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Kirk

@kirkbalden.bsky.social
71 followers 106 following 559 posts

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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Now it just goes by Flame, it runs on Linux and Mac, and you have to provide your own hardware and peripherals. But I still remember the good old days with the big iron systems, when the install disks and docs came in a cool ass box that cannot be found on the internet.
A Discreet Logic Inferno system with a CRT UI monitor on the left showing reels full of media clips, with a gigantic Wacom tablet in the foreground, a very nice Sony CRT HD BVM monitor showing the inferno splash screen to the right, and a giant SGI Onyx 3 rack on the far right. It’s very moodily lit.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
At the time it was called Inferno, and it ran on a variety of “desk side” and refrigerator-sized Silicon Graphics Onyx rack systems. I don’t know that Avid ever officially shipped tablets with their systems, but they were a popular accessory for power users.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
When the computer system I work on used to cost a million dollars, it shipped with the jumbo version of this guy. Slipping cool shit under the tracing layer was my little hobby. I’ve probably eaten more meals off of Wacom tablets than I have off of restaurant tables.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I used to joke that if I were a billionaire I would hire a team of stoners to dream up delicious snacks for me. Meta is like [steeples fingers] “what if instead of stoners it’s coke addicts and instead of snacks it’s just ‘how do we monetize Sucking?’”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This company is so comically evil. Like, so genuinely innovative in the field of making life on earth worse in every way possible.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My wife likes to fall asleep to story apps like Calm and Slumber, which would be fine if it weren’t in direct conflict with MY desire to drift off to my favorite podcast: “The World’s Least Musical Trumpet Sounds” with Gilbert Gottfried and Emo Philips.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Anyway, so that's what I've been up to for the last month or so. The phone is really slick and I will absolutely buy one ASAP, but I do not wish to repeat the experience of making the film for a while.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Hang on a second, Dallas. Your School Book Depository, essentially a warehouse, was a multi-story windowed building, on a parade route, across from a park? Did you do your urban planning with a bingo wheel? Come on now.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Rest in peace you wonderful, gracious, humble man.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I first learned of Tim Curry walking through a pack of film trucks at LAX, to investigate a film set. Someone came bounding out of a trailer and I asked what they were filming. “Oscar! It’s got Stallone, Marisa Tomei, and Tim Curry!” “Who’s Tim Curry?” I asked. A flourished hand wave, “Its MEEEE!”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Gave some money to famine aid and got a [car wash company] match. You can do it too. You have a smartphone, you can afford it.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I made a couple old fashioneds with blue bottle chicory syrup and bourbon and I think I scared the dog with my tears.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I’m not here to tell you how to best utilize your weeknight hours, but I AM here to tell you that getting drunk and watching Live Aid 85 performances on YouTube is very much not a bad way to go. Queen, Bowie, U2 (Bad). Maybe cry a little. It’s fine.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Just found out someone at work got fired for posting, so from now on if anyone asks my job is at a car wash.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Chasing it with what is possibly some kind of tequila Mai Tai, because I am on a business trip and I mean business.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
It’s…. dirty? Somehow both salty and a little bit sweet. And cloudy. They can’t have added onion brine because they’re out of onions. Truly a mystery.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Ordered a Gibson at a hotel bar and I don’t know what the fuck I just got.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Repost with your earliest childhood crush from film/tv. Amanda Pays from Max Headroom. I was 11. I tuned in because I was obsessed with TV news and sci-fi, but she showed up and I was like “what’s this now?”
Amanda Pays and Matt Frewer in a promotional still from the Max Headroom TV series. Max is on a Jumbotron behind Pays right shoulder and both Pays and Frewer are giving Blue Steel to the camera.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Real story: I played this for the actual agency creatives that made these spots and they loved it so much they showed it at a Pfizer shareholder meeting.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
“Well… shit…”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
If Hunter Schafer had appeared in 2010, Tumblr would have immediately disintegrated.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I didn’t know these existed ten minutes ago and now I have to have one.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I *loved* that film as a teenager and a few years later when I worked at Hollywood Center Studios, about 3 blocks away from that Texaco station, I got a very special thrill when I was sent to gas up the boss’s Range Rover there. It’s a Starbucks now.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
L.A.Story!
