iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 10h

Gym Song of the Day: "Crunk in the Club" by Adi T. The vibe is essentially gangsta rap bars in the club, only the club is a progressive house joint in Stuttgart, Germany, and you're probably going home with a vampire who's been eyeing you all night: www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Fx...

youtube.com

Adi T - CRUNK IN THE CLUB

YouTube video by Adi T

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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

will you people shut the fuck up

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I've said it before, but this conversation begins and ends with one movie: Event Horizon. Campy by today's standards, I saw it in theaters completely on a whim. It messed me up. I played JRPGs to get me out of my funk, including Breath of Fire 2, FF6, and Earthbound. MST3K also helped.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's October 1st. Time to watch scary movies and play spooky games in my backlog. Up first is Sam Neill's In the Mouth of Madness. That was some great '90s b-horror. It was David Lynch meets Lovecraft in all of its hokey glory as each character realizes they aren't real. Plus, the theme song is fun.

youtube.com

In the Mouth of Madness - Theme

YouTube video by JonesKW

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Before the Spooky Season begins, and I cycle through my scary games and movies backlog, I'm ranking every Unicorn Overlord "romance" based on narrative coherence and how much it entertains me. I'm getting there, but, damn, there are a lot of options.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I give up. I’m moving into a cave.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Saw Spidey with my folks. I don't normally do stuff like this, but since my parents took me to the theaters to watch Optimus die when I was in kindergarten, I'll make an exception to buy the Transformers popcorn bucket (to be fair, I always aligned with the Dinobots).

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Of course I love Star Wars and every presentation, but this remains hilarious.

Meme caption: "When your home planet exploded a few hours ago, but a guy you jet met is feeling sad about his martial-arts mentor."

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I've successfully digitized 16 of these mixtapes so far. It's funny, but I try to discern my mindset when I made each. Some moods are obvious, but on other occasions, I just wanted to have fun. Anywho, any interest in me posting the full sets down the road? In the meantime, here are fun highlights:

youtube.com

Timekiller (And One Remix)

YouTube video by Project Pitchfork - Topic

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

One of my favorite hobbies in high school and my early undergrad years before I transitioned to MP3 players was burning mixes that combined virtually every genre from my CDs along with sketches from The Simpsons, Space Ghost, and other shows. I'm finally digitizing them 20+ years later.

An image of CD-Rs on spindles on a coffee table.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

About a month ago, I decided that I wanted a personal trainer to get my bench press numbers up. It seems like this was a great idea, because today I hit a 315-pound board bench press. Onward and upward.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Video games I've played during my hiatus: Expedition 33 Final Fantasy 16 Final Fantasy 10 (FOR THE FIRST TIME!) Silent Hill F Shinobi (PS5) Resident Evil Requiem Fire Emblem Awakening Fire Emblem Echoes Unicorn Overlord (for the second time) I'll post my thoughts if you're curious about any.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Well, I've been away for about 9 months. Played some good games, read some good books, got some good gains, blah, blah, blah. Anywho, what's up, Bluesky? Did I miss anything?

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Love this specimen. Reminds me of undergrad. One of our intramural softball celebratory chants was, "WATTEERRRRRR BEARRRRR!"

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

It's a holiday tradition of sorts for me to play Shining Force II in December because I first beat it in December 1996 as a young 'en. I was bummed when I beat it! Still one of my faves. Since this is around where I stopped playing last year, I can probably dust off this playthrough.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Since I've made it through 25 sets, it's time to update the MST3K chart. I'm realizing that some of these are a bit more fluid than I anticipated, so some will move around as I make it to the end. The legend is in the alt text. How would you place some of these, y'all? @optimstie.bsky.social

A chart detailing MST3K episodes I've watched this year. Here is the legend:

Boring: Hard to watch as a standalone movie, so the riffing helps.

Entertaining: Fun, B-movie goodness.

Campy: I mean, if they weren’t trying to make a purposely campy movie, they sure fooled me.

Sincere: Wait. I think this was a serious attempt at a movie…

Bold: Yeah, I'd watch it again.

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Stephanie Brownback @osu16bit.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has died. Bummer news. I mean, what do you even need to say about his performance as Shang Tsung? Iconic.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you've seen: Iron Maiden Lazarus A.D. and Evile The Entire Mayhem Festival Roster Boyz II Men Taylor Dayne

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

All right, everyone. Let's get hyped for Christmas.

Panel One features a photos of the Rebels from Star Wars: A businesswoman from the big city who hates the holidays.

Panel 2 features Darth Vader with his red lightsaber drawn: A hunky baker or some shit who's gonna teach her the true meaning of Christmas.

