iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

While Pounties and Mounties have such similar plumage that even experts have trouble telling them apart, Counties are easily distinguished with or without their characteristic prey

An altered version of the Addams comic from the quoted post, with the role of the mountie (or pountie) and his Pan now filled by a vampire, getting his can.

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Hooray! The first issue of our paper subscription to The Onion has arrived. Now I am wondering whether this is a localized edition (!) or if we're just fortunate enough to live in this lucky zone of terrible

not a paid advertisement for the (Columbus-headquartered) Huntington Bank, the "Deeply ashamed partners of the Cleveland Browns."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

They pulled the lion by the hair They hit him with the folding chair And from his lips they drew the Hallelujah

maurice sendak drawing of pierre's parents, pulling the lion by the hair and hitting him with the folding chair. neither pierre nor the hallelujah are currently visible. leonard cohen also cannot be seen

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Sending Herbie Popnecker off to Congress to bop anti-leftist Dems with a giant lollipop of DO NOT SPLIT

Comic panel. Bespectacled, rotund, tie-wearing Herbie Popnecker says, "If that's what you want..." and zaps the devil in the ass with a bolt of energy from his lollipop. CRRACK! YOW-EEEE!

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

My dad gave me one dollar bill 'Cause I'm his smartest son, And I swapped it for two shiny quarters 'Cause two is more than one! And then I took the quarters And traded them to Lou For three dimes -- I guess he don't know That three is more than two!

Google AI overview reports that "A 12 to 15-page document typically contains between 3,000 and 3,750 words when single-spaced (approx. 250 words per page), or 6,000 to 7,500 words when double-spaced (approx. 500 words per page)." For good measure, it provides a bullet-point summary as well: "12 Pages: ~3,000 words (single-spaced) to ~6,000 words (double-spaced)."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

What Google has pulled out as the preview of this Reddit thread (for my search on whether anyone keeps this particular enormous spider as a pet) suggests something that starts at "misleading" and ends at "a historically bad idea".

Preview of thread from r/tarantulas "Just ordered a goliath bird eater, any tips, advice?" with response text "You should not be able to to squeeze it like a sponge and get substantial water out of it, but it should always always be moist. This, plus a... [Read more]"

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I knew France had a petite souris (little mouse) for their tooth fairy but it was only today I learned that Spain’s tooth-collecting mouse is this guy. Is that a cigarillo he's holding?

Cover art for the book "Ratón Pérez: Cuento Infantil," a two-color print in mauve and red, in which a debonair mouse in pince-nez, jacket, and tie leans back against his desk or side table as he reads some papers

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

needed a small concrete physical task to settle my brain, so i made use of my favorite trick of doing chain stitch backward to cover up a t-shirt stain with this little guy

closeup of a small, simple line art whale embroidered in white chain stitch on a light blue tshirt

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

I love physical bulletin boards and I hope these people find their dumb cat

a flyer featuring a photo of an orange and white cat looking a little concerned, titled "our dumb cat is lost." his name is oliver and he's a neutered male. VERY skittish. very dumb. probably won't come if called. if seen call/text [blurred out number]

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Working towards maximizing efficiency in signage while maximizing inefficiency in sign-making methods (a special sign-lettering brush may have been involved)

Two fussily hand-lettered signs, one in red on white and the other in black on white, both of which say "NO."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Trying to locate a source for narrow, removable highlighter tape, instead found this extremely trustworthy listing that seems to have been written by Friend Pelican

Product listing for Removable Wide & Narrow Highlighter Tape With Refills, with description "Easy to use by just tearing off as much or as little as desired from the dispenser roll measuring 393 in, applying and/or repositioning it and removing it without residue when its done. Description Lee Purple Highlighter Tape measuring 1/2 in wide highlights 3 lines of print or spaces. Easy to use by just tearing off as much or as little as desired from the dispenser roll measuring 393 in, applying and/or repositioning it and removing it without residue when its done. Notes or highlighted text can be written on it The included exta stainless steel bistles head makes it easy to eplace won out bistles, polonging the life of you gill bush. The wie design allows you to easily clean both the top and sides of you gill gates, ensuing a thoough clean evey time Sticker Dispenser For Teachers Students, Lee Products Removable Wide & Narrow Highlighter Tape With Refills, #7 Lee Products Co Lee Purple Highlighter Tape measuring 1/2 in wide highlights 3 lines of print or spaces. Teachers use tapes to help students focus Removable, reusable, economical Cheap 3 Inch Wide Tape Dispenser, find 3 Inch Wide Tape Dispenser deals Write on it, highlight it, flag it"

