That Darn Eagle

 Hi there

I belong to a seniors' improv group.  It's strictly amongst ourselves, no public performances.  I don't think five minutes go by when, as a group, we don't burst into loud laughter.

Last week we were in pairs and told to take turns adding to a verbal off-the-cuff story.  And as each person adds a bit, the story has to grow increasingly outrageous.

We were given the subject of the story:  'A Guy Falls Down a Hole'.

My little duo had our guy - Robert - getting lost in a scary dark forest, with wolves howling, branches snapping, rain pouring, cougars prowling, and wind swirling.  Robert has only a broken torch with him and - goodness - he falls down a really deep hole.  He can't climb out because the sides of the hole are too smooth to get a grip..

An eagle flies down into the hole, attacks Robert.  Robert is frantically bashing the eagle with his torch.

Oh dear, Robert kills the eagle.

Robert rips off the bird's claws, and uses them as grips to climb the wall of the hole.  To freedom.

***

Thanks, Julie, for that brilliant ending.

.

"You could pass for sisters!"

 Hi there

I've never been able to understand why it's said so many times to adult mothers and their adult daughters:  "Wow, you could pass for sisters..."

While the mother is preening, isn't the daughter silently seething?  I know I would be.

Does the person who says the phrase never, for one moment, think how much the daughter is hurting?  For goodness sake, her mother is 50 whilst she, the daughter, is only 18.

The daughter thinks that surely she doesn't look 50?  Yikes, that's half a century!  I mean 50, to this young woman, is sooooo ancient.  She's mortified that anyone could think her being anywhere near that age.

She wants to run home to her bedroom and hide under the duvet for the rest of her life.

Mum, of course, is oblivious to all this inner torment.  It's been intimated she could pass for somewhere around her daughter's age. And that's enough for her...

Those AI stories on You Tube?

 Hi there

I've been reading/listening to a few (a lot?) of those silly little (some of them are not so little) revenge stories on You Tube.  They're usually about a poor sad young woman who has a 'golden child' sister.  The sister is spoilt rotten by everyone in the family.  Even after this spoilt sister has bled through her parents' money and naturally, her sister's money, this woman wants more.

There's usually a come-uppance for both the golden child and the parents.  The poor sad sister who by now is a millionaire - many times over = gets her revenge. 

I love to laugh over the words that come up on the screen to replicate the narration.  Here's just a few of the hilarious sentences that I discovered over a three-story listen -

.  The efficient (officiant?) spoke at the ceremony

.  Write (right?) this way sir.  Follow me

.  I'm not paying another scent (cent?)

.  You are not our pier (peer?)

.  She's a 128-year old (28-year old?) and she's made all that money?

.  I stopped so abruptly that no-one (Noah?) bumped into my side.

It's all AI-generated, of course.  And even though the story is told in english there's occasionally an out-of-context word in another language.  And the plotline aways has  mistakes;  it's why I continue diving into the stories.  For chuckles.  For instance, a character might throw her handbag out a window, but a second or so later, she's still sitting at the dining table and rifling through the bag (usually to flourish forth a letter of revelation about how her family have been dipping into her accounts for years).

How sad for real authors who spend such a long time writing a story that's full of emotion, action, realism and originality, to be confronted by these silly copy-cat, mistake-ridden, flat revenge stories?

And how awful that it's taken me so long to realise that I shouldn't be reading them, even if it has been just for fun.

In the future, AI will be able to edit their mistakes out, re-write with more intellect, and the stories will sound natural, plausible.  We will get used to it, and true authors will be no more ...

... unless, that is, the public stands up against the use of AI-generated material.