iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 11h

Much talk of charity shops being washed but some days you come away with a special edition Fargo DVD and a copy of the Borrible Trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti with change for a fiver.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

A good interview for anyone else making their way through The Rouse, though it does contain some of the most tortuously nuanced & long-winded lines of questioning you will ever hear open.spotify.com/episode/4Cma...

open.spotify.com

China Miéville : The Rouse

011

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I watched Penda's Fen, still up on iPlayer for now. Deeply strange and uncategorisable; it's often labelled a horror film, which seems to me a terminal mistake. It's both of its time and somehow outside it, or beyond it. Nothing like it will ever be made again, for about six different reasons.

The glum, sarcastic looking teacher in Penda's Fen who has written MANICHAEAN-ISM on the blackboard.

030

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

One of the best & mostly unlikely Keith solo cuts was when he got Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins and Maceo Parker together on this open.spotify.com/track/78sp8i...

open.spotify.com

Big Enough (2019 Remaster)

Keith Richards · Talk Is Cheap · Song · 2019

000

Reposted by patrick

Nick Moran @nemoran.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I love it when New Yorker articles include Lydia Davis-length, self-contained short stories within feature articles, such as in this example about the ubiquity of storage centers.

Last year, a retired Episcopal priest 1 know was asked to perform an exorcism at a storage facility. "A man told me after church one Sunday that for a couple of weeks he had felt an evil physical presence on his chest in bed at night, and that it was trying to kill him," he said.
The man also heard noises in the walls, at home and at work, and he had decided that the cause was a demon inhabiting an antique wardrobe he had bought: a large piece of brown. The Episcopal Church's "Book of Occasional Services" has a section on exorcisms, which priests can perform as a last resort in certain cir-cumstances. The man's situation didn't qualify, but the liturgy for "Celebration for a Home," in the same book, includes the invocation "Let the mighty power of the Holy God be present in this place to banish from it every unclean spirit."The priest and a colleague went from room to room in the man's house, reading prayers from that liturgy and sprinkling holy water, and then did the same in his storage unit, to which he had banished the wardrobe. His wife later told the priest that her husband had felt relief for a few days, but that the real cause of his torment had probably been a brain tumor.

03411

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Really enjoying Diane Morgan's new series Ann Droid. Mostly as gentle as it looks (mostly!) but also the best possible version of a 'kid pretends to be a robot' performance.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

For anyone watching the new Traitors, Hannah's explanation of her spreadsheet theory is interesting, not least for all the ways it turns out to be unworkable (i.e. winning the game isn't actually about catching traitors) youtu.be/twDvxNooI_4?... (spoilers in the comments!!)

youtu.be

How would Alan Turing have played the Traitors?

YouTube video by Hannah Fry

020

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Yes to all three. My method is to tire the kids out as much as possible with unambitious stuff & try to give each parent a break. And, like, 2 out of 3 meals reasonably eaten each day is a win?

110

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

If I was still seeing my last therapist doubtless they would say something like: "Of course, in this scenario you are yourself both the insane monkey and the bloody wrench putting it down".

020

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Playing System Shock 2, first time in years. Perhaps prompted by a mention of the Wire Mother experiments in The Rouse, I am feeling sorry for the little monkeys this time. Their cries and whines in the hallways, the toddlerish way they hustle up to you for attention with their brains all on show.

130

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It's worth finishing! But I rolled my eyes in a few places, I guess.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

also I'd have got to this sooner if I knew Kenneth Branagh was in it (he has a lot of fun).

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Finally got around to watching Blue Eye Samurai - an ideal undemanding sick day watch - beautifully made, pancake-flat silliness. Only lost patience with its contortions by the final episode which is more than i can say for many shows.

210

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

After a busy few days i am down with some kind of vomiting bug, which one and now the other kid has had too, and now the rain and colder weather hits london again - all change please. digging out the vitamin d supplements again.

130

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Got to a bit in The Rouse which was so incredibly unsettling I've had to put it down and go straight to bed. I will definitely sleep fine.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

stuck in the kitchen staring glassily out at the night while they play something from Scavengers Reign just now

001

Reposted by patrick

Stellbound: Stellraiser II @antlervel.vet · 26/09/2026

Have I played “Control Resonant”? Sorry…I’m too busy reading the story of a man who “Controls Rocinante”…that’s right, Miguel Cervantes’ immortal tale “Don Quixote de La Mancha”. So you enjoy your strange “Federal Bureau”…I’ll be delighting in the adventures of Sancho Panza and his “Friendly Burro”

552624598

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

When I don't have time to go for a run, often I look at other people running and feel - not envious exactly, and not that I want to run off with them - but like I want to *be* them. Right now. Like I literally want to inhabit them and run off for a while. Is this weird? I feel this is weird.

110

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The server in the coffee shop this morning asked if I wanted my banana bread toasted, and ever since then I've had Don Draper intoning "...it's *toasted*..." in the back of my head.

030

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Yeah it kind of wants to have it both ways, being both a cyclical/episodic narrative (which maybe comes from the original) but also a straight sf story. But at heart it does have a protagonist and (eventually) an antagonist.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

good bit about 90 seconds into this when Tomita hits what I can only think of as the Badalamenti button on the keyboard open.spotify.com/track/4pJRQF... (and yes I know the influences run the other way around)

open.spotify.com

Clair de Lune

Isao Tomita · Clair de Lune (Ultimate Edition) · Song · 2012

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

There Is No Antimemetics Division: pleasingly creepy, engaging enough to escape feeling derivative of its web of influences; but I wonder if, in grappling with the anti-conceivable, it ends up writing cheques it can't cash. Would still recommend for fans of the thoughtful end of SCP-adjacent stuff.

