Notices by Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Saturday, 19-Sep-2026 14:48:13 JST 
Chris Trottier
I’m going to finally start a NodeBB instance.
For the past year, I debated whether it should be Piefed instead.
Thing is, I own the domain nodebb.social and I got the full blessing of @julian to use it. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Friday, 18-Sep-2026 10:53:44 JST
Chris Trottier
🤣
There are no U.S. military bases in Canada.
Therefore you can’t withdraw them from here. But if it makes you feel better, you can continue to not have a U.S. military base in Canada.
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Thursday, 10-Sep-2026 09:22:46 JST
Chris Trottier
Earthworm Jim on SEGA Genesis.
Got it for $60. That is the most I’ve ever paid for a used game, and it was for this.
Usually, I’m thrifty. Buy things when nobody wants them. Dig around until I find something cheap.
But in this case? Shucks.
It’s Earthworm Jim.
I rented this game again and again from Rogers Video. I’d stay up all night playing the damn thing because I knew the next day it had to GO BACK.
A friend of mine had the SNES port. It was all right. I played the DOS version too, and that one is great.
But there’s something about the Genesis version because that’s how I experienced it.
Midnight. Can of Diet Coke on the coffee table. My sister upstairs blasting Pearl Jam.
Earthworm Jim.
Sometimes I get after people for dropping big money on collectibles because they start treating the stuff like investments.
But if something actually means something to you? Yeah, sometimes it’s worth dropping the extra coin.
Because Earthworm Jim?
That was a moment when I was happy. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Sep-2026 02:08:12 JST
Chris Trottier
Today’s tea is coffee milk tea, otherwise known as yeun-yeung, sold by Van Cheong.
What happens when I can’t decide whether I want coffee or tea?
Hell with it. I’ll have BOTH.
Traditionally, yeun-yeung is 3/4 Ceylon black tea and 1/4 coffee, and making the stuff properly can be a pain in the ass.
Thankfully, I don’t have to do any of that work because mine comes as a powder.
One teaspoon. 200 mL of boiled water. Give it a good, hearty stir.
Voila. Coffee and tea are now living in the same mug.
Now some of you are probably making a face.
“Ew. Gross. Coffee mixed with tea?”
Yeah, I won’t lie. It’s an acquired taste.
But after years of eating at Hong Kong cafés, I’ve come around to the stuff. It has KICK. Coffee comes through, tea comes through, and the whole thing gives you a little slap.
Drinking yeun-yeung builds character.
Only thing missing right now is some congee and a Chinese donut. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 06-Sep-2026 16:38:43 JST
Chris Trottier
@dansup When you said the title of the CD, did you say it with attitude? -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 06-Sep-2026 09:11:17 JST
Chris Trottier
In the context of the 90s, “boy power” meant something totally different from “girl power”. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Saturday, 05-Sep-2026 12:39:41 JST
Chris Trottier
@evan @garbados I had no idea you are Palestinian.
I’m a Jew, and people think I support Netanyahu just by virtue of being Jewish. However, I’m disgusted by what Israel is doing to Palestinians. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Saturday, 05-Sep-2026 03:55:53 JST
Chris Trottier
I am NOT joking.
The White House just released arcade.gov.
A collection of browser-based video games to push MAGA propaganda.
That is a real sentence I just had to write. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Tuesday, 01-Sep-2026 16:46:22 JST
Chris Trottier
10 years ago, I was gifted this tin box of horror films.
And I watched NONE of them.
The whole thing has been sitting there ever since, still sealed in shrink wrap, while I kept telling myself I’d get around to it. I never did. I just wasn’t in the mood for old-timey black-and-white horror flicks.
And it’s not like the movies suck. There are 10 films in this thing, and 1 of them is Nosferatu, so there has to be more good movies in the box.
Anyway, this tin was made in 2005. It has been sealed shut for 21 years. That ends tonight.
I’m ripping the shrink wrap off and finally letting the monsters out.
