Posted on General

Dread Spherical 2026

I’ll be announcing pre-orders and more info about the book in the weeks ahead.

Watch this space and my social media accounts.

(NOTE: this is a teaser for the cover, which was created using Stock images, not AI)

230 thoughts on “Dread Spherical 2026”

  6. Watched the first 20 minutes of Das Boot.

    How dare my Apple TV start with the dubbed version!

    Sounds like Jürgen Prochnow did provide his voice for the English Dub but bleh! Bleh! I say I will watch it another day in German.

  7. I just wrapped up a SLAM interview… The guy isn’t very well-known, but man, his words were incredible. I don’t usually get so verklempt after an interview, but this guy floored me. I need a minute.

  24. Since we watched Monarch, we decided to go back to the 2014 Godzilla.

    Damn, what a frustrating movie. Intentionally frustrating, teasing monster fights for most of it without any payoff. And good lord is the main character dull. And good lord are GodzIlla’s giant insectoid opponents uninteresting.

    It still gets a half-hearted thumbs up, but what a waste.

  27. When doomscrolling read a quote by Admiral Nimitz that claimed that the intelligence fuck ups ended up being a kind of blessing with Pearl Harbour as if the US had known of the attack they would have engaged the Japanese fleet with their carriers and lost.

  30. Thursday’s gaming, with a different group, has been cancelled as one of them is ill. Apparently it’s not the week for get togethers

  32. last week I saw Christy at the cinema, this week it’s on VOD.

    This is why I’m not surprised cinema attendance has not recovered after the pandemic,

  35. Going to a Christmas party later this afternoon. It looks like the snow will hold off until this evening so, with luck, we’ll be home before it starts and the highway gets stupid.

  38. What’s your name, the guy asked the kid.
    P, puh, puh, p, p, Peter, replied the boy
    Do you have a stutter? The guy asked kindly
    No, says the kid. My dad had a stutter. The person who did up my birth certificate was an asshole

  41. One day Jesus was walking through a secluded garden in heaven when he saw a man crying.

    Why are you crying? He asked. This is heaven, there should be no tears or sorrow

    The man wiped his eyes and said, I know. It’s just, a long time ago I had a son under, let’s say, mysterious circumstances. After many trials he went through a miraculous transformation. A book was even written about him and he became known the world over. When I came here, I was hoping I’d see him here, but I haven’t

    Jesus looked at the man incredulously and said, Wait, you wouldn’t happen to be a carpenter?

    I am, replied the man

    Jesus smiles and opened his arms wide, Father, he said with joy.

    The old man looked at him doubtfully and said, Pinocchio?

  42. So I only watched Kubrick’s The Shining last year for the first time.

    Never seen it at the cinema though , hopefully going to rectify that tomorrow with it’s 45th anniversary release this week.

  43. Joe decided to go to a fortune teller. She sat down and said, you will have unspeakable sorrow in twelve years.

    Understandably, after hearing this, Joe was feeling down. So, upon leaving the fortune teller, he decided to cheer himself up by going to the pet store and getting himself a puppy

  44. So we tried out the Angry Axolotls card game. We’d missed a critical point in the rules until about halfway through the game, but even so, I can’t recommend.

    • Of all of them on the list, the only one I saw was “Electric State”. I’m not sure why so many pick on this movie, but I really like it. It’s not going to win any Oscars, and it has some derivative narrative elements, but the characters are likable, the robot designs and personalities are inspired, and overall a fun experience. It seems to succeed where a lot of YA adaptations fail.

  52. Crap joke for today:

    I came home from work to find my wife painting the spare bedroom she wants to use as her home gym.

    I asked what she was doing and she told me her plan. Then I asked, “why are you wearing your ski parka over your fur coat?”

    She picked up the can of paint and pointed to the instructions and read this to me, “for best results use two coats.”

  54. Three men die on Christmas Eve. At the pearly gates Saint Peter says, To get into heaven, you must show something that is in the Christmas spirit

    The first man flicks his lighter and says, this is a candle. Saint Peter lets him in.

