Last year's 28 YEARS LATER pleasantly surprised me as an excellent horror threequel. @dodgyboffin.com is here to report that the follow-up, THE BONE TEMPLE, is also very much worth your time:

Almost stepped on a rat while walking back to my car from seeing THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE at the Music Box. Never change, Lakeview

I’m here to cry over Shaker hymns

THE BONE TEMPLE is a rich text

Was wondering why I was feeling uncharacteristically emotional at work this week and then remembered: oh yeah, the whole world sucks right now

‘You cannot pass. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.’

After a clash of swords, Gandalf strikes the bridge, breaking his staff but shattering the stone beneath the Balrog’s feet. As the Balrog falls it catches Gandalf’s legs with its whip. Gandalf offers the Company one final command—‘Fly, you fools!’—and falls into the darkness.

Turns out I can hold a plank as long as I’m yelling about Hawaiian history while I’m doing it

There is no way my man Dr. Robby should be riding a motorcycle without a helmet given his day job

Hi new followers! I’m a Chicago-based film critic whose favorite topics include feminism, theology, and sad men in space. I’m a staff writer for @brightwalldarkroom.com and the writer of the Seeing & Believing newsletter (subscribe here: seeingandbelieving.substack.com)

latent Trigun obsession is going to hit a rolling boil in about a week or two, everybody brace yourselves

Successfully managed to convince my young Wisconsin niece to say “bear down, go Bears” in front of the in-laws

New on the site! Our Best of 2025 issue continues, with @dodgyboffin.com on Steven Soderbergh’s BLACK BAG

ICYMI, @dodgyboffin.com's best-of-2025 list went up on the Substack. It's a great read with some hidden-gem picks, while doubling as a nice summation of and eulogy for the year we all just lived through.

Everything, please. Watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, 5x5.

It is once again ska-o’clock at House Welch-Larson

A medical drama TV show but it’s exclusively about the lab technicians conducting blood tests

For @brightwalldarkroom.com’s Best of 2025 issue: BLACK BAG

I would like to believe that everyone can be redeemed, but God, these ghouls make that belief seem so naive

For @brightwalldarkroom.com’s Best of 2025 issue: BLACK BAG

Welp, basement flooded

God bless the theater kids who came to Phantom of the Opera on a gross rainy night in full black-tie ballgowns

It is my life’s purpose to glean insights from actionable data

losing my mind at the "she should have followed directions" people really? really? you're cool with "if you don't follow directions, they get to kill you"? that seems like a good state of affairs to you? that seems like how law enforcement ought to work: instant obeisance or death?

Each new detail is sadder than the last

New today! Our reflections on the best movies and first watches of 2025, featuring @eccantwell.bsky.social, @frankfalisi.bsky.social, @franhoepfner.bsky.social, @dodgyboffin.com, @russellnichols.bsky.social @abigailoswald.bsky.social, @chadperman.bsky.social, @aheartofgould.bsky.social & more

My yelling-to-watching an episode of THE PITT ratio is holding steady at a solid 1:1

THE PITT is ruining my life

Here's the crux of the gist: we're on the cusp of a brink

- gardening - linguistics - Tolkien’s legendarium - Homestuck (lmao) - fiber crafts (man I miss knitting)

My top ten list of 2025 releases is up!

My top ten list of 2025 releases is up!

Just submitted proofs for the second edition of Becoming Alien

I got a fever and the prescription is more episodes of THE PITT

Love having no confidence whatsoever in my elected officials to actually represent me and everybody else they’re supposed to represent. Bang-up job everyone, real great work all around, this feeling of powerlessness is just the tops

Proud of my city

hey @durbin.senate.gov, your phone lines aren't taking messages again, and as a constituent with a direct and immediate complaint, I think that sucks

hey remember when a bunch of middle-aged drunk korean lawmakers climbed the locked gates to the national assembly to hold an emergency session after the president gave illegal orders to the military, all of which ended with said president being sentenced to prison

Two episodes in to THE PITT and I have already yelled “whoa” at least three times

That’s right

God help me, I’m gonna get my elbow ditches tattooed this year

Proofing a manuscript and words don't look real any more

Not now, widening gyre

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

Doggy snoot

Every year in recent memory has been good, awful, and weird; this one was no different.

Block Club reporters were there every day as immigration agents teargassed, shot, violently arrested & separated Chicagoans from their families. Bolstered by hours of video analysis & hundreds of documents, "Chicago Under Siege" is the record of what happened. blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/30/c...

I learned how to make a temporary table in SQL today, and I know this is small potatoes for all you comp sci people out there, but when I figured it out it felt like I’d ascended to a higher plane of existence

Gas cover on my car was frozen shut this morning

On Marty Supreme: