iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I didn't think I was remotely important enough to be impersonated, but here we are. So, for the record: The email address docboard8@gmail.com is pretending to be me from the Writer's Guild. Please do not buy gift cards. I suggest reporting it to Google instead, for all it will do.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Today I observed a 6 and 7 year old bumping into one another successfully discuss, coordinate, plan, and execute getting together on the same day with just 4 hours notice. Meanwhile, I've been trying to get the same four people in the same room for 6 months.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Watching some online already casting aspersions that 'Talarico could be another Fetterman' is certainly A Take. Not a good one, but A Take nevertheless. Both TX candidates were quite good, made amazing nominees, and either represented a real shot towards Senate control. Take the effing win.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Don't open any history book ever to find out the surprise answer.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Very easy - especially right now - to spiral and feel like nothing good is happening. This weekly blast helps serve as a reminder that there is good news, and it's worth paying attention to.

chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com

Extra! Extra! 3/1

Yes! Good is still out there! ❤️❤️

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

The way this administration vacillates between the comic evil of an Austin Powers villain, the malignant evil of an SS Commander, and the charm, insight, and coherence of an AM talk radio host would be impressive if it wasn't so sad and destructive. Notice nowhere in there did I mention competent.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Our entire Cabinet is that dysfunctional family who all *hate* each other but get together on the holidays anyway thinking, 'this time will be different' - before inevitably all getting nasty drunk and needing the cops called on them. Again.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

This is objectively good for the town, state, and human decency - but 1.) Ayotte personally got involved for political, not moral, reasons. It made her look either incompetent or complicit, and she needs a win since she's vulnerable. 2.) I don't trust DHS to not just lie and go ahead elsewhere.

wmur.com

Plan for ICE detention center in Merrimack has been scrapped, governor says

After two months of speculation, protests and public debate, the Department of Homeland Security is moving on from plans for an immigrant detention facility in Merrimack, WMUR was first to report on T...

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

wmur.com

Plan for ICE detention center in Merrimack has been scrapped, governor says

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I miss the days where I could blame items wildly misplaced or in strange locations on a small child & not my own withering brain.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

So many on social media tonight reflexively thought the young boy in the halftime show was the same as the one taken in Minn. that Google's AI started agreeing - prompting people to cyclically point to it as factual proof. And that may be the perfect rejoinder to tonight's insipid AI LLM ad spree.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Stumbled on a certain advertisement and this is immediately where my mind went. If you know, you know.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

The Don't Tread On Me party becoming the Comply Or Die party is a hell of a rebrand.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Today the Twin Cities will demonstrate the closest thing to a true general strike in 80 years. While rare, they have a storied history of helping make change. At a minimum, they illustrate that when you manage to piss off an entire city into shutting down, you've screwed up on an historic scale.

jacobin.com

The Citywide General Strike Has a Rich History in America

In response to the killing of Renee Good and the ICE invasion, the Minneapolis labor movement has issued the nation’s first citywide general strike call in nearly 80 years, set for tomorrow. It is bui...

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

One year in and it's safe to say the state of the US is a Plinko ball — chaotically bouncing violently from one direction to the next with no control beyond ever downward, while a percentage of its deluded participants still believe there's some deep strategy guiding its hand & hoping they win big.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Like many, I can fall into the trap of forgetting good things in the news still happen. I've found these weekly positive roundups a good pushback against encroaching despair. It's not an absolution of the Terrible Things, but rather, a reminder of why we fight, we hope, and to stay the course.

open.substack.com

Extra! Extra! 1/11

Yes. Good things DID happen this week!

