Exit Strategy is book 30 of the series about the retired military police officer Jack Reacher, no middle name. Reacher, a 60-something, overweight, and homeless, is traveling the country with a thin stack of cash, a debit card, and a toothbrush, like a modern version of the hitch … | Continue reading
I had a work anniversary a few days ago and rewarded myself with some new thrillers. Left to right: | Continue reading
The wiring on the last photo says “The floor is LAVA”. The only way to proceed safely is to jump from one white dot to another. Minecraft. | Continue reading
Clementine’s sister, Poppy, has supposedly taken her own life. For six months Clementine accepts it as suicide and lives with the grief of not picking up the phone right before it happened. Then new information surfaces, and it starts to look a lot more like a serial killer. Almo … | Continue reading
I did 17k steps today, which included more than 1h of playing football with kids between 1st and 6th grade. We finished 6-6, which was not easy to the youngest and oldest participants. The youngest one saved a kick that was too strong and now wears an elastic stripe. The oldest h … | Continue reading
The Revenge of the Damned is something like the closing act of the story arc about Sten fighting against the Taan empire. Over the course of the previous books, Taan had the upper hand – more military power and superior leadership. However, the Empire had a lead in manufacturing … | Continue reading
It’s not that the focus or the quality of the photo is that great but I think this is one of my best cat photos lately. Such a charming cat. She’s one of the yard cats next to our co-working space. Here’s the kitten with a friend, who I previously featured here. They’re probably … | Continue reading
Brandolini defined the following law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. It normally applies to arguments and misinformation. Now that generating content with AI is so easy, the orders of magnitude have c … | Continue reading
We almost never see large aircraft visiting the Sofia Airport. When I heard the roar, I thought it’s a helicopter or some US military aircraft with a hundred propellers. Looked up, and I was genuinely surprised to see a Jumbo Jet. We had A380 landing here once and it made it to t … | Continue reading
Today is Bulgaria’s national holiday. Happy liberation day to all of us! 🇧🇬 Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the celebration this year. We used to have fireworks, which the kids loved and gave us a reason to go to the ceremony. The fireworks were cancelled a year … | Continue reading
This is my first documented pull-up with my feet not touching the ground even slightly. When I set an annual goal of one pull-up, it felt like a stretch goal. Doing it in 2027 was quite fine for me. I haven’t been to the gym since 2019, more than 6 years ago. I haven’t done … Con … | Continue reading
February didn’t bring any particularly interesting books to my shelves. I was tempted to skip the monthly summary this month but it would break a long tradition. My alternative idea for a blog post was to write about 4-dimensional spheres. Unfortunately, that idea needs more rese … | Continue reading
I did my first true long walk since I bumped my knee into a concrete trash can a week ago. 10K steps in one go and the knee held well. I dodged a bullet this time. However, I lost my shape, feeling as if I did 20K, not 10K. The bin is now out of … Continue reading Knee | Continue reading
In How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie argues that criticism is futile. Criticism opens the gates to hell, little devils fly back, criticize, gossip, and destroy morale. Abilities wither under criticism; they blossom under encouragement. And yet, walking around a … | Continue reading
A story about the 33-year-old cat Rusty took Reddit by storm. Rusty passed away at the age of 33, making him into top 10 of the oldest cats in the recorder cat history. The poster submitted proof to the mods of r/cats that Rusty was real. People rushed to update Wikipedia’s list … | Continue reading
Fluff from 5 posts ago moved 5 meters to the right, proving he can move if there’s a warmer surface nearby. | Continue reading
The resourceful captain Sten joins the navy and leads a small group of spaceships in the battle against the Tahn. The genre is a retro space opera with dumb computers and ships that need hundreds of people to be operated. The story takes a sharp turn from what we saw in the previ … | Continue reading
Reddit somehow detected that I’m interested in AI and Data and auto-subscribed me to several hundred AI and Data subreddits. This turned their feed to an endless slop machine. Every single pre-IPO hype post or or doom prophecy would pop on my feed multiple times per subreddit, 5 … | Continue reading
Sounds like the departure of Alissa White-Gluz worked well for both parties. I already blogged how Alissa’s new work feels more like her, fresh and different. And here we are, Arch Enemy with Lauren Hart, performing as if she’s always been there. Their music sounds like a fantasy … | Continue reading
I managed to do 3K steps today. My knee is better, only hurts when walking. The pain at rest is gone. However, I think I won’t be able to do the daily steps challenge for another week or so. Meanwhile, the winter decided that it’s not over yet and surprised us with snow. The weat … | Continue reading
I had a health scare today. Bumped my knee into a concrete trash can right outside a playground. I suspect making steps won’t be possible for some time but at least nothing is broken, other than my plans. I moved the damn trash can out of the way. Whoever put it right at the exit … | Continue reading
