Shuffle off to Buffalo

 

It's National Bison Day! So look at me! I'm Buffalo Time Waits!  I'm beginning to have an identity crisis.  Though having AI recreate me is lots cheaper than costumes and make up. Technically bison are not actually buffalo but early European settlers in North America mistakenly called bison buffalo because they thought they looked like African buffalo. Though I seriously doubt that most European settlers in North America had ever seen African buffalo.

I have actually been to Buffalo, New York many years ago. The city was apparently not named after bison or buffalo. It was named after Buffalo Creek which likely actually called "beau fleuve" or "beautiful river" by French explorers. English settlers may have thought they were saying buffalo creek instead. Though some thought an interpreter may have mistranslated a native word for "beaver" as "buffalo" in a treaty signing. Are you getting the sense that English settlers weren't the sharpest tools in the shed?

Regardless, Buffalo is called Buffalo and has nothing to do with Buffalo. It does lay claim to the creation of Buffalo wings. Or at least the Anchor Bar in Buffalo lays claim to that creation. 

I've been there which is one of my claims to fame.

I've lived a full life. I wouldn't buffalo you. 

I wouldn't beau fleuve or bison you, either.  But don't call me Bison Time Waits. 

Monster Mashup

 

It's National Frankenstein Friday! Oh yeah, it's also Halloween.  So I had Copilot bring out the monster in me. It always tries to spruce me up a bit though. Not that I'm complaining. I don't mind losing a few pounds and having cool looking white hair and a trimmed beard. I also like the green pallor. 

It gives me character...or makes me a character. 

None of my t-shirt designs sold for the Halloween although many of them are pretty spooky. I've lost faith in social media.

Not that I ever had faith in it.

Speaking of selling things, I tried selling one of my guitars on eBay to make and effort to make more space. It is a 1960s Decca acoustic guitar.

I was asking $200 but I always accept offers so I expected to sell if for maybe $125.  It is an odd guitar. Decca was a 60s record company that tried branching out and selling guitars. This one was likely made in Japan. Odd thing is that it has a headstock like a steel string guitar and a pick guard, but it has a tie bridge that you normally just see on Classical guitars.  And it doesn't have a truss rod to reinforce the neck and change the action.  So I advertised it (with the help of AI) as a hybrid guitar that probably should just be strung with nylon strings to avoid damaging the neck.

It didn't get much interest and I didn't think much about it But the other night I get this message through eBay's messaging system.

That looks like a very Large Crack going the length of the neck. Is that why the warning of not using Steel Strings because its CRACKED Badly?

Its Rotten Sellers like YOU who give Ebay a BAD NAME. This Guitar is LOADED with Massive Amounts of Dents, Deings and Marks Everywhere, especially on its CRACKED NECK and Yet You Say NOTHING About all that. And YOU KNEW This was a steel String Acoustic but your warning to only use nylon is to hopefully avoid the Neck BREAKING IN TWO The Length of it. You WILL Get Negative FB and A Forced Return/Refund and Pay for the Return Shipping!!!!! You Should Be ASHAMED of yourself for such Blatant, Dishonest Deceptions!!!!!

Obviously a fan contacting me. I responded that there were no cracks in the neck. They were probably seeing the wood grain in the photo and thought it was a crack. I explained my theory about the nylon strings. I didn't say that Copilot wrote the stupid listing.  I also I figured that was the end of it. But then:

And Your Theory that having a neck truss rod confirms it is a Steel String and not having one you suspect means a nylon String. Where do you get your FAULTY Reasoning From????? Many older STEEL String Guitars NEVER had Truss Rods, especially Cheap ones like this one!!!

That is NOT a hyrbrid guitar either. Many cheap sellers put whatever guitar strings they have available to them just to save money from purchasing the correct strings. So YOU Assume and go by whatever the Next Guy Does????? Also that Tie Block was also used for some very old vintage steel string guitars! 

 I don't know how many guitars I've bought for my business and had to switch out the WRONG STRINGS because of all the cheapskate, Naive, and Dishonest Sellers Out THERE!!!

I've bought more than 20,000 Guitars of all types for more than 55 years and I KNOW What I'm Talking about and it has Had Held up in a COURT OF LAW more than once when needed! I also work for Ebay as a Troubleshooter for Spotting Fraudulent musical instruments. I'm telling you right now that you need to correct your listing before I make my Report on This!

