Christopher Drum

@christopherdrum.bsky.social

184 Followers 233 Following

A nerd doing nerdy things which delight nerds. My blog about retro productivity software: stonetools.ghost.io Pico-8 projects: christopherdrum.itch.io Open source stuff: christopherdrum.github.io Fediverse (Mastodon, et al): @christopherdrum@hachyderm.io

Snippet from Smithsonian Magazine online talking about the tensile strength of snail teeth vs. spider silk. To explain the strength, it says, "That's comparable to a single strand of spaghetti holding up about 3,300 one-pound bags of sugar, the study's lead author, Asa Barber of the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC." Such an oddly convoluted, yet also hyper-specific, way to say "3,300 pounds"
Screencapture from Flash Gordon movie, showing Ming's tools of destruction. Three buttons are shown, labelled "hurricane,", "hot hail," and "typhoon."
Guy in a 70's polyester suit, bushy mutton chops, thin mustache, gun holster, play squirt gun, sunglasses. Halloween costume I wore decades earlier as a "detective from the 70s"
Screenshot from the arcade version of Atari Paperboy. A friendly, blue house with lots of breakable windows to the left. Coming out of the driveway to give the player hell, a little boy on a Big Wheel. He's totally not watching where he's going!
Original animated series title card. Show title reads, "I, Dumm" Writer credit reads, "Written by good smart write guy person"
Adam Savage on the left, Alton Brown on the right. They look damn similar with black, thick rimmed glasses, tufted white hair that starts way toward the top of the head, white beard, and general "gettin' older" lines on the face.
Fake Burger King ad. The logo reads "Billionaire King" The caption reads, "We're finally eating them."
Fake label for an Atari 2600 game. This is the black variant, with text in Pump font at the top, as seen in early 80's games, with artwork in a square with rounded corners in the center. The title reads, "game program "Mankind*" Use with paddle controllers." The image focuses on the orange astronaut and the man standing by a flock of birds. At the bottom, copyright information says it is copyright 1981 Atari, Inc. The * in the game title is clarified, "* A quickly tossed-off photo manipulation by Chris Drum"
Opening title screen of Star Trek, original series. Title has been changed to read "The Brak Trap"
Fake star wars movie title says "Star Wars: 3 or 4 characters you've seen before"
The dumb text by Vincent Vallelong has been replaced to say "Today it is snowballs. Tomorrow it could be Evas piloted by depressed teens with daddy issues." The font matches perfectly. It is Google Font "Cinzel" should you wish to make your own.
Cover from "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: A Junior Novelization" by Scholastic Press. "Based on the rib-tickling motion picture from Universal Pictures. Bonus! Eight great pages of stone-age color photos from the movie!"
The Be Sharps, from The Simpsons season 5, episode 1 "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"
Opening image from the first graphic adventure game, Mystery House, by Ken & Roberta Williams.
Slide 1 from an EA demo disk describing Pinball Construction Set for the Amiga. "This is the first construction set ever, the design that introduced computer owners to the creativity of computing. It's a video pinball game that plays like the real thing with real pinball sounds, tilt, exciting music and 28 different working parts. It's also an easy-to-use build it yourself set. Put a bumper here, drag some flippers over there, add some rollovers and a chute and - Voila! - you have a working game. This one must be seen to be believed. That's probably why it has won 9 Game of the Year awards. 1 to 4 players; Requires mouse or joystick."
Full color Pinball Construction Set, allegedly for the Commodore Amiga. The table has (relatively speaking) detailed artwork of two vintage automobiles and says "CARS" above it, with an arrangement of bumpers and such. The palette of pinball construction tools on the right mimics the C64 and Apple 2, no new tools, but more detailed with drop shadows to add dimension. Inset is a small screenshot of the C64 version for comparison.
Hastily modified image promoting John Travolta's "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" to be "The Twat on the Fianancial Bubble." Travolta's face has been replaced with Sam Altman, sitting in a bubble, and wearing an orange protective suit.
A blank "Home" page for YouTube which supposedly means YouTube isn't tracking my watch history and thus frees me from the constraints of some algorithm. But strictly speaking, between you and me, I don't trust that Google is telling me the whole truth here.
A Six Million Dollar Man lunchbox with thermos. Steven Austin's head is surrounded by images of his strength and speed: bending a railroad tie, racing a stallion, ripping a tree out of the ground, jumping over a speeding car.
Ronald Reagan 1980 campaign button with his slogan, "Let's Make America Great Again"
