iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 18h

How do you report an issue with historical text under a building in Google Maps? This isn't Britain's first anything, as it's not in Britain.

St. Columb's Cathedral
Britain's first post-Reformation church

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

It's solid orange but on cameras and videos it kind of strobes.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I have this weird cube-shaped lamp that lets you change the colour and every October I make a new weird Jack-O-Lantern face for it using electrical tape.

Face with horrible gaping pointed teeth mouth and nose that looks like a skeleton

Face with pointed ears, three eyes, small nose, stitched closed mouth

Face with x's for eyes and tongue sticking out of open mouth

Face that looks like a nervous looking cat with triangular eyebrows

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Today I co-hosted an event with an "interactive" history of the Libraries comic that I wrote and that @colleenfrakes.bsky.social drew. We had our comic, drawing and colouring supplies, & free comics supplied by a local comic book shop. Download the comic at scholar.colorado.edu/concern/defa... 📚

Six panel comic.
150 Years of CU Libraries
Panel 1: Full colour. The ghost of the first librarian sitting in a chair in the library and talking to the reader.
Panel 2: Full colour. The ghost is outside the first library building.
Panel 3: Black & white panel. Three books from 1904. The reader is encouraged to colour them in.
Panel 4: Black and white panel. Three faculty members in 1940s clothes are holding protest signs that say "Fire the staff," "Tear the library down," and "Destroy the catalog." The characters are only drawn in pencil, not ink.
Panel 5: The ghost standing next to card catalogues talking about the current library building and the card catalogues we no longer have. The first speech balloon is empty to encourage people to write in their own text.
Panel 6: Blank. Draw the future of the libraries.

Panels 3 & 4 of the comic except they've been inked and coloured.

A photo of Chip, the bison mascot of CU Boulder, sitting at a table drawing a comic.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Remembered that I ripped a bunch of CDs to my Xbox 360 and what do you know!

Xbox 360 music playing showing the track listing for 60 Second Wipe Out by Atari Teenage Riot. The track Revolution Action is playing.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The source referenced even says they use "cabin." bsky.app/profile/matt...

Map of Canada with different terms.
Text box: The term known to have the most regional variation in Canada is about what you call a summer house that you visit on the weekends. Cabin and cottage dominate much of the country, but camp is most common in Northern Ontario, chalet in Quebec, and bungalow in only one small place in Canada: Cape Breton.

It shows Newfoundland and Labrador the same dark blue colour as the provinces in the West that use "Cabin."

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

@glacierbaybooks.com Your webstore still has this banner. Are you shipping books?

We are traveling for Anime Expo and ARC Festival! All shipping is on hold until the end of July!
Please check our ≫calendar≪ for our upcoming events. Dismiss

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Okay, if you ignore the Zork gamebook (1983) seemingly the answer is Shadowkeep by Alan Dean Foster (1984). web.archive.org/web/20050306...

GameSpy: What are, in your opinion, the differences between writing a movie novelization and a game novelization?

Alan Dean Foster: Game novelizations are several orders of magnitude harder to do than film novelizations. Game "characters" usually aren't. They're simply ciphers provided to move the game along. Also, when doing a game novelization, you can't really stray much from the plot. But you can't really follow it too closely, either, or you'll end up giving away the details of the game. Then you've written a game manual, and not a novel. It's a real juggling act.

GameSpy: You wrote the first ever game novelization - Shadowkeep. How did you became interested in the project, and what kind of challenges did it present?

Alan Dean Foster: I was asked by the publisher to do Shadowkeep. At the time, computer games were just beginning to emerge from the era of Pong and Pac-Man. The nearest thing to a character-based game was Frogger.

Suddenly, advances in home computing power made quest-type games possible. The game storyline was straightforward puzzle solving, including pickup icons and stuff. There was no character development at all. I was intrigued by the chance to add characterization and story where none really existed, and by the chance to set an entire book in a single setting (the eponymous castle of the title). If I'd known how hard that would all be, I never would have accepted the project.

GameSpy: What kind of difficulties?