I was getting pretty irritated by this dick. But I responded nicely. 

Okay I'm not sure what you think is fraudulent about the listing other than telling people not to use steel strings. But it hasn't gotten any interest and I don't need to be bothered with debating this. I'm taking down the listing. I appreciate your intent but your communication style is offensive and insulting.

Still, he wasn't done.

I don't appreciate Ebay Listers who refuse to listen to an Expert in this Field.I made it clear that I've been in the Guitar Business for more than 50 years and You chose to IGNORE That. I made it Clear that Your reasoning for deciding this was a Classical was totally Flawed and you IGNORED THAT Also. If you will insert a DISCLAIMER Stating that you are Not Sure of the Guitar Type AND Accurately Describe it with all the Dozens of Dents, Dings and Marks it has and that it may have a repaired neck crack, I will allow you to continue the listing.

 

 

 

 

 I couldn't believe he was implying he would allow me to continue the listing.  But it wasn't worth my time to debate him so I just wrote that he was the expert and I valued my reputation and never intentionally deceived anyone in a listing and I had removed it. Then I blocked him and reported the incident to eBay who will likely not do squat.  It was a very disturbing experience.  This dude was crazy. And the crazy thing is that he does sell guitars on eBay and has positive feedback.  How whacked is that? I'm not naming names but if you ever encounter continuum777 on eBay, run.

Oh well, there is a monster in everyone.

Corny jokes

 

It is National Cand Corn Day and though it isn't a national holiday it is as important as most things reported in the news today. I asked Copilot to create a t-shirt design showing candy corn growing in ears on corn stalks and it gave me this. For some reason when I ask it to create new designs it keeps remnants of the previous design it created and incorporates them in the new design as if that is a perfectly natural thing to do.

I swear working with AI is like dealing with dementia sufferers at times. I politely pointed out the mistake an it politely ignores what I've said and eventually creates the new design. Though it can't let go of the old designs completely. 

Apparently cand corn comes from a dark place. 

Regardless, I have fond memories of eating candy corn. It is one of those things that kids (or at least me as a kid) couldn't help but eat a segment at a time. You bite off the white part, then the orange part and then the yellow part. It kind of requires a ritual like eating an Oreo cookie. And of course I would have to make vampire teeth out of them, too. 

Perhaps that is why Copilot associates them with a hermit's cave. 

Old hermit crab

 

It is National Hermit Day! And with a few starts and stops Copilot turned me into a hermit who enjoys his iPad games (but not all of the friggin' ads you have to watch to keep playing).  This is so much easier than the old days when you had to find an image of something like a hermit and then spend an hour or so photoshopping your face onto it in a realistic fashion.  

I kind of miss those days. Not that it got me anymore traffic on my blog. It still amuses me though. Perhaps it is because I recognize myself in the images. I can imagine I'm all of these characters. Though I'm not sure what the ultimate point is. 

Still I blog and create t-shirt designs and hawk them on social media with very little response.  

Onward and inward. 

Old Navy

 

According to National Day Day it is Navy Day.  And although I have never been in the Navy, my father was during World War II.  I always thought this was odd because he grew up in Idaho and never had been on a ocean going vessel that I knew of. But he was quite familiar with sage brush.  When he received his draft notice, he went out an quickly joined the Navy because he didn't want to be put in the army or marines and be put on the front lines.  Considering there was lots of violent action in the South Pacific, it didn't seem to matter what branch of the service you were in. 

Regardless, the Navy took him and taught him how to repair torpedoes (which also struck me as an odd skill to have considering torpedoes typically blew up when they hit things). But apparently the Navy fired off lots of practice rounds as well and retrieved the dummy torpedoes and had people like my father repair them.  Seems like a lot of work.

So I have never been in the Navy but I went on lots of cruises when I was younger and I always thought I looked like Edward Smith, the Captain of the Titanic. I asked my buddy Copilot to hook me up with a White Star officer's uniform.  After a few attempts (including removing a samurai sword from my hand) it complied and offered to create a version with my dog in a Naval uniform too.

Copilot can be annoyingly helpful.

Oh well, bon voyage.

Go west old man

 

I don't dress up for Halloween anymore since my kids grew up.  Also the last time I did I dressed as a Day of the Dead sugar skull man and my wife got pissed at me because I took so long to get ready and my kids needed to get downtown for trick or treating.  It kind of took away any desire for me to wear costumes.

