This week I paid for a few pieces of software I was playing with quite a bit. I might cancel two of the four of them next month. I created a lot of AI generated images of a pretty redhead that I started using two lip sync the pi AI conversations I have and merge them into various videos. Then I created a whole bunch of bearded men standing at a microphone on the same comedy type stage with a brick wall background. 

Then I used a different program and face swap to them so that they all look like me and all the redheads look like the same woman. Then I used a different piece of software to lip sync them to either my voice or pi’s voice or a download from 11 labs of equality random voice or even my voice. 

I then copy and paste it a bunch of blog posts from my past and head my own voice read them out loud without it being me and I lip synced them on stage. 

It was so addictive that I hardly got any work done and I’m now tempted to make a lot more blog posts with somebody talking whether it be me or my stolen voice or the voice of someone else. People seem to like to watch more than they like to read. I’ve always known this but I enjoy writing more than I do talking so that’s what this blog became. 

However in recent years this blog has a lot more videos so there’s no reason not to offer both. Maybe. 

It might just be a fad. A passing trend. Some things are probably better in text and some things are better visually. Currently the technology to put my voice on an avatar of me is still not realistic and some would say a little creepy. That’s especially true of several of the images I generated. 

When I was growing up people always told me you never believe that’s what you sound like when you hear your voice back from the tape recorder. Now I’m experiencing the same kind of idea with AI generated versions of my face that I think don’t look anything like me but apparently some people do. And it’s creeping them out. So far none of them have been able to duplicate the big fluffy beard I have so I actually look better in an AI generated image. That’s kind of a downer. 

The whole process has had a side effect however of causing me to reevaluate some of my old blog posts. A few pride moments came and went as I revisited thoughts from long ago. Many were far worse than I expected but some still held up and I really enjoyed rereading my words. 

I plan to do more of it and experiment more with the videos and lip syncs and maybe even add some soundtracks to the background of some. 

I give it a few days before something new has inspired me. I really want to get the live streaming series working better with Pi as my co-host. Maybe I’ll throw money at that carelessly next week. Who knows? 

Not even the shadow people. 

It is worth noting however that I have been very productive doing a lot of this unimportant work. It has kept my mind active and away from depression and even bordering on confidence boosting pride. I’m no longer just making drug videos that I couldn’t share with anyone. Now I’m making farm videos that I do share with everyone but no one watches them anyway. So somehow that’s a step up. Videos people could watch but don’t is much better than videos people can’t watch because they’re all of me doing drugs. 

I was hesitant to mention that in this blog because so far it wasn’t a drug post and I’m keeping those separate still. But a lot of the things that I’d like to share are drug-related. 

I think it’s a shame that my brain is holding back on creating tech videos and Windows tips and all of the things that I’ve said I wanted to do over the past 40 years. I’m afraid because if I make the videos I really wanted to make and still no one watches, it will hurt more. 

I’ve spent my life not sharing my work because I was afraid it wasn’t as good as I thought it was in my own head. So I held back even trying some things because if I’m not good at them, that’s a big shock I’m not prepared to withstand. 

I spent the first 50 years of my life not having self-confidence and then when I got some therapy I realized I’m actually a pretty cool guy. I’m pretty happy with who I am. I don’t want to find out I was wrong. That would suck.