    The second man pulls out a key ring and jangles them. These are jingle bells, he says. Saint Peter lets him in.

    The pulls a lace bra and g string from his coat.

    How does that represent Christmas? Asks Saint Peter

    The man replies, They’re Carols

    • I’ve been in that room! I got a tour of the Microsoft Human Factors group when I was at a conference and that room was part of the tour. I also worked in a lab in graduate school that had similar rooms that were build on their own concrete platform and then had the rest of the building constructed around them. According to my faculty advisor, the best use of those rooms was that he had a previous grad student that would practice on the bagpipes in there.

  58. I’d never seen To Live And Die in LA, so I gave it a shot.
    Better than I’d expected! But still full of 80s cop movie cliches. It’s like The French Connection meets Miami Vice meets Lethal Weapon.

    It blows my mind that anyone thought “Hey, let’s get Wang Chung to score this movie,” but the music is pretty good. The title song is a classic.

    It is amazing to me that movie producers in the 80s thought William L. Peterson was a viable leading man.

  59. A man walked into a bar, sporting a black eye

    The bartender asked what happened.

    The many says, I run a small store with two employees, Mary and Jack. The store is not doing well so I have to let one of my employees go.

    This morning, Mary came in first so I pulled her aside and said, I’m either going to have to lay you or Jack off.

    Hence the black eye

  60. Sunday recap:
    All 3 of us are <100%, so it was a bunch of xmas arts and crafts.

    For the evening viewing, I subjected the family to It's A Wonderful Life. Everyone made it to the end!

    Later on, Tiffany and I started Banshee, made it about 20 minutes into ep 1, then switched over to finally see what all the hype has been about for The Bear. That ep 1 was much better.

    • I prefer The Bishops Wife to IAWL, for a better Jimmy Stewart Xmas movie watch ‘The Shop Around the Corner’.

      I’m in a singles group (not about dating) and IAWL gets a lot of flack about Mary in the alt universe being portrayed as miserable being alone and a librarian as if that was a fate worse than death.

  65. To add to the season of jolly, our sole remaining car is in need of serious repair.

    So we’re putting band-aids on it and shopping for a new one.

  68. Since my Mam died, every Xmas I buy myself a gift so I’ve got something to mess around with on the day.

    This year I have no idea what to get.

    • We have that exact box cover in our house right now. This is a go-to quick game for us.

      Funny article. Imma guess that whoever wrote that didn’t see one day of the 70s or 80s.

  73. Kitty gets to spend the day at the vet. At 18 years old, a regular checkup means being sedated so they can take blood and urine.

  77. So, the life of a Mangan (in this house, at least) is never dull.

    We pulled the trigger and got a 2024 VW Tiguan yesterday. It’s nice! I haven’t really had time to enjoy it or think much about it yet, but – – woo hoo.

  82. Pimping the latest. Save Ferris!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR5EM-fZqBM&t=140s

    On the latest Support Life And Music SLAM: Music Survival Guide, Jack Mangan and Sheila Unwin, Ed.D. hang with Monique Powell, iconic singer of Save Ferris. They were one of the absolute best of the 90s Ska bands, and they’re still delivering good times and great music today.

    Lyrics reference: Save Ferris

    SLAM bumper: Rich Catino

    “I believe that every person that buys a ticket to a Save Ferris show is precious, and deserves our love and respect.”

    “I cared immensely about them, but they didn’t care about me.”

    “You make your own waffles in the morning.”

  83. It’s the husband’s birthday today. We had Dairy Queen for lunch, then picked him up a slice of chocolate cake to have with tea later

    • Especially the main score. You know the one.

      I’d hard disagree that anyone knew what they were doing on that movie.

      Except for whoever designed the look of the ships and the robots. Those folks and John Barry were brilliant.

