weddings, Graduations, she's stuck in O. C. because Ryan couldn't stop seeing her in any other place but at the end of that driveway. 19 years later, she's still there.

Staying off TT for a bit until lthe Stranger Things "is it bad/good" reviews, endless post mortems, here me outs, plot hole gotchas!, think pieces and A.I. Slop renderings have slowed enough for my algorithm to go back to recipes, star trek, book reviews and WWE, of all things .

Been feeding my imagination with locked room murder mysteries set on a tropical island, and now I don't want to go to a tropical island. #DeathInParadise

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 132678: You don't need to write every day: you just need to keep your imagination alight. Feed it with books, with art, with films and theatre. That way it will always be ready when you need it.

The Serpent's Quest, book 1 of The Splintered Fool series written by me and Toby Bennett, is now available at my Ko-Fi store. ko-fi.com/s/e920553c93

WordPress seems ok - for now - for people who don't want to set anything up that they can control. Otherwise there are micro tools such as: bearblog.dev [Cape Town dev, as an aside] getpublii.com or more complicated - or just odder - tools, such as this: www.11ty.dev kool.tools/domino/

Definitely start a blog but don't use Blogger - you're just handing all your text and art to Google to train its AI. Also, Google will happily lock you out of your blog with typical G Account bullshit, in which the rules change all the time, so none of your work will be safely under your control.

As someone who will have to train librarians to not look at the shiny bauble and focus on the monster that's holding it... Yes. Indeed. Slop it is, and Slop it will be.

Looks like the entire South Africa is suffering from a @crunchyroll.com subscription outage. No morning cartoons for me.

Finally have a pc that can play Dragon Age: Inquisition. Not so sure about Riven though. Yes, that is a very specific Gen X joke.

The Truth by Terry Pratchett

Rewatching the O.C. season 4 The Bullet of it all 🤦. Quippy homespun FELON and corrupt millionaire as love interest and comic relief - in the words of Ms Summer Roberts: EW

Re-Watching The O. C. : The Taylor (Townsend) hate at the time , was so unnecessary. Ryan and Marissa was already broken up. Did they need to kill Marissa - no. But, a Ryan and Taylor relationship was a good storyline.

Pondering a storytelling hook/plot thingee: If Jesus died for everyone's sins, would all those cursed by the Greek Gods also have their sins forgiven & thus be freed. Circe. Atlas. Arachne. Prometheus. Cassandra. Harmonia. Medusa. Myrrha Would they be pissed? Or just be chill. #Fantasy

Movies that seem older than they are: Titan AE. I swear I remember seeing this movie in the theatre around 1998. But it came out in 2000. Did someone mess with the zen garden or time and now we're down the wrong trouser leg? #Pratchett #IYKYK

No one is as invisible, as the man carrying packs of toilet paper through a mall

I keep seeing people recc these books. I want to know from you why I *should* (or shouldn't) read them.

Howl’s Moving Castle is a bona fide classic DWJ is a phenomenal author and one of my favorites! R.A. Salvatore is one of the best D&D authors his Drizzt books are fun and play with a number of well-worn tropes but in a good way. Hold off on Rothfuss until he writes the third book or you will get mad

Every. Damn. Day. You feel it like lightning, from sky to earth. Just like your friend said.

At Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens: People looking at me like - why you on your phone, crusty old dude? Because I am reading on my Library Ebook App, Libby. 📖😉 Reading: Love letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

Looking for the chocolate stash in Troi's Quarters and Spot in Data's. #IYKYK @mikeokuda.bsky.social #StarTrekTNG

Despite residing 15 minutes away from Kirstenbosch Nat. Botanical Gardens (by car - only digital nomads could afford to live 15 min. away by foot) - I only seem to pop round during the holidays, when it's filled with tourists who wander amiably about trying to figure out what the fuss is. The fuss:

Someone has lifted the QuickTimeVR movie files from 1994's "Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive Technical Manual", upscaled them then built an in-browser replica of the ITM's "Tour" module. mijofr.github.io/st-panorama/ #StarTrek

And so the enshittification continues. This is me being a complete and utter curmudgeon, so ignore the ranty old man: Two supermarket chains redoing their interiors - 1 has a slightly less dodgy quality but still expensive, the other hoping that we won't notice the prices went up. Again.

post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.

@dndbeyond.com is down. Stopped working mid-play.

The styling of Billy Campbell on The O. C. is like whiplash. Clean shaven one week. Then bangs the next week, with full beard - all the while doing a whole Leaving Las Vegas thing, while eliciting deep feels from Kirsten

Pie in the sky musings about a The O. C. #rewatch Rewatching The O. C. and if they ever consider a requel of the series, Olivia Wilde's Alex Kelly is a good way in. Alex with teenage kids and wife, relocate to The O.C following the death of one of her parents. Wilde could direct and produce. 1/2

Oh and I saw your zines @mandyjwatson.bsky.social !

Will be breaking a cardinal South African Holiday Rule between Xmas & New Year. This period is reserved for doing absolutely nothing except Braaing or getting stuck in traffic on the way to Muizenberg or (insert name here) Beach. This year, we said fuck it, we WILL be playing #DnD. On the 27th.

Why does this Christmas not feel like Christmas. Dezemba is a very distinct South African holiday & vibe, and it feels vibeless...there is no vibe. Now even taking into account my much shrunked family... There should still be a vibe. Was it AI, digital nomads or the high cost of living....

Holiday comfort binge watch: Finished Fringe. Dynamite Ending (Managed to do the whole network 20 episode storytelling and still remain compelling.) Now we're stuck with various iterations of FBI's and NCIS's *sigh*

AI Enshittification Horror Made Manifest (#AEHMM) : When you realize your tech terror isn't about HAL being born but about the ID Tattoo machine from Idiocracy being in charge of your medication.

Binge watching Fringe: A lovely throwback to the coining of terms such as "Let's make some LSD" "Walternate" "Vagenda" The heartbroken response to a hand-drawn tulip. And never trusting bald men in fedoras.

Finally, Clarke's Bookshop in Long Street, Cape Town, and Obz Books in Lower Main Road, Observatory, Cape Town, also have copies of my zines. For all of these stores, if they run out of stock you can ask for them to order more and they will contact me to drop off copies.

Readers Den Comic Shop in Wynberg, Cape Town, also has stock of both zines and the store ships countrywide. Plus the zines are listed on the web site: readersden.co.za/product/the-... readersden.co.za/product/the-...

So The Book Lounge is well stocked, although the zines aren't currently listed on the web site but you can email and ask for them if you want to place an online order. The store ships countrywide. If you go into the store you'll see them on the counter!

If you're in South Africa, buy my zines for Christmas! On the weekend I dropped off a big order at @thebooklounge.bsky.social and they're also available elsewhere (see below) but I want to give a special shout out to The Book Lounge in Cape Town, which has been particularly supportive. #SAComics

Couldn’t agree more. If Star Trek shaped how you see sci fi, #TheArk will feel familiar in the best way. Big ideas, moral questions, and a future that depends on people figuring things out together. The first two seasons are available for purchase on #ElectricNOW www.slashfilm.com/2045581/star...

Travelling, West Coast Fossil Park: Stunning museum & views will draw you in. But it also shows that more funding is needed. Imaging research for the fossils, are focussed on dinosaurs, to the detriment of later period fossils. Imaging of fossils leads to proper 3d rendering, & better exhibits.

#ThisWasThe90s #MusicChallenge #MusicSky Frente! - "Ordinary Angels"