Simian Shelf Actualization

I'm going ape for my new movie shelves. 
 

Carpenter Makes a Shelf

I have now obtained all of John Carpenter's films. (Not pictured: Dark Star and Elvis, which are on the shelf above.) They're displayed here with action figures of Keith David as Frank Armitage (They Live), Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne (The Fog), Christine the Plymouth Fury (Christine), and three alien invaders (They Live). 
 

A Wooden Performance

Mine, not his. 

 

This Pun Is Justified

There they were, on set, near midnight. The day had been wasted. The director, the producer, the writer--all agreed that the day's rushes weren't even looking at.

The star remained quiet, arms crossed, his lips pressed into a thin line, his Stetson tilted at such an angle that his eyes, no doubt blazing, were hidden. He stood in the shadows, listening. 

The crew argued among themselves, trying to spread the blame. The script was unpolished. The direction was pedestrian. The major stunt of the day looked cheap and fake. The catering had spoiled, throwing everyone off. 

In short--they danced around the main issue. 

The man in the Stetson knew the final responsibility came down to him. His pacing had been off, his delivery flat, his timing all wrong. Even his body language was uncharacteristically stiff. 

In the end, a brave and possibly foolish production assistant, all of 21 years old, cleared her throat. 

All eyes--even the ones in shadow--turned to her. 

"Maybe it's not my place, but..." 

She paused. 

"I think we need to start talking about the Olyphant in the room." 

Man and Horse

Man and horse
A symbiosis 
Animal husbandry's
Ultimate gnosis
Strong back, fleet hooves
Domestication
Foundations of the horse-drawn nations
Bit and bridle, tack and saddle
A riding crop to act as paddle
An equal partnership, we say
But what of horse?
"I say thee neigh!" 


 

All Hail Canada Day

 

I Feel Used, or Impersonal Trainer

While I've always suspected it was so, last night I probed Gemini a bit to see if any of my writing has been used to train LLMs. The last paragraph reveals the sordid details. Further investigation reveals everything I wrote for Lois Hole has been used as training data, too. 

If we lived in a more equitable world, I'd be fine with this, but I can't help but feel like under capitalism the tech bros owe the writers and artists of the world some compensation. Especially if they want us to keep generating new ideas . . . 
 

An Organic Interlude

Sometime in the mid-1970s, we travelled from Leaf Rapids to Thompson to buy an electronic organ. Mom or Dad shot a Polaroid of us playing with it in the spring of 1977. 

As a built-in teaching aid, the keys on this organ would light up to display the notes. Once you'd learned them, you could turn off the feature and play like a real organist. Mom and Dad got pretty good at it, as I recall, and the organ came with us to Alberta. I think Mom and Dad finally tired of it in the late 80s, or maybe it stopped working. 

The organ's brief presence in our lives is something of an anomaly, as neither Sean nor I play an instrument, nor did Mom and Dad seem to have much interest in doing so aside from this organic interlude. (Pun intended.) Maybe they hoped Sean or I would pursue music. Sean plays the harmonica, but me, well . . . I still have the recorder from the one music class I had in grade four or five, but I was and am pretty terrible. 

This is the our first Mother's Day without Mom, and it feels weird to say it, but I think they might have gotten a kick out of some of the stuff Sean and I have been doing with generative AI tools--taking old photos of fishing trips and turning them into movie clips and so on. Or this: 
 

Sean and Earl as painted by da Vinci. I think Mom would have gotten a chuckle out of this. Dad probably would have shaken his head, but I think he'd like the motorboat animations from our fishing trips. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. 

Sherrie v Scary v SCarrie

 The other day I came up with an idea for a novel: What if another young woman developed telekinetic powers like Carrie White, but instead of being raised by an insane mother, like Carrie, she was raised by a doting, responsible father? I'd call the novel Sherrie, of course. But a second title, Scary, came to mind, too. Then I realized I should really change the spelling for the pun potential. But SCarrie would be a sequel, not a parallel story. 

Stephen King doesn't write sequels terribly often, but if he did, why not go back to the (almost) very beginning? 

It Had to Be Done Eventually

Google Gemini. 
 