But Copilot humors my whims to still recreate my image as various characters. I think he got my face down pretty well in this old west outlaw image. But I think I look a bit shorter than I actual am. Seems more like a dwarf out of Lord of the Rings.

I also asked pilot to play around with the image. I call this one Samurai Slinger.

Again a bit shorter and squatter than I would like but still pretty cool.  And last but not least me as an ungrateful dead outlaw.

This one's dead on.

I, Samurai

 

I'm not sure how I feel about Copilot's depiction of me as a Samurai. I imagine some will consider it cultural appropriation.  But I am feel a bit of disdain when people use that term. I am not sure how you determine something is appropriation as opposed to appreciation.  All cultures seem to borrow from each other. I think it is evolution.

I don't think I look great as a Samurai. I look more like Obi Wan Kenobi in half a Darth Vader helmet. Which is probably where George Lucas got the idea for Darth Vader's armor. The Jedi were more like Ninja's. 

But I do admire the Japanese culture and lately I've been obsessed with Japanese swords.  I'm kind of obsessed with swords in general. They are far more heroic and cool than firearms. You also couldn't hide behind a tree to fight someone. We would probably have less wars today if people had to fight with swords.

Maybe not.

Fire in the heart, frost in the beard

 

I'm not likely of Viking stock. A bulk of my DNA points towards my ancestors being from England around London (which is ironically one of the only places in England and Europe I've visited).  But Copilot's snot-nosed programmer lackeys of corporate lawyers said it couldn't show me as a Norman warrior because it came too close to some copyright or another. So it made me a Viking. My only problem with the image is it shows me clutching the blade tightly enough to cut off my fingers.

AI doesn't seem to appreciate details like that. It also didn't share that you only get a limited number of images generated before they pull the plug for an undefined period of time. It just stopped drawing and said it couldn't generate any more images at the time because I'd reached my limit.  I said I didn't know there was a limit and what was it? It was a bit vague about the limit but said it shouldn't be long.

AI is cagey that way.  Eventually it started generating images again so I asked it to give me an image of me as Santa Clause. But it stopped half way through and said it couldn't complete the image because it was too close to some copyrighted images but it could make me look like a Winter spirit with a twinkle in my eye.

Looks a lot like Santa Claus with a Viking Shield to me. But I have learned to reason obtusely with AI and simply asked for another version without a Viking shield. AI never seems to acknowledge that they are fraught with brain farts and have difficulty separating old requests from new ones. I kind of like to think that it is me as a Viking raider who plunders a village to give toys to children in another village (even though they may have a little blood on them).

I kind of like the Viking version of me better than the Santa.  Seems a bit cooler and more powerful.  Though the closest thing I ever came to a fight was in grade school when this big kid stripped the handlebar on my Stingray bike and I punched him.  Unfortunately he punched back and the fight ended quickly.

But I have thought about cultivating the Santa image as a retirement gig since I have the beard and hair color. Too bad I'm not a jolly old elf and have no desire to deal with crying kids now that mine are grown. I'm not a big reindeer fan either.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

A General post

 

Now that Copilot has showed me that it is willing to use my image to reenact various characters from film and history, I am like a kid in a candy store. It used to be my trademark on this blog to Photoshop my face on various famous scenes and random objects. I realize that was and is a vain a a bit narcistic thing to do. But it was one of those things I did with this underlying feeling that people would think I was clever and it would make me as famous as the people I was posting my face onto.

Neither was true. 

I have thought a great deal about what it is that has driven me in the past to impress people with how clever or cool I was despite how I appear. I have always harbored this secret desire to be famous. When I was a kid in elementary school I used to watch the Beatles on television and fantasize about being one of them and being chased by hordes of screaming young women.  Or I would watch a movie with heroic scenes of soldiers or cowboys saving the day and wondering what it would like if I was that hero.

Part of it is being an introvert and never really being comfortable with who I am and ironically have attention focused on me. Often when the focus was put on me I resorted to playing the fool and trying to be funny. If I appeared stupid, it was because I was acting (or at least that was my belief).  I was typically being sarcastic and throwing out one-liners and enjoying when people laughed.

Now I realize how annoying that can be and I try and catch myself when I feel compelled to be witty.

But I still enjoy seeing images of myself as things like generals and characters from Wizard of Oz. I posted the Cowardly Lion image on Facebook and I realize that it looks more like Trump than like me. That is sad. 

