iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

There was a class called "business math" that was perversely, only open to students who didn't plan to go to college. So those kids got practical skills, while I took, almost failed, and have never since used, trigonometry.

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I hate that kind of rock. It's somehow angry and emotionless at the same time.

What it says about me is I'm 49. I just looked at the Billboard hot 100 and recognized maybe 13 names. With a couple of exceptions, I couldn't tell you what their music sounds like. Some kid could tell me they're going to see Flimby open for Juvon Joste and that would sound totally accurate.

Scolding Rolling Stone article: At this point, though, if someone contends they've never even heard of
"Choosin' Texas" or Langley, it may say more about the listener than the song.
Or, for that matter, what they want to project to the world. With incessant news coverage alongside chart and playlist presence, it's pretty difficult to still claim total ignorance on this one.
Perhaps there is a deeper reason why people say they haven't heard the song and feel the need to make it known: cultural cachet.

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Tom Coombe @calmtomb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For me it’s “I’m almost 50 and it would be weird for me to be familiar with the billboard top 100.”

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Honestly, I think it works year round.

Tom Coombe @calmtomb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Yeah, I can’t imagine Mark Zuckerberg making people feel uneasy.

"I think if I started wearing suits to work, people would freak out."
In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, talked for the first time about his style evolution.

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Tom Coombe @calmtomb.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

There’s an attack ad against our congressman that ends with a shot that’s basically this scene in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

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Tom Coombe @calmtomb.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My brother used to get ear infections which meant a lot of trips to the ENT department and I always kind of looked forward to it because their waiting room had this giant display case of all the stuff they’d extracted from people’s ears, noses and throats.

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You’ve been steered correctly.

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It’s so good. The scene where the statue shows up really freaked me out.

dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I like that Barnes and Noble has this shelved in the B section, as if the YouTube sociopath guy’s actual last name is “Beast.” (Also, read Between Two Fires. It rocks)

MrBeast’s book shelved next to Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires

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Reposted by Tom Coombe

if you don't know your own address it's because you specifically don't have to know it. people that detached from reality shouldn't be in a position to drive social policy for those of us living in reality

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Eric Raglin @ericraglin1992.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yoga is a great way to clear your mind so you can think about various plot points from Boardwalk Empire.

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Reposted by Tom Coombe

Cursed Classroom is limited to ten seats, so reach out as soon as you can! Free scholarship seats are available, too. See the details in the quoted post.

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“My boy’s a box! A BOOOXXXXXXX!!!”

Red baseball cap on top of a cardboard box

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Thank you to my friends and loved ones, to all the readers and my fellow writers, to every editor who liked what they saw in my work and to my awful, awful job for driving me to write stuff that doesn’t poison my blood. #HorrorWritersChat

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Sitting next to the long-dead Bram Stoker would probably get a lot of people over to my table. #HorrorWritersChat

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I'd love to sit in on a panel about found footage horror, whether it's in print or on screen. #HorrorWritersChat

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Tom Coombe, author of several short horror stories, working on a new piece with this pitch: What if there was a support group for cult escapees that was itself a cult? #HorrorWritersChat

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My grandfather was a loud and very unusual sneezer. "YEEEEE-SHAH!"

One of our neighbors is a tiny, pleasant, soft-spoken woman who sneezes like her spine is coming out of her body.

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I have a friend who works in the music business who said Taylor Swift's "Patient Zero" is part of a larger, forthcoming album. Not sure what to think about some of these song titles.

Fascinating
Evolution
Breaking Quarantine
They've Shut Down The Interstates
Red Nashville
Food is the New Currency
Infected
It Might Just Be the Flu
Tremors
Burned, Not Buried

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Trump would climb into the portal inside his head and stay there.

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Solely for language: "Oh fuck! It's Godzilla!" "Oh, god-fucking-dammit, not Godzilla again." Things like that.

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Kylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Grade school fundraiser (selling cookies?) and the company rep stressed that we had to talk to our parents about the sale RIGHT AWAY to get started. He kept pointing to this cardboard cut out of a menacing grasshopper named "Mr. Smiley" "You have to talk to your parents before Mr. Smiley does."

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Reposted by Tom Coombe

I am not terribly upset with the development "AI evangelism becoming associated with the ugly senile rapist everyone hates"

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Tom Coombe @calmtomb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This was supposed to be our closing movie for last year’s October horror marathon before our electricity got knocked out on Halloween night. Looking forward to instead OPENING this year’s marathon with this scuzzy beautiful gem.