“So Many Things…” by Richard F. Yates

I can’t believe how quickly time is passing lately. It seems like it was just Halloween a few days ago, and here we are on the verge of Thanksgiving. (I’ve probably talked about this before, but I’m not a big fan of celebrating the Puritan invasion of lands that rightfully belonged to indigenous folks, but for ME and MY FAMILY, it’s one of the few days in the year that we all get together, enjoy each other’s company, share some food, and have a good time as a group. So even though the holiday may have originated in a horrible set of circumstances, we’ve tried to make it into something positive.) Slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future….

In the build-up to this next family-fun-day, we’ve ALSO been doing some STUFF! Like…

H.I.S.S.

This is my newest t-shirt design. I haven’t made a new t-shirt in a LOOOONG time, but I’m pretty happy with this one. Although the colors as presented in the image are black on white, I’m probably going to print most of the shirts on BLACK, and with my older daughter, Frankie’s, help---she has a Cricut---I’m going to pick out a variety of garish and eye-burning vinyl colors (neon orange, metallic red, holo-foil, or glow-in-the-dark novelty garbage) for the image---so anywhere that looks black in the artwork above will actually be some bright, stupidly garish color! (If you’re going to make shirts, make them wild!) Not sure when they’ll be ready, but I’ll let you folks know…

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Bean Boozled Bowling

Next up in the “DOING STUFF” event list, on Monday (the 25th), my younger daughter, Ellie, had her regular, Monday night bowling league. However, because she bowls with a bunch of REALLY GOOD bowlers, they have to do weird things to keep the whole thing competitive and entertaining, so what my daughter did was bring a box of Jelly Belly “Bean Boozled” jellybeans to league---(a box that had expired almost a YEAR ago...) These particular jellybeans are based, I believe, on the Harry Potter “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans” novelty items, such that for every color of bean, there is a “good” flavor possible, but there is also another flavor, which is the same color, but that is decidedly NOT good. Is that pink bean “Tooty Fuity” or “Dog Food”??? Is that black one “liquorish” or “black pepper”??? This particular box claimed such lovely flavors as “stinky socks,” “dead fish,” and “barf.” (The box also claimed that the beans were “artificially and naturally flavored,” and I don’t want to guess which beans had natural flavoring…)

Anyway, the way the league worked this time, given the presence of these jellybeans, is that whenever anyone on her team missed a spare and left an open frame, they had to eat one of the jellybeans. Maybe it would be a good flavor---or maybe something awful. Ellie, who REALLY doesn’t like eating gross flavors, DID NOT MISS A SINGLE SPARE ALL NIGHT! Three games, thirty frames, not a single open. Her scores for the three games were 205, 224, and 279. For people who don’t know bowling very well, a 279 means she had strikes in every frame of the game but one… Eight in a row, a nine-spare, and then three more strikes to end the game. (And, YES, she has bowled SEVERAL 300 games in her career; her first official 300 was in a tournament when she was only eighteen years old and still bowling in juniors!) The REST of Ellie’s team didn’t do as well as she did… Missing several spares each, the three guys on her team (she’s the only female) had to suffer through “dead fish” and “barf” and “booger” flavors, and I think that would be enough for me to quit the team. Those guys, however, thought it was all good fun, and after the league was over, the whole team sat there and ate the REST of the beans that hadn’t been given out during regulation play…and they’re looking at ordering another box for NEXT WEEK! (Jeeze…)

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Audio Collage Podcast Thing

(Raw image of our cat, Gitzy, before giving her the digital treatment…)

