2024

On paper, 2024 looks pretty shit. Due to yet another medical fuck-up, the year started just like the one before: walking around for months with crutches after surgery on my right ankle. When I got rid of my crutches and things could only get better, I lost my job. The typical startup life with its financing rounds struggles. For the second time now. I got two months of paid leave out of it, but did not want to travel around too far because since the beginning of the year I had excruciating abdominal pain happening randomly at night, for hours, and that was intensifying in frequency right when I got said paid leave. Dating life was also completely non-existent, mainly due to a complete lack of motivation on my side.

But somehow, I kept my spirits high. And even the seasonal autumn depression did not get a hold of me this year. Every time I catch myself complaining, I remind myself that I am more or less healthy, e.g. I can walk again after my 2 ankle surgeries and can still do all my favorite hobbies. Yes, I did a lot of bike riding in 2024. Finally, thanks to having left a previous job in good terms, I also found a new job without even the need to look for one! I started in July, meaning that in total I got a 4 months break.

Health

In 2023 I had a mountain biking accident with a complicated open fracture of my right ankle. The healing process went quite well, but during the check-up 1 year after the incident—a doctor visit that was supposed to close the case—the surgeon, who, just to be clear, had seen my ankle for hours from the outside and the inside during two surgeries, noticed that something was still off: he suspected a ruptured tendon. Note that neither the physiotherapists I had seen for dozens of sessions, nor the podiatrist noticed anything wrong. An MRI confirmed the problem. I was told by foot specialists at the Fusszentrum Balgrist that the surgery to fix it was optional, but at my young (ahem) age, recommended. So yeah, I got surgery on December 15th 2023, and had to go through the whole process of reeducation a second time. I will write about my adventures soon-ish and link to it from my Broken body entry.

In January, I started to randomly have abdominal pain at night. It would usually start around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and last for at least an hour. I could sleep just fine before and after. And in fact, the rest of the time was completely normal and pain free. Once again, the doctor was clueless and useless. I decided to track everything I was eating in a spreadsheet, which is fairly easy on the iPhone, to see if I could see some patterns. At some point, I couldn’t take it anymore, went to the doctor’s again, who prescribed me Esomeprazole, to ingest every day for a month. Lo and behold, it fixed my problem. So I suspect that the antibiotics I took preemptively for my wisdom tooth removal in December 2023 completely nuked my gut microbiome. At the time, the dentist gave me Pantoprazole to counteract the antibiotics, but said that it was optional. As I tend to take as little medication as possible, I of course left the Pantoprazole out.

I abandoned my food tracking after 200 days. And did not try to find patterns, as my problem was solved by medication. But looking back at the list confirms what I was already suspecting: my diet is absolute shit. I have been saying it for years, and it’s about time I do something about it. The long-term effects cannot be good.

Biking

I was still on crutches when I started riding on the stationary bike at the gym. I wanted the period of complete lack of activity for my right leg to be as short as possible, and the movement of the stationary bike was limited enough for the ankle. On March 9th I was back on my gravel bike, on April 27th on my mountain bike and on June 8th on my BMX.

As always, I was mostly riding around home. Mountain biking was focused around the closest hill, Züriberg, but also a bit of Üetliberg and Altberg. Nothing fancy. In Winterthur, I tried the new set of official trails. During the second half of the year, I used my GA Travelcard to explore other possibilities within a short train ride: Baden, Lägern Hochwacht, and Irchel next to Rorbas. As you can see on the maps, the gravel bike allows to travel bigger distances. I think in broad strokes, the routes overall stayed the same as last year, but I tried many different variations, and found a couple of improvements.

When you zoom out to the rest of Switzerland, you can see a bunch of more interesting rides. With the mountain bike, I have been to:

• Flims, for 2 days on a solo mission. The conditions were perfect: off-season so almost no one around, the weather was sunny but not hot, the soil was moist but not wet. And I did not get hurt, nor broke anything on the bike. This was my second time in Flims, so I knew where to book my hotel, and which trails to focus on. I think 2 days was the right duration for a solo trip, as you tend to be way too efficient with the riding.
• Lenzerheide, for the most massive group ride I’ve ever been part of. Among them Lukas, Helmi, Yvo, and Rico with a whole bunch of buddies.
• Lenzerheide again, for an unexpected weekend with Rico. I jumped in for his wife and kid, who were ill. We did the tour we were supposed to do when I broke my ankle 2 years ago. Beni was there again, as was his girlfriend Celina this time.
• Berninapass. Thomas convinced me to join him on a rainy Sunday. We managed to squeeze one descent in between downpours. It was a fun ride, but maybe not worth the 1-day roundtrip from Zürich.
• Leysin and Gruyère, where I just wanted to re-do a couple of rides I enjoyed in previous years. And one of the most scariest ones from 2021.
• Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt, in the south of France, with Thomas. This was the third time he invited me to his Mom’s partner’s vacation home. It finally worked out this year, and it was well worth it. Many trails, super close to the house, and quite a different terrain from what we’re used to in Zürich.