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Ghoul-in’ Dickey @colindickey.com · 26/11/2025

Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I'm seeing the "visited by three spirits" meme floating around. I couldn't find any while cleaning out my library, but I did find this masterpiece:

A three-panel comic of Death visiting Scrooge, informing him that he will see the ghost of Christmas Future. Rather than conventional retellings of the story, this one features a robot firing a laser at a squid commando.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Awesome stuff. I'm currently going through my collection and am on Volume 25. One thing I'll never forget is that the ending credits reminded me of the days when "The Star Spangled Banner" would play on TV to signal a broadcast's sign-off. Similarly, MST3K's meant it was time for me to go to bed.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Josh Allen's speech at his number retirement ceremony at the University of Wyoming. A cool event to attend.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Before: I rolled in the lawn four times. It was worth it. After: I have reached enlightenment. Rolling is beneath me...until I do it again.

A picture of a wet golden retriever smiling in the tub. Was it worth it? Probably.

A picture of the same golden retriever, only he is now dry. He looks regal on his staircase. Nay! He looks dignified.

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Juliet Turner @juliet-turner.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Surprise, surprise. Another Broncos game decided in the closing seconds of the 4th.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

"His kitchen table, adorned with copies of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Larry Hama's G.I. Joe Compendium One..."

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Max Read @maxread.info · 07/11/2025

we talk too much about the male loneliness crisis and not enough about the male suckerfication crisis maxread.substack.com/p/prediction...

One way of thinking about Twitter, especially in the Elon Musk era, is as the latest and most sophisticated version of the mailing lists that have powered the conservative movement, and the various scams and cons and schemes that constitute it, since the 1960s--in other words, as a huge and immediately accessible collection of suckers, waiting to have their avidity and paranoia exploited for cash. The predictions markets here are happy to play the same role with heavy X.com users as crypto scams and meme-stock hustlers did on the same site a few years ago, or as cash-for-gold ads did with Fox News viewers a decade before that, or as direct-mail get-rich-quick schemes did with Goldwater voters deep in prehistory.1

But the demand for dumb money created by the increasing annexation of our everyday social and cultural lives into casino-market hybrids like predictions markets (or, arguably, social media itself2) isn’t going to be satisfied solely by a pre-existing population of Birchite suckers. We talk a lot about the “male loneliness crisis” but in my estimation we don’t talk enough about the “male suckerfication crisis”: The process by which young men are continuously cultivated--by politicians, influencers, podcasters, sportscasters, and the very structure of social networks--as dupes and suckers, both for the enrichment and empowerment of Trumpist politicians and movements but also in service of the profits an ever-expanding roster of gambling and gambling-adjacent industries, among them app-enabled retail day-trading, crypto speculation, predictions markets, and of course, actual sports betting.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Dude. Come on. I have to re-post these.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I have a friend at the gym. Whenever we talk, if the clock hits 11:11, she stops our conversation and tells me to make a wish. Cute and superstitious? Absolutely. However, I just saw my first Aurora Borealis lightshow on 11/11, so I can't help but smile right now.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

My theme song tonight! Smith and Pledger - "Northern Lights": www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGmG...

youtube.com

Northern Lights (Original Mix)

YouTube video by Smith & Pledger - Topic

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Northern Lights texting me like, "...You up?"

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I might be staying up a bit longer tonight for this show.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Hit 245 for ten reps on ass-to-grass squats today. This was the song, courtesy of 13 Sentinels: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyWR...

youtube.com

(ISOLEUCINE)- -Branched- | 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim

YouTube video by Sentinals Good

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Digitizing home movies I've never seen in this era is a wild exercise in ersatz nostalgia. Now I can make a vaporwave music video featuring me getting last place at a 7th grade swim meet. Thanks, for just keeping the camera on me, mom and dad. I'd get there. Eventually.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

On a whim, I replayed RE2R and RE3R over these last few days for the first time in 5 years (PS5 upgrades). RE2R blew me away to the point that I think it's one of the best games ever made. RE3 is fun, but it's still incomplete, a prime example of a "what if..." beta version in video game history.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

Honestly, at this point, it's pretty clear that you can sleep during the third quarter when the Broncos play because they are just waiting for the 4th.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

@darthbluesky.bsky.social: These best boys wanted to audition to play Krypto on this Hallow's Eve.

Two golden retrievers wearing Superman outfits for Halloween. They are smiling because they tolerate me, and because they got treats.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Now it's official. Happy Halloween.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

It's completely terrible, and yet hypnotic at the same time. The dialogue reminds me of dialogue from some of my dreams in which I know people are talking, but I cannot for the life of me make out what they say.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Anyone else already opened up their Halloween candy, or do you have self-control? Asking for...for me. Those Reese's were just sitting there.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

So many choices, but I keep coming back to the outro from Fallujah's "Chemical Cave": youtu.be/yOr5TFLmP5s?...

youtu.be

Chemical Cave (2024 Remaster)

YouTube video by Fallujah - Topic

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

I fired up Resident Evil 2 R on a whim tonight. I don't think I've played it since 2020, so I'm playing it on the PS5 for the first time without my PS4 saves. I forgot how legitimately great this game is.

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Mark Kretzschmar @professthor.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Okay. That Broncos 4th quarter was absolutely ridiculous! What a comeback!

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