iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

don @donnorum.com · 17/09/2026

Vampire Weekend's "Unbelievers" hits hella different if you spent your childhood wearing out your parents' Walkman with their cassette collection of The Beach Boys' early greatest-hits.

000

don @donnorum.com · 11/09/2026

And its influence persists in a lot of legal contexts, too - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_d...

en.wikipedia.org

Legal doublet - Wikipedia

010

don @donnorum.com · 10/09/2026

A blue wind is now Knocking at the door to your heart, and yet You are merely gazing at me And smiling ... You're so intent on seeking it out That you can't even see your fate yet With such innocent eyes ... The sorrow then begins You held tight to the form of life When you woke up from that dream

010

don @donnorum.com · 10/09/2026

describe an anime poorly but accurately in six words: "duino elegies fanfiction... with giant robots" (reminding me of @maxgladstone.bsky.social)

The head and shoulders of Unit-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

040

don @donnorum.com · 08/09/2026

For those looking to move past "casual" profanity to the "competitive" or even "ranked professional" tiers... (@stevenorum.bsky.social) (Note that some 'power levels' are based on the UK meta and may need to be tweaked for the US or other leagues.) www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/r...

ofcom.org.uk

020

don @donnorum.com · 02/09/2026

"There is a debate within the fanfiction community as to whether or not Dante Alighieri's Inferno can be considered self-insert fanfiction of the Bible." 10/10, no notes, bravo wikipedia.

010

don @donnorum.com · 30/08/2026

'tis still the damn season for spicy snickersnoodles

An adult copperhead on the – as evidenced by the faint footprints visible – well-traveled trail on which I daily run.

010

don @donnorum.com · 29/08/2026

Some annoyingly sloppy misattribution on my Doggo-Page-a-Day calendar. It didn't seem out-of-character for a mountaineer, but the capital-J 'Joy' wasn't a stylistic bit I could ever recall seeing in Krakauer's stuff. The quote's actually from Christopher McCandless, reproduced in 'Into the Wild'.

The corner of a page-a-day calendar showing a quote - "You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships.... It is in everything and anything we might experience." - misattributed to Jon Krakauer

000

don @donnorum.com · 26/08/2026

finally getting around to uploading the clip @stevenorum.bsky.social pulled of @donoteat.bsky.social from @wtyppod.bsky.social turning into the god-damn joker live during taping, for your soundboarding delight. turned into a video because i guess bluesky doesn't support standalone audio?

000

don @donnorum.com · 24/08/2026

catching up on Taylor Swift's discography while all-day chorin' was *wild* — first cup of coffee listening to "i have a crush on the boy sitting next to me in homeroom", and by lunchtime the soundtrack's "call me daddy, i have a bigger dick than the devil, fuck the world, and i'mma kill your wife"

040

don @donnorum.com · 19/08/2026

fully understanding that a) a precon 4-pack, sleeves, and dice can still be cheaper than the sample nights out quoted in the article, and b) higher-priced pods / cubes are still one-time costs, it's still funny to see m:tg & EDH presented as the "frugal" alternative. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/n...

nytimes.com

‘I’ve Hit My Limit’: Some New Yorkers Opt for Fun at Home to Save Money

When wages are low and activities are pricey, the frugal find new ways of socializing.

010

don @donnorum.com · 19/08/2026

Emperor Uda (889 CE) would agree: "I wish to express my joy of the cat. ... I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long. ... In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. ... By nature, it likes to stalk birds. ... I am convinced it is superior to all other cats."

0130

don @donnorum.com · 18/08/2026

i'm reasonably certain that the on-page mournival, as high school girls, would be named as follows (w/ horus > phoebe): abaddon > mary aximand > mandy (obv.) torgaddon > lucy sejanus > barbie & loken > summer and no this isn't already covered in warhammer high ...it only has to make sense to me

000

don @donnorum.com · 18/08/2026

scryfall.com/card/und/16/...

A clam dressed like Alexander Hamilton holding a gun.

Alexande Clamilton {2}{U}

Legendary Creature — Clamfolk Advisor Rebel

Whenever you cast a wordy spell, scry 2. (A spell is wordy if it has four or more lines of rules text.)

