‘Puter Saga, Part Five-Million-Two

As expected, Dell can’t find a refurb option to match the specs for my current glitching machine. Except instead of offering alternatives, they’re extending the timeline to find one. First it was 48-72 business hours; now they’re pushing it out another 24-48. Which means in a couple of more days they’ll get back with me, even if it’s to say it’s going to take them longer. I’ll give ’em props for communicating when they say they will. It isn’t a substitute for resolution.

Let’s see if they eventually offer an alternative or keep jerking me around for the next few months until the warrany expires. If it’s the latter I’ll go to Lenovo to order a replacement. I like Lenovo’s computers a whole lot more, but stayed with Dell because of their service. If the service is a bust, might as well go with what I really want.

No new photos this weekend, unfortunately. We were busy with other things – doctor’s appointments, vaccinations, babysitting, and a pathetic garage-sale run, among them. (Found one small item at garage sales, and it was nothing to write home about.)

The blueprint-style compass rose up top is another AI-generated confection. It hits two sweet spots for me: I’m a sucker for antique maps (and their compass roses) and love blueprints. We have maps and globes throughout the house – both G and I love ’em. No blueprints so far, but probably just as well. We don’t have the space for them in this itty bitty house.

My current blog theme is nice and clean and legible, but it certainly embiggens the images, doesn’t it? (“Embiggen” is a term stolen from a science nerd’s blog. No clue how familiar it is to everybody else. It’s the only word that works, sometimes.)

AI can be temperamental: it can generate pure garbage, and at other times create gorgeous imagery. I’ve also been using it to create “character cards” – i.e., depictions of the characters I’ve created and am trying to write about. These are all edited – AI sucks at eyes. A few other areas probably needed some touch-up, too. However, since these are ONLY character cards, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on them.

When I do buckle down and write, I create ambiguous characters. I revel in imperfections. I wrote exactly one clear, albeit somewhat peripheral, villain into the story tied to the above characters. He’s the only one with zero redeeming qualities. (Hopefully nobody will figure out until the very end WHY he has no redeeming qualities. I hinted at it throughout the story, so people can go back later – a la “The Sixth Sense”. Assuming anybody reads at all.)

I should probably go back to writing suspense. Light and frothy isn’t my strong suite — but man, can I write creepy when I’m so inclined.