  85. Remember , when you go to Christmas parties, eat food from other people’s plates.
    That’s their calories. It doesn’t count

  89. So over here in old Blighty (and probably North America), Steven Spielberg’s first film Duel is getting a theatrical release. A 4K restored version.

    Unless something else intervenes I will get to see it at the cinema for the first time.

    Of course I”ve seen it on tv mutiple times.

    • I fondly recall renting Duel with my dad when video stores were barely a thing. Great memory, great movie. I’d love to catch it in the theater.

  90. Jake was dying. His wife sat by his bedside the whole time.
    As he felt the end was near, he said to his wife weakly, “I need to confess”

    “Shh,” said his wife, “you have nothing to worry about”

    “No,” said Jake, shakily, “I must tell you, during our years together I slept with your sister, best friend, sister-in-law, and mother…”

    “I know,” said his wife softly, “now you just lay back in piece and let the poison do its work”

  91. JW: Le Samourai:

    Another film off the vague list of films I really should get around to watching.

    No happy ending here, it’s Melville film after all, but few actors looked cooler than Alain Delon in the 60s.

  94. I’ve been into the old reads lately. I recently read a 1927 novel called We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Apparently it was an inspiration for 1984. The version I read included an afterword by George Orwell

    Now I’m reading a graphic novel called Death Striked: The Emperor of Atlantis based on a 1943 opera written by two prisoners of a Czech concentration camp

    Maybe next I’ll go for something more modern 😉

  96. Crap joke for the day;

    A man and woman—both married to other people—get stuck sharing a sleeper cabin on a cross-country train.

    At 1am, the man whispers, “Could you grab me a second blanket? I’m freezing.”

    She grins, “I’ve got a better idea. Just for tonight… let’s pretend we’re married.”

    “Awesome!” he says.

    “Great,” she snaps… “Get your own f*cking blanket.”

    After a pause, he farted.

    • The first time I was able to donate blood (freshman year of college) was a huge event at the university, and they had a giant bin of cassette tapes for donors to take from. I had no idea who Chris Rea was, but really liked the album cover for The Road To Hell. It then became a favorite of mine, although it was my go-to album when I was depressed because, man, is that album ever depressing.

  101. Crap joke for today:

    My wife asked me in a seductive voice if I’d ever seen a crumpled up £20 note.
    I said “No”
    She unbuttoned her blouse, reached into her bra and pulled out a crumpled £20 note. I smiled and took it.
    She then asked if I’d ever seen a crumpled up £50 note.
    I said “No”
    She pulled up her skirt and removed a crumpled up £50 note from her panties. I smiled and took it. Then she asked me if I’d ever seen £20,000 all crumpled up.
    Excitedly I said “No”
    She said “You better look in the garage then”.

  102. A man was having fun at a party when he Shaw this really tall ladder. A sign beside the ladder said, “$1 to climb the ladder to success”
    Having spent most of his money on alcohol, the man said, “fuck it” and gave one of his last dollars.

    This was a very long ladder and it took a long time to climb, however, after nearly twenty minutes he reached the top where he finds a man in a very expensive suit.
    “Who are you?” Asked the drunk man.

    “Congratulations,” said the man in the suit, “I’m Cess”

  106. Two pretty good jokes from my younger (she got them from a joke book:

    What do pizza and comedy have in common?

    Both can be ruined by a bad delivery.

  109. A woman goes to a tattoo artist and asks him to put Thanksgiving inside one thigh and Christmas inside the other.

    Curious, the tattoo artist asked, “why would you want Thanksgiving and Christmas tattooed on you I ever thighs?”

