I’ve been trying to put my feelings into words about the events of the last week. In theory, I’m a writer. That’s a thing I should be able to do easily. I’ve sat here with a blank document for the last hour though, and mostly just given up on trying to be remotely eloquent or thoughtful at all.

I’m just mostly angry and sad.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened in the last twelve months, just the first time it happened on camera from multiple angles. It’s been shoved on to every social media platform I’m on, and I’ve seen it far more than I wanted to. The adminstration has predictably toted out the a flat denial line, and the the comment sections of the internet are filled with real cultists and fake bots who will ignore the reality in front of their eyes for the narrative provided by their dear leader.

But we stand, and we fight. I don’t know what the way forward is. I know there is one though, and I’m confident we’ll find it.

I don’t really have anything else deep to say. Like I said, the words are escaping me right now. The Joe Hill quote “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!” comes to my mind again. I know I posted that a lot in November of 2024, but it still applies. They want us scared, they want us cowed, and they want us beaten. We won’t give them that though.

We’ll never give them that.

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It’s been a while since I put out a series-wide book trailer for my contemporary/urban fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, so it seemed about time I do an updated one.

As you may have noticed, I say book 5, The Perfect Host, should be out later this year. I’m deep into writing it, and I am determined to have this finished, edited, and ready this year. After book five, I’m probably going to take a break from the series to write some other stuff. It’s going to mark kind of a good breaking point — a satisfying place for the series to end, but I do have ideas for more books in the series if I want to pick the ball back up again.

And anyone who knows me knows I’m not going to leave characters I like this much alone for long.

Honestly, I genuinely love writing these books. I know it took me longer than normal to get Buried Memories out the door, but overall it’s fun getting into the heads of these characters. I don’t know how many I’ll write in the end, but as long as there are more stories to tell in Parrish Mills, I’m going to keep doing them.

I just want to write some other stuff too.

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So I don’t make a lot of code nerd posts on this blog, but it’s mostly because I am, frankly, not that great a programmer. I like to describe myself as “experienced enough to only break things in weird ways no one expected.” But a lot of my website is run on stupid code that’s just me mucking about until I stumble on a solution, and sometimes I’m looking for a resource online which doesn’t seem to exist.

One of the random scripts I still use is called zFeeder 1.6. It’s an RSS reader, and it’s how I include the most recent Peregrine Lake comic on the front page of TraeDorn.com/TRHOnline.com and a few other things. Now, it’s not a perfect script since it was literally abandoned by its creator like 20 years ago (and there’s an exploit in the admin page — where my solution was to just delete the admin scripts and manage the thing through direct backend file modifications). Importantly though, as written, it doesn’t run on anything more recent than PHP5. And in 2026, you shouldn’t still be running PHP5.

So I needed to fix it.

And let me be clear: I’m not writing this because I think you should use it zFeeder. It’s old as hell, and there are modern solutions to building a script that reads RSS feeds. I’m writing this because someone might already be using it, and might want to keep using it.

And fixing the script so it runs on PHP8 is so fucking easy it would be insane not to document it. There are literally only two code changes you need to make to get the script to run. Just two.

First off, open “zfeeder.php” and just delete this line:

set_magic_quotes_runtime(0);

Magic quotes hasn’t been really a needed thing since PHP4, and starting with PHP7 it’s been removed entirely — so it will literally break any script.

Next, open “includes/zfuncs.php” and find the following function:

function url2file($url)
{
return(ereg_replace(“[^[:alnum:]]”, “_”, $url) . ‘.xml’);
}

In newer versions of PHP, ereg has been replaced with preg, and you just need to replace the function with this:

function url2file($url)
{
return(preg_replace(“/[^[:alnum:]]/”, “_”, $url) . ‘.xml’);
}

That’s it. That’s literally the whole thing. With those two modifications, zFeeder 1.6 should run fine on PHP7 and PHP8.

And also, remove your admin scripts if you haven’t already, okay?

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As the year comes to an end yet again, I’ve ended up reflecting a lot not just on the last twelve months, but my past in general. Who I am, where I’ve been, and who I’ve brought with me.

When we were down in Milwaukee for Christmas, Crysta and I got dinner with Chris and his partner Sarah. I haven’t seen Chris in years, and it was the first time meeting someone that important in his life. It was nice — and frankly it’s been too long since we got together. Chris is arguably my oldest friend, he was the best man at my wedding, and even though it had been ages since we got together, talking to him always feels like no time has passed. We’re both awful at keeping in touch, so it’s nice to be reminded that the connection we have is still there and easily rekindled.

And we’re both going to try to be better about, like, actually talking to each other.

Coincidentally, I separately ended up in a conversation with another good friend about a person we used to both be close to the other night. I could have sworn that I wrote a blog post about this at some point, but for the life of me I can’t find it. Maybe it was on a social media platform, but it doesn’t matter really. The friend I was talking to the other day was talking about how she wanted to reconnect with this person who is now far removed from both of our lives.

