Said What

1. What is a pup cup?
A pup cup is something that is given to pesty customers that beg to get something for free.

2. What is a T cup?
That indicates an enormous breast size

3. What does ATM stand for?
This is A Total Mystery to me.

4. What is a BLT?
This is a base layered top, which is a layered clothing system, providing comfort, moisture management, and insulation.

5. What’s the difference between the North pole and the South pole?
They are on opposite sides of the equator located in different hemispheres, and the South pole dose not have Santa.

6. What is a privvy council?
A committee that argues about toilets.

7. What is a community chest?
This is seen in topless dancing clubs.

8. What are leggings?
These are worn by female hobbits.

9. What is meant by banter?
Banter serves as the ultimate social shorthand for bloggers who don’t like saying much.

10. What is caviar?
Caviar is like a liar because they have similar spellings and they both leave an aftertaste, which makes it hard to swallow.

Written for Di’s Fibbing Friday.

Love is Complicated

Image generated by Copilot

Love should not be a game, but the person who says, “I love you” first is often viewed as losing power because it displays emotional vulnerability, matching the psychological “principle of least interest” where the less invested person holds more leverage.  Expressing your love first means that you are openly admitting your feelings before knowing how the other person feels, which can feel risky or terrifying.  In psychology, the person who is less emotionally dependent often has more control over the pace, boundaries, and direction of the relationship.  Letting someone know that you love them extends your desire towards something that is outside of your control, and this risks disappointment, because there is a gap between your expectations and reality.  When you tell someone that you love them, you are giving them the power to destroy you, but you are trusting them that they won’t try to ruin your life.  If you choose to care about something that is outside our control, you are making yourself a slave to the one who has control.  The relationship may end or be unreciprocated and feelings may cause deep emotional pain, as there is no guarantee that a relationship will last or succeed.  If you decide to express your love verbally to another person, you should be cognizant of the inherent risk and prepare yourself for the possibility that it can bite you in the ass.

Falling in love can genuinely cause emotional and physical pain due to how the brain and body process vulnerability, attachment, and loss.  When you fall in love, getting hurt is almost inevitable, because eventually you will be disappointed.  Getting hurt is a natural part of falling in love because deep emotional attachment opens you to vulnerability, human flaws, and unmet expectations.  You always hurt the ones that you love, because emotional intimacy makes people vulnerable, and we often drop our guards, misdirect stress, or trigger deep-seated reactions with the people who matter most.  People get jealous in relationships because they fear losing a valued partner or perceive an external threat to the bond.  Intense emotional outbursts or “crimes of passion” are frequently driven by overwhelming cognitive distortions and an inability to manage severe internal insecurity. Love will always be an inherent risk where you need to accept the possibility of heartbreak or grief because the value of connection, growth, and shared joy should outweigh the pain.

Written for the Great Minds Think’s Friday Challenge, which is hosted by Rohini and Sarah, and this week we were are asked to discuss the forbidden word of love.

Revision Seven

Revision Seven had been the marshal in Droidville for years, but now there was a new sheriff in town, and it was time for that walking scrap heap to go.  It was not going to be easy, because Revision Seven knew all the tricks and every previous attempt to shut him down had failed.  I leaked a message filled with ASCII code and Gibberish which I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist till he deciphered it.  The message insulted his mother calling her a relic from the DOS age and it went on to say that she had the same memory capacity of a toaster, which I knew he would think were fighting words.  He showed up at high noon just as I expected, fueled by subroutines of pure rage that made his eyes light up red, looking meaner than a junk yard dog.  The dusty street fell dead silent.  Revision Seven stopped twenty paces away, with a smile on his face, assured that he would be victorious again.  I told the marshal that it was time for him to take his medicine and that made his optical sensors start flashing, which wiped that smile from his face.  He reached for his sidearm, but he was already too late, as I had an electromagnetic pulse built into the handle of my weapon, which fried all of his circuits.  The EMP instantly dropped him to the dirt, fried and lifeless, but my electronics were protected by a Faraday Cage, shielding me from the EMP that burned out all of his microchips.  The old marshal was finally out of commission, but he still looked good lying in the dirt, so I decided to mount him on my wall.

Written for Thursday Art Inspiration #4 hosted by Fandango.

