There’s a legend that bringing rocks down from Vesuvius makes the bad luck come home with you. Not sure what the origin of the story is, perhaps Pele’s Curse from Hawaii. Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, doesn’t like her rocks taken away by tourists. Wash your shoes if you visit V … | Continue reading
I completed 8 books in March. Best Worst Reading Challenge Update I read 27 books this quarter, a bit less than last year. I still try to read every evening after 10pm but seems to fail on some days. I haven’t been able to find a good new series to make achieving the goal easier. … | Continue reading
Finally a proof that the universe is not deterministic. The number 41 was drawn in Bulgaria’s 5/35 lottery. It’s supposed to select randomly select 5 numbers between 1 and 35. It’s also another proof that the only way to win from the lottery is to never play. | Continue reading
I’m not sure how I feel about M. R. Carey’s work. I purchased five books by this author. Two are fantastic 5⭐ sci-fi, one was a 1 ⭐ DNF. Now comes The Trials of Koli, my fourth out of five. Published in 2014, it’s a book about the survivors of a terrible war that changed … Contin … | Continue reading
I spent a week in Naples for a team meetup with my team. I kept comparing the city with Sofia for reasons that may not be immediately obvious. At least not obvious to me. Don’t take this post seriously. Here’s this spreadsheet with an honest and unbiased comparison between Sofia … | Continue reading
Pompeii is a city of the dead. The tragedy captured them, covered everything with ash, and petrified the last remaining citizens who didn’t run away from the first stages of the eruption. Their houses remained almost as they were, frozen in time. The ruins are now ruled by cats, … | Continue reading
Castel Nuovo was built in the 13th century and hosted kings, popes, thinkers, and artists. I walked by it and it made me think about AI rather than history. People built that thing and felt like it was impenetrable, and then came artillery and it was suddenly just a cold building … | Continue reading
Terraces made of bricks and rebars? Does the blue paint keep the terraces from falling? How? Why? | Continue reading
I’ve been very busy last week and the blog suffers a bit. Sharing another kitten for now, which rules a brutalist area 🙂 | Continue reading
Feeling a little bit like this little fellow today. One of my eyes got scratched and will have a large patch for a couple of days. I feel like I can’t do anything useful, it’s disorienting. | Continue reading
Lindsey Vonn finished second in Sun Valley, one of her favorite disciplines–the Super G. I was a big fan of Lindsey Vonn during her competitive years and was quite shocked to see her make a podium today, at the age of 40, after roughly 7 years without medals and a five-year hiatu … | Continue reading
A post-apocalyptic world where trees have come to life and eat people. Something like a mix of The Mist, The Day of the Triffids, and the story of The Finisher by Vega Jane. Koli is a kid forced by circumstances and ambition to take the path through the man-eating forests. In Kin … | Continue reading
Amphiptere is a serpent with wings. This one has three eyes. I keep seeing these in my neighbourhood. | Continue reading
One of the good things about buying a new item, like my new headphones, is that I now get targeted ads with music, headphones, and other pleasantries. This is how I discovered the city of Varan, Bulgaria 🙂 | Continue reading
This is the same flower featured a few days ago, surrounded by blue blossoms. All the blue blossoms are hiding from the fresh snow, if this can be called snow. | Continue reading
It’s a cold day today in Sofia, rains and all the beautiful flowers may freeze tonight. However, here they are, still blossoming and looking great. | Continue reading
According to our tradition, we carry a red and white wristband called martenitsa from March 1st to the day the storks arrive or we see a blossoming tree. It’s too soon. I remember carrying martenitsa until mid April. | Continue reading
My one of my old JBLs broke and I needed a new headset for work. After a careful research, I ordered Arctis Nova 7x. The 7x is the XBOX version of the headset and differs from the other 7 by one additional button, which is irrelevant to me. I liked the green/black color. So I … C … | Continue reading
I got stuck with The Boy on the Bridge, a deeply uninteresting book by M. R. Carey. The more time passed, the less time I spent reading, and I ended up not reading at all for days. A breath of fresh air in whole the reader block was Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells. As one … Contin … | Continue reading
I grew up in communist Bulgaria. When I was ten, the Wall fell, and the floodgates of civilization opened—bringing a tsunami of dubious beliefs with them. We got the best of it: horoscopes, psychics, poltergeists, fortune tellers, obscure religions, Eastern spirituality, hippies, … | Continue reading
Probably not a cat but I mostly take photos of cats and birds, and our very persistent Jay rarely visits these days. Let’s say, the above photo represents me when it’s 10pm and is my reading time. | Continue reading
