iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/10/2026

@riastradh psst where am I mailing your new Brompton grips

The front of a brown paper package labeled "BROOKS ENGLAND"

The back of the brown paper package with a bunch of explanatory text on it.

The side of the package showing an illustration of the palm-supported bicycle handlebar grips in clean thin-lined illustration.

The inside of the package showing off two rich brown leather bicycle handlebar grips.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/10/2026

[food] Did I eat too much salmon tonight? Who can say, who could judge such a thing

A white dinner plate on a kitchen table, holding asparagus with mushrooms, a cherry tomato / feta / basil salad, a baked potato, and a large chunk of salmon topped with lemon slices and dill. It could be too much salmon! That is possible. This is my tribute to Fat Be(ar|n) Week.

(In the background is a second plate, similarly portioned.)

To be fair, this was meant to generate leftovers.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/10/2026

The local patisserie knows that people only want one thing and it is _disgusting_

Two iced sugar cookies in clear square plastic bags sitting on a white kitchen countertop. The cookie on the left is shaped like a bat in flight and is flooded in black icing, with white accents for its piercing eyes and menacing fangs. The cookie on the right is shaped like a vaporous ghost with arms raised high, and flooded in white icing with black accents for its howling mouth and haunting, dead-gaze eyeballs.

(Neither cookie is even slightly disgusting, they both look hilarious and delicious.)

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/10/2026

Revisiting a favorite from 2024¹ (& 1964), tonight's #monsterdon feature is "The Last Man on Earth" featuring Vincent Price's impressive throwing arm. Get your copy of the film ready to go in about three minutes, or set up your timed mutes for an hour and a […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A video store spinner showing a section title label ('"LAST" films'). On the right is a title card for the film "The Last Man on Earth", on a four-quadrant layout: the top right quadrant is the film title in black on a white background, with the red text "Vincent Price" above it; the bottom right features a spooky looking house with peaks and gables at night, all windows lit; the bottom left shows a ghostly white silhouette of a person with a slim waist and long hair floating in the wind standing over a woman on her side, sleeping or perhaps dead; and the top left quadrant is a 2/3 portrait of Vincent Price's face, highlight on his eyes and eyebrows, looking towards the camera with consternation and resolve.

The back of the movie case, featuring a bunch of small production text that I won't bother transcribing but also this descriptive paragraph about the film: Screen legend Vincent Price (Tales of Terror, The Raven) gives a masterful performance in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi chiller, the first and most faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic novel I Am Legend. A plague envelops the earth, decimating the population and leaving one man still alive: scientist Robert Morgan (Price), who exhibits I strange immunity to the deadly disease. The rest of the earth's people slowly turn into bloodsucking vampires and Morgan must use all of his knowledge to survive their onslaught. Directed by Sidney Salkow (Twice-Told Tales) and produced by Robert L. Lippert (The Earth Dies Screaming), this seminal classic influenced the creation of Night of the Living Dead plus countless imitations.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

Went for a bit of a roll through the neighborhood today. Nice weather for it, but too warm for this season.

A large willow (?) tree with drooping branches on the side of a quiet city street. Some compact cars are parked off to the side, next to the sidewalk. In the foreground is a short pole, dwarfed by the tree towering behind it, adorned with a humble "one way begins" sign. Behind it in the near distance to the left rises a tall smokestack, quiescent; in the further distance, to the right, two towering construction cranes rise far higher into the blue-white afternoon sky.

The same blue-white sky now over a view of Lake Ontario from a boardwalk, with a multistory glass and concrete building to the left of the frame and a white boat with a tall mast and no sails moored to a dock on the right.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

Stopped by the intersection today to take a couple of photos of that misaligned storm drain cover at Queen/Spadina for the 311 report. You can see here how the grate louvers are aligned with the direction of wheel travel rather than at a 45° angle to them […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A round iron storm drain cover set in a square iron frame on the corner of a street. The storm drain louvers are arranged in a herringbone pattern, and the slots are pointed in the direction that a bicycle wheel would roll.

A shot looking northeast across the Queen/Spadina street intersection, with the offending storm grate cover visible in the immediate foreground.

A shot of the same storm drain cover with my front bicycle wheel on it, showing how the slots can swallow the width of the wheel. (And mine isn't even as svelte as many other types of road bikes out there.)

A marked-up version of the first photo with the words "alignment tab" aimed at a red circle around the top left corner of the circular storm drain cover, and "alignment slot" in the bottom dead center of the square frame where the cover should be aligned.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

...but it all worked out in the end.

Two generous slices of pumpkin pie on white plates, one with a lit pink birthday candle in it.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

It got a bit damp on the way home...

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Feels a bit like everyone we know went out to spend the day in a forest this year. We did too: Rouge National Urban Park, about 45 minutes out of town. Lovely deciduous forest, light underbrush under a tall canopy, nicely cleared trails. It started raining […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A view down a forest trail through tall thin trees. The leaves are starting to turn.