Alan Dean Foster: The main difficulties in novelizing both games were exactly the same. First, characters are virtually non-existent, though The Dig was much better in this respect than Shadowkeep. Games today continue to do better and better with characters. The game I directed and wrote for MagicMaker Inc. of Palo Alto (eventually titled The Marexx because The Matrix was already taken by some movie company) was entirely character-driven. Pity it never made it to market.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Saw this book yesterday and it made me wonder, what's the first prose fiction book based on a video game?

Photo of a hand holding the book: A What-Do-I-Do-Now Book #1: Zork: The Forces of Krill. An INFOCOM Book by S. Erick Meretzky.
The cover features a white guy with a beard wearing a cowl/cloak sitting in a throne, while three green lizard people in armour and holding swords of spears stand around him guarding him.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Oh dang, they're putting out a new edition of Mister Invincible and including the third volume that's only been available in French. This comic is a lot of fun and really plays with the physical aspect of comics as characters step between panels & pages. Mister Invincible Redux, January 26, 2027

Cover to Mister Invincible Redux.
Mister Invincible (a superhero wearing a yellow leotard, black boots, a black cape, and a black mask) is washing a pan in his kitchen. An evil bald scientist wearing a lab coat and holding a laser gun is lurking outside. Behind the scientist another version of Mr. Invincible is about to hit the scientist with the same pan that he's washing.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Some libraries still have card catalogues! This one is in the library where I work. It's for music or something? Maybe? That doesn't seem right because we have an entire other music library... I'm going to haveto ask.

A drawer pulled out from a card catalogue.
The card visible is for a 33 1/3 RPM record.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Panel from The Flash, vol. 1, #127. Cover date March, 1962. Written by John Broom. Pencilled by Carmine Infantino. Inks by Joe Giella. #GroddForGovenor

Gorilla Grodd walking on the street next to a billboard.
The billboard has a picture of Grodd on it and says "Grodd for Govenor. Vote statewide. The people's choice."
Caption: Meanwhile in the city, a popular candidate campaigns...
Grodd's speech balloon: I've got to let myself be see by as many people as possible! Once they see me they can't help themselves! They'll have to vote for me--on account of my effect on them!
Woman on the side of the panel: It's Grodd--Wonderful, wonderful Grodd!

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Got my clown print by @badmachinery.com from @explodingarrow.bsky.social's Comics Courier Kickstarter. I've been told I'm not allowed to put it up in the house.

A bunch of clowns in a pink and yellow polka dot clown car with eyes and a mouth. In the back seat someone is reading a copy of the Comics Courier.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Wow, every one of those is cropped terribly, hahaha.

Screenshot of Wikipedia page for Cordelia Gray featuring an image from the Detective Conan comic.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Like, no offense to Gosho Aoyama, but is this really the best picture of Cordelia Gray to have at the top of a Wikipedia article? (The images also appears in the articles for Nero Wolfe, Father Brown, C. Auguste Dupin, and Zenigata Heiji, but all of those are further down the page.)

Screenshot of the "comic books and graphic novels" section of Ellery Queen's Wikipedia page featuring an image from the Detective Conan comic.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

"Huh," I think. "That's weird. That's the second fictional detective Wikipedia article I've seen recently that prominently features an image from Detective Conan. What's going on with this?" It's one person who edits Wikipedia _A LOT_ and has uploaded these images to other articles as well.

Screenshot of Wikipedia page for Lew Archer featuring an image from the Detective Conan comic.

Screenshot of Wikipedia page for Miss Marple featuring an image from the Detective Conan comic.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I finally finished it! (Next to do the poisonous plants one?) www.thewitchystitcher.com/product-page...

A cross stitch design showing 10 carnivorous plants on a black background.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

100 downloads of So You've Been Told to Publish Your Data! It's free! midnitelibrary.itch.io/publish-your...

Screenshot of itch.io analytics page.
You are Reviewer 2: 3,218 views, 779 downloads
So You've Been Told to Publish Your Data: 308 views, 100 downloads

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

New librarian stereotype dropped. 📚 www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTum...

