iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 29/09/2026

I tucked my EOL instructions in a copy of this to make it easy for my friends to remember and find

a hardcover leather bound copy of a book called "YOU DIED"

(it's about the computer game Dark Souls. when you die in the game, it says "YOU DIED". and you die a lot in the game.)

031

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 22/09/2026

Whoever stole this data: please call me. I have Excel and I know Pivot Tables.

A screencap from Excel 2015 showing the header of a table. Column A's header says "FBI Agent Name" and column B's header says "Species of Animal Fucked". The first entry in column A is "Kash Patel" and the first entry in column B is artfully pixelated. The headers have small inverted triangles on the right side indicating collapsed drop-down menus for ease of sorting.

030

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 20/09/2026

If we go with "computer games": the first image. From the minute I realized stories could be interactive, I was hooked. If we define "video games" as requiring graphics: the second image. Dramatic music, cinematic cutscenes... I fell in love. @jmechner.bsky.social you have much to answer for 😂

The opening "scene" from Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, released on many systems but this is the C64 version.

Image is mostly white text on a gray background. At the top there is a static header in black that shows the location and score: "West of House [...] Score: 0/0". Beneath that, text reads:
"ZORK I: The Great Underground Empire
Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983 Infocom,
Inc. All rights reserved.
ZORK is a registered trademark of
Infocom, Inc.
Revision 88 / Serial number 840726

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here."
Below this, there is a prompt ">" and a blinking black cursor awaiting input.

Karateka, by Jordan Mechner, originally released by Broderbund Software for the Apple II in 1984 and ported to the C64 (among many other platforms) in 1985. More than half the screen is taken up by a pale grayish-blue sky and a Fuji-like peak in the distance. In the foreground, in front of a black wall, two figures clad in white gi with black belts face each other. The figure on the left (the player character) is kicking toward the other at torso height, while the right figure stands back in a guard position. At the bottom of the screen, a series of red triangles on the left and blue triangles on the right represent the health / life bar of each combatant.

0121

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 10/09/2026

Those who forget Heartbeeps (1981), starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters, are doomed to repeat it

A promo poster for the 1981 sci-fi comedy Heartbeeps, starring Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as two weirdly shiny and plastic looking robots who fall in love and go on the run.

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 09/09/2026

I absolutely agree that AI could kill all humans, in the same sense and for the same reasons that we'd all be doomed if somebody put a Bonzi Buddy virtual assistant in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

Bonzi Buddy, a 2000s-era "virtual assistant". He's a purple cartoon gorilla holding a half-peeled banana in one hand and spinning a globe with a butterfly on top in his other hand. He is surrounded by text describing all the amazing things he can do: "I Talk! I E-Mail! I Browse! I Laugh! I Tell Facts! I Schedule! I Download! I Sing! I Search!"

Now that I think of it, there's a pretty significant overlap in use cases between LLMs and Bonzi Buddy. Why didn't Bonzi Buddy get trillion-dollar valuations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 04/09/2026

Interesting. Growing up around Chicago/NWI, people told me I didn't sound like I was from there, but spending 15 years on the West Coast I guess was enough for me to start sounding like I was from *there*. Or maybe I always sounded like I was from the West Coast? mydialect.us/quiz-standar...

a heat map of the United States, looks sort of like a weather map with isobar lines ranging from red to yellow to greenish to light blue to dark blue. this map shows the darkest red ("most like you") for the west coast, including Washington, Oregon, and most of California and Nevada. A band of yellow with a big upward blip to North Dakota crosses diagonally from west Texas up to Ohio. The bluest area ("least like you") is centered around New Orleans. Chicago, where I'm from originally and where I live now, is barely on the orange side of yellow.

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 03/09/2026

I don't have a very-important-drawer (though that sounds awesome!) but I do have a very important (and slightly ridiculous) penguin, which I think I found at a yard sale somewhere, and when my keys are not in my bag, they sit on his tray. Haven't lost my keys since. Such a good penguin🐧

A metal statue of a penguin, maybe brass? heavily weathered something at least, fairly heavy for the size. He stands on a square metal base and in front of him he solemnly holds a tray for small objects. It's about the right size for a tea candle and that might have been the intended use, but for me it's become a place to put my keys. He stands on a wooden shelf in front of a few random books and such.

0272

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 17/08/2026

it got super dramatic up here for a minute

A west-facing view from Old Town showing a big poofy pile of clouds on one side, and under then it’s already evening, and in the other side some scattered cumulus clouds dramatically uplit in pinks ands oranges ands blues from the setting sun (itself sadly hidden behind a building)

010

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 06/08/2026

Max Miller (left) has much to answer for

a screencap from the movie Con Air (1997), in which Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich) holds up a stuffed bunny and points a gun at it

for his cruelty, Cyrus the Virus is eventually impaled, beaten up, smashed through a freeway flyover, dropped into high-voltage electrical wires, and finally had his head smashed by a pulverizing machine in a construction site

it would be ridiculous to wish for all of those things to happen to Max Miller, when any single one or possibly two of them would probably be sufficient

010

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 02/08/2026

taking pictures of taking pictures 🙄

A brief passage from White Noise, by Don DeLillo.

“We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.

"No one sees the barn," he said finally.

A long silence followed.

"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."

He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.

We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."

There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.

"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."

Another silence ensued.

