These things with a slightly different color and leaves grew up where I grew up and were considered dangerous for kids. I was warned to stay away. I’m not sure I did because I have clear memories how the fruit looks on the inside. The plant is famous for being used for the so cal … | Continue reading
This post has 3 tags and they all start with Bl 😀 | Continue reading
August was a fine month for reading. I managed to finish 8 books, mostly thrillers and fantasy. Best books for the month Worst books for the month | Continue reading
I recently purchased a new set of wired audiophile Fiio FT1 headphones. I haven’t used them enough yet to form a solid opinion on their sound quality, but one thing I can already appreciate is the packaging. The box is surprisingly well-designed — it fits both my SteelSeries Arct … | Continue reading
A flower for you to brighten your day. Willow Gentian, according to the Picture This app. It’s getting harder to post flowers, the fall is near. | Continue reading
A good soul cleaned up the walls of this pedestrian underpass in my neighborhood, accidentally creating a masterpiece. | Continue reading
We returned to the ski zone Malyovitsa last weekend with the hope to go a bit further up the mountain than before. The stars didn’t align to achieve that but we still had a nice and fruitful hike. The fruit: BTW, if you decide to visit the area of Malyovitsa, Hotel Malyovitsa is … | Continue reading
We are going to have a protest for preserving the Bulgarian national currency, the Bulgarian Lev (Lion). The organizers decided to use an AI generated lion for their posters. I’ve never seen a lion with such crooked teeth. He has one mid-tooth at the top, zero at the bottom, his … | Continue reading
From the daily hike. First photo shows a white-blue-white marking for a path long gone. I took it anyway and after some crawling got to the new path, which was clearly marked as seen on photo two. | Continue reading
From left to right and top to bottom. Oleander, Aloe, Paperflower, and some sort of Hibiscus, maybe Swamp rose mallow. | Continue reading
This will be a tough one to read. I’m still half-way through the last one but the buy 2 get 4 books promotion by the local publisher Artline was too good to miss. | Continue reading
One of my favorite parts of Goodreads used to be seeing how my friends are progressing toward their annual reading goals. It was fun and a little competitive in a good way. Last year, Amazon decided to clutter Goodreads with about a hundred new challenges while somehow hiding the … | Continue reading
Given that I keep reading books about Zombies, I think this photo is with the right mood. This is the abandoned pool in Blagoevgrad, in an area called The Beach. It was made like that by a concessionaire for reasons beyond comprehension and is probably not fixable with municipali … | Continue reading
Michael Connelly is one of my favorite crime/thriller authors. I’ve read almost everything he’s written (probably everything but I’m not sure about one book). He is producing high quality books pretty consistently. However, he has flops. Nightshade is one of the books I did not l … | Continue reading
I didn’t know what to expect from this book, but it definitely surprised me. The story follows a young woman who has just been released from prison and starts working as a maid for a seemingly unhinged housewife. She’s given a tiny closet to live in. Looks like it could only be l … | Continue reading
I rarely feature blackberries here because they’re not common around Sofia. I usually have to settle with raspberries and blueberries. Blackberries were very common around the city where I grew up (Stara Zagora) and I spent lots of time picking them and getting scratches. You can … | Continue reading
I wanted to check if there’s a cat down there without kneeling. How many can you spot? | Continue reading
In case you’re still using the Free plan and have always missed the ability to install custom plugins, there hasn’t be a better moment to upgrade to Personal or Premium. WordPress.com is running a promotion that allows plugins and theme installs on both Personal and Premium, avai … | Continue reading
Of course, there has to be a book about zombie vampires. I’ve been reading books about zombies, necromancers, and undead creatures the whole year. I picked the Blood of Eden series by Julie Kagawa because I was at a book signing and this series looked pretty. I had no idea it’s a … | Continue reading
I had the chance to get autographs from Brandon Sanderson and Julie Kagawa, and I may soon have the opportunity to see Adrian Tchaikovsky as well. He’s coming to Bulgaria for a book signing on September 8th. His most acclaimed work, Children of Time, is on my to-read list, and I … | Continue reading
It’s a hot August and the ducks like to be in the shade. | Continue reading
