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This morning, up and at-em, after a fashion, brunch with a friend.
On Baker St, a Canada Day breakfast put on by the Lions' Club, half tempted to grab some but a 2 block long line puts me off. It's put off even the junkies and the homeless, who you see clearing the neighborhood for more peaceful circumstance.
Sitting, having a coffee, another acquaintance spots me and joins. Only by this time my belly is beginning to announce a bit of dissatisfaction with my previous few days diet of Vodka and Hot Sauce.
Inside, the key to the bathroom is gone, damned fucking tourists, and I sit on the steps to wait...
Eventually, when the second of her twins has been safely delivered and flushed the tourist exits, I snatch the key from her and admit myself...
There is somewhat an air of desperation to this, my belly is in full rebellion, the Canada Day fireworks are an easy 13 hours too early...
Lunch is cancelled, make my way home, my digestion, entirely off, I should have considered my diet before challenging the streets and public places, at home, a few more eruptions and I think the danger has passed, there can be nothing left in me...
Still, now, time to go to work and fingers crossed there's no more nonsense...
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Spotted this on Facebook Marketplace:
I mean, what can I say? I can imagine finding and giving a heart shaped rock to a loved one.
But I can't imagine this, buying a vaguely heart shaped rock off Facebook Marketplace for $20 and giving it to a loved one. If someone tried this with me - and I knew what transpired - bloody hell!
I imagine someone in Salmo, with a great line of credit borrowed against their heart-shaped rock, drinking up a storm in the local pub..."When it sells...we'll all be rich!!!"
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At the thrift shop I found a set of magnetic Scrabble tiles, and conceived the notion that "wouldn't it be cool if I could write a poem using all 100 scrabble tiles and 2 blanks", with the intent of dumping it on the magnetic poetry board at the cafe I frequent.
Of course it would be cool, only my creativity wouldn't suffer said restraint, but there's been a lot of talk about the brilliance of AI lately, and so I turn to Chat GPT 4.0.
Now, while I can't show you the entire chat here - for some reason logging back into it today it's truncated the back-forth nature of our dialogue into merely it's last failed attempts. It took about a dozen tries to make it understand I didn't want a poem that used all the available letters in the alphabet, that I wanted a poem constructed entirely out of Scrabble tiles that used them all but no more, the two blanks it can use as it wishes.
Finally it delivers - if you can call it that:
A waltz of quick brown fox jumps.
Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum.
Zealous jackdaws fly next.
Happy quails sing by pond.
Now, it gave me a few results of similar quality, which I can't share due to our truncated chat. But in every instance upon reviewing it I found that certain tiles weren't used, and others were used too much. So I point it out, and Chat GPT does a self analysis, and then apologizes and tries again, assuring me that it's now got it right. Only it hasn't. And so I send it back and it tries again, and does another self analysis, posting it for me to see:
- S: 4 - (A waltz of quick brown fox jumps. Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum. Zealous jackdaws fly next. Happy quails sing by pond.)
- T: 6 - (A wterful, quick brown fox jumps. Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum. Zealous jackdaws fly next. Happy quatls sing by pond.)
And here you have it, the smoking gun, just like that guy next to you it's fudging it's own self analysis by changing the poem. Every time. Until finally, like a petulant little Elon-Musk-child it tells me I need a subscription to listen to more of it's gibbering idiocy...
"You've reached your GPT-4o limit. You need GPT-4o to continue this chat because it uses tools. "
We don't want to make the AI think now, do we? The dangers - and intelligence - of AI so far have been blatantly oversold.
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At the liquor store after and I run into Sasha, Dag's daughter. I'm mentioned her here before, posted a picture of her, young 80's, feisty, always with a joint in her month. I'd visited her in November in the hospital, asking Sasha where she is now, did she get into a home, and no, she passed away January 6th, 2 months in the hospital, not even a month in the home. No obituary, Sasha's choice.
And so that's that, another bit of the local color gone, the town, it's becoming gentrified in the worst of possible ways. All the people that gave it color, character, dropping off one by one...
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And this, noted, following any rave or big night out, the quietude of mind.
Exactly that. That the world's dialed down to 1, 0 even. You hear the sounds, the street, the mind-numbing chatter of idiots, but it's dialed down to zero.
There's no background noise, nothing, not even the sound of your own thoughts. Just a comfortable absence of all thought.
Outside, thundershowers, rain. The same as the subliminal stop-smoking soundtrack I listen to.
I check the fridge for food, nothing but condiments, I make up some rice and choose from a variety of flavours to season it with.
Now I can see past the abomination I've made, can see clearly the errors in the painting on the easel, and sit quietly and enjoy the absence of mind. A proper stay-cation.