$Famous Tumblr post featuring a picture of a pelican with open mouth, captioned "pelcan Mouth perfec t size for put baby in to n\ap! inside very Soft and Comfort baby sleep soundly put baby in Pelican Mouth. Put Baby In Pelican Mouth. no problems ever in peliccan mouth because good Shape and Support for baby neck weak of big baby head. Apelican Mouth yes a place for a baby put baby in pelican mouth can trust pelican for giveing good love to baby. friend pelican"$

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Seems entirely possible that I will never read a book dedication that delivers a bigger gut punch than the dedication to Eckert's (wonderful) Meaning and Linguistic Variation.

Dedication
My senior year in high school, my French class had a substitute teacher for one week. He told us he didn’t know any French, but that he was a linguist and could help us with whatever we were working on. We said we were struggling with irregular verbs. He had us read him the paradigms and then said, “Those aren’t irregular.” That day I learned
about stress- based vowel alternations, and from then on my dream was to be a linguist. I will never know who he was. I’ve tried to find out, but I will never forget him. The principal told me that on his way home after his dissertation fieldwork on an Apache reservation, an automobile accident had killed his wife and his child and destroyed his notes. He was substitute teaching as he tried to get his life back together, but he gave up and committed suicide soon after. This book is dedicated to his memory, and to the life that he and his family never had.

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Everything about this is perfect, to me. (I am not myself at Bulgari, or partaking of the Bulgari wifi.)

Screenshot of an email from "BVULGARI WIFI," subject line "Welcome to the Bugari free Wifi." The email says:

????Bulgari??Wi-Fi?
????? (a link) ????????.
??.
Bulgari

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

A friend shares the important news that Udo Kier has a new film credit coming up! What I want to know—and, on reflection, I guess this what you’ll get because of the affordances of film—is what it’s like to be a chair in a woman’s body. I’m cautiously optimistic!

Screenshot from Wikipedia page for By Design (2025 film): By Design is a 2025 American drama film written and directed by Amanda Kramer. It stars Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Atie, Melanie Griffith, Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney and Udo Kier. It premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2025. Premise: A woman swaps bodies with a chair.

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

the fact that everyone in my house adores ginger in all its forms is what moved me to buy *a* jar of Korean ginger tea goo today. was the packaging what led me to buy *this* jar? well, yes. THIS BOTTLE SHAPE THAT ONLY WE CAN USE, you say? sign me up

A glass jar with pleasing ridges, filled with honey-colored preserves. The label has both Korean and English writing on it, and includes a silhouette of the jar itself, containing the text:

This bottle shape that only we can use
Korean traditional ginger tea
Damizle Ginger
The joy of sharing together since 1980

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

long before I owned a PlayStation, someone signed up for an account with my email address, then did something to get themselves permanently banned. every once in a while i try to get Sony to fix it so i can have an account linked to my own email. this never works. today it failed extra fast

chatbot transcript.
The PlayStation Online Assistant: "In order to continue assisting you, a Support Agent is required. Please provide your online ID. This is your username that is displayed on PlayStation Network."
Human: "help"
The PlayStation Online Assistant: "Back again so soon? Unfortunately, our Chat Support has not been effective for you. Please try again tomorrow. Goodbye! Please close the chat by clicking the X placed in the top right corner."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I’ve been busy this month with other work and likely to go on being so for a while, but I want to start sharing more things here that I have been putting on instagram, so here is just one bit of art work in progress—this is a platter at the greenware stage (unfired)

Looking down into a plastic bin at an off-white oval plate decorated with black sgraffito illustration of a borzoi and thistles