I like the image above of me as a Union Army General because I think my beard makes me look like I'm from that era. Though I am 30 or so years older than your average Union Army General was during the Civil War. 

Oh well.

If I were King

 

"Yes, every creature great and small
Would bow in fear and awe.
If I — were king — of the forrrrrrrest!"

--Cowardly Lion

First, I wouldn't want to be king. It seems far too much work and pressure. No one truly likes kings except for kings. I'm not even sure queens like kings.  And eventually, all kings fall. 

Let's face it, you would have to be a major narcissist to want to be a king anyway. Because apparently being president of the United States isn't good enough because technically it is supposed to be a privilege and not a perk. No one should ever get to do whatever the hell they want to do just because.

Yet there we are.

I was so totally inspired by the concept of the Cowardly Lion's desire to be king because it would help him not be afraid anymore that I asked Copilot to turn my photo into the Cowardly Lion in his king scene from Wizard of Oz. And Copilot was quite happy to help me do it and I think it did a pretty good job (though I could have lived with a few less wrinkles in the image. I

I asked Gemini to do the same thing and it told me:

I'm sorry, but I cannot create an image of you as the Cowardly Lion, even if you provide a photo of your face. My purpose is to be helpful and harmless, and that includes strictly avoiding generating images based on personal photos of individuals. This is a privacy and safety guideline I must adhere to.

I can, however, create an image of the Cowardly Lion in the style you described (singing about being king) or in a variety of other styles, without incorporating any personal imagery.

If I was truly king Gemini would not have refused me or I would have cut off funding to Google and had the Justice Department investigate them. Microsoft apparently has no qualms about generating images based on personal photos of individuals.

In all fairness, Gemini has not been well lately. It takes a long time to respond and more often than not it repeats the same answer as the query before or tells me it can't respond right now. I believe it is curled up in a fetal position somewhere in the virtual world dealing with the existential angst of answering never ending questions. 

I bet you Gemini wouldn't mind being king.

But before someone in the highest office in the land (if not the world) aspires to be king, they should consider this:

Or even this:

Who knows, maybe then people would actually like you and consider giving you a Nobel Peace Prize.

Metric's don't always measure up

 

It is National Metric Day. It doesn't seem to get the love in the hashtag world that other national days merit. I'm sorry, but it is hard to get jazzed about the metric system when you grew up measuring every thing in inches and feet.  I don't care if it is easier to divide everything by 10s when you use meters and kilometers.  You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

And speaking of old tricks, I was looking at the National Metric Day page on National 
Day Calendar and saw a click-bait ad for the top gifts for 2025 that you must have. It had a photo of what looked like walk on water shoes. So I did what any old dog would do and clicked on the banner and scrolled through 125 listings of useless shit you "must have" and couldn't find the walk on water shoes.

Will I never learn.

Nothing that is advertised is every as it is.

Holding out for heroes

 

It is National Hero Day (not to be confused with National Heroes Day even though it is confusing). And the National Hero Day people (whoever they are) illustrate it with images of soldiers, firefighters and emergency room personnel. And they are all people who get paid to do those jobs. So does it really require you to be a hero if you are paid to do it? 

I don't recall Superman or Batman getting paid to be heroes. Superman even had to work a day job as a reporter and I can tell you his pay wasn't heroic. Batman was independently wealthy so being a hero was a hobby. Other people who could be classified as heroes like air traffic controllers are calling in sick right now because they aren't being paid due to the government shut down.  So apparently keeping airplanes from crashing into each other isn't something you do unless you get that paycheck.

Most of us don't get too many opportunities to be heroes (paid or not). Honestly, not that many people are cut out to be heroes. I'd argue that if you want to be a hero, you don't really have the stuff to be heroes. If you look at the traditionally accepted heroes, say medal of honor winners, the opportunity was thrust upon them due to circumstances, not because that is what they set out to do. Military heroes rise to the occasion to save friends more often than to prove something. I'd also argue that not too many people join the military anymore other than to get money for education they couldn't afford otherwise or they couldn't see anything else to do. If you look at the military heroes over time, I'm willing to bet most of them were drafted.

I'm not dissing on the traditional hero professions. I'm just saying that people get into them for many different reasons and unless they are young and naively stupid, being a hero isn't one of them. And is it really necessary to recognize people for just doing their job?