2024 also marked my 10 years back in mountain biking action (if you exclude DH). I more or less quit in 1999 when I moved to Lausanne to study, and returned to it in 2014 when I moved to Zürich and realized that, surprisingly, there were many trails within minutes of the city center.

I’ve picked up gravel/road biking only last year, so there are still a lot of destinations to visit. I have been to:

• Cham, where I picked up my uncle, for a ride to Luzern and back.
• Einsiedeln, via Ägerisee. I had been to the region before, but years ago on my hardtail MTB. I liked it last time, and I wanted to see it again, but with a bike that made more sense.
• Walensee. I found out that Lael Wilcox was attempting a cycling around the world record (spoiler: she succeeded), and that she would be passing through Switzerland. You could track her progress on a website, where you could also see her planned route. It looked like, on a day that happened to be during my in-between jobs period, she would ride from around Will (SG) to Italy. I was also listening to her daily podcast, and it seemed like many people were joining her for portions of her rides. I thought that would be a fun thing to do! So I prepared a little cardboard sign that I fixed on my bike, and made my way to Walensee. I picked a spot with a nice view and a tough climb, where I could cheer her on (maybe). And I waited. And waited. And waited. The tracker on the website wasn’t moving, so I wasn’t sure if it was broken, or if she indeed wasn’t moving. After a couple hours I rode the rest of the Walensee shore, and back, hoping I might run into her. But no. So I went home (with the train). The next day, she explained in the podcast that she took a day off to regroup and sort out some logistics issues for the rest of the trip. She was staying at a friend of hers, who happens to be the organizer of a Swiss endurance race, the Hope 1000. Lael participated in it some years ago, and funnily enough, Vince, a dude I know from the NT trails, who did the European Divide last year, was doing the Hope 1000 this year. Which I didn’t know. I just randomly saw his name in the participants when I checked out the race tracking, after hearing about it on Lael’s podcast. Funny coincidences!
• Liechtenstein. Last year, I rode along the Thur from Wattwil to Andelfingen. This year, I wanted to do the missing part, from its source to Wattwil. So I took the train to Sargans, made an incursion into Liechtenstein, rode up the Grabserberg, to Wildhaus, to end up in Wattwil.
• the cantons of Basel-Landschaft and Jura. At some point, I realized that I have ridden one of my bikes in almost all cantons. The missing ones were: the 2 Appenzell, Basel-Landschaft and Jura. I found a nice mission to strike down the latter two by following a route along the Birse river, from Basel to Biel. I thought I could pay Aïsha a surprise visit upon my arrival in Biel. I was going to go to her place, and if she was around, cool, but if she wasn’t, I would simply take the train home. Guess who I ran into on the main street in Nidau?
• Appenzell. Both the town, and the canton. I thought this would complete my “riding my bike in all cantons of Switzerland”, but then realized that Uri was missing. I guess I’ll get that last one in 2025.
• Kunkelspass. Urs told me that there was this scenic pass between Bad Ragaz and Bonaduz. I prolonged the ride with a detour via the impressive Rheinschlucht.
• Mittelberg. While staying at my Dad’s, I wanted to do a loop over a pass I’ve never heard of before. It was nice, a bit tougher than expected, also because of the unplanned snow hike.

Here are my mandatory year over year Strava biking stats (BMX excluded):

The mountain biking part of 2024:

The gravel/road share:

2024 might hold the record for elevation gain. I double-checked, and there are no elevation gains caused by chair-lifting, unlike in 2021. Also, it seems that I proportionally do double the amount of elevation gains for mountain biking than for gravel/road. And that’s still because I find descending on roads dumb and pointless.

Since we know that the days at the NT trails are counted, I wanted to ride there as much as possible. I think I had a decent trails season, especially considering that I started riding only in June. We have 3 lines at the trails: a technical one with smaller jumps, a medium-sized one, and the big line. I left the big one out again this year, as I did not feel confident enough to be able to eject properly due to my fucked-up ankle in case I would be too short or long on a jump. And I did not want to get hurt again. We managed to have more weekend sessions this year. It’s a thing we usually struggle with, because all the kids seem to spend their weekends at bikeparks in the Alps. You can’t really blame them, but, again, our days at the NT trails are counted! I even managed to motivate a small crew of my Genève buddies to come ride! Good times. Trail riding is the best.

2024 was quite special because both the Cycle Messenger World Champs (CMWC) and the UCI Road and Para-Cycling World Championships were in Zürich. Of course, two very different kind of events, but equally fun to watch. Ok, maybe the CMWC was a bit more up my alley.