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

The reason there's so many variations on those literary "You Are Here" Venn diagrams is because we have more than a century's worth of stellar content warning us on what NOT to do to one another. There's a sad but quiet beauty about humanity in that fact.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

If WWWIII starts because of the fucking Mercator map I say we just pack it in as a species.

youtube.com

Gall--Peters Projection

YouTube video by UsefulClips

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Conservative media followers: we need to listen to the Founders! *Paine, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, Washington, and others wrote quite clearly that tyrants and autocratic rule were a super bad idea* Conservative media followers: no, not like that

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Way too many people have 'need to hit this Monday hard to make up for the last few weeks of leisure' energy. I am not a fan.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Today underscores we're now in full swing of a lawless imperial presidency, and they're not hiding it. At all. In fact, its enablers are cheering it on.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

I hereby decree when this president's reign is over we invoke the ancient rite of "damnatio memoriae". Nothing would piss a narcissist off more than erasure.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

What? Twitter continues to get more and more awful? Who saw that coming - except everyone.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

An unpersonalized Christmas card photo is a strange vehicle to let someone know it's been so long since you've last spoken that they've moved to the other end of the state and have yet another preschool age child you've never met.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Maybe the generation that literally can't explain the difference between socialism and communism but rants about how republicanism is not democracy should sit out the argument about whether it's fascism or not.

media.tenor.com

a woman in a purple shirt says sit down in front of a whiteboard

ALT: a woman in a purple shirt says sit down in front of a whiteboard

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Even if Rs manage to hold on to TN-7 after tonight, it's going to be by a fraction of what they won the district by just a year ago. Based on the results at just 50%, I expect to see a few more in Congress heading for the doors before too long.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

There's a lot of game publishers doing sales this weekend, but my favorite so far might be one advertising 'up to 20% off site-wide!' — with exception of any new releases, deluxe editions, Kicktarted game bundles, and certain accessories. Is that all?

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

So long and thanks for all the fish! Pax Unplugged 2025 is over, and it was a nice recharge event for me. I'm bad with making timely posts and taking photos and such, but to everyone I chatted with for 3 days in Philly, know it was exactly what I needed. So thank you. And here's to the next one.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

In just a few hours I will be in Philly for the annual #PAXUnplugged soiree. Despite the con being early throwing me off and not being the best at sting active online in recent months, still alive and very much looking forward to seeing as many familiar faces as I can. Also something about games?

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Person: Why do you have subtitles on to watch TV? How can you even focus? Same Person: Check out these 15 second videos that's a just a woman pointing and nodding to a wall of text longer than the Illiad. I've been watching them for 2 hours straight.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

If you can vote today in your town/city/county/state, and you haven't already, do that. That's all.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

There were so many people in DC today you'd think it was an Obama inaugural. party

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Good job, little sign. How would anyone know otherwise?

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

When The West Wing originally aired, it was on NBC. If made today, it'd be on TruTv.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

In light of the latest deep state conspiracy at the UN, I'm reminded of a much wiser man:

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

The face of everyone not wanting to start over on a Monday morning...

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

When a company blatantly refuses to defend first amendment rights, one can argue fairly easily it therefore doesn't deserve your money or your patronage. Going to be very interesting to see how the mouse handles the backlash to the backlash.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

So if I understand the bloviating from our geniuses running administration and Justice Department, it's hate speech if you call out, repudiate, or quote someone else's hate speech, but the original hate speech is okay because that's free speech. Do I have that right?

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the whole Weasel Timeline thing kind of tracks...

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

I feel like history is going to show that those who refused to admit we had a climate crisis, refused to admit we had a pandemic, and refused to admit we were fighting off a fascist administration - each until it was far too late - will all fit in some heavily overlapping circles.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

My baby girl got on the bus for kindergarten today. She was excited. I, on the other hand, have been up and down all day because of it. Parenting is wild on your psyche.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

My current boss messaged the team to have a good Labor Day weekend. He sent it on Saturday. So I didn't see it until Tuesday. I'm not sure if there is better imagery for the holiday than that.

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Ryan LaFlamme @trickybluemage.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Woke up at 7:30 to a bunch of my family all texting in the family thread. Arrived at work around 9 to a bunch of coworkers already full steam into their morning. Definitely feel like I missed a lesson somewhere along the way about how to function as an adult before 9AM.

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