{1}{R}, {T}: Choose target creature you don’t control. Reveal the top card of your library. Alexander Clamilton gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of lines of rules text of the revealed card. Alexander Clamilton fights that creature.
0/4

121

don @donnorum.com · 17/08/2026

my house is 100% NOT childproof i don't mean that i don't have covers on the outlets, locks on the cabinets, gates on the stairs, etc (tho' i don't) i mean that i have swords and knives and bayonets all over the place as in, tidying a bookcase and ~~SURPRISE!~~ i forgot i'd left a machete there

000

don @donnorum.com · 15/08/2026

BLUF: Commonplace books (going back to the origin of paper), and then the 19th century photographer George K. Warren looking to expand his business. Here's a good history, US-centric: web.archive.org/web/20220106... Globally, 2kya+? www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1...

031

don @donnorum.com · 11/08/2026

Ah, the preventive care visit, AKA the annual, ritual recitation of "I recognize that 'ultramarathoner' isn't a recognized diagnosis; but, from what you've said and looking over your file... it probably should be..."

010

don @donnorum.com · 09/08/2026

chat, should i be worried that an eight-year-old post about making jewelry out of torn-off human toenails (MY toenails, to be clear, and they were already on their way off) has seen a sudden spike* in traffic from Ciudad Juárez? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_...) *(one view, gt zero, still counts)

en.wikipedia.org

Ciudad Juárez - Wikipedia

020

don @donnorum.com · 08/08/2026

I think Steve Rogers's list was the same for the US and Canada, and tho' a citizen I haven't really lived there myself, but I'd recommend looking at @katebeaton.bsky.social's work for this (and, just, in general - it's pretty awesome). Lots of it is Nova Scotia specific, even!

110

don @donnorum.com · 04/08/2026

Sorry; I meant that my read of it was that they were referring to some memorialization &/ reckoning in the context of the Lee statue and larger American historical narratives, rather than the specific events of 2017. (Although the errors around Monticello may make that an overly generous reading.)

100

don @donnorum.com · 04/08/2026

My reading of that paragraph (unless it was changed) was that they were referring specifically to a memorial near where the Lee statue stood. 3/5 of the sentences before they "didn't see any marker" referred to the statue. (Especially given the reference to the city's plans for a sculpture.)

100

don @donnorum.com · 03/08/2026

i can't be the only one who hears this, right?

A frame from Futurama S01E12, "When Aliens Attack", showing Zapp Brannigan finishing his speech in front of Kif Kroker on a starship bridge. Instead of his original dialogue, he's quoting lyrics from Taylor Swift's "Mastermind": "And the touch of a hand lit the fuse of a chain reaction of countermoves to assess the equation of you. Checkmate, I couldn't lose."

000

don @donnorum.com · 02/08/2026

(overthinking! what other way of thinking is there?)

000

don @donnorum.com · 02/08/2026

also crazy to see Rai San'yō (頼山陽) showing up in Taylor Swift's "Vigilante Shit". "The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes." vs. "Draw the cat eye, sharp enough to kill a man" "They say looks can kill and I might try" (nb, i do not actually think this is the case; still can't help but hear)

100

don @donnorum.com · 30/07/2026

Glad I was able to be of some help!

010

don @donnorum.com · 28/07/2026

Was trying to decide if 'busses' was supposed to be read as passenger mass transit that can be powered by a variety of renewable energy sources and quickly and scalably deployed across existing automotive infrastructure networks, or as 'kisses'; but...

020

don @donnorum.com · 27/07/2026

I read about it more than a decade ago (and couldn't find a primary source just now), so it may not be as much of a factor anymore, but given how many engineering disasters stem from the replacement of one element of a design with something cheaper but "identical", I see where they're coming from.

110

don @donnorum.com · 27/07/2026

A specific aspect of that that I didn't see in the article is that nuclear power faces similar certification lock-in issues as airframes. E.g., if the control room was originally specced and certified using vacuum tubes, they can't replace those with ICs without re-certifying the whole setup.

