iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

KW followers who like music: I've created a website that lists upcoming concerts in Waterloo Region! Check it out at unwrapped.online

Screengrab of the homepage of https://unwrapped.online

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Melissa Bowman @dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It's municipal election season and one of the most common inquiries I hear is "Who does what in Waterloo Region?" This week's Citified tries to add some clarity to that question. citified.substack.com/p/who-does-w...

citified.substack.com

Who does what? (Updated for 2026)

Trying to figure out who provides which services locally

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

All this PLUS it makes following sports less fun! I want to enjoy athletic drama on its merits or be won over by an outstanding performance or grudgingly accept that the Jays just don't have it tonight. Gambling steals all of that in favour of obsessively rooting for the outcome I bet on earlier.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Here are some of the first words broadcast on CKGL after they became NewsTalk 570 in 1997 (ft. Jeff Hutcheson and, at 8:55, Lisa LaFlamme) youtu.be/SwexbsOMpQE?...

youtu.be

CKGL 570 News Premiere

YouTube video by Danny Bailey

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Well, this sucks. For everyone who's losing their jobs and for Waterloo Region losing 570's long legacy as a trusted voice in our community.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Happy Canada Day! What Canadians like to do on July 1 hasn't changed much in 30 years, based on this @theglobeandmail.com reporting from 1996. #CanadaDay

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that 17% of surveyed Canadians consider @thebeaverton.com trustworthy. Are they just saying "I like this thing"? And if so, is that all we should read into the other results?

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Raw tomatoes. I will take them out of my salad or off my sandwich in absolutely any setting. Possibly related to an incident when I was a toddler and got a bad rash after eating too many tomatoes.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Dayne St. Clair spent 2016 and 2017 playing for Kitchener-Waterloo United FC. He's since gone onto bigger things, like winning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year and being named to #CanMNT for two World Cups.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

There are many but "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan is a standout entry in this genre for me. (Food Basics in the mid-2000s. Roughly equivalent to stores today playing 80s hits, so, kinda tracks?)

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

You'd think the creator of Rambo must have been an American but it was actually David Morrell, who was born and raised in Kitchener. He snuck in a hometown reference: two deputies who oppose Rambo are named Galt and Preston. (This is a Waterloo Region trivia account now.)

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Evidence that Waterloo Region is bear country: A black bear hung out in Woolwich and Kitchener for a few days in 2006. Evidence that Waterloo Region is not bear country: The Ontario government's official definition of bear country ends somewhere around Mount Forest.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Hopefully the Kitchener Rangers' upcoming trip to the Memorial Cup is less damaging to them than the Memorial Cup's last trip to Kitchener was to it. youtu.be/g2cT5J0gxeU?...

youtu.be

Memorial cup breaks in half spokane vs kitchener 2008

YouTube video by hockeystreams

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

My favourite part of this is the photo they chose for the sign. The man is serious about his quesadillas.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

PSA: Transport Canada has launched a survey for Canadians to detail their experiences with headlight glare at nighttime. In other words, you're not the only one who's noticed brighter headlights on vehicles and this could be a very small way to do something about it! tc.canada.ca/en/corporate...

tc.canada.ca

Canadian experience with vehicle headlights and glare at night

Transport Canada wants to learn how headlight glare affects road users and what vehicle or lighting features may influence how people experience it at night.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

It's really quite something to look at this @macleans.bsky.social article from 2012 through 2026 eyes. #cdnpoli

Article stating that Liberals who don't want to coronate Justin Trudeau as their party's leader have their eyes on Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.

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James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

My apologies to everyone who has heard this story before. Back in the 1970s, two things were true about UWaterloo: * UW never, ever closed. * Many faculty members owned farms. Cue the Great Storm of 1978.

A plow making its way though a vast landscape of snowdrifts.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

This was one of the most surprising (to me) lessons I learned when I moved from newspapers to digital news. Nobody clicks on the clever headline. Our eyes scan right past it to the headline that makes it more obvious what's on the other side.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Happy 255th birthday to Ludwig van Beethoven! Or as everyone who grew up in Canada in the ‘90s knows him, that guy who wrote the ‘Drink Milk, Love Life’ song.

youtube.com

Milk Energy Commercial 1997

YouTube video by Betamax King

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Melissa Bowman @dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

We've got so many great grassroots orgs and non-profits in #WatReg and I need your help to highlight them! For an upcoming Citified post, I'm wanting to share short blurbs (3-5 sentences) about your favourite local organization or non-profit. Feel free to share it on this thread or DM me. Thanks!