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

USPS is giving anhedonia vibes with this attempt at providing “winter whimsy”

A sheet of perfectly attractive but deeply non-whimsical postage stamps featuring simple snowflake designs, titled “Winter Whimsy”

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

"Well, Wilmer, I'm sorry indeed to lose you. But I want you to know I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

I feel like there are a lot of good possibilities for alternate/additional casting choices for A Muppet Maltese Falcon, but now that we've thought of the Beaker/Bunsen = Wilmer/Gutman it's hard to imagine anything else that could be righter

Sidney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, an erudite criminal who employs Wilmer Cook as both gunman and gunsel

Bunsen Honeydew as Bunsen Honeydew, an erudite principal investigator who employs Beaker as... potentially a lot of things

Elisha Cook Jr. as Wilmer Cook, trying to do his job and once again taking it good and hard

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

the weather was dangerously cheerful for several hours there! not to worry, though, we have returned to normal levels of november monotone despair

grayscale crayola crayon balanced on top of a box of identically gray crayons, labeled "seasonal affective disorder gray"

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 01/11/2024

My child would like you all to see her Death of Rats costume. SQUEAK

kid in costume as Terry Pratchett character the Death of Rats, from Discworld

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

I was extra worried because last night she wasn’t interested in eating, which anyone who knows her will know is extremely unlike her. I thought she’d hurt her mouth somehow. But in fact it was just adrenaline and freakout. Rest and pets and quiet have restored her to her usual bouncy, hungry state.

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

She was in quite a state when we got home and we were very worried but her actual injuries turn out to be just a couple of roughly torn-out tufts of fur and a scratch on her muzzle.

Close-up of Minnow and the cut on her little muzzle

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

This (indoor) dumb baby got into a real cat fight yesterday! The door blew open while we were out and we think what happened is that the local cat we refer to as Friendly Bitey ambled in, leading our Minnow to go HELL NO and drive him off.

Our large calico tabby cat, showing off her tail loop

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 24/05/2024

This is a Minnow’s tail appreciation post and also a Minnow’s nap style appreciation post

Minnow is stuffed between a laptop and some Donald Duck comics. Her tail’s making a loop. She sleeps

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 22/05/2024

Machine translation of the day, a description of the pictured tea bowl: "The picture is a brown haired w16.8h6. I got a single eyebrow inside and out. I made soil using the newly acquired Hiroba-kun's salt as the main ingredient. Agreed."

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 19/05/2024

"Oh, an Omega and Swatch collab, huh! Space themed? Oh yes, I see, one is yellow, 'mission to the sun,' sure, and the other one is... oh"

a Speedmaster watch with a blue face, on blue sand, captioned "Mission to Uranus"

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 16/05/2024

Sentences destined for the cutting-room floor, shared here for your enjoyment, first in a series?

Ansgar Nünning (1997) nominates Castle Rackent’s Thady Quirk (Edgeworth 1800) as the first “full-fledged” unreliable narrator in English letters. (Some parody of a youth preacher pipes up from the back of my head to say “The first unreliable narrator was Satan")

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 01/05/2024

If @ryannorth.ca and/or @ericafails.bsky.social is ever in need of a drink in Cleveland, they may like to know that the excellent Cloak and Dagger is currently offering a Koi Boi

Menu description: “Koi Boi verdant/salty/complex, nori infused blanco tequila and cachaça, herbal liqueur, lime, cucumber, celery, green tea, celery butters, saline, coconut milk, honeydew-lime ice (clarified milk punch)”

A short squat greenish drink with many round ice cubes

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it's not Vera Tobin, it's some kind of Thing @vtobin.bsky.social · 25/11/2023

If you have extra cream and a lemon or two, you can make lemon posset! 6 small intense puddings: 2 c. cream, 2/3 c. sugar, 5 T. lemon juice + zest. Bring cream, sugar, & zest to a low boil and keep there 5 minutes. Off heat, stir in juice, then strain (or don't) into little cups, chill 3-24 hrs, eat

six colorful little cups of very smooth lemon posset, on a tray

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