Some of you folks might have seen the little post from last night that indicated that I uploaded my first audio work to DSound. (If you didn’t see it, here’s a link.) I’ve been a podcaster for years and years, doing everything from weird, satirical religious programming to experimental noise works to just playing tunes, and I’ve always had a good time. THIS piece, which I’ve called “Primitive Sound System – Exhibit 001,” is a humorous audio collage made up of weird noises, a long ramble of a talk by me, a couple of weird interviews, and a poetry reading (although not THAT kind of poetry reading.) It’s noisy and strange and (I hope) fun but might be a bit psychedelic and freaky for some people’s tastes. I’m happy with it, though. I’m also working on a video collage version of the piece, keeping the same audio but putting a slide-show video underneath it, which I’ll probably upload to YoooTooob, just for something different (besides my Minecraft videos.) I doubt that anyone will watch it---but at least I tried!!! (Right? My job is to make these things, not to force people to interact with them. That’s up to them…and Fate…)

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Crypto-Art

And here is my most recent piece of tokenized crypto-art, which went up this morning on MakersPlace, a site run by a great bunch of folks who have collected some fantastic artists under their umbrella. Definitely worth checking out their site if you’re interested in futuristic stuff, like crypto-art, or just like cool, weird artwork! The digital assets on display at that site are all tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain and are certifiably rare---with smart contracts built into the tokenization that do weird, magical things! (I don’t get it, completely, but I’m enthusiastic!) My new piece is being released in a unique edition of ONE---first come, first served, and no reprints! If you want it, go to my MakersPlace store / gallery and grab it quickly (it’s cheap) before someone else beats you to it! Below the image is the story that I posted with the piece explaining (a little) what’s happening in the image!

“The Brain in the Robot Body”

Who knew? Putting a functioning brain in a machine body seemed like a good idea, at the time... But in hindsight, now that all of humanity has been made into pets (and not even cuddly pets, more like barnyard animals, stuck in pens and fed from slop-buckets), we can perhaps see that giving an immensely powerful exterior to a free-floating consciousness---well, maybe we should have thought about that for a bit before we actually tried it.

Too late! The cat is out of the bag... Or the brain is out of the body... And Robot Monsters now prowl the streets looking for "organics" to capture and contain. And you and me---the last of the "squishies"---we're on the run! We're hoping (and hopping) to find a secret tunnel to Canada, where robotic body swapping is illegal. Thank GOODNESS they built that electrified fence, which causes robotic circuitry to get all fuzzy. (Robot-types hate feeling fuzzy.)

If we can just make it to Canada before they CATCH US, we'll... Wait... What's that clicking and whirring coming from the other room??? Our ROOMBA! It's tattled on us! QUICK! OUT THE WINDOW! We'll grab our BMX bikes from the garage, and head down the alley. Maybe we can hide in the blackberry bushes just past the abandoned baseball park until nightfall, then we'll make our way north...

[CRASH! The door comes busting in...]

Jump!!!

If you’re interested in collecting this rare digital asset, check out my MakersPlace store / gallery. You’ll find this and dozens of other pieces of tokenized artwork on display. (Even if you’re not a collector, it’s worth looking at this stuff just for the laughs, in my opinion!)

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Another Bazaar for Goofy Gals Crafts

After having a pretty good time at the last bazaar that they attended, and actually SELLING several things, the Goofy Gals (my wife and two daughters) are heading to Castle Rock, Washington, this Sunday for another holiday bazaar! They’ve been hard at work (or hard at craft) making new objects with which they hope to thrill potential customers, (and I’ll probably go and take more pictures. I’m the official archivist for most of the family activities!) I’m not certain if the younger daughter, Ellie, is going this time, though---because she just bought a house and she’s trying to get it all ready to be moved into (painting and having appliances and furniture delivered) before her fiancé gets back to town for the Christmas holiday. (He’s currently in New York---all the way on the other side of the country---working on a Ph.D. in Physical Therapy!) So this adventure might just be two Goofy Gals, a grumpy old photographer, and a baby… (Sounds like a Steve Guttenberg movie…)

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And that’s about all we’ve been doing lately. Seems kinda slow, doesn’t it? I’ll have to get some hobbies or something to help keep myself occupied…

Later!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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