Little shop of more

 

My Dizgraceland Collectibles eBay store actually does pretty good business despite my lack of promoting it. My Dizgraceland Dizigns t-shirt business does absolutely no business despite almost daily promotions. Go figure.

I suppose I could sell my t-shirts on eBay if I could figure out how to do that through Printify. I know it is possible, but not without many steps and complicated instructions from ChatGPT trying to talk me through the process (though I don't think it quite understands it either). 

The idea for an ad for Little Shop of More just came to me this morning and I asked for ChatGPT's help. I didn't think it would create anything because it seems a bit close to Little Shop of Horrors. But the first version it gave me was a lot like Little Shop of Horrors.

Now granted, I liked it, but I don't need any grief from the Little Shop of Horrors franchise. I'm still Intellectual Property gun shy from my nasty experience with the legal teams at Teepublic and Redbubble (may they all find themselves in a big shop of horrors). So I asked ChatGPT to redo the ad with my head on the hungry plant. 

Will this ad lead to increase sales at my eBay store? I seriously doubt it. Most people got to eBay looking for specific things so my markets tend to be people who specialize in rather niche collections.  But I do think my store is fun to browse as well . So who knows?

Feed me eBay!

The skills of my trade

 

It is National Skilled Trades Day. I have mixed feelings about "skilled trades." The definition is a job that requires specialized, hands-on skills learned through focused training rather than a four-year college degree. And thus the great divide. Because as you meander through college studying random things and then reverse engineering your skills after you graduate to try and apply them to jobs people are hiring for, it get complicated. Whereas if you learn a trade like being a plumber, electrician or woodworker, you pretty much know what you are supposed to do.

I always admired people who had hard skills.  I would take my car to the automotive shop and listen to them point, twist things and pull on wires under the hood while I stood by like a baboon looking at a orange inside a mason jar with no idea how to get it out.  But I would nod knowingly because I had four-year college degree that only took me six years to get and the only skills I had to show was how to use the inverted pyramid to write a story. And I had a natural talent for writing headlines. 

Early in my college career my girlfriend's father tried to teach me how to repair vacuum cleaners. He owned a vacuum cleaner sale and repair shop and he wanted me to have a real skill if I was serious about his daughter. As I stripped down Hoover upright vacuums and pulled out worn motor brushes I realized I had neither the inclination nor the aptitude to work with my hands. I picture myself at 50 or 60 repairing vacuum cleaners and my interest in skilled trades and my interest in a long-term life with that particular girlfriend waned dramatically. 

But I still admire people who can fix things. Though my experience with remodelling our house a couple of years ago taught me that skilled trades are also full of not so skilled people who went into a trade because their parents kicked them out of the house and wouldn't let them play video games in the basement anymore. Most the of the plumbers, electricians and tile people who worked on our house seemed as baffled as I was by working with their hands.

So I have come to terms with the skills I do have. How else would I write a blog for more than 20 years and hawk t-shirts with bad puns on the Internet.  Now that is a skilled trade. Or at least a skilled trade-off.

Blame it on Reno

 

I haven't been to Reno in years.  I used to go there quite often. In fact it was the first place I gambled when I turned 21.  Honestly, to a 21 year old from Boise, Reno seemed like the height of sophistication.  It wasn't until I went to Las Vegas for the first time that I realized Reno was blue collar and Vegas was...well Vegas. 

When I started going to Reno it still had lots of the old casinos like the Nevada Club, Harold's, Harrah's and the Sands. Most of the old casinos are long gone. But I still like the old casinos. I never really did much but play slots. Table games stressed me out. I played a bit of Black Jack when I first went there, but I just never like the stress of knowing when to hit or stay. And casino dealers don't have a lot of patience for people who don't move quickly. 

So I sat at the slots with the blue heads and plunked coins in until a cocktail waitress gave me a free watered down drink and rolled her eyes when I didn't tip. 

At one point a college friend of mine moved to Reno and worked in a casino as a slot host so I went to visit at least once a year. He had been the photographer on my college newspaper and was one of the people who taught me how to develop film and print photos. On a couple of trips we drove around taking photos in a series we were going to call the art and architecture of Reno.  It was a joke because at the time Reno was basically a white trash mecca. 

I am a bit embarassed by the photos now because I was going through a pony tail phase. 

This last photo show this great old dive bar called the Zanzibar. I took tons of photos of it. It has long since closed and eventually burnt down.  But I imortalized it with a colorized version of a black and white photo I took when it was still hopping (by Reno standards). I turned it into a mock travel poster playing off it being in the deepest, darkest Reno.

Today I added some of my Reno stuff to my t-shirt shop.

If none of them sell, well, I can blame it on Reno.

I fought the lawn...

 

It is Law Day according to the National Day Day people. I find it ironic to celebrate the law during a time when the Orange Menace and the toadies he appointed to the Supreme Court crap on the law on an almost daily basis.  And thugs in masks ignore laws on a daily basis and haul people away (in addition to killing more than a few). 

But we must have lawn and order...er law and order.   Though the protect and fertilize part seems appropriate. 

It is also National Space Day.  I celebrated it by trying to sell a t-shirt commemorating the French space cat Felicette. I believe she was sent into space by the French in the early 1960s. They thanked her for her service by dissecting her brain when she returned to earth. 

There's got to be a lesson in there somewhere.

Though I don't think Felicette had much choice in becoming a space cat.  One minute she was eating fish in Paris and the next things she knew she was stuck in a rocket and fired into space and then killed and dissected when she landed.  All in the name of progress.  

I think I know how she feels.