110

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Randomly rewatched the Going For an English sketch today; I'm probably the last person online to discover this but I was tickled to see a practically babyfaced Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3 as the waiter youtu.be/H-uEx_hEXAM?...

youtu.be

Going for an English | Goodness Gracious Me | BBC Comedy Greats

YouTube video by BBC Comedy Greats

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Finally got around to the Quake 2 machinegames expansion: it does a good recurring bit where a *huge* pack of weak enemies pours through a doorway (more than the original game could afford) and you just rip them apart. Like one of those Mario Maker levels where you boot a shell through 1000 goombas.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

yes - and the result being less like a cynical attempt to do the cutscenes better, more willing to be playful, messy (in every sense). No idea what the Elden Ring movie is gonna look like however.

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Also unexpectedly similar to Exit 8 in one or two respects: movies finally catching up with the Dadification of games, I guess.

100

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I saw Resident Evil: a lot of silly, messy fun which understands that video games are often at their best when you're blundering through complex systems you barely understand (like when a grenade rolls down a hill in Far Cry 2).

120

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A nice surprise to see a glowing quote by Michael Moorcock on the back of The Rouse, mostly because if you'd asked me yesterday I would have definitely said he was no longer with us.

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Bday today: got some very good Belgian chocs, a bottle of whiskey, and a signed copy of the new China Mieville. Maximum dad stuff.

230

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Finished watching I, Claudius. For me there's stuff in the penultimate couple of episodes that doesn't entirely hold up - the malicious promiscuity of Messalina in particular has aged badly & reads like flat misogyny - but on the whole it's still gripping, unique, peerless television.

110

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My playdoh truther position: almost all the toys/accessories are now designed to get your kids to mix up, amalgamate or otherwise spoil their stocks of what should be a highly reusable toy, thus forcing you to buy more playdoh.

011

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Most loathed object in my house right now that I am not allowed to throw away: the tiny plastic cheesegrater for playdoh. the hell of cleaning up endless teeny tiny playdoh bits trod into carpets, upholstery etc.

140

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The point is to get back to writing more; it's myself in the way, just in a more literal sense than usual (a thousand apparently essential ancient files on my desktop & downloads folders).

030

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

After a couple years without one I finally got a new laptop - a Macbook Neo, for my sins - & stayed up late doing a big archaeological cleanup of my Time Machine restoration. Pandemic era remote working apps, livejournal avatars, defunct torrents, and maybe half a million words that went nowhere.

110

Reposted by patrick

Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

All men live enveloped in whale-lines.

413441

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Most satisfying way anyone ever enunciatied Jesus Christ in a song, I think open.spotify.com/track/5mWMeU...

open.spotify.com

Hot Burrito #2

The Flying Burrito Brothers · The Gilded Palace Of Sin · Song · 1969

120

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Time for a break in lessons. maybe for a year or so? Maybe till he's 16??

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Kids woke up around 7:30 this morning; had to bundle them both solo into the car for the little one's 8:30 swimming lesson; still made it bang on time and in good humour, only for him to seize up at the poolside and totally refuse to go in.

121

Reposted by patrick

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie's "This is Information" from the 2002 9/11 Tribute Anthology comic is one of my favorite comics ever – its metaphorical approach to narrative had a profound influence on my comics making. I share bits of it in class frequently, but worth revisiting on this day...

316268

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Next time I worry about being a good dad I'm going to think about Keith solo parenting his 7 year old son by taking him on tour in the mid 70s; the band would task the boy with waking his dad up for the shows (usually an hour or two late) because anyone else would get a gun stuck in their face.

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Played the opening of Hell is Us: like an adventure/puzzle game grafted onto a Dark Souls action RPG. I'm not sure the latter entirely sits well with the plot/setting - which is *really* bleak & regards itself very seriously - but it's kind of unlike anything I've played before. Also: very French.

000

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Reading the old Keith Richards autobiog in odd moments on my phone: good fun. I like this story about him nodding off on a lengthy heroin-induced nap in the middle of overdubbing the counterpoint guitars on Rocks Off, still one of the best side 1 track 1s ever imo open.spotify.com/track/42o3gy...

Andy Johns: We were working on “Rocks Off,” and everyone else had left. Keith said, “Play that back for me, Andy.” And it was four or five in the morning, and he went to sleep while the playback was on, and I thought, great! I can get out of here. So I went all the way back to this villa that Keith had been kind enough to rent for me and Jim Price. Just getting to sleep and ring, ring, ring, ring… “Where the fuck are you? I’ve got this great idea.” It was a half-hour drive. “Oh sorry, Keith. I’ll be right back.” So I jumped in the car, went back, and he played this other Telecaster part, which is why the two-guitar interchange happens on “Rocks Off,” which is still stunning to me. And he just went right through it in one take. Bang, done. And I’m so glad that it went that way.

120

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The recent eps by Machinegames are excellent, apparently. (Also I recently learned that Trent did all the player grunts for taking hits, jumping, drowning etc himself which is quite fun.)

100

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

There was a time when the McDonald's app/touchscreens let you add extra lettuce, tomato, onions, gherkins and cheese to a Filet o Fish, thus making it somewhat more like something you'd want to eat. For free! A golden period in my life. Inexplicably they took this away a few years ago.

110

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Also the original NIN soundtrack really is some of the strangest music ever to accompany a landmark videogame.

010

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Played through and finished Quake again. Still a viscerally important game for me; even though the other early id games might technically be more complete, I think I still like playing this one the best. It's in my bones somehow. Ep4 still incredibly annoying but... compels me though.

220

patrick @marginalgloss.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Only just occurred to me that the title works as an adjective + noun pun. A nice touch in a movie full of nice touches (and some not so nice ones).

010