First up: Horror Hotel, starring Christopher Lee. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 30-Aug-2026 11:36:51 JST
Chris Trottier
Remember that art movement I started nearly 10 years ago?
It’s become a music genre.
And no, I didn’t create any of this stuff.
https://bandcamp.com/discover/sizz -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Monday, 24-Aug-2026 08:34:08 JST
Chris Trottier
Wow. Just wow.
The Trump Administration wants Canada to gut bilingual labels, strip French-language requirements from electronics and manuals, and put a leash on subsidies for French culture and French media online.
No wonder Carney walked.
Good.
Some things are not sitting on the bargaining table with a price tag tied to their ankle.
That’s the part the USA never seems to understand about Canada. We’re right next door, but sometimes they look across the border and see nothing but meat on a butcher’s scale: language, culture, identity.
They just see numbers, statistics, and leverage. Something to carve up if the deal is fat enough.
Then Canada says no, and suddenly Americans look surprised.
Sorry.
Culture and language are not for sale.
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-2026 09:33:23 JST
Chris Trottier
Everyone gives me hell for clinging to physical media.
Well, look who’s laughing now.
My Internet has been DEAD for an entire day because some vandal cut the fibre and my ISP is still out there trying to stitch it back together.
Meanwhile?
Blu-rays spinning. CDs humming. Cartridges clicking into place.
Everything works.
“But Chris, you can download Netflix and Spotify!”
Sure. Did you download your whole damn library? Hook it all up to the television and stereo? Stock the bunker for the day the wire gets cut?
Didn’t think so.
Streaming companies don’t want you sitting on a mountain of their stuff forever. They demand that the pipe be open.
Well, mine is closed.
And I’ve still got movies on shelves, music in cases, games in cartridges and books made with paper you can flip.
Enough to keep me occupied for months.
That’s why I keep this stuff.
One asshole with a pair of cutters shouldn’t get to turn off my culture. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Monday, 17-Aug-2026 13:25:31 JST
Chris Trottier
Sunday morning at Tim Hortons and I’m trying to mind my own business.
Coffee smell. Grey light through the window. Three women at the next table, all solidly middle-aged, talking loud enough that minding my own business becomes impossible.
They weren’t born yesterday. Fleece vest. Rings. Reading glasses. Phones facedown beside the coffee. Women who’ve already raised kids, buried pets, and survived men.
Then Fleece Vest says:
“I’m just saying, if you had to pick.”
Her friend looks up from her phone. “Pick what?”
“Lord of the Rings. Hottest one.”
My ears wake up.
“Legolas.”
Fleece recoils.
“Legolas?”
“Absolutely. Look at him.”
“Too pretty.”
“That’s the point.”
“He looks like a doll.”
“He looks like a very pretty doll with a bow.”
Now they’re both grinning.
Fleece shakes her head.
“Aragorn. The cloak. The sword. That’s a man.”
Phone isn’t moving an inch.
“Nope. Legolas.”
Jesus. It’s 9AM. We got our own Battle for Middle-Earth going on.
Fleece gives her another look.
“You can’t trust a man that pretty. My daughter dated a guy like that. Nightmare.”
Phone shrugs.
“Still Legolas.”
Fleece makes a face like she just bit into something bad.
Then they turn on Linda.
Linda has been stirring her coffee through all of this. Slow circles. Eyes down. Linda looks tired in a way sleep probably doesn’t fix.
“What about you, Linda?”
Nothing.
“Linda.”
“Mm?”
“Aragorn or Legolas?”
She stops stirring. Thinks. Shrugs.
“Gimli, I guess.”
Fleece Vest chokes. Phone drops her phone onto the table. I nearly lose my coffee.
“The dwarf?”
“Sure.”
“Linda, that’s sick.”
“He’s shaped like a fire hydrant!”
Linda doesn’t care.
“He’s funny.”
“Funny?”
“And loyal. He’d stick around.”
Fleece pauses.
“You’re picking Gimli because he’d stick around?”
Linda takes a sip.
“Nowadays? That counts for a lot.”
