Now, the point of this was to come up with a box advertising "Kitty Glitter", which would make cleaning out the litter box an adventure to be looked forward to by every young pet owner. My marketing strategy was simple, in every box of kitty glitter put some chocolate filled pieces of eight, maybe a pearl necklace, plastic gems, and let the kids screen for the treasures as they clean out the litter box. 

Given the inevitable success of this I imagined we could come up with some "Prospector Boxes", wherein gold nuggets & various gems could be found, "Paleontological Boxes", wherein the kids could find dinosaur bones, and "Archeological Boxes", wherein the eagle-eyed shit-sifter could find some potshards from any one of a number of civilizations. 

Anyways, plugged this into Dall-E: "A box of Kitty Litter, with a photorealistic one-eyed cat in a pirate costume. The title of the box: "Kitty Glitter", the bottom should read: "Now With Real Pirate Treasure!"."

And got this out;

Not bad, but I'm not going to be laying off marketing any time soon...

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Category: Images

Today, a seasonal blip in an otherwise unseasonable winter, cold, and not so much the cold as the wind that tears up the sand from dry roads, spews grit into your face, eyes, turning your back to it circles and finds you again, another direction for this assault, it's only today, and yesterday, but tomorrow it will be fine. 

Only it's today, and the library is filled with the homeless and their backpacks, sleeping bags, and every one of them is talking to their welfare case worker on their cell-phone, updating them as to their job search, housing applications, etc.

And so I bear it for an hour, but these voices, loud attempts at being quiet, it's maddening and you can't blame them, you can't be outside in this, but - I can't be here either.

Buy time at a quiet café, then head home to finish my book, 150 pages left, it's a masterpiece for sure, but I'll review it when I'm done.

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Category: Conversations

Well, no, but a couple of the more interesting finds from the last few weeks. The first, an old "commemorative" newspaper from Nelson, Circa 1961.

the second I spotted on a walk about the store, odd, I know, I usually don't walk around the shop so once in a blue moon there's a surprise.

This was it. An erotic carving of two naked women embracing, one, by the helmet some sort of Spartan, the other? Well, curious, and it's out of an old cow's shinbone. 

Which makes it doubly curious. Currently priced at $20.00 in the silent auction, I might just have to bid...

...because, really, how have I lived this long without one?

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Category: Images

Cold, raining, and of course the Library's closed and the cafe's are overflowing, the best you can hope to do is to rent a table for twenty or so minutes.

To stay longer would be rude, there's always someone hovering nearby checking the status of your coffee, that jealous green eye-on-your-table, "here, let me help you with that..."...

SO, open the laptop and do some eavesdropping. 

There's an older couple beside me, 60's I'm guessing, the man is very earnestly clutching his dates hands, she's catching my eye, not quite an eye-roll or "rescue me" but...listening to their conversation, it's a first date...!!!? The conversation gives it away, they don't know each other, not at all. Then why, I'm wondering, is he clutching her hands over the end of the table? They must have met on one of those dating sites...."My Time" or "Our Time" or "Frisky Seniors" for divorcees & widows making merry, apparently these are the days my friend, these are the days, I can believe it looking at them but am so on the down-low that there's been no time to partake, and this hostage-taking happening at the table next to me, it's not inspiring...not at all. 

The date ends, my coffee's finished, wait until they leave before folding up the laptop and disappearing. Sundays, Days off, at the moment they're the worst. Soon enough there will be none...

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Category: People
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