She in part removed him by choice, but me not so much.

This person had been a close creative collaborator with me, and how he chose to make his exit from my life has always been something of a sore spot. My friend wanted to reconnect with him because she missed him though, but apparently he doesn’t want to talk to her.

For like the dumbest, most childish fucking reason I’ve ever heard.

So finally, after learning some more details about what happened between those two, with over fifteen years in the rear view, I’m finally at peace with what happened. Frankly I think I might significantly better off to not have had this person in my life, and maybe I should count my blessings that things ended when they did. Who knows what passive aggressive landmines I narrowly avoided.

There’s also a lesson here I think. If someone is important to you, and they reach out, you’ll answer. Distance and time don’t matter when people decide they want to reconnect, and when both people value a relationship it’s as easy as sitting down together again and sharing a meal.

We have limited time on this planet. My grandmother died earlier this year, and my cousin just a few weeks ago. There is a finite amount of moments we’ll spend with the people we care about, and we should value each one we get to share. If someone doesn’t value making a connection with you, then maybe they weren’t worthy of your time to begin with. I don’t know. It made sense to me at the time.

Oh, and you can go fuck yourself, Matt.

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Just a little announcement today regarding Peregrine Lake and the update schedule for the next two weeks. Last year, we did a flashback story called The Move where we saw a brief little tale of how Lynn and Megan moved from Eau De Puanteur, WI to Peregrine Lake, WI drawn by me instead of Ethan. It was just a fun little bridging tale between the new comic and UnCONventional. The idea was that The Move was a bonus story for the forthcoming print collection (which will be out early 2026), and it was quietly removed from the website in November.

Well, we decided to do that again this year.

For the next two weeks, Peregrine Lake will update on Tuesday and Thursday with a little story called The Interview. This time we’re seeing how Megan got hired at the diner. Like The Move this will be ephemeral — staying on the website through November 2026. This one will be destined for the second print collection eventually.

So enjoy the tale! Put up with my art! And the comic will resume as normal on January 6th.

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Fifteen years ago today I wrote a blog post title “We’re Living in a Cyberpunk Novel,” and it was when I had the dawning realization that so much of our world felt like it was ripped straight out of a William Gibson novel. At the time I was looking at the current headlines and the state of technology, and it was really clear the way the world was going.

Well, uh, it got worse?

Like as we bring 2025 to a close, we see less corporate regulation, the attempted dismantlement of our democracy in favor of oligarchy, the weird, broken state of social networking, and the complete digital chaos of the future of the free and open web. Like elections are affected by social manipulation through digital platforms, and billionaires harvest our data through the control of online spaces. Massive amounts of money are being spent on data centers that poison the environment so you can do “research” (and sext) with a supposed “AI” that makes shit up constantly.

And we all use Amazon Prime.

It’s not great. And while when I wrote that original post fifteen years ago these observations felt novel, today they seem obvious and mundane. Like as we are fully immersed in late stage capitalism, it’s hard not to notice how bad things have gotten. And to be fair, since speculative fiction is far more often an observation of the present than a prediction of the future, it’s pretty obvious we didn’t have to go that far to get here. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Now obviously we need to fix the structural issues in our society and fight back against the pending environmental apocalypse, but, like, you probably already knew that if you’re reading this. The problem I’m having right now is that we’re stuck in a cyberpunk dystopia and some of y’all are still wearing khakis.

Like if I’m going to be stuck living in a pulp story, we should at least get the cool ass aesthetics to go with it. Like I know I’ve clearly embraced this world in my workspace, but we should be going for it in our homes, our fashion, just everything. Like everyone should be going full weirdo, regardless of what age you are. If we’re all carrying devices that let corporations track our location and listen in on our conversations everywhere, we should at the very least be dressing like it.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I wanted a space opera future, not a cyberpunk one, but this is the one we’re living in.

Now where’s my god damn flying car.

Also maybe buy my new book Buried Memories, book four in the Mia Graves Saga. It’s queer urban fantasy and not cyberpunk, but you’ll probably still like it.

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So the day is finally here — Buried Memories, the fourth book in the Mia Graves Saga, is now officially out!

I posted the official blurb on pre-order announcement a few months ago, but the book’s premise is basically “what if you were in a small town where people kept disappearing, but you were the only one who noticed.” This time around, we’re following Sarah instead of Mia, and she is not having a good time.

It’s a fun book, trust me.

Anyways, you can pick the book up a few different ways. It’s available as an eBook via Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and DRM free in my Patreon Shop. If you want it in paperback, you can get it through Amazon, Bookshop.org, Direct Orders, or whatever bookstore you want with the ISBN 9798349560958. I’m really excited for you guys to get your hands on this one, and if you read it and like it please consider rating it and writing a review on Amazon, GoodReads, or Storygraph. It really helps me out if you do.

And, of course, if you haven’t read any of the earlier books, you can still pick them up. I have purchase links to all of them on the official Mia Graves Saga page on my site.

