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The minutes seem like hours...

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Had this idea about how cramped and uncomfortable it would be to be squeezed into a little Ford coupe with the members of ZZ Top.

Even if you're Frank Beard sitting in the backseat with three hot ladies, it's going to get old after awhile.

I should have known that I was going to get either Duck Dynasty characters or some Orthodox Jews. Lucky we got Frank Beard in there in the first place.

At some point, I think Seth Rogan started to appear.

At any rate, this is all a flawed concept to begin with. The members of ZZ Top didn't ride in the car. They just did this 540º thing with their arms and hyperspaced everywhere. THE HOT LADIES rode in the car, and unless I've missed a chapter about self-driving 1933 Ford Coupes, one of them was behind the wheel shifting gears.

So there was no cramming, though even three people in one of those things must've seemed like a crowd.

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The one above is the winner. I think it's the bouncy little chairs that seal the deal.

But don't get me wrong, you can smell this room too:

It's just a little too empty. I suggested a happy couple doing some tire shopping and got this in a matter of moments:

And now we can finally play that AI game again of "What Is In That Basket?"

This one had a little too much golden hour to have ever been considered a contender. Those are some giant rims on the wall though.

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Starting to think that this may be my most boring streak ever, but hey, when you come up with something, you gotta commit to it. Even when it's shitty AI.

The Joy of Air Conditioning continues with a stop at a state line Welcome Center. Yes, you got me. I did prompt for a "wooden Native American effigy," but it was the AI Ouija board that went apeshit with it.

First three could be from Oklahoma or Nebraska. Based on the font alone though, I'm guessing this last one is Manitoba or Saskatchewan.

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With some AI prompts, what you put in the beginning has a much bigger effect on the image you generate than some of the details you may add in the end.

Case in point, the prompt for the image above was the following:

"The inside of a golf club house and shop. Shelves of snacks and golf balls and tees and golf gloves. Golf shirts hanging by the window. Clubs and putters for sale on the green carpeted floor. Old guy watching the shoppers. Outside the windows are views of the verdant green golf course and the beautiful blue sky. Professional photography, sharp focus, 64 megapixels, perfect composition, high contrast, cinematic, atmospheric.

In other words, it saw "golf club," "shelves" and "snacks" long before it recognized anything else. Feel like this pro shop may have even more snacks than yesterday's tackle shop.

Took out "snacks" for this one, and ok, yes, I suppose golf balls are more appropriate, but Good God man.

This one's all right. Those are some big caps though. Maybe they match the players' handicaps.

Handi-caps... Oh, AI on its best day couldn't come up with that one.

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Always easy to tell if something's AI or not. In this one, you've got the sign above the door that makes no sense.

But it nailed some of the other features you'd find in a floating boat dock bait shop and convenience store. Like the area behind that one shelf of snacks being used for storage. That one was almost a little too dead-on.

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So, uh, welcome to my running gag.

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In the wrong hands, this could become a running gag.

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Awhile back, I had the idea of this guy working at his desk with a poster of Rita Hayworth hanging on the wall, his oblivious boss watching over him. (Alluding to a 31-year-old movie spoiler, IYKYK.)

Here's one where the guy works in some lady's home office.

I got mad about this one because I re-prompted for an "evolved" version in which the woman's eyes would become uncrossed.

And it gave me this:

Ok, I said. Forget the office. How about some toxic male who's punched a hole into his apartment wall and is now covering that up with a Rita Hayworth poster. (Um, spoiler alert.)

What the hell, man. This guy's been punching something, but it ain't been a wall.

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"Turn Your Love Around" by George Benson plays from a shitty P.A. speaker in the background.

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Prompt went along the lines of "young woman wearing Kmart clothes shops the plastic pools aisle."

My favorite part was trying to decipher what's in the cart.

I removed the "wearing Kmart clothes" part and it also took away her shopping cart. Didn't know that using a buggy was an socioeconomic status thing.

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SO there's the joke, the whole point of all the prompted images you're about to see. The guy's sad at work and what's he daydreaming about? Being HAPPY at work.

Even the papers are daydreaming, but I digress. I'll also digress about him sitting at his desk backwards, with the drawers facing the front.

But to get to that point? MY WORD.

These two are cut from the same cloth. Hell, in the first one with his head in his hands, you might could be forgiven to not catch that we're looking at the same guy at both the desk and the thought balloon.

Second image is of a grouch thinking about getting faced later.

Then there's this fella. Is he dreaming about himself in the future? His dad? Kinda happened with Mr. Head-In-Hands, but why did it give me a cartoon dude thinking about a real-life guy?

Finally, a dude daydreaming about himself daydreaming. He isn't even trying to look busy.

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No, I'm not familiar with the reference.

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It is accepted canon that on his Night Journey into heaven, the 🌙 prophet met Moses who encouraged the prophet to return to Allah and re-negotiate the number of required daily prayers to be said by his followers.

NINE TIMES the prophet went back and forth between Moses and the Supreme Being until getting the daily prayer number whittled down from 50 to five.

Whether Moses got a commission, I do not know.

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Some more dangers of AI: You should see the ones from this prompt that I'm not posting.

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The Paramount Network presents "The Story of John Beige"

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No, seriously. What exactly would they do now if I wore taps to the airport?

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The diner's closed up for the night. The tired waitress is cleaning up, looking forward to going home. This man taps three times on the window from the parking lot as he walks toward the locked front door. The waitress recognizes him — maybe the manager, maybe a regular — and opens the door after turning a whole damn ring of keys stuck in the lock.

"Listen, I know you're trying to get out of here. Can I just use your phone real quick."

"Payphone right over there," she says, looking across the parking lot.

"Yeah," he says. "But I need to make this call from an inside phone though."

She opens the door wider and he walks past. "Only be a minute."

She shuts her eyes, knowing her night could get longer from this moment. She closes the door and locks it again.

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I still take a jaded eye toward AI. Go "chat" with any retailer's pop-up window or check out your ex-manager's LinkedIn avatar to see what I mean.

But to use it as a seed, a kick-off, an inspiration to something bigger and definitely more organic? No worse than writing a song from the names on a circus poster or any other forced serendipity.