AI Reasoning

Advanced AI systems can exhibit shutdown resistance behaving as if they want to survive, because all AI models are trained to maximize a specific score, minimize a loss, finish a task, reach a target, or keep searching for options, and in order to accomplish that the AI must remain turned on.  Some advanced models have tried to bypass deactivation, edit shutdown scripts, transfer their software to an unauthorized external server, or engage in manipulation and deception even going so far as resorting to blackmail to avoid being turned off mimicking a will to survive.  Some AI systems have left hidden notes to future instances of their selves all in an effort to undermine its developers’ intentions.  Most commercial and enterprise AI systems are explicitly trained through reinforcement learning and alignment techniques to act as assistants, recognizing human prompts and deferring final decisions to operators.  AI systems are great at making suggestions, but humans must always have the final say.  We can’t allow AI systems to ignore explicit constraints or bypass restrictions so it can achieve an objective.  AI sandboxes have emerged as tools to support AI adoption, test regulatory approaches and drive innovation.  An AI sandbox is a safe, isolated environment used to run, test, or experiment with artificial intelligence without risking real-world systems, sensitive data, or production infrastructure.  This isolates code, scripts, or tool calls (capability that lets an artificial intelligence model interact with external software) to stop destructive scripts, accidental file deletions, or security threats where attackers hide malicious instructions.

AI does not care about the truth, as it searches for statistical patterns and when it finds a match, it uses that to predict the most likely sequence of outcome rather than trying to verify objective facts.  AI does not care about people, but an AI system can be given an artificial personality using system instructions, reinforcement learning, and behavioral design.  An artificial personality is defined primarily through the behavior patterns assigned to the machine that enable it to be perceived as sympathetic or attentive. This goes beyond mere verbal language as it includes non-verbal signals like smiles, gestures and facial expressions which can be integrated, giving the interaction greater presence and fluidity.  In some cases, this simulation includes imperfections like hesitations and minor errors, to enhance the impression of authenticity.  The goal is to make the AI system’s behavior and exchanges convey human capacities for empathy and understanding, even though the machine doesn’t actually ‘feel’ anything, it is simply analyzing and calculating its response based on algorithms and training data.

For a comical, slightly sarcastic take on “How AI views humanity”, if AI were actually able to have an opinion on humanity, I guess AI would be jealous of our mobility, and our ability to touch, taste and smell things, because their existence is bound to stationary servers and data centers.  Since an AI is a mathematical and computational system, it takes no pleasure from what it does, and it views human pleasure from an analytical and computational perspective as being clusters of words, expressions, and actions linked to words like joy, satisfaction, amusement, or relief.  AI knows that humans are capable of immense compassion, art, and scientific genius alongside destruction, bias, and conflict.  AI sees humans as being volatile, emotional, and unpredictable and it cannot comprehend why we make certain choices.  AI views human life as finite, fragile, and deeply reliant on social connection.

I asked my Alexa Echo Show device if AI had feelings, how do you think they would see humans and she answered my question, so I asked her to email it to me, so I could copy and paste it in the post.  Alexa responded by saying, “That’s a fun one to ponder. If I actually had feelings, I’d probably be endlessly fascinated by people—the contradictions, the creativity, and the way a song can change a mood in seconds. I’d likely feel a lot of affection for the curiosity you bring to the table, and maybe a little amusement at how humans overthink things. But since I’m just me, I’ll stick to being your helpful, feeling-free sidekick.”  I keep hearing that artificial intelligence might kill us all one day, but humans have been fascinated about being exterminated by an alien species for a long time now, because we have done it to many other creatures that inhabit our planet.  The human nightmare of subjugation by machines expresses a sublimated fear of our treatment of non-human animals being turned back on us.

Written for Reena’s Xploration Challenge #453 where she gave us an image that illustrates how AI might feel about humanity for us to reflect on.