Reddit screenshot
This is quite different from the fine folks in my local serial killer club, who have the following jobs:

Comedy writer (and uber driver)

Former journalist, now drives uber

TV comedy writer and lyft driver

Sketch comedy writer and gig economy worker

Journalist and doordash driver

Improv comedian/waiter/doordash/uber/whatever

Psychiatrist/uber

[Highlighted] Librarian who only kills the uberwealthy

Dog walker/catburglar

[Highlighted] Another librarian who only kills the uberwealthy

Failed comedy writer; failed uber driver

Disneyland ride operator and uber operator

Dentist
77 upvotes

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

To the tune of "Viva Las Vegas." ♫Mecha Godzilla♫

Screenshot of Elvis singing "Viva Las Vegas" next to one showgirl and one Mechagodzilla. The subtitle reads "♫Mecha Godzilla♫"

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I am infinity bad at actually promoting my stuff properly. This is what the zine looks like.

Where is your data currently stored?

1. lt is in a box at home. There are so many boxes.

2. | paste it all into ChatGPT then delete the original files.

3. It's on a bunch of floppy disks. Like, the actually floppy ones.

4. On the university's IT-approved secure servers.

5. On my last university's servers. They need it moved by the end of the week. There are 800 petabytes.

6. USB stick on my keychain. It's only gone through the laundry twice!

Where will you publish your data?

1. Our institutional repository or a subject-specific repository.

2. My old lab's GitHub repo. | think | still have access to it.

3. Have you heard of Kaggle? You can upload anything!

4. My Google Drive: exhaustedprof69@gmail.com

5. On my personal website. The free tier should be fine, right?

6. Publish my data? It's MY intellectual property! I'm only talking to you so you can tell me how | can avoid doing that!

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The "sequel"(?) to "You Are Reviewer 2" is now available to download for free. "So You've Been Told to Publish Your Data" is a solo d6-based "game" to "learn" about Research Data Management and Data Publishing. midnitelibrary.itch.io/publish-your... 📚

A bunch of copies of So You've Been Told to Publish Your Data

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

With Placebo doing a 30th anniversary re-release of their first album I was thinking about this comment on YouTube about their performance of Nancy Boy on Top of the Pops in 1997. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByLC...

I was there at TOTP that night. I’m now 47 married with 2 kids. No nonsense straight guy, warehouse manager. But honestly when I saw this performance I had my first gay experience. I was in love 🥰 for that split second, it was the body language and mannerisms

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

International Zine Month! #IZM2026 Image included twice to allow full alt-text description. Link to larger version stolensharpierevolution.org/wp-content/u... prompts and layout by Alex Wrekk 📚

International Zine Month July 2026

There's a photograph of a typewriter in the upper right hand corner.

31 activities for you to celebrate
Events on specific days
11 Zine Meme Day - post or make a zine themed meme from an online template
14 ValenZINE Day - Write a love letter to zines
18 Zine Distro Appreciation Day - Order from your favourite or a new zine distro
21 Zine Library Day - Find a physical zine library or digital archive to visit or donate
25 Free Zine Day - leave copies of your zine in public or post a free PDF online.
31 HallowZINE Day - Remember zines or zinesters who are no longer with us.

The following items have checkboxes.

Check out ZineMap.com to explore and connect with other zine makers.
Zine Origin Day! How did you get into zines? What keeps you going?
Look up local or regional zine events or dream of how to start your own!
Zine Rewind! Dig out your favourite zines and remind yourself and others! Explore zines from a country different than yours (bonus points for translating)
Zines of the Past - Explore your local and regional zine history.
Zines of the Future! Write about what you would like to see in the future of zines.
Ask someone to trade zines with you.
Make a 1 page zine.
Level up! Master double-sided printing & collation. Make a double sided booklet zine.
24 Hour Zine Challenge. Make a zine of at least 24 pages and to your personal skill level.
Write a review of a book, movie, concert, podcast or album to include in your zine.
Zine Pride! Support zines created by LGBTQ+ creators by buying directly from them, looking up queer zine events, or checking out the Queer Zine Archive Project at QZAP.org
Write a physical letter to a zinester you admire.
Teach yourself a new zine skill like hand stitched binding or how to collate pages.
Read Zines outside of your regular genres. Check out perzines, comix, art, or fiction
The Next Wave! Explore zines by youth or introduce the youth in your life to zines.
Make a wishlist of things you would like to see in zines, get suggestions for existing zines.
Take a "Shelife" with your collection of zines.
Celebrate the work of BIPOC and marginalized zinesters globally.
Zine Cuisine! Cook from a recipe found in a zine OR make a recipe to put in your zine. Zine Collab!
Ask a zine friend to collaborate on a zine or zine project with you. Lost and Found!
Review old notebooks and old writing to revive an unfinished project.
Make a playlist that represents the mood of your zine, or what you listen to while working on zines.
Post a picture of you with your zine or a zine friend.
prompts and layout by Alex Wrekk