    “Because,” replied the woman, “My husband always complains there’s nothing good between thanksgiving and Christmas “

  110. Your crap joke for this evening:

    Two old Jewish men, Sid and Al, are sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles one day. Sid asks Al, “Do you know of any people of our faith born and raised in Mexico?”
    Al replies, “I don’t know, let’s ask our waiter.”
    When the waiter arrives, Al asks, “Are there any Mexican Jews?”
    The waiter says, “I don’t know, Senor, I ask the cooks.”
    He returns from the kitchen a few minutes later and says, “No, Senor, the cook say no Mexican Jews.”
    Al isn’t satisfied and asks, “Are you absolutely sure?”
    The waiter, realizing he is dealing with ‘Gringos,’ replies, “I check once again, Senor.”
    While the waiter is away, Sid says, “I find it hard to believe that there are no Jews in Mexico. Our people are scattered everywhere.”
    The waiter returns and says, “Senor, the head cook say there is no Mexican Jews.”
    Al asks, “Are you certain? I just can’t believe there are no Mexican Jews.”
    The exasperated waiter says, “Senor, I ask EVERYONE… All we have is Orange Jews, Grapefruit Jews, Prune Jews, Apple Jews, and Tomato Jews!”

  111. Bonus crap joke:

    Walked into Best Buy wearing a Star Wars shirt.

    Employee: “Are you a big Star Wars fan?”
    Me: “Yea!”
    Employee: “What’s the internal temperature of a tauntaun?”
    Me, wracking my brain for the right line: “Uhhhhh…idk that one.”
    Employee: “Lukewarm.”

  113. A dog and a cat were arguing over which people love more.

    The dog said, “I can prove people love dogs more. They like us so much they named a body part after us.” He points to his teeth, “They have canine teeth.”

    The cat just looks at him and says, “Yeah, you’re not going to win this argument.”A dog and a cat were arguing over which people love more.

    The dog said, “I can prove people love dogs more. They like us so much they named a body part after us.” He points to his teeth, “They have canine teeth.”

    The cat just looks at him and says, “Yeah, you’re not going to win this argument.”

    • Why did it repeat the punch line? That’s just silly.

      Note: I did something wrong the first time I typed this and the comment was “awaiting moderation”. Instead of retyping it, I copied from the previous. Obviously I screwed up my copy/paste

  114. Another crap joke:

    A farmer was sitting in the neighborhood bar getting drunk. A man came in and asked the farmer, “Hey, why are you sitting here on this beautiful day, getting drunk?”

    The farmer shook his head and replied, “Some things you just can’t explain.”

    “So what happened that’s so horrible?” the man asked as he sat down next to the farmer.

    “Well,” the farmer said, “Today I was sitting by my cow, milking her. Just as I got the bucket full, she lifted her left leg and kicked over the bucket.”

    “Okay,” said the man, “but that’s not so bad.”

    “Some things you just can’t explain,” the farmer replied.

    “So what happened then?” the man asked.

    The farmer said, “I took her left leg and tied it to the post on the left.”

    “And then?” the man asked.

    “Well, I sat back down and continued to milk her. Just as I got the bucket full, she took her right leg and kicked over the bucket.”

    The man laughed and said, “Again?”

    The farmer replied, “Some things you just can’t explain.”

    “So, what did you do then?” the man asked.

    “I took her right leg this time and tied it to the post on the right.”

    “And then?”

    “Well, I sat back down and began milking her again. Just as I got the bucket full, the stupid cow knocked over the bucket with her tail.”

    “Hmmm,” the man said and nodded his head.

    “Some things you just can’t explain,” the farmer said.

    “So, what did you do?” the man asked.

    “Well,” the farmer said, “I didn’t have any more rope, so I took off my belt and tied her tail to the rafter. In that moment, my pants fell down and my wife walked in..

    Some things you just can’t explain.”

  120. Type into google “women are” and see what it wants to fill in. For some reason, the second choice when I did it was “not little men”

    Now I want to know who goggled that in the first place for it to come up

  122. If you don’t know, Martinelli’s is sparkling non-alcoholic juice that comes in glass wine bottles. We have it at every family holiday meal.

    I was sorely tempted to take a bottle to drink in the car as I drove my eldest daughter home tonight, but I didn’t want to spend an hour at a DUI stop over it.