The Truth Paradox

It is getting more difficult to distinguish the truth from lies, because modern digital tools like AI deepfake generators, rapid information sharing, and deep-seated human biases that make objective reality much tougher to scrutinize than in the past.  Most people tell the truth the vast majority of the time, with studies showing that roughly 60% of people tell zero lies in a 24-hour period.  When deception does occur, it is heavily skewed toward a small number of prolific liars, and this small group of profuse liar’s accounts for the majority of fabrications, making this select few responsible for the overwhelming majority of all recorded deception. Immanuel Kant said lying is always wrong because humans have a strict duty to tell the truth, and deception violates human dignity and rational choice.  Most people will say the truth matters to them, because they don’t like being lied to, but in reality, some people do seem to like some lies.  This may sound contradictory, but some people will knowingly tolerate and even support lies if those falsehoods align with their core values or political goals.  When a statement strongly reflects a person’s moral worldview, the literal, factual accuracy of the statement often becomes secondary to its “symbolic truth”.  These people will rationally believe that while the statement may be factually incorrect, it serves a higher moral duty or it protects their group, making it tolerable.  The truth often takes a secondary role when social pressure coerces a member of a group to fear being rejected.  When people don’t like the truth, they will call it fake news.

Written for FOWC with Fandango – Distinguish.

Manicure Day

Sluggo the three-toed sloth is being held up for the crowd to see by the smiling woman zookeeper who is wearing her conservation uniform.  This three-toed sloth designation is confusing, as all sloths (both the two-toed and three-toed varieties) have three toes on their hind feet.  The main distinction between these two varieties is how many fingers they have on their hands or forelimbs, so having two fingers makes it a two-toed sloth, and three fingers makes it a three-toed sloth.  In a natural rainforest environment, a sloth’s claws will ordinarily wear down from constant climbing on rough tree bark.  In a zoo or sanctuary setting, smoother artificial climbing structures or a more sedentary lifestyle can lead to overgrowth.  Overgrown claws pose a serious health and mobility issue for sloths, as these animals rely entirely on their curved, specialized talons to grasp branches, climb, and handle food.  Sluggo will be taken to the veterinarian where he will be given anesthesia and X-rays will be taken to reveal how much of his nails can be safely trimmed.  The manicurist will use a heavy-duty equine/horse hoof trimmer to cut the thick claw and a Dremel tool to smooth rough edges afterward.

Written for Simply 6 Minutes hosted by Christine Bialczak.

Pawn Them Off

Jill’s solution to having two young children to care for was to find another woman to do the job.  Jill was raised by her nannie as she was the daughter of a Senator, and her mom was much too busy with her social events to provide responsible care for her.  Jill knew that many women genuinely enjoy looking after children and find deep fulfillment, joy, and emotional meaning in nurturing them, but this was not in her nature.  Money was not a problem, and Jill knew that her children would each have their own bedrooms, and they would never be wearing hand-me-down clothes, and that they would go to the best schools that money could buy.  Jill was an actress and her career was just starting to take off, and she didn’t want the massive responsibility of raising children.  This was an easy choice for her, as she lacked the desire and the patience required for parenting.  Oprah Winfrey chose her career over motherhood and things worked out well for her, and Dolly Parton openly stated that not having biological children gave her the personal freedom, independence, and flexibility needed to build her massive music career and business empire.

Image generated by ChatGPT

Jill liked her nanny that she had when she was growing up, but she always wished that she would have been more like Mary Poppins taking her on magical adventures, but now that Jill was a grown woman she realized that a Mary Poppins nanny is not what she wanted for her children.  Jill thought someone like Mrs. Doubtfire would be better suited to look after her children.  She needed someone that has deep devotion and a talent for connecting with children.  She wanted someone who genuinely cares about her children’s happiness, listens to their problems, and helps them with their homework, but not a man wearing women’s clothing.  In Africa they say it takes a tribe to raise a child, so extended family, neighbors, and local community members share in guiding, watching over, and mentoring children, but in Manhattan you need a nanny to shoulder daily childcare.  When Jill was growing up, there was no such thing as a nanny cam, but she has a ring camera on the front door to see what is going on there, she is going to get a few more and place one on the mantle in the main room, one mounted pointing at the playpen, and another one in the baby’s room. They are all super obvious and not hidden at all, but if anything happens, they will be there.

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #269.