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So I already made a post about this on TikTok/Bluesky/Tumblr/YouTube (because I am, if anything, distributed these days), but I wanted to talk about it here — as it feels more permanent. This last weekend I was at a convention, and like most cons where I table a few people came by to pitch me their own creative projects. Now let me be clear: I genuinely like that people do this. It’s fun to hear people tell me about their passion project. I just really only have one ask if you’re going to do this though.

Talk to me first.

Now, that may seem obvious to most of you, but it apparently isn’t for everyone. And most people, in fact, do this. Like at said con, a guy came up to my table, saw that my banner said I was a podcaster, and talked to me about the fiction podcast he was working on. It was a great conversation, and while I haven’t checked out his show yet, I fully intend to give it a listen some time this week. He started out that interaction gauging my interest though, and letting me know who he was as a person. It was fun, it was nice, and he left me his card. All in all, a positive interaction.

But that’s not what all of these instances are like.

A while later, a different guy comes up to my table. I greet him, but am effectively ignored. Now, that happens, and while it’s a bit rude not to respond at all, nerds can be awkward so I’m used to it. After a few moments of looking at my stuff, he starts picking up my cards and putting them back down one by one. I have several different business cards (one for each comic, one for Nerd & Tie, and one that’s a general “me” card), so I’m not sure why he’s doing this. When he gets to a Peregrine Lake card though, he turns it over and says his first words to me in the two minutes or so he’s been at my table: he asks for a pen.

I hand it over, assuming he wants to note something about my stuff on a card, which has happened before. I mean, the card he’s picked is one for a website where there isn’t anything for sale on the table right now, so I just assumed it was the one thing up his alley. I’m under the impression that he’s going to jot something down and walk away with the card.

That is, in fact, not what happened.

Instead he writes out quite a bit more than I’m expecting him to, and Crysta and I are just sitting there in silence. Then, when he’s done, he hands me my own card. What he’s written down is a URL and some social media accounts, and he tells me he’s starting a creator collective of independent writers. He mentions having talked to some of the other authors at the con (there were a couple). I politely took the information, and told him I would check it out, and he walked away.

But here’s the thing, if he’d bothered to speak a word to me when he arrived, he might have asked me what my thoughts on a creator collective are. That’s when he’d learn I’m already a part of one. Like one of the cards he picked up and ignored was literally for it.

And we could talk about how he should probably have brought some sort of card or flier if his goal was to network, or how it’s difficult to convince me that you’d be a good advocate for my work when our interaction is this awkward, but that’s not the point. If he had started with a conversation, he would have learned my background in that space. And while I have no interest in changing affiliations, we could have talked about working together or I could have given advice on how to grow and promote.

It just would have required a god damn conversation.

I just want to feel like you see me as a human being, really. Take some time to find out my interest, figure out my vibe, and importantly let me figure out yours. It will be a better experience for both of us, trust me.

Also, remember, you can pre-order Buried Memories, the fourth book in my contemporary fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, out December 15th 2025.

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On December 8th 2009 the first strip of UnCONventional went online. UnCONventional wasn’t the first webcomic I ever attempted (the first was “Room 825” which ran for a few months back in the year 2000), but it’s the first one that stuck round. The comic ran for almost exactly ten years, with the final strip going up December 5th 2019.

I’ve included the first and last comics here for comparison.

UnCONventional is the first time I really focused down on what I needed to write and finish a story. Updating that every week helped me find the discipline to really chart out arcs, understand my limitations, and how to use those limitations to my advantage. It’s such an inside-baseball comic, where I know it’s not really accessible to folks who are outside of the convention scene, but it’s the reason why the more broadly appealing stuff I do works at all.

I learned all of those lessons while writing that weird, incredibly niche comic.

These days I’m writing novels, a new comic, and GMing actual play shows — but my ability to tell a story over a long term arc was honed and perfected in that silly little semi-autobiographical comic about nerds running a convention in a college town. It’s nice to remember what it was. Even when it was bad, it made me better at what I’m doing now.

And I think that’s neat.

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Well the world is dark and cold, which means it’s time to do something fun — and in this case that something fun is go do a convention.

This Saturday, December 6th, I’m going to be at UWEC GEEKcon at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Davies center. I’ll have print copies of UnCONventional and the Mia Graves books (including book four, Buried Memories, which doesn’t officially come out until the 15th). It’s a fun con, and If you’re a student, entry is free with showing your ID. If you’re not there’s a suggested donation of either $3 or 2 non-perishable food items.

Also this time around there will be some familiar faces also vending there. My Peregrine Lake collaborator Ethan Flanagan is also tabling at the con, and Nerd & Tie‘s Gen Prock also will be there.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, little cons like this are some of my favorite shows. It’s just a fun vibe driven by something other than commercial interests. People come to these shows for the joy of it, and it’s just a good time.

Hopefully I’ll see some of you there.

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