Dave's Fiction Warehouse

In which I bloviate about books, TV, movies, politics and other stuff -- all without the aid of ChatGPT!

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It’s a chatbot world

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I‘ve been messing around with ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that promises to take any writing project and remove the need for human involvement. As a blogger, I’m excited about this technology. Once I’m finally freed from this clacking keyboard, I’ll have lots more time to stare moodily into the middle distance. Or perhaps take […]

To post or not to post

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Today I read a piece pining for the return of personal blogging. You remember blogs, right? They were kind of like this: A smattering of uninformed opinions, desultory philippics (get out your dictionaries!) and occasional attempts at humor. People would also post recipes.  In the early aughts, everybody had a blog. Most tried to […]

We don’t need no stinking followers

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Should we care that Elon Musk is about to acquire Twitter? Not really. Remember that Twitter, like Matt Gaetz and Marge Greene, is just a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for evil or good. Well, mostly evil in the case of Matt-n-Marge, but you see what I mean. I’m not going […]

This could be
the last time

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You always know when you’re experiencing something for the first time. But you can never be sure when it’s the last. After a certain age, most things take on an elegiac cast. Only later can you look back and recognize a final moment for what it was. And you always wish you’d paid more […]

February fugue

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In Barry Levinson’s 1990 movie “Avalon,” there’s a scene where the aging patriarch sits down in his easy chair in front of the TV. The camera remains stationary, but there’s a slow cross-fade, and at the end of it we see that several years have passed. The old guy is in the same chair, […]

None the wiser

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Hard times need good songs. The Great War had “Over There.” The Great Depression had “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” World War II had “We’ll Meet Again.” And now, with Covid-19 roaring back, it feels like we need an anthem too. I nominate “Wise Up,” by Aimee Mann. The song came back to […]

Two steps back

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For us, the pandemic started March 13. We went out for pizza. No masks then, but no hugs or handshakes either. Seated well apart. Talking about the coronavirus, I opined that we might get together again in a month or so, when things eased up. I thought we’d have a clearer picture on how […]