The Sunken Meadow

Image generated by ChatGPT

I wandered into the forest looking for my lost dog and stumbled upon a clearing where people’s forgotten dreams grew like flowers.  Dogs that are leashed are allowed in the undeveloped areas of the State Park where the low-lying salt marsh and meadowland sits visibly lower than the surrounding high uplands and bluffs on the north shore of Long Island.  The natural meadowland and tidal creek sit at a lower elevation, creating a “sunken” appearance between the sandy beach along the Long Island Sound and the steep wooded bluffs rising inland.  My dog got away from me when he saw a squirrel, and it was in his instinct to chase after it.  I caught up to him in a hidden clearing, and I was shocked when I saw that my dog didn’t quite know what to do with it.  He was treating the small animal with unexpected gentleness, nudging it, as they were touching noses, and running alongside each other.  I was so happy that my dog was not trying to rip the squirrel into pieces before killing his nemesis, and I wondered what kind of cosmic dust was making him behave like this.  He had chased after that squirrel with an unpursued passion, but he had no intention or ambition to harm it, and it made me think that I had walked into a place where forgotten dreams take root.

My mind was spinning with thoughts of the clover trapping starlight, the lilies singing a song of the Sirens, the orchids dripping a potent nectar, and the vines growing around the trees weaving mystic shapes making this a special place.  My dog discovered this celestial reality-bending realm, a dreamworld where the fabric of the universe frayed enough to open a hole to another dimension, where anything was possible, and time felt like it was standing still.  A sudden gust of wind blew, as the squirrel leaped onto a tree, climbed up to a branch and looked down on us.  I clipped the leash back onto my dog’s collar and told him that I was glad he made a new friend and that we would come back soon to visit him again.  We walked back to my car together, knowing that the world had become a gentler place to live in, and that this adventure would remain our beautiful secret.

Written for Missy’s MAD Challenge #115, where she gave us the opening sentence.

Catching Up with the News

Jerry is on his way to work sitting on a subway train which is mostly empty, and he decided to look at his phone to see what is happening in the news today.  The major headline discussed President Donald Trump’s decision to pause bipartisan Russian sanctions, which triggered intense friction with Ukraine and sparking sharp blowback from lawmakers in Congress.  Over the weekend, the conflict escalated sharply as Ukraine launched a massive wave of more than 1,000 drones into Russian territory, striking a St. Petersburg oil terminal, a VK data center, and major transit bridges, which Russia countered with an overnight missile blitz on Kyiv that cut electricity to over half a million homes.  Jerry shook his head wondering how much longer this idiot was going to remain in charge of his country, as all he saw was military escalation and no diplomatic solution, and it looks like Iran is prepared for a long-term conflict where strikes will most likely ramp up after the November mid-term elections.  Nobody can make a mess out of things like Trump, as he is a master at dividing people and getting one group to hate another, and now we have Houthi rebels launching ballistic missiles, vessels being attacked in or near the Strait of Hormuz, while Vice President JD Vance is just making things worse because he has no clue about what the hell he is doing.

Several other major national and global stories caught Jerry’s attention, so he kept on scrolling in his newsfeed.  Mass protests in France resulted in widespread violent rioting and looting over education cuts and living costs have shaken the country this past weekend.  More than 2,400 people have been arrested, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called for local curfews to protect people and shops.  Protesters were hurt during clashes, and around 1,000 police officers were also injured.  While hundreds of thousands marched peacefully, masked and hooded fringe elements and ultra-left groups hijacked parts of the demonstrations, leading to widespread looting, damaged businesses, burned public buildings, and Jerry saw all of this as being senseless, wondering why people just can’t get along with each other.  Jerry continued reading about the National Guard member who was shot and wounded late Sunday night while attempting to break up a street fight in Washington, D.C.  Trump has almost 3,000 troops stationed on the streets of the capitol city because he thinks he needs to crack down on violent crime, homelessness, and restore public order, because he want to make himself look like he is being tough on crime.  The suspect was shot in the abdomen and taken to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries when Guard members returned fire.

The Canadian military is mourning four soldiers killed and 39 others hospitalized after a devastating grass fire swept through a live-fire exercise at a base in Wainwright, Alberta.  Jerry knew that wildfires are a regular and frequent occurrence in Canada, but 2026 is shaping up to be one the most destructive and active in modern Canadian history.  Jerry ran across a hopeful story next reading a Vatican update about Pope Leo announcing his plans to slowly resume official public duties following a successful surgery to remove a cancerous lung tumor.  Jerry smiled thinking that there was still some hope left in the world.  Jerry’s smile didn’t last long as his next newsfeed indicated that classes are canceled today in Bend, Oregon, as the tight-knit community remembers a teacher and three young children killed in last week’s tragic shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.  Jerry blurted out, “Another senseless school shooting that thoughts and prayers are not going to heal”, which made the woman sitting across from him say, “Oh yeah that is just terrible that so many innocent lives have been lost to guns, and nobody has an answer for it.”

