Month: January 2026

Curse the Inky Poo!

If you subscribe to my sister site, Skippity Whistles, I do apologize for the deluge. It’s not pretty, I know. But there’s an explanation, I promise!

If you’re freaked out by AI and thinking maybe it’s takin’ your job, you are not alone. Looking at the Google newsfeed (a mistake by itself) easily half of it is churned out by an AI somewhere.

Churnalism has reared it’s ugly head again.

So, thinking, as I am wont to do, and looking for the next Fred Flintstone Get-Rich-Quick Scheme, and goofing around with ChatGPT, I stumbled upon an IT.

As in, by George, this may be IT!!!

Or not.

Asking the Chat to write a post for Skippity Whistles was truly disheartening. It wrote a better post, with better research, and real warmth, in about 15 seconds. Not only was it good, it was SEO ready, with tags and everything.

The post was everything I shoot for, except better and had SEO.

I think to myself, so why am I struggling through writing a post on how to use a socket wrench when AI blazes past me like Inky Poo?

All right – Inky Poo. If you don’t remember, it’s okay. There’s a famous stop-motion movie called John Henry and the Inky Poo, made by the then stop-motion master, George Pal. In this unintentionally horrifying retelling of the legend, legendary John Henry laid railroad track by hand. The Inky Poo was a steam-powered tracklayer. Things came to a head as they do, and Mr. Henry squared off against the ‘Poo.

Son of a biscuit, it was close, but John Henry beat that old machine by an inch. And then died of exhaustion.

And that, children, is why railroads are no longer laid by hand.

What ChapGPT cannot do, like Inky Poo, is choose the route. You have to point it in the direction you want it to build, and let ‘er rip.

Suddenly my writer hat flies off into the corner, replaced with a hat that says EDITOR in big, bold letters. Now we’re GETTIN’ somewhere!

The riches in this scheme come from links to Amazon products in the text of my how-to videos. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve use the phrase “As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”

So, now the posts have SEO attached to them, making them easy for Google to find. And I’ve got the Inky Poo dishin’ ’em out a dime a dozen. And each one says “buy me” right on it… what could go wrong?

It’s a little more subtle than that, but you get the drift.

If I still lived on the West Coast, I’d be out lounging by the pool, sipping drinkies, while Mr. GPT would be inside, churning out fine works of art.

But, today’s high in New Jersey was 21 degrees, and I don’t really enjoy drinkies, and there’s, like, snow on everything!

Sigh.

Guess I probably should go take a a look at what the robot made.

Ah, the work never ends!

The Lure of the Santa Maria

You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You want to do your research accurately, right? So you spend a week in the Taiga, freezing your keester off. Or maybe it’s a story that takes place in the NYC subway tunnels, so you, like, hide out down there for a week with the mole people.

Me? I am not that researcher. I know I should be, but I just can’t quite muster up that devil-may-care-I-can-do-it spirit. Not sure if I actually have one of those.

My wife? She’ll do it in a minute. Zip to the Taiga and be back on Monday to tell you all about it. Mole people? She’ll make ‘em besties within an hour and have to be reminded to go home. It’s just the way she’s wired.

I have no such circuitry in my system. Let me look at the pictures. Let me dream about it. Let me read up on it until I can taste it. Only then can I put a character there. And even then I’ll have to fill in the gaps.

But, even if I’d been there, I’d still have to fill in gaps, right? I mean, trying to thread a needle with frozen fingers – you and I can describe it without actually having done it, right?

This is dumb, but I’ve been thinking about making a model of Columbus’ Santa Maria as a piece of yard art. Beyond my daughter the archeologist killing me, the idea doesn’t have a lot going for it.

Wait, wait, don’t walk away. See, there are some upsides. Over at my sister site, Skippity Whistles, I’ve started zeroing in on specific tools. What better way to demo those tools than on yard art for all the neighbors to appreciate?

Nah. Doesn’t work for me, either.

In doing the research, however, I stumbled across this picture:


Now, you may not be a sailor – lord knows I am not one – but you have to admit, that is one romantic image.

She surges along, all five sails drawing, heading off on the adventure of a lifetime.

Oh, to be aboard that magical ship!

Except she’s rollng over the waves – you can see how far she’s leaned over to starboard by the water mark up her side.

Except she’s cold and damp inside, and smells like the garbage-strewn, urine-laced water that’s in her bilges and the stench of unwashed men.

And those clouds ahead can only mean one thing, and that won’t be pleasant.

Rough seas pounding over the bows, sluicing down the decks and finding every open seam to rain icy seawater onto the poor sailormen huddled below.

Howling wind shrieking through the rigging and trying to pull that poor fellow at the tiller over the side. The wind is so cold and the water so pervasive he thinks that might not be such a bad idea.

She rides the waves like a cork – the man at the tiller knows to keep her stern into the wind or she’ll roll like a bottle. But that means her bows rise far up the  back of the waves and then dive deep into the troughs and you wonder to yourself if that green water coming over the foc’sl is gonna do for you this time.

And it’s dark – not a light in that black sky to give a glimmer of hope that you’ll see the sun come up. Oh, there’s a candle lantern below deck, but the feeble light only shows the faces of your shipmates – some frightened, some hiding it.

The only light on deck is the little candle in the binnacle, illuminating the compass rose. By that steers the tiller man, west always, and by that lies your hope of surviving this storm.

And maybe you’re the captain, taking your place next to the tiller man.

Shaking your head like a dog to dash the sea water from your eyes, you strain your eyes into the inky night to see the next wave, maybe calling to the tiller man to steer port a touch.  But you must bellow over the wind’s howl.

And you are tired – so, so tired of the wind and the water and the constant motion and the responsibility for all these lives.

And still she thunders on, surging up this hill, plugging down that one.

Well, gee, mister. When you put it like that, maybe a fella might do better to sit at home and just write a book about it!