iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I submit Steve McQueen’s Cowichan Sweater.

Steve McQueen being amazing in The Sand Pebbles and wearing a cowichan sweater.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

When you get to the Iraq War episode from any show (that isn’t Leverage) that ran in the 2000s.

Krusty the Clown groaning and holding his head in his hands saying “Oh, God, this is always death.”

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Should I just start asking for samples? I have no ability to write about this (I’m a freelancer) and also no interest, and trying to score free food is a very “I’m still in grad school and broke” energy I don’t want to indulge…but I get one of these a day and at the end of the day, I like pretzels.

Press release.

Holiday Gift Guide: The Best Snacks to Gift Friends, Family and Coworkers This Christmas
Hi Zeb,
Looking for tasty and affordable snacks to include in your holiday gift guides for friends, family or coworkers this year? Consider including a bag of Uncle Jerry's Pretzels.
The family-owned Pennsylvania company has been making authentic, hand-twisted sourdough pretzels for more than 35 years.
Made in small batches with simple ingredients, the crunchy sourdough pretzels make an effortless holiday gift for coworkers, friends, and family who love a good salty snack.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Quote repost with a photo from whatever device you’re using without explanation

Trolley meme except that every hostage is on the same track line and there’s a git command

$ git rebase master
Successfully rebased and updated refs

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I didn’t even get that at first. (But Simpsons sight gag sent me)

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Chanting: One day I will open my inbox and it won’t be A: Promotional crap B: Obvious spam C: Obvious scam D: Contract work for the most parasitic AI companies around (I also can’t imagine wanting to do an AI interview with a company that leads this badly, but hey, that’s me)

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Homemade hamburger helper is amazing

Norman Rockwell meme about guy speaking his mind

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Dragon Quest IV. I was like 5, way too little to really even be good at the game or fully grasp it, but I knew I liked it.

The North American box art for Dragon Quest/Warrior IV

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The band The Fontanelles from Rick Sloane’s movie Hobgoblins will no longer be opening for Ed Sheeran

A still from the movie Hobgoblins featuring the band The Fontanelles playing to an audience of about 8 people

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Le Bistro Montage back in Portland. Right under the Morrison Bridge, it’s almost funny to see it here during the daytime. You went here when it was dark, slurped oysters, ate jambalaya, downed bourbon and made your way home.

A corner restaurant with a red facade called Montage. It’s overshadowed by the pylons of a bridge.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Discovered in a thrift store in Reno ten years ago. Didn’t open it: was either going to be frightened or disappointed.

A cheap wooden box and lid labeled “teeth, misc”

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

What’s with the “festival” follower accounts? What’s the endgame?

Bluesky notifications screen. Three random “film festival” accounts are following me.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I need to wipe my phone, I have some weird stuff in here

Simpsons meme with Groundskeeper Willie in bed holding an iPhone with a tartan background.

Caption says “When yer just driftin' aff tae sleep and ye get that wan text fae the ex”

Image of a text message from “Fiona”: Gonnae shag mah arse?

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

You also have a cat named Casper?

A black cat sitting on an armchair. He’s looking off to the left, head upraised. He’s so dignified that you can’t help but wonder if he’s running for office.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I wake up laughing in the middle of the night thinking about this one

Image of a cigarette smoking older man. Caption says the following

My papaws got a tattoo of ever county hes been kicked out of. It’s bout to where you can make out the whole state of West Virginee

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

In conjunction with her brother claiming that she's had kind of an obsessive fixation with other presidents (starting with W. Bush), uhhhhhhhh

She has said that she suffered from bone cancer and that it was legislation Mr. Trump signed in 2018 that provided her access to experimental treatments. (She has not publicly detailed which treatments.)

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Oh shit I got this covered, I think I’m good

John Coltrane on the album of A Love Supreme

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

If you see this, quote with your energy.

Eliot Spencer from Leverage in The Rashomon Job. He's got an enormous pipe sticking out of his mouth, his eyebrows are raised, and he looks kind of manic.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This is such an apt symbol for what his leadership brings out in others

AI slop posted by Trump. Somebody’s arm is bent at an impossible angle, holding a fucked-up musket that looks like Picasso designed it. They’re holding it behind their back for some reason

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Very close runner-up, and honestly only in second place because Village Green Preservation Society is already in there

Album cover for The Kinks’ Arthur and the Decline and Fall of the British Empire

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Honestly this series really needs some jazz

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Anthony Bourdain on why oysters are so perfect.

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ANTHONY BOURDAIN
What is an oyster if not the perfect food? It requires no preparation or cooking. Cooking would be an affront. It provides its own sauce. It's a living thing until seconds before disappearing down your throat, so you know-or should know-that it's fresh. It appears on your plate as God created it: raw, unadorned. A squeeze of lemon, or maybe a little mignonette sauce (red wine vinegar, cracked black pepper, some finely chopped shallot, about as much of an insult as you might care to tender against this magnificent creature. It is food at its most primeval and glo-rious, untouched by time or man. A living thing, eaten for sustenance and pleasure, the same way our knuckle-dragging forefathers ate them.
And they have, for me anyway, the added mystical attraction of all that sense memory-the significance of being the first food to change my life. I blame my first oyster for everything I did after: my decision to become a chef, my thrill-seeking, all my hideous screwups in pursuit of pleasure. I blame it all on that oyster. In a nice way, of course.
At five thirty A.M., Chris and I set out on an oyster boat with Dominique and Jérôme, two local pêcheurs d'huîtres. Their vessel was not the quaint pinasse of my childhood. Those days, Dominique explained, were long gone. What pinasses remained were used principally as pleasure boats, or to ferry tourists around on day trips and picnics. This craft was a long, flat beast without gunwales—more suitable for loading sacks of oysters—and with a winch and an aft wheelhouse.
It was pitch-black on the bay when we set out, Chris and I clinging to the edges of the wheelhouse, Dominique piloting, Jérôme navigat-ing. We putt-putted cautiously out to the middle of the bay, the sun
slowly besinnine to anno