131

don @donnorum.com · 26/07/2026

so, i'm used to stuff like this from MC Lars (studied Shakespeare at Oxford, pioneered lit-hop) and it's not unexpected from punk bands, like The Menzingers linechecking Nabokov's "Pale Fire", but damn — still a bit of a shock to hear a Henry James deep cut in Olivia Rodrigo's "all-american bitch"

100

don @donnorum.com · 22/07/2026

I happened to be in just the right place to read an early draft of this; it was good then and it's even better now, so if you might be interested —

120

don @donnorum.com · 22/07/2026

Env. Sci. — A crystal-clear pool of standing water in a long-abandoned location. Ethology — When all the cute li'l woodland critters come running past you close enough to touch. Chemistry — A *colorful* cloud of gas. (The severity &/ probability of "Bad"ness varies, but none are "Good".) 2/2

000

don @donnorum.com · 22/07/2026

Every natural science has phenomena that make the layperson go, "Huh, that's fun/cool/weird/etc."; and the initiate go, "Oh... oh nono, oh NO — RUN!" Examples: Physics — Fluorescent lightbulbs turning on by themselves. Mech. Eng. — A (diesel) engine running after you switch off the ignition. 1/2

110

don @donnorum.com · 20/07/2026

I have actually never heard of them before; a large number of their books have now been added to my to-be-ordered queue. Thanks! (Both sincerely and, on behalf of my outpaced bookcasing and the structural elements of my house, sarcastically.)

000

don @donnorum.com · 15/07/2026

every now and then the contributors' notes on genius toss out a true banger such as "Like many of his songs, this uptempo romp is actually about depression."

010

don @donnorum.com · 14/07/2026

haha! i remembered (er, read my notes which made it pretty clear) where the 'the room' joke came from. also realized earlier that bluesky only has one picture/preview pane per post, so i'll need to take that into account for the future. donnorum.com/2026/07/14/s...

donnorum.com

Stories That Don’t Belong [EP]

Track 1: Grow Up! Okay, so my “notes” for this consist of… one random deleted sentence and three (3) Nahuatl names and their incredibly tortured English sound-alikes. They do expl…

000

don @donnorum.com · 08/07/2026

woooooo canada day screwin' up my plans for posting so's there are now TWO posts this-week-slash-today woooooo www.dreamtheory.media/the-art-of-f... and in case it wasn't clear donnorum.com/2026/07/08/i...

A screenshot from "Parks and Recreation", S03E07 - "Harvest Festival", showing Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) standing in front of a map of Pawnee in City Hall. The map shows Pawnee in blue, with a dozen white dots, and is titled "City of Pawnee History of Wamapoke Incidents". The original caption was "This is a map of all the atrocities that the Pawnee settlers inflicted upon the Wamapoke Indians... The atrocities are in blue."

It has been remixed to read "This is a graphical representation of all the allusions in the story ... the allusions are in blue."

010

don @donnorum.com · 08/07/2026

(95% sure that i may've accidentally / cryptomnesically lifted the title from someone else's vp '24 thursday piece, but i couldn't figure out exactly whose. this is... very different from theirs, but, regardless — mea culpa.) (5% chance of multiple discovery. 'cause... axolotls, neoteny, you know.)

010

don @donnorum.com · 08/07/2026

forgot about the 'the room' joke until pulling the link. remembered the awful pun on a britney spears lyric, tho. (could've spun up some python to manually facet this into a slightly less spoiler-y link, but c'mon. bsky.app should really handle that natively.) www.pulpasylum.com/grow-up-by-d...

442

don @donnorum.com · 01/07/2026

listening to a lotta gordon lightfoot today because but of course and so has got me wondering whether or not @joe-hill.bsky.social watched the 1946 Abbott & Costello flick "The Time of Their Lives" at some point before Locke & Key? (collections're boxed up rn, so can't check introductions/endnotes)

010

don @donnorum.com · 14/06/2026

("dude equivalent" 'cause neither 'agnate' nor 'spear-side'/'staff-side' is anywhere near as comprehensible as 'distaff', and since the pockets thing came first it doesn't really do to flip the construction around 'distaff')

010

don @donnorum.com · 14/06/2026

"thanks it has thumb holes" is i guess the dude equivalent of "thanks it has pockets"

110

don @donnorum.com · 14/06/2026

i just realized that from a certain point of view i appear to be constructing a room-sized lament configuration. although considering that my copy of tcathr is octavo/medium octavo and may end up housed within — maybe? (you know just without all the happy-go-luckiness it had in the hellbound heart)

An upwards-angled view of the corner of a rectilinear structure made of aluminum extrusions and stained wood panels, midway through assembly.

000