Katie's hands holding up her phone taking a photo of a clearing out beyond the tree cover we're under.

A vertical panorama shot showing an enormously tall tree with very few lower branches and one huge poof of leaves up near the treetops, reaching for the sun and the blue sky above.

A very old tree long toppled sideways, its bark stripped to white by creatures and weather and time.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

Anyone want to guess what time it is (almost) #monsterdon

The front cover of the Blu-Ray of "The House on Haunted Hill", held in my left hand on the kitchen countertop, still sealed in cellophane.

The back cover of the movie showing Carol Omhart in the foreground looking long-suffering and Vincent Price in the background looking dashing, eccentric, and goofy, as was his wont.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

They do sell non-fictional movies too, mind you.

A display near the points of sale inside the video store of the Criterion Wes Anderson box set, plus Stranger Things and a wild riot of other movies.

Another view of movie box sets on the left side of the point from where the previous photo was taken, showing two Shaw Brothers box sets, plus Godzilla in the background, and dozens of others.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

And for the sake of completeness...

A view straight up inside the video store at a square plastic air vent of the same general shape as Little Death's face, surrounded by yellowing tube lights and zero-personality white suspended ceiling foam tiles.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

My local video store goes so hard: just absolutely flat out one hundred percent of the time. I love it.

The inside of a 70s-era building with beige suspended ceilings and tiled floors leading in to Bay Street Video... the front display areas of which have been taken over floor to ceiling with a Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma life-sized diorama.

A wider view of the exterior Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma / Bay Street Video diorama showing the open front door.

The Bay Street Video front door displaying a full height poster for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, with just a peek into the interior of the store behind it.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

11 years with @k8eb today! Pretty happy with how that whole thing turned out, ngl.

Ben, Katie, and our respective groomsmen and bridesmaids riding the subway from University station to the wedding venue near King/Spadina on October 4, 2015.

Ben and Katie alone in the back of a streetcar.

A pumpkin on a well used hardwood floor with "B & K" carved into it.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

Absolute ebullient chaos. The shadow cast roles in each musical number were chosen by a random wheel spin sixty seconds before each musical number, followed by shrieks and panicked dashes for the costumes. Some performers were on the wheel twice and had to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

The pre-show stage setup with a title card projected above Anthony Olievera on stage in a bubblegum pink Frenchie wig, standing next to Brendan of Bay Street Video admitting he has never seen Grease before and this was going to be his inaugural experience.

"You're the one that I want" being performed by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta on the movie screen while two drag performers on the stage beneath the screen hold up vertical yellow "SHAKE" "SHACK" signs to provide a suitably animated backdrop for the live performers following the choreography.

Now the whole shadow cast is grouped around a cardboard cutout Greased Lightning car while above on screen the car and our protagonists are about to take flight

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/09/2026

Toronto loves cinema, Toronto loves Grease, Toronto loves DUMPSTER RACCOON *: and also queues, it's undeniable that this city has a whole thing for lining up

A lineup of rabid fans standing in line outside The Revue Cinema on Roncesvalles. The queue stretches from beneath the lit sign all the way up the street...

...and from the opposite angle you can see the line turning the corner and running up the _next_ street too.

Tonight is going to be LIT. Can't wait to see what Anthony Olievera has cooked up this time. Or dragged out of the dumpster onto the stage, as it were.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

@researchfairy how are we feeling about this liquid weirdness

Two 1l tetrapak cartons, side by side on a light wood grocery store shelf, of Earth's Own "Barista Oat" "maple spice" coffee goo

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

Went out for a little bike ride. Saw some cool bugs!!

A super tiny green fly sitting on a black aluminum hinge plate clamp on a Brompton folding bicycle, outside in a forest.

Big white woolly caterpillar inching its way across a gravel road outside in a forest

Same caterpillar, same gravel road as the previous photo, only now its little black face is turned curiously towards the camera

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Please bear witness go this titanic bumblefuzz going HAM on the flowers at the market this morning. Looks like a hovering tennis ball, sounds like a miniature Harley Davidson

A large bee clambering over purple flowers in front of large green sunlit plant leaves. The flowers are small, the bee has the proportions of a kaiju

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

It turns out that the private karaoke place will disable display of the lyrics track when your time runs out but this is absolutely no barrier whatsoever to a room full of professional musical theatre singers, who will happily finish out the entirety of the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Miss Piggy on a TV panel in a karaoke lounge with people in the foreground intensely singing over a display that says the room time has been exceeded and the karaoke lyrics display has been disabled

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026

Update: got the good pumpkin carving tools this year.