Consumerism

I stayed reasonable most of the year, but then by the end of November I decided to buy yet another bike. My buddy Flav is welding custom BMX frames so I ordered another trail frame with v-brakes. Expect a bike check in the next couple of months!

Entertainment

The season 2 of Arcane came out this year, and I thought I really wanted to watch the first season again, but in the best quality possible. Then I learned about Ultra HD Blu-ray. Somehow I completely missed that there was a 4K evolution of the Blu-ray format, which in hindsight makes total sense. Then I saw that the PlayStation 5 plays them, so I got

• Arcane: League of Legends - Season One Limited Edition Steelbook (which is not that limited it seems)
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) / Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) - 2-Movie Collection

Right around the time I bought these Ultra HD Blu-rays, I learned that several manufacturers of players were halting production. Which is a pity in my opinion, as streaming cannot meet the picture and sound quality, as far as I know.

Sports

Not many surprises here. Sports gear gets worn out and needs replacement.

• I got a bunch of super cheap gray cotton t-shirts from H&M for the gym. Years ago I would just use my regular ones, but I some point I thought it was maybe a bit disgusting. Then I figured I could use technical wear, but realized that it smells too much. Yeah yeah I know, boring stuff.
• I bought a Tailfin frame and a top tube bag, with the plan to do some bikepacking. At least a small 2-days tour. So far I haven’t. But I will, I promise!
• My Santa Cruz MTB finally got a full overhaul after 4 years. Fork and shock service, getting back on tubeless tires, new grips, as well as new brakes and disks.
• During a ride, Rico noticed that my MTB helmet had a crack. I was surprised, as I never had a crash, nor let it fall or hit it. I don’t know. So the same day I went to a bike store and randomly got the best fitting helmet.
• After 2 years, I needed a new pair of bike shoes. I tried to get the most similar to the ones I currently have and got the Five Ten Freerider Canvas.

Clothing

T-shirt guy got some more t-shirts. And sweaters.

• a bit fat Purple Carhartt sweater I fell in love at first sight
• Guiom and I got a t-shirt from the UK Death Pack BMX brand, referencing Minor Threat’s Out of Step record
• a colorful shirt and a pretty green sweater with a gradient, surprisingly from Specialized, on sale
• at the CMWC, I got a souvenir cycling hat and a t-shirt with sparkly golden lettering

Miscellaneous

And some very random stuff:

• I stumbled upon some videos explaining that silicon toe spacers could help improve my foot posture. I tried wearing them while sleeping, but after a couple of hours it got too painful. So I gave up. Maybe I should try again, for shorter periods.
• After many years of doing IT support for my Dad and his crappy HP Windows laptop, I unilaterally decided to get him a used Mac mini for 100 bucks. He’s been using an iPhone and iPad for years, so it should not be too hard to transition to Mac.
• I got a second-hand Sodastream, thinking it would make me drink more water. That did not work out, so I gave it to my Mom.

Concerts

I thought that I was a frequent concert goer, but this year I chatted with a girl on the Hinge dating app who has been to 23 gigs this year, and about 40 last year. I definitely cannot compete with her, and I think I have phases where I want to go more often than others.

• On March 1st, with Rico, we went to see WIZO at Volkshaus. Always a great show. I got goosebumps during their song “Quadrat im Kreis”, even more so after the singer explained the context in which the song was written.
• Also with Rico & co., like last year, we went to The Clash of the Tittens battle of bands, at Salzhaus in Winterthur on April 6th. Super fun, and I’m looking forward to the 2025 edition!
• In 2024, after 40 years, NOFX announced that they would do their last tour. I kept checking for the European dates until I saw that they were playing on my birthday! And at a reasonably close location, at Le Phare in Chambéry (France). I bought tickets, booked a hotel, got train tickets and took 2 days off from work (which were not needed later on, as I lost my job). It was a great show, but I’m biased. Opening for NOFX were The Meffs, Grade 2, Frank Turner, and the Circle Jerks. Fat Mike was holding his shit together for once, maybe out of respect for the fans, knowing that this would be their last show. And they ended the gig with The Decline! Best thing ever to see that song live. If I recall correctly, over the years I have seen NOFX at the Deconstruction Tour 2003 with a bunch of buddies from EPFL, at the Reithalle in Bern in 2005 with Anya, at the Greenfield Festival in 2008 with Anya and Gabriel, at Punk in Drublic in Dornbirn in 2018 with Damien and Gabriel, and finally at Usine PTR in Genève in 2019.
• 2 days later, on Gabriel’s birthday, I went to see The Drowns, and No Fun At All at Old Capitol in Langenthal with him and Anya. Since their reunion, I might have seen No Fun At All more often than before they split!
• On June 23rd, I had a lot of fun watching The Goodbye Johnnys, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes at Dynamo in Zürich
• 2 days later I went to my first show at X-Tra in Zürich. Death Lens, and Bad Religion were playing. The sound was crap.
• Sadly, the Obenuse Festival did not happen this year. But the same crew organized an afternoon/evening of concerts at Rote Fabrik in Zürich on July 20th featuring Hunted Like Theaves, The High Times, Mr. Linus, Überyou, and Annie Taylor. It was super nice!
• On August 8th I went to check out Joey Valence & Brae at Musikfestwochen in Winterthur with Jay.
• A couple of days later, on August 17th, A Wilhelm Scream, and Less Than Jake played at Dynamo in Zürich. I’ve seen Less Than Jake many times, and will always remember them playing on campus at CMU in 2002.
• On August 30th I went to an evening hosting a couple of bands from the same label at Dynamo in Zürich: Desert Lily, Fluffy Machine, Mamba Bites, and Kabuki Joe. Fluffy Machine and Mamba Bites were pretty cool!
• I hadn’t been to Werkk in Baden yet in 2024, so on November 8th I went to see Desert Lily (again), The Wild Haze, and Überyou (again).
• The last show of the year was on December 4th at Gaswerk in Winterthur. A ska/oi themed evening featuring Cran, Le Skatologisté, and Lion’s Law.