I tried it in an 8h coding session. It performs worse than Claude 4 for me, and it’s slower. It made me wait for 10 minutes at a time. Eventually, I gave up, used my brain to understand the problem properly, and hand held Claude to a solution, which took about 1h. I think I … Con … | Continue reading
I’ve been preparing the next batch of books to read for a week. Tried to use the Marie Condo approach and only ordered books that are likely to bring me joy. | Continue reading
The path to Makedonia hut is marked with QR codes. Somehow, the authors of these brand new signs managed to create trial QR codes and they no longer work. So, for the years to come, tourists will scan these to see spam. At least they point in the right direction. | Continue reading
This little fellow attempted to hide from the camera. I’d say with a moderate success. | Continue reading
Malyovitsa is a 2729 meters tall peak in Rila, one of the prettiest in the country. It’s relatively accessible from Sofia by car. The ski zone Malyovitsa is about 1h 30 min away from Sofia. The road is renovated, almost nothing is left from the legendary potholes after Govedartsi … | Continue reading
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the traffic police office now has POS terminals. There’s no longer a bank on site. Quick search revealed it happened 8 years ago, apparently I was lucky to not need to visit that place since then. Previously, the process of getting a dr … | Continue reading
Strange book. On the one hand, it’s a straightforward epic fantasy in a pseudo-Japanese settings, similar to what I’ve recently read in Jade City and Shadow of the Fox. I can’t say there’s anything surprising—the avalanche of terminology was also expected. On the other hand, it’s … | Continue reading
This is like a concert by baby Metallica and baby Iron Maiden. Shadow of Intent are less known but still a great Deathcore band. I’ve encountered some of the other groups on the tour but not super familiar with them. They also make sounds that don’t sound like voices and have ver … | Continue reading
This was an unusual month for me. I got caught up in a the series about Frieda Klein, read all 8 books from the series and as an added bonus, completed House of Correction by the same authors. Nicci Gerrard and Sean French write together under the name Nicci French. I feel it’s m … | Continue reading
Sofia is full of fruit trees and shrubs. When I was a kid, people used to pick the fruit. I remember walking for kilometers to find plums that hadn’t already been picked by other kids. We ate them while they were still green. Rose hips can be used to make jam, although this has f … | Continue reading
A single baby shoe on the sidewalk. I’ve been the parent searching for the tiny shoe in the past. I think the best strategy when seeing a tiny shoe is to not touch it, it increases the chance that it’s found compared to if you put it on a visible place. I’ve managed to find … Con … | Continue reading
I have this strange goal to take a photo of ducks in a row. They’ve been refusing to do that for me. I saw maybe 20-ish young ducks grouped together, almost forming a row, but the combination of light, phone camera, and my photography skill level produced an image of Nessie. | Continue reading
The flowers are quickly losing the crown of the most photogenic things in the mountain. | Continue reading
It is this time of the year again. Blueberries are nearly invisible until this moment, when they suddenly become very visible. | Continue reading
Here are my strategies for pushing back against the slippery slope of aging and bad habits: Apart from the abstinence from coffee and alcohol, all the other goals require somewhat good health and good spirit. The 10K steps goal is very challenging because you start from 0 every d … | Continue reading
For whatever reason, this flower is called Austrian Sunflower in Bulgaria. They were abundant above the Vihren hut last week. | Continue reading
Frieda Klein is a great detective despite not being a detective. She’s like The Mentalist, and this final chapter of her series is her clash with Dean Reeve, the Red Jon of the series. I think I liked this series more than The Mentalist. Frieda has no superpowers, other than mayb … | Continue reading
We did a very pretty hike this weekend – from Vihren Hut to Muratovo and Ribno lakes. There’s a path that connects both lakes, and I think it’s easier to find if you visit Muratovo lake first. The connection between the two lakes is not marked but the path is obvious. There’s rea … | Continue reading
I was very surprised that this pond flower is from the same family as Лютиче. We found a pond that was full of them. That white blur on the second photo? Flowers. | Continue reading
Cloudflare introduces a private beta to a service where engines are required to pay to access the information on a site. It made me think. AI breaks the open web model in at least three different ways. While the first and third don’t bother me much yet, the second bothers me a lo … | Continue reading