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Solarina Ho @solarina.ca · 19/11/2025

This is an absolute *must read* by @nickhunebrown.bsky.social on the impact of AI slop in an era where journalism trust is already depressingly low, and why fact-checkers are more important than ever. As a freelancer who agonizes over accuracy and getting quotes right, this was a mind boggling read.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Wow. This'll be the first #CanPL highlight to go around the world.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Other Queen songs the #BlueJays could have used as #WantItAll -style anthems, in descending order of appropriateness: Play the Game Don't Stop Me Now The Show Must Go On Keep Yourself Alive Another One Bites the Dust Hang On In There The Millionaire Waltz Lost Opportunity I'm In Love With My Car

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I’ve been a huge Blue Jays fan for as long as I can remember (since 1994, just after the last World Series). I’ve seen good years and bad years. Good decisions and bad decisions. Amazing moments and ho-hum Tuesday nights. Stars demanding to be traded. Fans demanding that other stars be traded.

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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 21/10/2025

As Canadian as possible under the circumstances

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

This is basically catnip for me.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

I’ve explained how Kitchener and Waterloo acquired their names, but what about Cambridge? You might know that it only dates back 52 years, but you might not realize that it contains a nod to local history or that, like Kitchener, it was selected by a vote of its citizens…

The Grand River flows through Cambridge, Ont. in 2020.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

The story of how Waterloo, Ont. got its name has some similarities to Kitchener’s. Both cities owe their names to war developments that were top-of-mind at the time of the renamings. While Kitchener’s name came from a general, Waterloo’s is a tribute to a famous battle.

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Andrea Bellemare @dreabells.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Just found this, a way to search Google without ads. The results are so calming, how search used to be. Nostalgia for the earlier era of the internet hitting hard right now www.no-ads.tech?source=omglo...

no-ads.tech

Ad-Free Search - Clean Google Search Without Ads

Experience pure Google search results without advertisements or AI overview. Fast, clean, and focused search experience.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

On this day in 1916, Berlin, Ont. officially changed its name to Kitchener. Although nearly 20,000 people lived in the city at the time, only 346 of them had voted in favour of the change. So how did that happen? Read on…

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Really looking forward to listening to this.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

"We've lined up a fabulous type of tiny robots that thrives on kidney stones." "But then we're stuck with tiny robots!" "No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the tiny robots simply freeze to death."

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Six weeks ago I saw Victoria Mboko play a Wimbledon qualifier on a court where the only seats were reserved for coaches and tournament staff. I don't think she'll be playing many more matches in those conditions.

Victoria Mboko serving during a Wimbledon qualifying match.

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Charlotte Prong @charlotteprong.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

We have worms in our fridge all summer and I have never thought about where they come from. 🪱 Beautifully written, fascinating story by @royinori.bsky.social

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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 09/07/2025

anti-doomer sentence of the day: "Globally, roughly a third more power is being generated from the sun this spring than last" www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

newyorker.com

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment

In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Twitter, in its heyday, was a good place for journalists to build their brand and interact with their audience. But it was never a significant source of traffic to news sites.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

The top four stories on the CBC Manitoba news site right now are about forest fires that have led to evacuation orders for four different communities. To be clear, that's four separate fires affecting four different places. I've never seen anything like this in northern Manitoba.

CBC News headline about forest fire that has prompted an evacuation order for Cranberry Portage, Man.

CBC News headline about forest fires that have prompted evacuation orders for Pukatawagan, Pimicikamak Cree Nation and Flin Flon, all in northern Manitoba.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Does anyone know of a good alternative to Pocket? There has to be a better solution than creating a dedicated folder in my browser's bookmarks, right?

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Very excited for my favourite part of election night: watching TV networks try to entertain their audiences for the two hours between first results from Atlantic Canada and first results from anywhere else in Canada.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Chubby Checker scoring a hit with "The Twist" and following it up with "Let's Twist Again" was honestly a move decades ahead of its time, branding-wise.

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

People in 2025: "Remember when the news only covered stories that were actually important?" The news in 1929:

Newspaper headline 'Kitchener nimrods thrilled when fox speeds past them'

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

I've recently become a big fan of tennis, a sport that contains so many amazing stories. Like Alexandra Eala, who is ranked 140th by the WTA and comes from a country with no elite tennis history -- but she's beaten two of the top 5 players in the world this week!

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

"As God is my witness, I thought bunnies could fly!"

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

And even where local news still exists, it's a shadow of what it once was. @therecord.com's newspaper output peaked at 33,812 pages in 1989. Last year it was 12,712. That's a lot less news! (To be fair, it's also a lot fewer classified ads, which helped pay for the news.)

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Ryan Flanagan @ryanflanagan.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Weirdly, Wikipedia pages for a bunch of KW restaurants have sprung up over the past year. No idea what the selection process or notability requirements are but whoever is behind this seems to be making some solid choices.

Lancaster Smokehouse; Arabesque Family Restaurant; Bhima's Warung

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Melissa Bowman @dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

If you're looking to buy local/buy Canadian, there is some very helpful advice here. probablyworthsharing.substack.com/p/buy-canadi...

probablyworthsharing.substack.com

Buy Canadian. Bye American.

It's time to start buying local

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