On a bit of a Star Wars gaming kick and decided to pick back up the original Dark Forces. Great game. I had forgotten that the game's levels were designed by Satan.

One thing were I feel I differ a lot from the positions I'm seeing lately regarding tv/streaming is the clamor for "longer shows that are worse looking". I get where it comes from, but my personal relationship with TV is not one where I want to watch 500 episodes. I like for things to actually end.

"OH! That clown is CRASHING OUT!" -my 16yo daughter watching Pagliacci.

If you're wondering what Simon means. He was the first person in publishing to pick something up of mine. It's still one of my favourite shorts I've written and you can read it free here. www.patreon.com/posts/shephe...

Today I saw someone in the park walking like this and it just brought joy to my heart.

Apparently the Kindle edition of The Last Vigilant is just 99p on Amazon UK until the end of November. Seems like the perfect opportunity to give it a try if you haven't already!

Also: If they had a TERRIBLE day, this kind of question would make them feel even more miserable, I think.

Also fucking drop it if they don’t want to answer. They’re much more likely to talk about their life if they’re not being grilled. My kid would clam up to questions but spontaneously over share while riding in the car with me.

I swear all these articles have to be written by people who have never met an actual child. "What's a mistake you learned from today?" "Who were you proud of today?" These are all corporate language, who-moved-my-cheese bullshit.

Spare a thought for yours truly whose knee got checked today (by his opponent's knee, no less) while sparring. Ouchies.

I think the strangest change my writing has had over the past few years has been moving from stories having almost no dialogue to having stories heavily driven by direct character interactions, which still feels very weird to me, but I guess we'll see what happens. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Well, that Harper's article sure was something else... you think you know what a word means and then you find out it's not just a word, but the identity of an entire group of people voluntarily engaging in prosaic little horrors.

I have developed a bit of a mild obsession with the BBC Shipping Forecast. Luckily, the Internet has shown me that this is apparently a totally normal thing to be obsessed about. Sadly, the "Moderate to good, occasionally poor" T-shirt I want does not ship to the US :(

Unless you're this guy 👇

This is your yearly reminder that you are not the Halloween police.

Drawing smiles on their faces will help people with depression, says GP surgery manager.

Happy day to everyone, but especially to that tween at Costco from yesterday who told me my hat and glasses were really cool (I was wearing my pince nez and trusty old newsboy cap) and was earnest about it.

Now reading Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris". Really impressed by Lem's descriptive, mood-setting skills. I am very non-descriptive in my own writing when it comes to mise en scène, usually finding a lot of scenery to be clutter for a reader, but Lem is very effective in his development of spatial mood.

One of the biggest changes I have had that just crept on me as I got old is that I seem to have lost a little bit of my constitution when watching gore films. I'm starting to feel the "blergh" of gore in my stomach now, which was not a thing before.

A challenge of getting old is learning to understand the multiple little misalignments between what we wished for in life and what we got instead; to know the transformable from the immutable and, ultimately, when to fight and when to accept things as they are.

The beautiful little horrors of algorithm-based advertisements. This, from an article about AI Psychosis and the pleas of those affected, directed at the FTC.

The Halloween double feature tonight was "Ed Wood", followed by "Plan 9 From Outer Space". "Ed Wood" remains, after all these years, one of my favorite movies, courtesy in no small part of Martin Landau's amazing performance.

Had a Halloween double feature last night with wife and daughter: "Let the Right One In" and Browning's "Dracula". It was a great night. Hadn't seen Let "The Right One In" since its release. The movie remains an excellent watch.

Contemplating if I should include on this cover letter I am writing for my short story submission regarding my "relevant experience": "The story concerns a mostly harmless, certainly hapless, office drone, something I have had decades of experience as."

Finished writing what would be my first satirical science fiction short story. I'm currently anxious because I do not feel it is bad, which can only mean it's terrible. I'm also discovering that comedy comes with the feeling that you have told a joke in a party and you are the only one laughing.

Time to play my favorite post-sparring game: "Did I break this or am I just old?"

I got the email notification about this from Spreadshirt last week and promptly deleted my account. If you have one, you should too.

After enjoying Percival Everett's Dr. No, I figured I'd watch the classic Bond film to remind myself of the idea of the "Bond Villain". Hadn't watched it in decades. The movie is quite stylish and also quite baffling...

Now reading the Strugatsky Borthers' "Roadside Picnic", a book I'd wanted to read for a long time. :)

Please spare a thought for the family that accidentally walked into the Shakespeare in the park production of Titus Andronicus thinking it was a park showing of Monsters Inc.

Had a great time reading Percival Everett's "Dr. No". Hilarious book. I kept thinking of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle", which I feel has a similar vibe.

One of the unintended side effects of reducing my social media/algorithmic news consumption has been a reduced exposure to pop culture, something I thought I loved, but now that I can feel the distance widening I find myself content not caring much about it.

The Last Vigilant has been selected for an Amazon eBook price promotion (US/CAN only). For the whole month of October, you can grab it on Kindle for just $2.99! www.amazon.com/Last-Vigilan...

I am going to share with you awesome people a silly joy. I have completed my second ever newspaper-crossword puzzle (thank goodness for online newspaper crossword confirming successful completion). I am successfully turning into an old man.

Today we watched a local production of "The Producers" and it was so good it legitimately amazed me. Tremendous heart, energy, and talent. It brought joy to everyone in the audience and served as a prime example to all of us of what really makes theater great. 10/10.

My most "old man yells at cloud"/hot take for movies is that movies nowadays are way too fast paced. Barely any time for you to appreciate anything at all.

@markalatham.bsky.social FYI: youtu.be/mR6C0hEkFR4?...

One of my personal myths is that every time you hear a person coughing during an opera or symphony orchestra performance, it is always the same person, regardless of time and place of the performance. A sort of consumptive Count of St. Germain, if you will.

Rmi have been rereading Robert Musil's "The Confusions of Young Törless" and Lord, that book is just too painfully relevant in 2025.

Watching opera the way the lord intended: in pajamas drinking beer after a shit day at work.

Just watched this really nice production of Pagliacci and it was all good and all but damn that Silvio running with the six pack like boy this is not what opera singers are meant to look like.

I am here exclusively because we were given some bad news at work and I need to stop cracking jokes about it in the work chat because making jokes has always been my coping mechanism.

"People of Metropolis disappointed rapture was just Superman saving the day" Hire me, The Onion.

Let's be real here for a second, *if* the rapture happened... How would we know? It is perfectly plausible that the 2 or 3 people (being very optimistic here) who did deserve completely escaped our attention.

Had a great time at the HorrorCon. Such a good time, in fact, that I forgot I'm not rich and turned into fucking Lorenzo de'Medici, sponsoring every local artist and writer I came across.

When I did research on Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang 孝莊皇太后 for my 1st historical novel The Green Phoenix, I became aware of how disproportionately scant the official records were for empresses and consorts who had apparent impact on history, let alone female commoners. #Chinesehistory

"We need to open more data centres." -- My contribution to talk like a pirate day.

Holy shit, you guys. My holy grail of lost media has been found. The little stop motion short that 6-7 year old me watched ONCE and scared the shit out of me and left me on a decades long search. It has been found. Watch it and share in the horror. youtu.be/StJEsYarPb4?...

Getting to the end of week one of trying to drastically reduce my smartphone usage and I can already tell this was the right choice. So far the Digital Wellbeing function has been extremely helpful. Relegating social media and news to a few minutes a day has improved my mood significantly.