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

This seems applicable to a lot of things going on right now. "They don't think they should have to [start a new skill at zero]. But they do." From "How to Write A Mystery: A Handbook From Mystery Writers of America."

KATE WHITE

An agent friend of mine, who once worked as an executive at a major
publishing house, says she’s always blown away by people who decide one
day that they want to become an author but think it’s just something you
do, rather than something you have to learn how to do. “People who've
had success in one field,” she explains, “like law, or medicine, or true
crime writing, often have a hard time accepting that if they're going to
write fiction, it means starting at zero again. They don't think they should
have to.” But they do.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I bought two enamel bat pins at a comic event today and was amused because one has one eye and the other has three eyes.

Two enamel bat pins on a cork board. One has one eye and the other has three eyes.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Anyone have a digital copy of this magazine? @graham.loadingreadyrun.com is looking for an article in it. GEE, Februar 2006 issue. @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social @gamingalexandria.bsky.social

Cover go GEE video game magazine. Text in German.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Finished this cross stitch this evening!

Spooky cross stitch of a tiered layer cake in black, orange, and grey. There's a crescent moon, a bat, skulls, pumpkins, and ghosts.
Next to the cross stitch is a gray and white cat.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

The 1917 and 1932 versions of the Purity I found on archive.org both say that 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon. The 1932 one does have a waffle recipe.

648 WAFFLES

1 1/2 cups Purity Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup sweet cream or 1 cup milk and 3 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Method:—1. Sift flour with baking powder and salt; add egg yolks and cream (or milk and butter). 2. Lastly, fold in beaten egg whites. 3. Heat both sides of waffle iron; put 1 tablespoon mixture in each compartment and brown on both sides. 4. Serve at once with powdered sugar, honey or maple syrup.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

A lot of academic libraries will let you renew books pretty much forever as long as it hasn't been requested by someone else. : )

Biblioplex Tomekeeper (4)
Artifact Creature - Construct
When this creature enters, choose up to one --
- Targe creature becomes prepared. (Only creatures with prepare spells can be prepared.)
- Target creature becomes unprepared.
"Due dates are firm, and will be enforced."

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I'm sorry, what? There isn't a Wikipedia article for "Wizard"?

Screenshot of Wikipedia article for "Magician (fantasy)"
"Redirected from Wizard (fantasy)"

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

@haul-pebert.bsky.social Didn't realize I could be told that I'd built a word wrong when every other word was done and this word fit in the grid!

Screenshot of Tiled Words puzzle with "SKY" as an answer that is said to be "built wrong" when every other word in the puzzle is already completed.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

I realized I hadn't put my zines about video games online, so here are some links if you want to download them. They're free. midnitelibrary.itch.io/games-on-my-... midnitelibrary.itch.io/games-on-my-...

Games on My Shelf (I Have Not Played Yet)
[Image of The Game of the Goose, a very old board game from several hundred years ago.]
Issue #001

Games on My Shelf (I Have Not Finished Yet)
[17th century art called "A fatal fight between two men is caused by a game of cards." Features a skeleton brandishing a bone behind two men about to fight.]
Issue #003

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I've been doing Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast for ten years???? bookclub4m.libsyn.com 📚

Episode 001 - Historical Romance Mar 16, 2016

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

@graham.loadingreadyrun.com Because bats are cool. People like bats. (Yes, I did buy bat handles to attach to pieces of furniture.) (Screenshot from "Never Imitate || Watch+Play (Feb 2026)")

Screenshot of Graham saying "First of all, why is everything bat themed?