A Little Space and Time for the Science of Centring Yourself

It feels like forever since I enjoyed a few minutes outside, alone, on a nice day, at one of my favourite places. Even better, this occurred just after seeing some of my favourite people at what is now one of my favourite movies of 2026 (Project Hail Mary)--the first I've seen in theatres this year, and only the fourth I've seen in theatres since 2019, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Feels good, must do more often. Get outside, disconnect, look to the stars, not to my screen. 
 

Alberta's Referendumb

I've avoided writing about Alberta politics very much for the last few years. It's because everything Danielle Smith and her crew of UCP grifters do is engineered to hurt Albertans while enriching themselves and their circle of cronies. They've demonized the LGBTQ+ community, censored books, short-changed municipalities, failed to hold the oil and gas industry accountable for environmental cleanup coasts, and encouraged a separatists movement to divide Canada. And ever since she became Premier, Danielle Smith several of her MLAs have been openly cozying up to Donald Trump and his circle of criminals. 

All this infamy has come to a head with the announcement of Alberta Referendum 2026. If you can stand to explore the site, you'll discover the NINE (mis)leading questions Albertans will be asked to vote on this October. You'll find the carefully crafted findings of the Alberta Next Panel, an exercise in finding the answers they wanted to divisive questions. 

Speaking of the questions: five on immigration (controlled by the federal government) and four on the Canadian Constitution. 

All nine questions are specifically crafted to foster resentment of immigrants and the rest of Canada. Even if Albertans overwhelmingly voted YES on all nine questions, Alberta would be put through years of painful, harmful negotiations with the rest of the country. And we would deserve the scorn of our neighbours from coast to coast. 

The most obvious insult to our intelligence? Referenda aren't binding in Alberta. So even if Albertans vote NO on each of the nine questions, the Smith government can do whatever it wants, given they have a majority in the Alberta Legislature and a proven willingness to use the notwithstanding clause to overcome any court challenge. 

Indeed, the Smith government only just announced that Alberta will be switching to permanent daylight savings time--despite the recent referendum where Albertans rejected that very change. Wherever you stand on time zones, why would any Albertan believe the UCP would obey the outcome of any referendum now? 

This also shows that the Alberta government will clearly not enact the referendum question put forward by Forever Canadian, whose petition reached the required number of signatures even before the provincial government changed the rules to make a competing petition by separatists easier to succeed. In fact, Alberta separatists are still on the streets collecting signatures, even though today's announcement seems to make their efforts moot--in that the UCP government have done their work for them. 

Every Albertan with an ounce of sense must take this threat seriously. Please--vote NO on all nine questions on October 19. Even the ones that sound reasonable, like reforming the Senate, are engineered to increase division and, contrary to what Smith and the UCP claim, tear Alberta away from Canada and give future UCP governments more and more power to trample human rights, privatize pubic institutions, and enrich the one percent to the detriment of the rest of us. That's their endgame. 

And the gall--the absolute, unmitigated gall--to drape their separatist, hateful website with the maple leaf. And to claim it's about "a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada." Goebbels would be proud. 

Squish!

Approved by the Comics Code Authority and Gemini's guardrails, apparently. 
 

Decora-SEANs

Sean was kind enough to send me some photos of where he's placed some Mom and Dad heirlooms in his condo. I love Sean's decor, so I'm really happy to be able to present some of his space. 

The desk above is many decades old, but still in excellent shape. As you can see here, it fits perfectly under Sean's kitchen breakfast bar, with enough froom to store his cookbooks on top. And it goes with his floor! I'm so happy this has a good home in the family, because this desk has been win our lives as long as I can remember. 

Here's the working oil lamp Sean brought home; again, decades old and still very handsome. 

Here's Granddad's forge, which I now suspect may have been used to create at least some of Granddad's tools. 

Here's a close-up of the forge crank. 

I wish I had Sean's gift for this sort of thing. Sylvia's half of the house looks great, but my man cave is basically a garbage dump, aside from the theatre room. Ah well, I'm working on it . . . 

Salem's Lot Boo Boo

Today a lovely special edition of Tobe Hooper's adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot appeared on my doorstep. It comes with a two-sided poster, a "Welcome to Salem's Lot" sticker, and a handsome perfect-bound booklet that collects essays about the miniseries. 

Alas, sometime during the editing process, someone--more likely, multiple people--missed adding the name of Bonnie Bedelia's character to the cast list. For the record, Bedelia played the ill-fated Susan Norton. 

