Category: News

  • ODDS and ENDS: I Have a Substack, Ride or Die with ChatGPT, and Tottenham

    ODDS and ENDS: I Have a Substack, Ride or Die with ChatGPT, and Tottenham

    (As long as you’re groovin’, There’s always a chance…)

    Nervous writer at typewriter with giant robotic figure and drones in glowing city background
    A frightened writer types as a menacing robot looms behind him in a futuristic cityscape

    Did you know I have a Substack account? There isn’t much to it. Right now, I just republish my reviews over there. It’s got a pretty good name, “Short & Novel.” I’m not 100% sure what to do with it. Somedays I get to thinking that I might move my reviews behind a paywall, as 90% of the traffic to this blog is people looking at my reviews. See, the thought goes that I keep this page for my blog about random things, and also use it as an online CV so to speak. The Substack page ends up becoming the place where I try to personally generate some income from my reviews. I have been kicking this can of an idea around for about a year now. Still haven’t decided what to do.

    Then I had this idea that I should as ChatGPT what I should do with the “Short & Novel” site, in reference into making it a page that generates an income for me. Then I thought, I might want to try this as an experiment. You know, give people full transparency of what I am attempting to do; ChatGPT or whatever AI will manage this page, but all of the creative writing will be generated by a human, me. Such as AI would create a lists of tasks that I would need to accomplish to make the Substack grow, and I would go about creating the content and executing the tasks myself. It’s an idea…

    They’re going down this weekend. The death spiral has begun…

  • ODDS and ENDS: C’mon Rangers, Time, and Keep it Together

    (I’m just waiting on a friend…)

    I grew up in Arlington, Texas and as such I spent a lot of time watching the Texas Rangers. The ownership of that team has always sucked. Sad to find out that the owners and management are continuing the tradition of being awful.

    I am bad with time. I was supposed to spend an hour on writing this little blog post, but I am now entering my second hour of work on this. Mind you, fifty-five minutes of that first hour was looking stuff up online. Things from Texas history (due to the article above) and general curisoty of stuff, like “what are the best lights to buy for an art display in your living room?” I knew I needed to get my writing done, so I could clean up and go run my errands… But I could stop farting around. I don’t think this qualifies as procraternation… just a general laziness and… well… farting around.

    There are many thing I do for my family, but the one I have found myself doing the most this week was being the calm guy in the room. Which isn’t my natural state, as I am loud, talk too much, and can be a rather obnocious drama queen/king from time to time. But being in a family means that sometimes you have to take on different roles to get things accomplished. I think in the olden days, this would have been called “being the strong one.” What it really means is that I can’t freakout until everyone else is doing freaking out. There’s nothing major going wrong; just getting the taxes done, and the kid dealing with school.

  • So, We’re All About to Die (Unedited)

    For the record, I believe that Trump will chicken out at 8pm tonight, if not earlier, claiming something has happened which has caused him to reconsider destroying Iran off the face of the Earth. Because that’s what Trump is; all talk and a big chicken.

    Now, if I am wrong and he orders the US military to destroy the infrastructure of Iran, then Good God, we’re all going to die.

    I wish I had some rather original insight to share with you. You know, something, some thought that no one has expressed yet as to the absurdity of the situation the world find itself in because the US and Israel started a war for no reason. Sadly, I find myself at a loss for words even to express how I feel about all of this stuff.

    I’m a pacifist, and I believe in negotiating peace with your enemies, no matter how long or difficult it is. I know and think often about how we all live on a tiny little planet in the “backwoods” of our galaxy, and most of what vexes us on a daily basis is rather meaningless, and if we really pulled our collective head out of our asses, we will make this planet a safe a peaceful place for generations of our shared humanity to exist as long as we see fit.

    I would give anything to be up on the Artemis II right now. To be off this rock, away from all of this bullshit.

  • Didn’t See That Coming, Sort’of… (Unedited)

    Israel going off and bombing Iran; not surprised at that. The US going off and bombing Iran; a little surprised. I do use the qualifier “sort’of” because I did read an article last week how the USS Gerald Ford was making its way across the Mediterranean toward Israel. And in that same piece it mentioned that the USS Abraham Lincoln was sitting out in the Arabian Sea. Not that I know a ton about Navy operations, but when I read that two of our aircraft carriers are on the same theater of operation, it does make me pay attention.

    That having been said, I’m rather nervous about this “war.” In a very large sense, that area of the world is rather volatile, and I fear that things could spin out of control with many unforeseen consequences. Mainly being that this could grow into a larger conflict, dominos fall, and we find ourselves in a World War. Unfortunately, other world wars have been started for lesser reasons, like you built a fort on the wrong side of a river, and there was that Archduke thing…

    And yet, like the idiot I am, I have allowed myself to sit in front of the TV and flip between CNN, MS Now, and Fox News seeing if I can gleam something, anything new off of what is going on. To say that each network has a radically different take, I feel, is an easily understood understatement. “We’re all going to die!” or “We might die, but maybe not!” or “Good thing we’re not going to die now.” (I’m sure you can guess which network is saying what…) See, because I can’t trust the internet, and anything that I see on my phone or computer, I just assume is AI slop. In the end, I feel left in a helpless state, not being able to trust anything that is being presented to me as news.

    So where does this leave me?

    Being that I was a pacifist before, it’s pretty easy for me to stay a pacifist now. No to War. No to Bombing. No to killing.

    The worst thing we can do to humanity is to rob ourselves of our humanity.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    (Something Clever Goes Here…)

    Looks like Paramount is about the buy Warner Bros./Discovery, which means there will be five companies that control 51% of the media. If what the Ellison’s did to CBS is any indication of what they’ll do to WB/Discovery, then we are about to enter into a dark age. Prices will go up, coverage will be pro-conservative, service will decrease, and market share will continue to be concentrated. The good news is that this has happened before in America, and we have the tools to break all these trusts up. And I mean all the trusts; media, social media, airlines, online shopping, web services, and banking. The only thing stopping it is the will of the people. The laws are on the books, but they’ll only be enforced if we elect the right people to do it. I’m telling you, we gotta get involved before its too late, and we are getting very close to it being too late.

    I think I might vacation in West Virginia this year. Somewhere up in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe along a river or a creek. Nothing crazy, but a cabin away from everyone and it should also be a place where it gets cool at night, like low 60’s or high 50’s. This is Summer after all. Just a thought I have been having of late.

    I haven’t smoked a cigar since college; it was after a cast party and I was feeling on top of the world. I don’t particularly like cigars or the smell, but the idea of sitting on a porch as the sun sets, smoking a cigar with a glass of bourbon in my hand sounds wonderful at this point. This might be tied in with the West Virginia vacation thing from above… but it’s on my mind.