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

“It was not there the previous day,” a city official said. "The incident comes after Osaka announced last month it had received an unusual donation of 21 kilogrammes of gold to pay for the maintenance of its ageing water system."

This shows a pipe, center, which was buried but suddenly emerged above ground at a sewer construction site in Osaka, western Japan Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (Yukie Nishizawa/Kyodo News via AP)

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

They have at least one Shakespeare-related book in the 400s.

Screenshot of Hong Kong Public Libraries showing "Dictionary Urdu-English : based on Shakespear and the best modern authorities" with the call number 491.4332 DIC

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Made this five years ago. Still good I think. "Acclaimed ska band lead singer turns out to be Pokémon named Pykitupp"

Screenshot of five squirtles. Four of them are wearing round sunglasses. The one in the middle is wearing pointy sunglasses. and has been photoshopped to be wearing a black suit and tie, white shirt, and a black hat to look like they're in a ska band.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Amused to find this in a comic from 2002. 📚

Get graphic novels at your library!
Read for the fun of it
teen read week
www.ala.org/teenread
During the week of October
13-19, school and public
libraries and bookstores
across the country will help
promote and encourage
teen reading with this
year's emphasis on
graphic novels.
To find a participating
location and related
events in your area,
visit the official Teen
Read Week website at
www.ala.org/teenread

Dark Horse Comics is a proud
Friend of Teen Read Week!
http://www.darkhorse.com/library/
Teen Read Week is a literacy initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Also, the reason I was looking this up in the first place was that I thought it was weird that the page for "Cinnamon Toast Crunch" states that "the cereal aims to provide the taste of cinnamon toast in a crunchy cereal format" and there's an assumption that everyone knows what "cinnamon toast" is.

Screenshot of Wikipedia page for Cinnamon Toast Crunch with sentence "First produced in 1984,[2] the cereal aims to provide the taste of cinnamon toast in a crunchy cereal format." The word "toast" is a link to the "Toast (food)" article.

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Second, my pointing this out apparently led to a discussion about moving the redirect for "Cinnamon toast" away from "Toast (food)" and towards Cinnamon#Food uses.

Wikipedia discussion on moving Cinnamon toast redirect to Cinnamon#Food uses

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

So this week I discovered that "cinnamon toast" on Wikipedia redirects to "Toast (food)" and I feel like cinnamon toast probably needs its own Wikipedia article? (The "toast" article does not mention cinnamon anywhere.)

Screenshot of Wikipedia page for Toast (food).
Redirected from Cinnamon toast

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Added list of Collected Editions to the Wikipedia page for DC's Young Animal imprint. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC%27s_...

Screenshot of Collected Editions section of Wikipedia page for DC's Young Animal

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

I feel it's worth posting this satirical "pitch" by Dwayne McDuffie.

Dwayne McDuffie

Proposal for a New Series

"Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers"

First Draft, 12/13/89

In the past year, 25% of all African-American super-heroes appearing the Marvel Universe possessed skateboard-based super powers. In an attempt to remain on the cutting edge of comics, I hereby propose a new series that will fully exploit this exciting new trend...

Teenage Negro Ninja THRASHERS

When a group of teen-aged negroes find cosmic-powered skateboards, their lives are forever changed! A team of distinct characters join together, swearing an oath to use their powers for good.

ROCKET RACER: A black guy on a skateboard.

NIGHT THRASHER: A black guy on a skateboard.

DARK WHEELIE: A black guy on a skateboard.

And their leader, the mysterious black guy on a skateboard known only as "that mysterious black guy on a skateboard."

This is a sure-fire hit as it contains all of these popular elements:

◾Circa 1974 clothing and hair-styles

◾Bizzare speech patterns, unrecognisable by any member of any culture on the planet

◾A smart white friend to help them out of the trouble they get into

◾They're heroes who could be you (if you were black, I mean...)

◾They're on Skateboards!

◾They have an attractive, white female friend to calm them down when they get too excited.

Face it Pilgrim, this one's got it all!!!!

Have I made my point?

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Matthew Murray 🦇 @midnitelibrary.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Wait? Is that where I got that from????

Jar filled with (apparently) a glow in the dark bouncy eyball and lots of weird neon tubing stuff.

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