Vernal Geekquinox 2026: Dem Bones, Dem Tasty Bones

The great thing about bones, in a culinary sense, is their ability to act as handles for meat. This year's first Geekquinox, held yesterday afternoon, was built on very sold bones: Pete and Ellen's peerless hosting and cooking skills, and friendships that now stretch back decades. Zounds! 

The lamb lollipops were so delicious that I forgot to take a photo before they'd all been scarfed down--thanks to Stephen for this photo! Moist, juicy, tender--I don't have lamb often, but wow, these were scrumptious. They certainly put a SHEEPISH GRIN on my face! 

The next course consisted of braised lamb shanks served on a bed of rice. The sauce...oh, the sauce...the meat and the rice were excellent, too, of a quality far better than, I dare say, most restaurants. 

Here's our dapper chef in his skeleton-themed shirt, alongside a couple of the cocktail recipes. I'm not a drinker, but apparently at least one of them was "face-numbing." 

Ellen took this shot of us, which means she's not in it! Still a fun photo that captures the feeling of the day. 

We took a break between courses to marvel at Pete and Ellen's just-completed library. It's utterly gorgeous, and really makes me want to do something similar in my (much smaller) space. 

Unfortunately, family matters called us away early, so we missed the steak and the duck. But we did share a piece of this amazing homemade dinosaur dig cake. Needless to say, we dug it, bones and all. 

For better photos and a more comprehensive writeup, including the dishes we missed, see Steve's story of the event! 

Zeno Needs a Pair of Doc Martens

Achilles races

Can't overtake a tortoise

Damn fool Zeno

 

Cole Position

When we got together to work on some estate stuff this morning, Sean presented me with an early birthday present: a grab bag of carefully created knick-knacks designed to appeal to my taste. My favourite item was this little statue of David Lynch as the FBI's Gordon Cole from Twin Peaks. He now occupies a place of honour in our theatre room. 
 

Stable Trek: The Next Generation--Season Two

 

"The Child." Extremely literal. 

"Where Silence Has Lease." Poetic!

"Elementary, Dear Data." If I didn't see this generated, I might have thought this was a screen capture from the episode.

"The Outrageous Okona." Doesn't look like Billy Campbell at all, but otherwise pretty convincing.

"Loud as a Whisper." Sort of gets the tone right? But Deanna has a twin in the chorus.

"The Schizoid Man." Nicely done. My favourite season two interpretation so far.

"Unnatural Selection." I love the ones where the title shows up as part of the scene. Nicely done, Gemini. 

"A Matter of Honor." Too bad this isn't two Klingons getting ready to duel. Another title appearance! 

"The Measure of a Man." Exactly what it says on the tin, I guess. 

"The Dauphin." I had to cheat with this one a bit. When I tried my standard prompt for this experiment, Gemini said "I can't depict minors like that." Okay...the guardrails are clearly misaligned. Anyway, I modified the prompt to read "Create an image based on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode titled 'The Dauphin.'" That did the trick. Middling results here. 

"Contagion." Taking things literally again. 

"The Royale." Another favourite. Captures the feel of the episode, and integrates the title into the scene perfectly. You know, I may start modifying my prompt to ensure this happens with each generation. 

"Time Squared." A visual pun! I love it! 

"The Icarus Factor." Even with no mention of Star Trek or science fiction in the prompt, we get an SFnal interpretation of the myth. 

"Pen Pals." This one is kind of funny. I'd been playing Wordle at the same time as generating these, and instead of pasting my prompt, I pasted my Wordle score. Then I pasted my prompt but missed deleting the word "Wordle" from my wordle score. I left it as is. Plus, two title appearances! 

"Q Who." Q gleefully introduces us to the Borg. Nice work, Gemini. 

"Samaritan Snare." I love that the Pakled is standing on the deck of an ancient seafaring pirate ship instead of a space pirate ship. He's looking for things--things to make him go. 

"Up the Long Ladder." Yep, there he goes. 

"Manhunt." Another literal interpretation. 

"The Emissary." Once again, pretty literal, but I love the plaque on the wall. 

"Peak Performance." I guess I can't complain about the literal interpretations when all I'm giving Gemini is a title.

"Shades of Grey." Better than the episode itself, I suppose.