I find myself unable to blog about anything other than cats these days. Thanks for your patience 🙂 | Continue reading
A Mercedes is trying to overtake a Trabant on the highway. The speed is high, way over the limit. The Mercedes is in the red, driving parallel to the Trabant. At the last moment, the Trabant slows down slightly. The Mercedes driver rolls down his window and shouts to the Trabant … | Continue reading
I set myself a goal to do one pull-up by the end of the year. I made some progress yesterday. My one rep is not a clean pull-up. The grip is neutral, and my legs are touching the ground from the moment I started pulling. I didn’t jump, but it’s not entirely clear from the … Conti … | Continue reading
So, the big question here is: do I remove the Apple Watch before going to the bathroom or not? | Continue reading
I’m a software engineer. My job mostly boils down to three things: About a year ago, I switched entirely to AI-first engineering or vibe coding. Essentially, I let AI do most of the engineering work and mostly review the output it and provide feedback. By doing that, I felt a gra … | Continue reading
February used to be a cold month in Sofia. It feels like late spring outside. | Continue reading
The battle with this giant book was real. I started it months ago, then restarted it around New Year and completed over 10 books in between. The third attempt this month finally ended in victory. Two storylines alternate with slightly different characters each time. One follows a … | Continue reading
Before and after they noticed me. | Continue reading
This is the statue of the city blogger, evaluating the state of affairs. | Continue reading
Apart from buying books, I like getting myself little gadgets on occasion. Over 2025, that was mostly audio equipment. I got two closed-back headphones – the wireless SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 and the wired FiiO FT1. I also purchased an external microphone, which is waiting for t … | Continue reading
Claude Opus is my current most favorite model. I had a few blissful months of using it. Generated some good PRs, got stuck in debug loops not as many times as with previous models. I ended up extending the spend limit multiple times. Opus Cocktail Bar, Sofia After burning through … | Continue reading
First cat photo dump of the year! After all that winter hiding, the weather got warmer, and I had some cat spotting over the last few days. From left to right, The text says “Humans, bro.” and was painted by a cat. | Continue reading
In Bulgaria’s olden days, Boza was a popular drink for kids. Ours was a fermented, slightly alcoholic beverage made from cereals. It’s a high-calorie drink, and I guess we were fed with it so we’d grow up faster. It fell out of fashion, and by the early 2000s I’d stopped seeing i … | Continue reading
This is a rare pretty sight from the muddy winter Sofia. A boat in Lake Ariana. The city planners of the past were fascinated by lakes and rivers, which are naturally missing here. So they built fountains and lakes, and even attempted to build a river, a story for another post. T … | Continue reading
I do not have a good explanation about this but I have photo proof it happened. Which reminds me of the power of the water drops. | Continue reading
The text at the very top, after being censored, means “I will ruffle your hair”. I really wonder about the thought processes that produced this copy. Perhaps it meant something else and got redacted. The redacted part must’ve been offensive. Aksakov street, Sofia. | Continue reading
I spent more time reading this month than I normally do. Had a vacation during the first week of January and had some good luck with book finds. Many of the books I read were written by Alexandra Marinina – a Russian crime/thriller author. Her novels are taking place in Moscow fr … | Continue reading
I had a chaotic walk this morning, here’s a bit of Sofia and my path for the day. Skyscrapers I walked past 3 of the tallest buildings in Sofia. The first photo shows Capital Fort (147 meters) and Sky Fort (202 meters, with parts of it disappearing into the clouds). The second sh … | Continue reading
My region is known for cultural complaining. Gather people from the Balkans around a table, and it’s like a championship in complaining. I suspect this bad habit has Ottoman roots. You shouldn’t stand out, to not gather unwanted attention. Misery as camouflage. For me – not sure. … | Continue reading
Snowdrops in front of one of my favorite ruins in Sofia – Tsarigradsko Shose 1. Built in 1926, the house is pink, pretty, and has flowers. I hope someone buys it and restores it to its full potential. From this angle, it almost doesn’t look like the Addams Family lives inside. | Continue reading
47 is a prime number, and the sum of its digits is also a prime. 47 is a good annual Goodreads goal because it’s one less than a number divisible by 12. Let’s call these Goodreads Primes: I think Douglas Adams made a mistake when picking 42 as the answer to everything. 47 would’v … | Continue reading
I’m not sure if I should be happy, proud, or upset about that, but Google is now summarizing my blog in the AI overviews. | Continue reading
Some good folks created a tool where collectors can flag all the books they own so they know how far they are from a full set. I stopped buying old gamebooks some time ago because I wasn’t able to keep track of them. So, this evening, I dug into the dusty shelves, and using that … | Continue reading
Feeling like Rocky Balboa from Rocky 5 today. | Continue reading