Author Cheerleading: William Meikle

Was about to write a down in the dumps post, but lets try being more positive. Lets talk about an author pal of mine who I've been binge reading for the last few weeks.

If you like your fiction weird, full of references to Scotland and Newfoundland, often sweary, and generally just fun as heck, I recommend William Meikle. He's one of those authors who can write in bloody near any genre. From noiresque detectives, to giant monsters, to occult history, to emotionally charged 'haunted places' and more. He's even got a golf course mystery (I haven't read it yet, but if anyone could get me to read about golf, it's William.) My personal favorites are when he takes Hodgson's famed spookbuster, Thomas Carnacki out for a spin with new adventures of all colors and kinds. (followed shortly after by his Sherlock tales). In fact, to be a tad heretical, I prefer his voice to Hodgson or Doyle's.

So, are you curious ? Maybe a smidge? Sign up for his mailing list and you get three free ebooks. Or follow the link on his site to 99c ebooks and choose from a pretty darn huge selection. He also has dead tree editions and audiobooks if your tastes lean that way. Come on, give it a try.

https://www.williammeikle.com/

Genealogy is what you make of it.

I had a random Lovecraftian thought explaining my quirkiness. From Dad's side of the family I get a smidge of Innsmouth blood, we do come from Massachusetts and spent most of of the 19th century in nautical pursuits. But from Mom's side there seems to be a link to the ghoul cults of old, probably related to the tunnels underneath Green Wood Cemetery, or maybe that bunch in Red Hook. The two strains conflict with each other, explaining the screwy brainmeats as well as my love of the ocean, yet my lousy swimming skins. Or my claustrophobia mixed with a curiosity about tunnels, caves and other subterranean oddness.

So what does that make me? Well a mix of Deep One and cannibalistic cultists, wouldn't that make me a Sea-Ghul ?

Yes, this is a shaggy dogfish pun ;)

Here comes the weekend

Been a couple of days since my sad post. The Fourth wasn't much better, I'm not the most patriotic person in the world, and I honestly felt very alone, but I didn't want to deal with the traditional crazies that come out to play. Plus it was bloody hot, and my apartment parking gets bad on the 4th, since the fireworks and festival in town are a few blocks away. So I stayed home, read a bit, watched a bunch of movies, and generally felt blah. Slept better than I had before, even with the fireworks, and got up for today's WFH day.

The plan was to take advantage of the quiet day and people taking long weekends and work on project stuff. That didn't happen, lots of virtual walk ups asking for help. I did manage to get a few things done, but nothing like I planned. Oh well. At least the day/work week is done. This weekend is Spider-Man flick, and I'm not sure what else. A few chores. Try to avoid bookstore runs, since next week is Half Price Books coupon a day thingie. So better to save on my book addiction and splurge next week (I also get paid next Friday).

So yeah, it's the weekend, thank Cthulhu. And I have no idea where to go with this post, so I'll wrap it up. Have a good night folks.

The Internet is broken, and I’m not doing so good myself

Ok, most of the internet isn't broken today, just mostly Facebook here at Château Innsmouth. But it sounded like a good subject. Because, I'm honestly not doing so hot. Strap in, this will probably be long.

First, a friend of mine had a major heart attack the other night, he's in critical care as they try to get him stable enough for surgery. We met online, fellow weird bookhounds, and I got to meet him in person last year in Providence. So I'm more than a little worried about him. If you could spare prayers/good thoughts/whatever for a friend of mine, I would appreciate it.

Second, the apartment complex Château Innsmouth is currently in is going through crazy levels of change. Last Friday I left home for lunch, and by the time I got back there were new signs up with a new complex name. Later on that afternoon I got a note in my door about how we've been bought, and stuff will change, but we'll like it. So far we've been giving a new website that fails to load correctly, an email about how to setup autopay, where autopay doesn't work, so yesterday I walked over with my checkbook. I had to wait in line to pay, because there were issues with everyone's rent, seems those not on autopay/email notification got screwed up rent amounts. But when they pulled me up on their system, it was the correct amount, so they got a check. Was also told about all the 'Great changes' coming to the apartments. Please Cthulhu, let them ignore me til my lease is up. Everything is pointed to them trying to turn this into 'luxury' or 'premium' apartments, when this is just a middle of the road place to live. Glad I already planned to move.

Third, My anxiety is really bloody high. Tomorrow is a day off, but it's also a stressful day (fireworks while pretty, are loud...and I live less than a mile from where my town launches them). I think I'm hooking up my white noise generator to an amp, or I'll be up later than planned. I'm working Friday, but from home. I've got a lot of stuff to do, I should have worked the full shift today, but when they said 'down tools at 2pm' I didn't argue. So Friday I'm hoping I'll be mostly left alone and able to focus on my projects. We'll see.

On the plus side, I have over 36 hours of down time, I have food, I have books, I have movies. And I have no where I physically have to be til Saturday afternoon (assuming nothing requires me to go to the office or datacenter). I'm going to see the new Spider-Man flick with friends, which I'm vaguely dreading, i finally got around to watching the first one, and I had to fast forward...a lot. I don't do embarrassment well, and a 15 year old superhero who wants to prove himself is going to be full of embarrassment. Hopefully a couple of years will settle things a bit. But I really prefer my superheroes to be at least old enough to drink. But on the other tentacle, the actor really gets the attitude of Spider-man in the action scenes. And I really want to see the credits scenes. I'm really hoping for a clue as to the next set of MCU flicks.

And in the time it's taken me to write this, it looks like the internet has been fixed. I'm dragging tired. I may make it an early night tonight. Well early for not having to get up tomorrow for work. Time to finish this post though. Ciao.