Now I’m looking into my cup because if I make eye contact with anybody I’m finished.
Phone leans toward Fleece.
“Something’s wrong with her.”
“Ever since the divorce.”
Linda takes a sip.
“It’s not the divorce.”
“It’s definitely the divorce.”
There’s a little silence.
Then Linda shrugs again.
“He’d be warm in winter. That’s all I’m saying.”
That kills me.
Fleece Vest stands up with her cup.
“I’m getting a refill. And I’m not sitting next to her anymore.”
Phone starts laughing.
Linda doesn’t.
She just keeps drinking, calm as hell, like the matter has been settled. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Friday, 14-Aug-2026 06:01:44 JST
Chris Trottier
How I think and how I talk don’t line up.
In person, I’m the nerd with the fire hose. Facts. Details. More details. One thing hooks into another and suddenly I’ve dumped the whole damn attic at your feet.
I wish I could stop doing it.
But autism. The machine runs how it runs.
Inside my head, though, none of this stuff is just stuff.
A record. A tea. An old machine. A bus ride. They’re little electric wires running backward through time. Touch one and something comes alive—a place, a person, an old version of me.
That’s what I’m always trying to explain.
Not the thing.
Why the thing has its teeth in me.
And somehow, when I open my mouth, out come the specifications. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 13:36:18 JST
Chris Trottier
Early Saturday morning.
The sun is up, the birds are screaming. Yes, screaming.
Seriously, I had a dream about sharing French toast with Jerry Garcia and he was screaming loudly in a panic—enough to wake me up, and I realized it was a sea gull above my window wailing and screaming its heart out. To hell with that bird.
And I had to SCRAPE MYSELF OUT OF BED like something they found stuck to the floor of a slaughterhouse.
Back to FOSSY.
Back to #Fedicon.
My carcass wanted sleep. My brain wanted darkness. But somewhere out there a bunch of beautiful internet freaks were already gathering, so I poured myself into some clothes and joined the living.
And so far at FOSSY?
Great.
I’ve met people from all over the world. Different countries. Different accents. Different projects. People building things, breaking things, rebuilding things, and arguing passionately about extremely specific pieces of technology that 99.999% of humanity will never know exist.
In other words, my people.
Some are perfectly respectable, some suspicious, some absolute freaks.
Freaks like me.
The good kind.
The kind who get obsessed with some strange little corner of the universe and start digging until their fingernails come off.
So here I am, early Saturday morning, running on fumes and whatever electrical impulses are still jumping between the wet wires in my skull.
Fedicon at #FOSSY.
The freaks have assembled.
And somehow I made it out of the crypt in time to join them. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 11:38:33 JST
Chris Trottier
Final night for #Fedicon (but not #FOSSY)
Speakers and panelists are meeting for one final meal at Big Way Hotpot.
Nobody here (except @julian) has yet had hotpot. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 10:18:16 JST
Chris Trottier
I’m so old, when someone just mentioned they’re an HP fan, I thought they were referring to Hewlett-Packard.
And I thought, “Who, in this day and age, loves Hewlett-Packard?”
Turns out “HP” means Harry Potter. -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 09:55:54 JST
Chris Trottier
Hey, anyone remember Wildebeest?
That was Cloudflare’s Mastodon killer.
#Fedicon -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 04:40:33 JST
Chris Trottier
According to @dansup:
#Loops has a dead man’s switch. If an admin does not log in for a week, open registrations close.
This might seem like a small thing but it’s huge for trust and safety.
#Fedicon -
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Chris Trottier (atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Aug-2026 03:33:29 JST
Chris Trottier
Just realized I need a new profile pic on #Loops.
Right now I look like some Depression-era rail-yard ghoul who sleeps under bridges, eats beans out of a tin can, and hops freight trains whenever the moon tells him to.
A real boxcar Romeo.
Which sounds like a hell of a good time compared to my actual life.
Unfortunately, I have hopped exactly zero trolleys.
The photograph is a lie.
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