Two red Milwaukee drywall saws, one still in the plastic blister package. The blades fold into the handles so for the eleven months and three weeks of the year when they're not being used the blades won't be exposed. They are also replaceable and accept standard reciprocating saw blades, so in like sixty seven years when intense gourd evisceration has worn these down to dullness I'll be able to complement it with my own dullness by talking the ear off of some disinterested whippersnapper at Home Depot in the replacement blade department about how when I was their age these things cost three dollars.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

Woke up to a headache and rain this morning, so it turned into a household chores kind of day. Took out all the trash and recycling, cleaned out the fridge a bit, replaced a troublesome lightbulb, migrated to a new phone, took down and replaced some curtains […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A clear jalapeno margarita in a rocks cocktail glass rimmed with dried red chili flakes, with thin slices of green pepper and lime nestled in to ice chips in the glass, on a wood tabletop. In the background is a red drink in a similar glass - a sweet hibiscus margarita - and further in the background is warm pink and orange neon lighting.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

Huh, managed to hit¹ 558W in a sprint on the final tabata at the gym this morning. Of course, now I am dead and tooting from beyond the grave. Obvious consequence. ¹: peak, extremely not mean!

Crappy photo of the LCD on an Assault workout bike showing the results readout after an 8×/20s/10s tabata cycle, with 558W in the power/peak section

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/08/2026

A recommendation: get yourself a bike messenger bag cavernous enough to hold eight VERY fancy donuts so that you can bring them to the bike shop to thank the crew for building you a bike capable of easily hauling several large boxes of luxuriant pastries

Two large white square cardboard boxes of pastries from Unholy Donuts in an Atwater Atelier Messenger Sling graciously modified by Narek (the man behind Atwater) to fit a Brompton luggage frame. In the background is a Brompton bicycle, folded.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2026

Just in case you were wondering how the general public in my neighborhood feels about the LLM industry Posted at kid eye height next to the local primary school.

A simple rectangular white sticker with three colour text on it that reads "STAY HUMAN / reject AI" in pink and purple hand lettering.

The sticker is pasted on the side of a metal telephone pole at about eye height for a ten year old kid. To the right of the pole in the photo is a sidewalk with some people on it; to the left, four lanes of thick auto traffic.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/05/2026

Spending a bit of time on the Via Rail route from Toronto to Ottawa transcribing a photo of Mum's macaroni and cheese recipe, handwritten in blue ballpoint pen on lined school binder paper, saving the result as annotation text in the photo, sending a copy to […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Macaroni + Cheese

Put on the deep pot with water to boil. Put in 1tsp salt.

Meanwhile, put 2Tbsp butter in casserole (SPRAY ahead of
time). Place in microwave, uncovered, and set time for
5 minutes. Start it, and remove after about 30 secs or when
the butter is melted. Add 2Tbsp flour (2 scoops = 2 Tbsp from jar)
and 1/2 tsp salt and mix in with black whisk. Leave whisk
in casserole. Slowly blend in 1 3/4 cups milk. Return to
microwave and continue cooking, stirring 2-3 times.

While it's cooking, grate cheddar cheese to make 1 1/2 cups.

If sauce hasn't thickened enough, cook for 1 min more.

Meanwhile, add 3 cups macaroni noodles to boiling water
STIRRING as you do so and several times after to make
sure it doesn't stick. Set timer for 9 minutes and add a
tiny dab of butter to water to keep from boiling over.

When sauce is thickened, stir in cheese.

When noodles are cooked, drain in colander and rinse
with cold, then hot water. Shake gently, to get as much
water out as possible. Dump noodles into sauce + stir.

_Cover_ the casserole and nuke it for 6 min. Meanwhile
set the broiler on in the oven.

Remove mac + cheese + sprinkle with Parmesan. Place
under broiler until golden brown - about 2 minutes but
just watch it!

Make carrot sticks + pickles to go with it.

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Ben Zanin @gnomon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/05/2026

Result: this is only an OK loafed meat. I can do better. I used a 50/50 proportion of lean ground pork and extra-lean ground beef; should have been all beef, or maybe some lamb. Fresh sage should have been dried. I left out dill, an error. A bit too much […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A screenshot of a Combustion Inc. leave-in thermoprobe showing a target internal temperature of 70°C (safe for ground beef and pork per Canadian food safety regulations) and a 1h16m cook time to reach that point. Visible on the graph are three curves: a red curve at 160°C with three large dips in it when I opened the oven door; a yellow curve showing the surface temperature of the meatloaf, closer to 88-91°C with three much shallower temperature dips; and a low blue line showing the center of the meatloaf rising much more slowly to 70°C, with no visible temperature wobble at all from the oven door openings and glazing events.

The same temperature curve but extended for another 23 minutes of bench rest time after I pulled the loaf from the oven and before I portioned it out into fridge dishes, showing the core temperature slowly continuing to rise for another ten minutes or so to 73°C.

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