“Myths Reborn,” an anthology collection of 19 cryptid horror stories, is available for digital preorder now! I have a story called “The Last Sasquatch” that’ll be published in it alongside some very cool stories by others. Paperback and hardcover options will be happening too. a.co/d/bUP0NdF

For the last day of 2025, one job application and one short story submission sent in. Not a bad way to end things.

An omen for the New Year: I let my dog (all-white, medium-sized pit mix (well, Dogo mix if you must be fancy) out into the back yard. At the far end of the yard, enter another dog - his identical twin, except all black. They stare at each other for a moment, and then go about their business.

And the link for the first anthology I got accepted into is up. One more coming in early January. May 2026 be a good year for writing. If you're interested in a little tale about the India–Pakistan Actual Ground Position Line and the cryptids that might inhabit it, pick up a copy!

I do love a good signal station story.

Part of the Japanese Kaiju early warning; cameras constantly monitor all suspicious rock clefts.

Book 90, and last for the year: The Wreck of the Portland by J. North Conway. A short book on one of Massachusetts' most deadly sea disaster, in which a foolish captain takes his badly designed ship into the teeth of a poorly forecasted storm. And, to the surprise of none, everyone dies.

we're open for fiction for just a little bit longer!! get those stories in and please, read the guidelines 🖤 💀 psychopomp.com/the-deadland...

Got lectured by Al Gore on how to write regulations.

I am a ship captain who makes a very bad call about the weather.

Perhaps it's a sign of age, but I'm a bit disappointed when a game is generating a map it doesn't list 'reticulating splines' as one of the steps.

Christmas, Washington.

And to Tiny Tim, who did not die, But was left maim'd To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all he was, in ashes.

Deleted Scene from "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

Mark Twain allegedly said 'the coldest summer and warmest winter I ever experienced were in Seattle Franerisco."

Getting rid of the local who actually knows the error. Never a good move.

DC statues I don’t understand. Why is this near the courts? Were 19th century judges terminally horny?

Book 89: The Burma Campaign by Frank McLynn, a history of the largely forgotten theater from 1942-45. It focuses primarily on the four main players - the good generals (Slim and Stilwell), the showboat (Mountbatten), and the loon (Wingate). A lot of discussion of logistics, strategy, and planning -

Book 88: Angel Down, by @danielkraus.com, a terrifyingly lyrical book about five soldiers finding an angel in no man's land in the terminal days of World War I. As if the Angel of Mons were real and not all that nice. Beautiful use of language, pacing, and the word 'and.'

Lawrence of Arabia on re-release, at the Uptown Theater in DC (old-style curved massive screen). O'Toole, as Lawrence, blows out a match and there's a jump cut to the open desert at dawn.

Found in otherwise good book: "The fall of India [in WWII] would mean [to the Japanese] the definitive end of the British Empire in Asia and would even allow the Japanese to link up with the Russians in Persia." Somewhere, an editor weeps.

I come up the stairs this morning and the dog is rolling around the floor, snorting, wagging his tail, and generally acting like an idiot while the cats, from a safe distance, were watching keenly with 'intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic.' Well, at least cool and unsympathetic.

Confidential to Apple-your Liquid Glass update is terrible. Please let me turn it off. Your AI is an atrocity as well, but at least I can kill it.

look i made it the 1979 ibm warning available in two flavors

300 days until fully eligible for retirement.

Book 87: House of Bone and Rain by @gabino.bsky.social, a novel that starts as a revenge tale set in Puerto Rico during and after Hurricane Maria and turns into something ... else. No spoilers, but I'll say the twists and turns, betrayals and redemptions, all fall within the classic spirit of noir.

Well, I’m not sure government buildings should be decorated for Christmas, but they did a decent job. (They shouldn’t be decorated.)

I had a joke about Oedipus, and it's called 'The Aristocrats!'

"Amazon eyes expanding delivery network after talks with USPS stall," a story exclusive to the Washington Post. Wonder how they managed to source it.

2001127 Hours: A Space Odyssey.

New word of the day: "Scrimshanker," one who shirks their duty. I need to find a way to use it in performance appraisals.

Book 86: The Big Book of the Continental Op, 700 pages of old pulp stories by Dashiell Hammett. A collection of ur-noir stories featuring the eponymous Continental Op, an otherwise unnamed hard boiled detective. Perhaps the prototypical hard boiled detective.

I named my fists Woodward and Bernstein, because they're gonna punch you in the [REDACTED].

We sent Elon ahead.

"For God's sake look after our people."

Thanksgiving dinner. An assortment of Ethiopian dishes.

What’s worse? Too many or too few?

"If I don't look at it, it's not there. If I don't look at it, it's not there. If I don't look at it . . . ."

Drinking wine, playing Viticulture.

I feel like this Ethiopian bread has significant gameplay potential.

Four spaceships to introduce me.

Went to the bank to deal with a service fee I got during the shutdown, and the banker said, in sum, 'capitalism is based on blood and oil and we need a general strike.' When capitalism is losing the bankers . . . .

Book 85: The City We Became by @nkjemisin.bsky.social. For fiction, no spoilers, so I'll say an excellent book on a city and the people that become a city. Also gives good reasons to sink Staten Island. My first Jemisin book as I try to read more current sci-fi and fantasy.

I was a Federal attorney with a clearance when people started flying airplanes into buildings.

I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me (Galileo) Galileo, (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro Magnifico (Oh-oh-oh-oh)

Every time I look at you I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Now why'd you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you'd come today, you would have reached the whole nation.

Book 84: The Battle of Manila by Nicholas Sarantakes, on the American liberation of Manila from Japanese Forces in 1945. The only major urban combat in the Pacific Theater and a mess of a battle. The theater commander - MacArthur - seemed more interested in not blowing up his adopted home city.

A sudden release of gas, like a dog startling itself awake with a fart. SpaceX, everyone!

They're forcing kids to eat acorns because of oak.