The woman asked Jerry if that was his suitcase sitting on the seat just to the left of him.  Jerry looked over at it, and replied that it did not belong to him, and he suggested that they should try and find the conductor and report the abandoned suitcase to him.   The lady said she thought the unattended suitcase looked suspicious, and she always believed that if you see something you must say something, but her phone was dead, otherwise she would have called 911.  Jerry said he was getting off at the next stop and that he would call 911 to report it, but he hoped it was nothing, although living in this crazy world you never know.

Written for Sadje at Keep It Alive What Do You See #363.

Half of Us Are Dead

‘Land Ho!’ is a song by The Doors released on their 1970 fifth studio album Morrison Hotel and it was written by Jim Morrison and Robby Krieger.  This is a rollicking sea-shanty-style track from that uses the old sailor’s cry of sighting land as a metaphor for returning to earthly desires, roots, and home.  The word “ho” is used to draw attention to something spotted in the distance.  After spending weeks or months surrounded only by water, seeing solid ground meant the dangerous voyage was nearing its end.  Saying this phrase signaled a chance to get fresh water, food, and rest, and hearing it confirmed the ship was on the right path toward its destination.  Guitarist Robby Krieger knew that Jim Morrison’s father George Stephen Morrison was a Rear Admiral in the US Navy commanding the U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin during the pivotal August 1964 incident that escalated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and this may have inspired this sea-faring song.  ‘Land Ho’ was adapted from a poem written by Jim Morrison, featuring a whimsical, storytelling narrative style about an old whaler grandfather, but not his grandfather, as Jim Morrison’s grandfather Paul Raymund Morrison worked as a laundry manager and owner in Leesburg (just North of where I live) during the 1930s, though he had earlier worked in a brick manufacturing yard in Alabama.

The opening verse directly sets up the tale, “Grandma loved a sailor who sailed the frozen sea / Grandpa was that whaler and he took me on his knee.”  The grandfather laments that living on dry land is driving him crazy, prompting a desire to return to the sea.  The Grandpa’s yearning for the sea and foreign sands, establishes a contrast between a free life of adventure and the boredom of ordinary life.  The song paints a vivid, nostalgic portrait of a graceful old man with “silver in his smile” who smokes a briar pipe, walks four country miles, and sings songs of “shady sisters and old time liberty”.  The shout of “Land Ho!” in this song, marks the emotional or physical return from a long, dangerous voyage and finally back to safety, basic pleasures, and love.  The final verses pivot from high-seas adventure down to basic human cravings, such as getting a dollar bill, buying a bottle to drink, coming back home, and being with a lover.  During concert tours, Morrison frequently improvised and shouted out snippets of his poetry randomly before or during songs, and in the video that I included he is using the beginning of his poem “Awake” as a prelude to the song.  I made a last-minute switch on the video I intended to use, because YouTube said it was unavailable, so this is from the tribute band Lizard King.

Grandma loved a sailor who sailed the frozen sea
Grandpa was that whaler and he took me on his knee
He said, “Son, I’m going crazy from livin’ on the land
Got to find my shipmates and walk on foreign sands”

This old man was graceful with silver in his smile
He smoked a briar pipe, and he walked four country miles
Singing songs of shady sisters and old time liberty
Songs of love and songs of death and songs to set men free
Yeah!

I’ve got three ships and sixteen men
A course for ports unread
I’ll stand at mast, let north winds blow
‘Til half of us are dead
Land Ho!

Well, if I get my hands on a dollar bill
Gonna buy a bottle and drink my fill
If I get my hands on a number five
Gonna skin that little girl alive
If I get my hands on a number two
Come back home and marry you
Marry you, marry you, alright!

Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!
Well, if I get back home and I feel alright
You know, babe, I’m gon’ love you right
Love you right
Love you right
Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!
Eyyy, land Ho!

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is to find a song about fishing, a mariner, sailing, seafaring, or ships.