When Zhu Zhu Pets came out in the beginning of the 2010s they were the hottest toy around. These little stuffed creatures were modeled on hamsters and came with wheels, so they could zip up and down trackways and do all the things Hot Wheels cars could. In addition, they made cute noises when they …
Some of the first human beings ever to leave Africa colonized southeast Asian tens of thousands of years ago, using continental land bridges for transit as the sea was much lower. Since the end of the Ice Age, the islands were isolated; but the beginning of recorded history brought more visitors, among them Indians and …
I used to be disgusted Now I try to be amused But since their wings have got rusted You know the angels wanna wear my red shoes — Elvis Costello, (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes Red is the most dominant and eye-catching color in the spectrum. To even say its name is to …
Because ChatGPT did such a good job of generating Hawaii-themed cocktails (granted, edited by me to make them more unique and coherent) I decided to see what it could do with hamburgers. Gourmet burgers in fact, themed after science fiction and fantasy books. In this I was inspired by a Seattle coffeeshop where I and …
You could just as well call these the Upper Midwest states, but I think Great Lakes states is more picturesque, as they do border lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. And for a unifying theme I could have gone with ice fishing and mighty forests and Paul Bunyon, or, conversely, big city blue-collar life …
For a change let’s look at dog names rather than people names. Humans love their dogs, and it helps in training if the dog has a name that’s short and easy to say. Tucker, these days, is a popular name, as is Raven, Zelda, and Zeus. Some names don’t mean anything but they sound cute, …
What would you name your Romantasy novel if you wrote one? One of these titles maybe. Romantasy Novels These Gentle Ecstasies A Blindness so Blessed That Lunar Divination Enslavements so Unholy That Dauntless Advantage Attractions so Unwanted A Softness of Vertigo Fragile Scirrocos To Capture Invisibility Shadows so Brittle The Lights of Valiance To …
Authentic-sounding (NOT actually authentic, I want to make clear if you’re writing fact-based historical fiction) Greek names for men are just as easy to generate as those for women. And to accompany them, here’s a painting of the most manly man in Greek myth of all — Heracles! He’s pictured in his struggle against a …
Since it’s Valentine’s day, I thought I’d do a list of spells and magical items related to love, or its lack. Caution, a few of these are NSFW! The fellow above is from Starry AI’s “pinup” art filter. The prompt was a variation of “bearded wizard with arms raised, a cloud of valentine candy hearts, …
I covered Greek female names before on this site, in this post about female centaurs. For that I drew on actual, lesser-known names from the myths of Ancient Greece. But since I had researched so much for that, how difficult would be to generate some in a completely random way? So, you need a Greek …