There's my company around the house for the last week. Hasn't left my side, because I too could vanish any moment. This is a strategic point, since he can surveil the house and see the approach of the mailman. I know he thinks he drives the mailman away, but he does not know that the mailman accomplishes his mission, every day.

When he shows up, that is.

Today I had two pieces of noun to verb, which is to say to pieces of mail to mail. I missed the office cut-off. There wasn't any outgoing mail anyway. I figured I'd pop it in the mailbox by the postoffice at home, but I saw a box on the street. Not one of those storage boxes, but a real mailbox.

The mail had to go out today. Did I trust the box?

For the first time in my life, I did not. There was a day when the idea that the box would be emptied every day, if not twice, but now? It's probably picked up. But that's part of the old set of assumptions, and we're shedding those one by one, aren't we? It seems unwise not to.

Newspaper didn't show up today. No reason. Just didn't.

Well, let's see what the overflow detritus folder has this week.

Bumpersticker seen on the way to work:

Mmmkay. Don't know about that last part. You're saying there was a cosmic revolution, and it was taken away, and needs to be reclaimed. Do we have a ticket we can turn in at the desk? Is it in a locker?

Anything else on this car?

		It can be purchased at this page, which has other works for brave freethinkers who are resisting all the isms, and want this expressed in the worst freeware typefaces possible.

I was looking on Amazon for a tripod / selfie stick for reasons you'll see in a few weeks. Usual crap. Loved this:

Matchless answer for vigorous! Damned thing's really light, too - since the tripod base is above his knees, he's holding the whole thing up with his fingertips. EUCOS has Solved the Problems of Bulky Volume, but they didn't stop there: fracture has been banished!

All the cheap Chinese junk-sites have this off-kilter English, and I wonder if people who do not dwell overmuch on the nuances of the language hear the wrong notes.

Any competitors?

I can imagine the room where this was created. Small, brightly lit, thick with cigarette smoke, bored young man scrolling through stock footage sites, wiping the watermark with a few keystrokes.

"Always record your best self." Yes, that is our obligation.

Also, "small size" my newly reduced patoot; this thing is like a lightsaber.

As far as I can tell, this is one single product sold ten different ways with ten different brands and prices.

Some webshite linkchum:

		Nothing happens If I had to bet I'd say you're supposed to put it on your feet. DO THIS TONIGHT
		So 20% do? According to Urologists? Try Tonight Try it tonight! Works in an instant. Just drink vinegar. Blue steel! Cat can't scratch it!
		It's one of those "31 life hack" sites. I clicked to #40. Never got to the Car Keys Hack. No one ever does. Why would you do this? Because you're ALONE and might be KILLED ! Also, it keeps thieves from stealing your code. Except it doesn't. SOGOODLY. There's a brand mothers trust.
		BRACE YOURSELF. So. Do you wake and brace? You'd have to write a note, leave it on the end table. There are other ads for websites that let you enter any name and press search and you're supposed to BRACE YOURSELF for the results. It would be wise to do all of these things at the same time, so you're not bracing and unbracing.

Minor stuff. But now we get to the worst.

		Oh no he's dead

There's lying webshites, and then there's lying webshites. It's actually pretending to be NBC. They use the "Peacock" logo. The name of the site is a reference to Pennywise the Clown, from "It."

Oh, and check out the author.

"Pharmaceutical industry titans were furious saying they will be taking legal actions against him for undercutting their prices." Uh huh.

Every link goes to the site where they sell the crap.

I can understand how some sites that need the money opt into these ad networks, and just go blind to what shows up on their pages. But this is fraudulent. But no one cares, because this skeezy-grifty fungal junk is regarded as the price of being on the internet.

And now, the weekly dream-journal entry, illustrated by AI, because that's what this week is all about.

I was invited to watch George Plimpton box Mike Tyson. It was a silly, dilettantish thing to do, but everyone pretended to take it seriously on account of George Plimpton. He boxed ineffectually, mostly landing little blows on Tyson’s midsection. Tyson did not retaliate; we all awaited with some eagerness the one blow that would put an end to it.

This didn’t happen, so I walked to the drugstore to get something. There was a lady in front of me who took up too much time, had too many demands, couldn’t get things into her purse, etc.

I helped her set things right, but at the cost of my place in line, and when I looked back the line was long and unruly. Whereupon I took the cashier aside and asked if I might not go to the head of the line, given my chivalry. I was very gallant and expected that I made quite an impression, but she said no.

The next day I went back to the drug store; I passed a cowboy who may have been at the Tyson fight, or may have been someone I had fought; we expressed amazement that the event hadn’t been in the paper yet. I had my white mouse with me. Back at the drugstore the mouse went down my leg and headed down an aisle, and I deftly sidestepped him in front of the same cashier, thinking I must really strike her as an interesting person now.

I lost the mouse in the back of the store through my own stupidity - expecting a mouse to follow you like a dog is wrong. But the mouse did show up again; I was happy, but had to ask myself how I knew it was the same one.

More iterations of "white mouse in a drugstore" maybe found here, in the Rejected AI Art section. In other news, there's now a Rejected AI Art section.

I haven't forgotten the Firehouse project. It's taking up three-quarters of the block.

The old firehouse was demolished last summer, if you remember. Behold a view that has never existed before, and will be gone in a fe months.

A few blocks away, the Stadium apartment project, which we've watched from the time they dug the pit:

That's my old neighborhood. That's where I worked and parked and walked. Not a thing remains.

I don't know if this is an early one in the new collaboration, or whether they saved this idea for the days when nothing else was coming to them.

Some guys are desperate to spill. Solution is here.

This year's old newspaper feature: a social no-no single-panel illustration. Can you figure out what's wrong?

The answer will be provided on Monday. PROMISE. That gives you an entire day to speculate in the comments!

		Now two ways to chip in!

That will do! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you on Monday.