"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.”
― Don DeLillo, White Noise

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 16/07/2026

yeah it’s a thing on the site (I don’t pirate it exactly, but it’s free and I block their ads)

screen cap from the wordle page in Safari iOS. It reads:

Sea of Greens
x104
You earned this badge 104 times by successfully completing a Wordle puzzle while only getting green and gray letters (or orange and gray letters if playing in high contrast mode).

120

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 08/07/2026

Greenfield papyrus guy: ok so next, tell me about this... Medjed Book of the Dead guy: OH! THE SMITER BotD guy: he shoots lasers out of his eyes BotD guy: he shoots fire out of his mouth BotD guy: SO MUCH FIRE Papyrus guy: wow! ok what does he look like BotD guy: he's invisible! Papyrus guy: ...

Excerpts from the Greenfield Papyrus, an ancient recounting of the Egyptian Book of the Dead with illustrations. The minor deity Medjed is depicted as a ghost under a sheet, more or less. There are feet, and a shapeless dome, and a couple of eyes. Two birds and a kneeling worshiper with raised hands are also seen.

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_Papyrus

100

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 06/07/2026

Oh good I get to use this again (it's a little extra photoshoppy in the middle bc i had to edit out my Bell Beefer-loving friend who i had edited in) BBD is not super popular any more but believe me they are still much better than Turd Munch DeVoe

The album cover for Bell Biv Devoe's 1990 multi-platinum album Poison. The band name has been altered to read "Bell Biv Beefer" and two of the three band members are holding Bell Beefers. (The third already ate his.)

010

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 03/07/2026

also a crazy amount of IC lightning once the storm kicked in

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 29/06/2026

and when i get that feelin, i want hexual ceiling

a photo of a business conference room with the ceiling covered in acoustic tiles in the shape of hexagons covered in alternating gray and cream color fabric

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 26/06/2026

I'll take it. britmonkey.com/2020s-politi...

A screencap from https://britmonkey.com/2020s-political-compass/. Four bars of blue and red display results along four axes, with a "closest match" candidate at the bottom.

Text:
Your Results
81% Woke 19% Chud
45% Techbro 55% Neo-Luddite
41% Hopepilled 59% Doomer
70% Davos 30% Dubai

Your Closest Match:

Zohran Mamdani
Mayor of New York City (2026-present)

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 26/06/2026

In unrelated news, Bessent secures the lead role in the upcoming remake of Heartbeeps

Heartbeeps is a 1981 American science fiction romantic comedy film about two robots who fall in love and decide to strike out on their own. Pic shows Bernadette Peters and Andy Kaufman, the two leads, as weirdly shiny and plastic robots.

Fun fact: the guy who did the makeup, Stan Winston, was nominated for the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup in 1982, only losing out to Rick Baker's practical creature effects in American Werewolf in London. But where Stan Winston's challenge was making real human people look plastic and artificial, somehow Scott Bessent's makeup team has to make a plastic and artificial simulacrum look like a real human person.

They're not doing so well.

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 26/06/2026

marketing American patriotism in 2026? to the Mountain Dew crowd?

A screencap from the movie Dodgeball (2004). Cotton McKnight (Gary Cole) and Pepper Brooks (Jason Bateman) are commentators at a dodgeball game. Text reads: "It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em."

010

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 20/06/2026

iirc this is how Them! (1954) starts

a screencap from the movie Them! (1954) in which a woman in the background is fleeing from a giant ant in the foreground. It's difficult to judge from this over-the-shoulder perspective but the woman is probably around 5 feet tall while the ant is at least 10-15 feet tall, possibly over 20 if you count the antennae.

060

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 13/06/2026

i bet he's got those heavy-duty suspensors like Baron Harkonnen in Dune

A screencap from Dune (1984), in which the the diseased and morbidly obese Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (portrayed by Kenneth McMillan) is levitating several feet off the floor with the aid of suspensors fitted into a suit. Two attendants and some sort of doctor are standing by. An edit to the image has replaced Harkonnen's face with Trump's.

110

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 12/06/2026

Am I the only one reminded of the hapless idiots in Fargo?

Gaear Grimsrud and Carl Showalter (Peter Stormare and Steve Buscemi) from the movie Fargo (1996).

1343

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 12/06/2026

There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a man (named Elias Thorne). There’s always a city.

Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, standing in front of an infinite field of lighthouses. No text in this image but this is a scene near the end of the game where she says "There's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city."

010

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 08/06/2026

a night for bedtime tragedies on bsky 😔 (cc @antlervel.vet)

two skeets in my timeline:

‪✨Directed by John Carpenter✨‬ ‪@ourflagmeansbeth.bsky.social‬ · 8m
I didn’t take my melatonin and now it’s too late 💀

‪Stella Sacco‬ @antlervel.vet‬ · 8m
Went to sleep way way too early and now I’m awake at 2:35am

000

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 07/06/2026

I like the implication that the Bowel Care seminar was truly dire and this guy's expression was in response to one of the highlights.

Trent Reznor opens a concert. Four panels, each with Trent on mic.
First panel: "How are you tonight? Having a good time? Ready to party? Have fun?"
Second panel: "Well that was the last guys. Wrong fucking band."
Third panel: "We're here to have a bad time."
Fourth panel: (synthesizer playing)

140

✨‧₊˚ meh ˚₊‧✨ @ericgerhardt.com · 29/05/2026

I mean... if you're looking to have a discussion about people not clicking links and reading articles, and then you put the article in question behind a paywall... what exactly were you expecting was going to happen? Paywalls are sometimes necessary, authors should get paid, but... come on.

040