Okay, this is my personal news—it’s all incredibly important, so bear with me. The spring is here Winter kept coming and coming and here we are. My beloved headphones Quantum 400 unglued They can be glued back but the consumerist in me wants a new pair of some other headphones wi … | Continue reading
I did an evening walk today, trying to catch up after several days under the goal of 10k steps/day. I visited Iztok, a popular and calm neighborhood with good sidewalks. Took exactly one photo, and it has a cat. I find it difficult to meet my 10k steps goal this year. | Continue reading
It’s hard to believe that just days ago we had temperatures of around -10°C. A whole different question is why I find more life in the bushes outside of the park than within the park where the plants are taken care of. The first photo is within the park, the second is outside. Th … | Continue reading
Erica carnea, also known as Winter Heath, is already in bloom days after the snow melted. Bees were flying around. Feels like it’s time for the sun to show up and for the spring to come. We also have the next generation of cats already growing up and refusing to pose for a photo. | Continue reading
For me, the most hated question is any opener that leads to someone asking for money. For example: “Do you have a watch?” “It’s three fifty.” “Lots of good things will happen to you—I can see it. Let me read your palm.” Whenever strangers ask questions like that, I instinctively … | Continue reading
I miss the idea of IRC. IRC is a technology that gives us a decentralized networks of chat servers, allowing people to meet like-minded strangers. It used to be (maybe) the most popular way to chat online before ICQ and Skype changed everything. I spent years of my life there as … | Continue reading
Zombies have wiped out humans, leaving scattered enclaves of survivors and rotting food supplies. A little girl is locked in a basement, protected from all the evils. It’s obvious that she’s extremely dangerous, and also maybe relatively ordinary. Like Pandora. There’s a rule in … | Continue reading
I visited a few iconic places today to celebrate the national holiday. The Nevski Cathedral, St. Sofia with the eternal flame, and King Samuil’s statue. This is King Samuil, watching if you click like. The other cathedral, St. Nedelya (we have two), the Largo with the St. Sofia s … | Continue reading
A fantasy world with multiple types of sorcerers, various races, demons, necromancers, and a living sword similar to Kamigoroshi and Nightblood. On top of all that, we have pirates, airships, and fighter planes. Almost like One Piece with aircraft. How cool is that? Ketty Jay is … | Continue reading
I purchased lots of books in February but only read eight. The two best were the two that had been stuck on my unread shelves for months, if not years. I read them to clear space for other books and was pleasantly surprised. Best Worst Overall, a good month for reading with a tot … | Continue reading
Karma means that our actions accumulate imaginary good and bad points, which we eventually cash out. While we can find anecdotal evidence this is true, it can also be a major source of anxiety. The expectations usually don’t match reality. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that karma … | Continue reading
While waiting for Dennis E. Taylor’s Legion part 2 to be translated in Bulgarian, here’s a legion of yard cats. | Continue reading
This pigeon gathering puzzled me. I didn’t see food or anything nearby, only cars. Why did they go and stay there, most of them not visibly moving? The big bucket to the right says salt. | Continue reading
All things in life have a natural tendency to decay over time. The building in the photo was once a military headquarters but is now managed by various branches of the government. Different management led to different fate. | Continue reading
The short answer? TL;DR. I’ve noticed a pattern with people who start reading. They would pick a book that they really want to read and get stuck with it. A book that makes a statement. For example, I started reading The Engineering Leader by Cate Huston about 6 months ago, and I … | Continue reading
The book is long. It’s as long as least three different books intertwined with each other. It ends with a full novella after it seems to be already over. The characters drop memorable wisdom, full of logic, all the time. I don’t remember them exactly, but you get the idea—those k … | Continue reading
Visit the post for more. | Continue reading
I got 3 new gamebooks from the 1990s today. Planning to read toe UFO one soon. All three are on subjects that fell out of fashion in the literature over the years. Flying saucers, samurais, and the Vietnam war. I hope at least one is actually good. Has to be the flying saucer &#x … | Continue reading
One of the two pedestrian overpasses in my neighborhood got renovated and reopened. Here’s how it looked in the beginning of January and today. We had no easy access to the park for 6 weeks, which affected the number of steps I make. I don’t think the overpasses are practical. Th … | Continue reading
If there’s one animal more common than cats around here, it’s the crow. There’s a crow lurking in the photo—can you spot it? | Continue reading