  124. Merry day after Christmas, all! To my Deadpan Secret Santa – thank you!!! I don’t know if I mentioned it here or on Facebook, but the GameStop-exclusive Strahd was the one Funko Pop I really wanted. I haven’t been that excited about a Christmas present since I was a little kid! 😀

    • 1. I had no idea there was a FunkoPop Strahd (but of course there is).
      2. This is the most endearing post of the week.

      I’m already excited for Deadpan Secret Santa 2026.

      • Aww, that’s great! Thank you! And yes, he was a GameStop exclusive in 2021, I think. He’s supposed to be getting a new FunkoPop design soon, but the new design annoys me because Funko’s designers show him turning into a swarm of bats. Apparently, they aren’t aware that D&D-verse vampires can only turn into a singular bat. :silly:

        Tonight I’m working on Curse of Strahd fanart as a present for one of my local writer friends. I also drew Star Trek fanart as a present for my dad, which I sent off today. The rest of my cards and letters will be sent out in the next week.

  125. So watched Excalibur for the first time tonight.

    Not too shabby for a 1981 fantasy film.

    A bit of googling revealed that the bit of classical music it’s famous for was used in Old Spice adverts in the 70s. I already knew that but had not known they preceded the film.

    • I must confess, I was also shocked when I saw your post about seeing Excalibur for the first time.

      It’s still the standard for a cinematic portrayal of the King Arthur story, IHMO.

  128. In case you were wondering…
    One of the hot things with the kids right now is MP3 players.
    Specifically ones that look just like the old iPods but with modern insides and connectivity and open source software (maybe?).
    Both of my kids have them.

    Go figure

      • My early Commodore 64 days used a standard cassette player that we had to manually hit the play button on to load programs from.

        Eventually, we were able to get the fancy Commodore version that was able to be controlled automatically from the C64 itself. We were living in tall cotton then, my friend!

        • My neighbor friend had a VIC-20 with a cassette drive. We could save programs to it, but it was possible that we could write lines of code that exceeded its memory limitations. Maybe six pages of code. LOL

  129. So leaving the cinema today, lost my balance on the stairs and fell on my ass, which was lucky cos if I had fell forward it would have been down the stairs and I would probably have done some serious damage to my self. Thankfully two other people helped me to get back up but a reminder how easy it is to mess up, especially as you get older.

    Not looking forward to tomorrow as my back is going to be sore.

  130. A man walks into a barber shop and asks, how long for a hair cut

    The barber looks at the full shop and says, about two hours

    A few days later the same man walks into the barbershop and asks, how long for a haircut?

    The barber looks at his shop and says, about three hours later.

    A few days go by and the same man comes in and again asked, how long for a hair cut

    This time the barber says, about an hour and a half

    After the man leaves, the barber looks to his assistant and says, hey, can you follow that man? He keeps asking about a haircut but then never comes back. I want to know what his deal is.

    So the assistant leaves and the. Comes back a short while later
    So? Asks the barber, where does he go?

    The assistant replies, your place

    • I muss confess, many of those “wrong ways” I wasn’t even aware were ways people did things.

      Though, I’m still not putting deodorant on before I go to bed, that’s just weird.

  135. My Goodreads year in review says I read 75 books in 2025. Since some of them were graphic novels only 25 pages long, not sure if that number really counts.

  137. One of the Xmas gifts was the Sky Team board game. We’ve failed to land in our first 3 attempts. Once out of having no idea what we’re doing, once out of a miscommunication that’s part of the game mechanics, once because we couldn’t roll a single “4” on 3 dice in the Landing Round.

    I saw some negative reviews, but we’re really liking it so far.

    • It’s rated 4.8 out 5 on Amazon. Sounds cool. This year, we dialed back the number of board games because we still have around 6 in shrink wrap, and we haven’t gotten around to playing them. I did get my son “Heat” which we played the basic version of. It was a lot of fun, if a little daunting, to get started. We’ve begun to collect simple games to play if we don’t have the energy to play a complicated one. Last year, “Skull” was a hit, and we played it more than any other. This year, “Trio” looks to be the winner.

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