• Archives

  • Topics

  • Meta

  • The Boogeyman - Working Vacation
  • Coming Home
  • Quest To the North
  • Via Serica
  • Tales of the Minivandians
  • Join the NRA

    Join the NRA!

Noodling About With Graphics

I’ve spent a bit of time playing about with MidJourney after hearing some awesome panels about it at P-Con this year.

I used MidJourney to create the basis for the cover art for Battle Buddy:

To practice a bit, I gave the engine prompts for a few of the stories in that collection to see what I could come up with. I’m quite happy with these.

Incident at Spurgle Station:

Pilgrims:

Strangers From the Sea:

Labor of Love:

Trial by Combat:

Can’t claim any credit for how good these images look, but I must say I’m impressed.

What do you all think?

Also, if you enjoyed Battle Buddy, I’d appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave an honest review with Amazon. Every little bit helps.

Today’s Earworm

Today’s Earworm

Today’s Earworm

Today’s Earworm

Musings

Of all the things that we lost due to the Disease Whose Name We Dare Not Utter, no longer having 24 hour grocery stores has to be the worst.

Yeah, it was convenient when you ran out of turnips while making a midnight snack and wanted to just nip out and grab a couple, but the real loss was the ability to shop while the portion of the populace that never really wakes up was truly asleep.

I could go into the Kroger at 2 AM, get a heaping cart full of necessities and sundries, and only have to interact with the nice lady who noticed someone was waiting to check out. It was glorious. I could do an entire week’s worth of shopping in about 30 minutes, less if I was being really efficient.

As opposed to today, when I went shopping with the living dead. There was one dude who literally walked down the middle of the frozen potatoes and breads aisle, stopping every three half steps to stare first at the freezer on his right for 60 seconds, then to the freezer on his left for another 60 seconds. I politely asked if I could squeeze by him, and he didn’t even ignore me. He looked me in the eye, moved his mouth a bit, then went back to his shuffle-stare-turn-stare-shuffle routine.

This fine reject from a Romero movie was only one of many examples of what I can only call “somnambulant shoppers”.

When I am king, there will be designated hours at the stores for those of us who not only know what we want to get, but also how to get it. Those who can’t handle the sensory input of three different sized bags of shoestring french fries will be relegated to coming in while the rest of us are not present.

———————————————-

Fun fact – It takes approximately 10 minutes to prebake a pie shell, and while it is toasting a tad, mix up the filling for pumpkin pie.

Another fun fact – Prebaking at 350 degrees, then leaving the pie on the counter for a few minutes while the oven warms up to 425 for its first bake is a good idea. Heck, it’s even a step in the recipe

Fun Fact III – The Fact Strikes Back – Being efficient with your time and turning your back to pull some things from the pantry for the next dish you’re preparing while the oven bakes and the filled pie shell rests on the counter may seem like a good idea.

Grandson of the fun fact – The 5 month old lab puppy is now tall enough to cruise the counter, and she really likes the taste of unbaked pumpkin pie filling.

So anyway, it takes about 10 minutes to whip up another batch of pumpkin pie filling while your spare pie shell prebakes. It may seem to take longer, but that’s because you’re swearing about fuzzy little menaces and telling her that she’s lucky she’s cute.

———————————————-

The pet store is a racket. Putting $3 dog treats at nose level for a lab puppy right next to the register is dirty pool.

In other news, a lab puppy can lick the frosting off of a $3 dog treat in the ten seconds you take to pull your wallet from your pocket and pay for her new collar.

———————————————-

Note to self – The glass beer mug you smuggled out of Oktoberfest in 1993 holds just shy of three 12-ounce beers.

Not being a wasteful soul, I finished what was more than ‘just shy’ before settling down with the rest to try to get some things done.

———————————————-

Irish Woman may think I’m a little crazy for this, but there’s something hypnotic about listening to the time channels on short-wave radio.

tick-tick-tick-tick-tick for 55 seconds, then “At the tone, the time will be…..” followed by tick-tick-tick-tick for 55 seconds.

It’s a mantra for autists, I tell ya.

Now to just tune in those Russian numbers stations while I sleep, and the circle will be complete.

Today’s Earworm

Musings

When you do the rising growl that’s part of the chorus to Bodies and all three dogs in the room wake up, open one eye, and look about, maybe you were overdoing it with your post-dinner sing-along.

————————

It’s amazing how expressive every action by a dog can be.

The little bowing down with both front paws splayed out in front of her, with her head cocked to the side, signifies that our youngest dog wants to play.

When she walks up and lays her head on my leg, I know she loves and trusts me.

When she looks up at me with those big brown eyes, I know she’s saying “I see you have a toasted cranberry bagel sandwich made with a fried egg, spicy breakfast sausage, and swiss cheese. I also like a toasted cranberry bagel sandwich made with a fried egg, spicy breakfast sausage, and swiss cheese. I also want you to forget that I already had breakfast and some cheese when you were giving my sisters their medicine. You see, father, I am starving, and shall surely perish if not given the remainder of your sandwich.”

Truly, man’s greatest companion.

————————

Sometimes I buy flowers, other times, jewelry.

This month, my love language is buying a split quarter of a cow and filling the freezer for the winter.

Diamonds may be forever, but hamburger is $4 a pound and rising, and compressed carbon crystals don’t make good tacos.

————————

In an attempt to warm up a bit and get rid of the scratchiness in my throat, I made up a pot of the ‘Czar Nicholas II” Russian tea I got a few weeks ago.

Chort vosmi, but that’s terrible.

Imagine, if you will, an overpowered Earl Grey, but instead of bergomot, they used Chanel #5.

Yeah, not going to be drinking that anymore. It will, however, make for a pretty good potpourri.

Back to coffee I go.

Little bit of backstory – my introduction to ‘Russian Tea’ was when my mother would buy one container each of full-sugar Tang orange powder, Country Time Lemonade, and NesTea powdered ice tea mix, combine them all together, and mix two to three heaping tablespoons of the resulting concoction with a mug of hot tap water.

Yeah, I didn’t have much sophistication in my palate until my early to mid 20’s.

————————

How did your morning go, Tom?

Well, while trying to shuffle the dogs around for breakfast and outside time, the elder hound decided that the youngest dog was just a little too close for comfort.

No actual violence, but a big dog roaring, not barking, roaring and snapping, followed by the puppy running away crying loudly at 6:15 AM is not how I wanted Friday to start.

————————

Winter has officially arrived at our house. Irish Woman has begun her yearly ritual of randomly changing things in the house due to a case of November cabin fever. Today, it was new handles on the kitchen cabinets and drawers, along with testing two new colors for the kitchen walls. Apparently my choices will be “Seattle Seahawks Teal” and “Crest Toothpaste”.

She casually mentioned that the easiest way to update our kitchen was to replace all the cabinet doors and fronts of the drawers.

I shudder at where this might all go.

Hey, at least she’s not peeling up vinyl flooring and opining about how much nicer tiles hand made by Slovenian women drinking Moldovan champagne while dancing the chacha would look.

I really can’t wait until she’s truly cooped up in the house due to crappy weather and little sunlight. I may start encouraging vitamin D supplements now and avoid the Christmas rush.

Thought for the Day

Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal, a great mercy. – Abraham Lincoln

I’m bringing this up for no particular reason. Move along, citizens. Nothing to see here.

Today’s Earworm