Video capture of a C64 emulator. I haved typed "10 print I am alive" then "20 goto 10" and run. The computer repeats printing "I am alive" again and again, surely a sign that the computer is in fact alive!
Screen capture from the British televison show The Prisoner, episode titled "Checkmate" shows people standing as the figures on a giant chessboard.
The scarlet, blocky menace of the robot Maximilian from the movie The Black Hole stands before four robed, masked figures, who man a large bank of technical readout video consoles.
An image of Simone Biles showing off her extensive Olympic medal collection. The meme caption reads "mental gymnastics champion"
A GameBoy Micro in Famicon homage gold/red color scheme and lettering.
Green Lantern pointing at The Flash accusatorily, saying, "Great guardians! Flash! It is you! You are the menace who has been triggering these disasters!" Flash responds with a "Wh----AAAT?!"
A recipe supposedly revealed, very casually, to a reporter during an interview with Colonel Sanders's nephew. He stated quite adamantly at the time that this is the recipe, but has since tried to hem and haw around having revealed the secret. It reads 11 spices, mix with 2 cups white flour 1. 2/3 teaspoon salt 2. 1/2 teaspoon thyme 3. 1/2 teaspoon basil 4. 1/3 teaspoon "origino" 5. 1 teaspoon celery salt 6. 1 teaspoon black pepper 7. 1 teaspoon dried mustard 8. 4 teaspoon paprika 9. 2 teaspoon garlic salt 10. 1 teaspoon ground ginger 11. 3 teaspoon white pepper
Screen capture of Ken Griffey, Jr. on The Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat." Griffey is shown in a wheelchair, his body altered by "gigantism" thanks to a "brain tonic" Mr. Burns gave him.
The "Guru Meditation" error screen of an Amiga. It reads "Software Failure. Press left mouse button to continue. Guru Meditation #00000025.65045338". The text is red on a black background and is framed in red.
A fake screenshot showing Wikipedia verifying the obviously, verifiably false and ridiculous claim that no Beatles lived to do solo careers. It states simply “Everyone is now dead.”
Quick and dirty fake cover showing a book cover with the title changed to read "Secrets of Bridge Guardians: Exposed"
Screenshot from the Pico-8 of Spider and Web, a z-machine z5 text adventure written in Inform v6.14 by Andrew Plotkin (copyright 1997-8). Screenshot shows the game title header information and some of the text of the beginning of the game, just as proof that it runs in the in-progress update to Status Line. Status Line is a z-machine interpreter for the Pico-8 by Christopher Drum, which currently (as of v2) lets you run z3 and z4 text adventures (like Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Trinity, and more). This update will add z5 support, greatly expanding the array of compatible games that can be enjoyed in the cozy atmosphere of the Pico-8.
Animation clip from The Simpsons, S05E03 when Homer goes to college. He burns his high school GED thinking that it's no longer of value. The original text said, "I'm a college man! I won't need my high school diploma anymore!" I have replaced the caption to read, "I'm a MAGA man! I won't need my harvard diploma anymore!" Animation is of Homer lighting his diploma on fire, dancing in front of the spreading flames as they start to engulf his house, him oblivious.
Fake screenshot showing UI for internal tools at OpenAI. The Cancel button is unassuming, The Continue button is bold and begs to be clicked with Continue is a larger font. Below the word "Continue" in green text on a green background a tiny font reads "deleting incriminating evidence". Below those two options is the unassuming, hard to see, "real" third choice which reads in light grey on a white background "Continue without deleting incriminating evidence." The same anti-pattern I've seen (and been tricked by) used by Amazon to trick people into signing up for Prime.
Marvel Super Special issue #36 featuring Dune. A one-shot adaptation of the Lynch movie, which later(?) was reprinted as a 3-issue mini-series.
A Mickey Mouse camera that someone slightly altered to make the hands look like goatse, with the lens being the anus. This re-alteration clones the metal Mickey hand-strap dangle into multiple spheres along the rope to re-emphasize the anal qualities further.
A variety of MacOS 9 windows showing the old BBS client-server software called Hotline.
Fake screenshot showing Jason Pargin's new book in "rare, unsigned" condition listing for $15,000, by user "bookflipper69" whose approval rating is a mere 17%. Shipping costs $750.
Screenshot from Cho Aniki, depicting a boss fight against a giant naked man who seems to be wearing a robotic bikini(?). The bikini looks like a round spaceship, out of which is thrusting what is clearly supposed to be a penis, but the head is replaced with a muscle man, flexing.
Victoria Principle from her book The Body Principle, in sexy workout clothing that is partially (tastefully) see through and skin-tight.