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

When my toddler sleeps until 6 AM.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Anyway, this Defector article is a good read. While getting bombarded with spam is nothing new, there's something innately frustrating in these fake connections when it's so hard to actually connect with people.

Fake e-mail from Rachel Cusk.
crachelcusk@gmail.com

Blah blah, she loves the book, gets some basic facts wrong about it, asks to "talk" in the future.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Ok look I wrote a fine dissertation but there’s no way this has downloaded and read by a human a hundred times, let alone 11,703 times.

Title page of my dissertation with some boring ass metadata, including my first name

A download count of 11,703 that could only be the result of AI scraping

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I’ve had this t-shirt quite literally for half my life, but its time has come. The neckline is falling off; it is so thin in places that it’s almost like tissue paper. You let everybody know of my amazing taste in alt comics. Good night, sweet prince.

A totally awesome white t-shirt with a print from the comic book artist R. Crumb: it shows a man whose eyes have shot out of his skull like springs, the top of his head has blown off and has moths flying out of it, and he’s holding his tongue in his hand. The caption says “Burned Out.”

Sadly, it is also falling apart. The neckline is coming off of the shirt.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Yeah at bare minimum Frank Herbert was deeply skeptical of the idea of a heroic savior-figure who didn’t also wind up as a mass murderer. This old chestnut comes to mind.

Two panel Simpsons meme. Top is a Dune headline: “Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya join forces to save the universe.”

Bottom panel: Lenny and Carl looking skeptical. “You never uh read Dune, did you Homer?”

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I demand that American coffee shops start serving shakeratos.

Norman Rockwell guy standing to deliver a point meme

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

This is easily the most Zeb-coded children’s book I’ve come across. Somebody was like “a Midwest-based hipster dad will need recipe ideas and something to drool over early in the morning. And maybe, just maybe…start his kid out as a foodie.”

A children’s board book called Eggs, Please

C is for Cilbir.

Pair perfectly poached eggs with a garlicky yogurt sauce and a drizzle of spicy Aleppo butter.

J is for Jajka Faszerowane. Devour a bright deviled egg, beet-stained and herb-stuffed in one big Easter bite.

R is for Rolex.

Roll up an omelet with cabbage, tomatoes, and onions, inside a warm chapati wrap.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Ah yes, back when manly straight men made rock & roll for other manly straight men, amirite

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

No time to write anything about Platner, will keep this to shitposting

Simpsons meme. "Local Man Ruins Everything," but instead of Homer it's Graham Platner's face.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

None of this looks good, but Friday in particular is going to be a real challenge: I will have no daycare because of the holiday, it will be dangerously hot outside, and I expect that some of my indoor go-tos will be closed because of proximity to the holiday.

A weather forecast screenshot. It’s all lows in the mid-70s and highs in the mid-90s for the next week

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

*Me living in Columbus and somehow the airport has never graduated past strip mall that jets sometimes land at*

Simpsons barbecue pit meme, a gnarled mix of bricks and barbecue equipment cemented together. Caption says why doesn’t my regional airport look like that?

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

From the Bortposting group on FB

Two panel meme, from the Simpsons episode where Homer works for Hank Scorpio and is gifted the Denver Broncos.

Top panel
"Here's an oscar-winning actor to help launch that movie franchise of yours. It's not Robert Downey, Jr., but it's a start."

Bottom panel
"Aww, Jared Leto?!"

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Well by God we can fix that!

A rabbit facing the camera and wrinkling its nose as it eats.

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I’m continually just staggered by the number of people who *insist* that a humanities PhD is an amazing career credential. They’re only talking to people who have them; I think I fucking know what mine is worth.

Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social • 20h
I used to hate this argument, I really did.
But the last decade just wore me down on it. The opportunity costs are too high, the humanities PhD is a lousy credential whatever its actual worth, and there's no systemic or structural incentive to change graduate education.
Dan Davis
@bindlestiff.bsky.social
That it's a "lousy credential" is an abysmal assertion
2:45 PM • May 13, 2026
1 like
...

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Best film adaptation of The Odyssey, wrong answers only

The poster for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Actual fucking jump scare, why would Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library do this to me

A children’s book called The Baby Who Stayed Awake Forever

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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

The whole economic trajectory of my life makes a lot more sense when you can see the stock market continually rallying every time Trump opens his mouth despite stuff like this constantly happening.

LIVE
Updated 4 minutes ago
Iran War Live Updates:
Two Ships Are Fired On As Iran Says the Strait of Hormuz is Closed
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they were closing the strait until the U.S. blockade is lifted. Two ships reported being hit as they tried to cross the strait.

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