A location still for the film L.A. Story, of the delightfully tiny art-deco Texaco station on the corner of highland and willoughby in Hollywood where Steve martin receives a pit crew style full service gas and windshield wipe. It’s a Starbucks now.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Many people are saying
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Also I frequently get to send it a screen shot and say something like “Nope. Wrong.” Which is extra fun.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
I avoided AI generally and vibe coding specifically before my employer made it very easy to spend a bunch of their money every day building dumb things of little value that could probably be made by a human in a fraction of the time. It’s kind of fun!
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Reposted by Kirk
Drew @4484.cool · 10/07/2026
Democrats remind teacher there was supposed to be a quiz today
The day before Mr. Trump left for Turkey, Senate Democrats wrote to the Air Force asking questions about the modifications to the Qatari plane and questioning whether it had all the necessary security upgrades.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Just seeing this. Did you grab the sled?
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Reposted by Kirk
Norm Charlatan @normcharlatan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I never had a teacher believe in me like this.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Wife calls him “business cat.”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Boy, Ted Cruz has really been eating his feelings lately huh?
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Billy Bob Thornton. IS. Dog The Bounty Hunter. Coming this Fall to Paramount Ultra.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Below Dick
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I’m not the first to make this point but if establishment dems had managed to muster 1/3 of this level of panic about conservatives at any point in the last 18 years, they could’ve headed off Trump. Also Van Jones saying “we gotta stop phoning it in.” Like, you see the problem. Right, buddy?
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Based on The Bureau! I’ve been curious but haven’t heard anything good. Very interested to hear your verdict.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Much to consider
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Okay that’s rad. Might need to get one.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Like, we have a Chorkie, we’re rescue animal people, mixes are what we do. Meanwhile you’re all “German shepherds, obviously, Belgian Malinois, sure, Weimarmaner, of course. But if you show up with a Rhodesian Ridgeback or a Basenji we WILL call the police.”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Wife and I are looking at apartments and we’d always known co-op boards could be fucking crazy but this listing ended with a word about the strict dog policy of pre approval, no aggressive breeds, or “mixes.”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
If it’s who I think it was (you), that sounds both flattering and deeply scary. The price you pay for being funny and interesting, I guess.
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Reposted by Kirk
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Hello! 👋 I'm hoping to raise money for two Bay Area cat rescues. If you post a screenshot of you donating at least $20, I will answer a style-related question for you. But first, let me tell you about the rescues, why they're worthy of your support, and hopefully get you to adopt a cat. 🧵
Two gray cats. One has their pawn on a person's knee. Two cats sleeping next to each other.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Thanks for doing this! For those folks in the Bay Area working for one of the big ones, your employee giving portal will probably allow for matching (mine did), which means double the cat charity!
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
If you’re ever in NYC his place Bar Contra is pretty rad.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I don’t need screen time limiters or trackers, I just put my phone down when my hands go to sleep.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Not mine, I should point out, this is from the inimitable Tom Oatmeal, whose name I had to work to remember because I am 50 and I spent too much time on tumblr in my youth.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
From an apparently prophetic 2010ish tumblr post:
From a mid 2010ish tumblr post: “It was a lousy game and during intermission, we watched with a strange sense of calm as the mascot continued to fire his t-shirt gun at the same fan over and over, point blank, until he was dead.
The surrounding fans gobbled up the t-shirts resting on and around the man's bloodied body and when a path cleared, the paramedics rushed to remove the corpse while Everybody Dance Now continued to blast from the speakers.
Even though he was dead, I couldn't help but to admire the deceased fan. For a short moment, when that first t-shirt hit him in the face, he must've felt like the luckiest man alive.”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
I don’t use it that much because it’s kind of a commitment, but when I do it’s always “damn, this thing is pretty cool.”
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Threw on my Vision Pro last night and watched 3 straight episodes of Andor with a nighttime Yosemite backdrop and ngl it was like having a Thundervest for my brain.
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Kirk @kirkbalden.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
This reminds me of a sign I saw on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn, driving to the beach: HAIRCUTS We Specialize In All Styles I think about it almost every day.
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