After seeing some of the bands live, I bought a bunch of music from bandcamp because they’re still the best digital music marketplace, paying out 80-85% directly to the artist or their label.

Media

Books

I couldn’t turn the trend around, I’m still reading very little. To make it worse, I did not enjoy the only 2 books I bought and read.

• Désirer is collection of erotic short stories, all written by women. I heard about it because Marina Rollman is one the authors. In fact, her story was the only good one in my opinion…
• I like Matt Parker’s videos and podcasts, but I found his book Love Triangle, supposed to be funny and educational, quite dull.

Games

I got a bunch of games—the first 4 of the following list—early in the year, to keep me a bit busy in Winter while I had my broken ankle.

• Viewfinder on PS5 is a genius idea for a game, and very well executed. I really like it. It’s quite short, so I might replay it at some point in the near future.
• Superliminal on PS5 has some great ideas, but I think that in too many levels, you just end up trying random stuff until something sticks.
• Control on PS5 looked great and mysterious, but I haven’t even played a full hour.
• Dead Space on PS5 I haven’t started playing yet. I’m sure it’s great, but I haven’t been in the mood yet…
• Astro Bot on PS5 is absolutely fantastic. It looks gorgeous. It has a super simple gameplay, unlike other platformers, which have had a tendency in recent years to have hard to remember (at least for me) button combos for over-complicated moves. The difficulty level is variable, from super easy to really hard. I’m not surprised it won the Game of the Year at the Game Awards 2024.
• The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on Switch disappointed me a bit. It’s a weird mashup of the visuals of Link’s Awakening and the gameplay of Tears of the Kingdom (sort of). But playing as Zelda is a welcome change for sure!

I bought my second Nintendo Switch, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Edition. I have to admit it’s a bit of a useless purchase. But it’s a nice edition, and I didn’t have a Switch OLED model. And it allowed me to lend my other good old Switch to Alessandra so she could finally try The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Another slightly pointless hardware purchase was the 8bitdo mod kit to turn one of my broken Super Nintendo controllers into a wireless bluetooth joypad for my iPad and the Delta emulator. I have almost never used it so far. What’s worse, I initially bought the wrong mod kit! Can you spot the difference: a vs b?

Podcasts

Here’s my yearly list of favorite podcast episodes, this time for no reason in reverse chronological order, instead of being grouped by podcast. The topics spectrum is still quite large and kinda the same: biking, language, feminism, society, science, comedy, pop culture…

I cannot tell you why I enjoyed a particular episode, because frankly I don’t remember most of them. I “star” them (= mark as favorite) in my podcast app while listening, and don’t take any notes.

• En Roue Libre: Anne-Caroline Chausson
• The Allusionist: Lexicat, part 2: now with added Dog
• 99% Invisible: The 15 Minute City
• La Dernière: “J’espère mourir avant” - La Chronique de GiédRé
• Couleur 3: Le papier 2, Les bras cassés du 25.09.2024
• The Allusionist: 199 ideas that I hadn’t made into podcasts yet
• Lael Rides Around the World: Whistler, BC, Canada to Anacortes, Washington, USA
• Twenty Thousand Hertz: The Sound of Apple 1.0
• Les couilles sur la table: Les imposteurs de l‘amour
• Lael Rides Around the World: Samsun to Görele, Turkey
• History Unplugged Podcast: Vikings Went Everywhere in the Middle Ages, From Baghdad to Constantinople to… Oklahoma?
• 99% Invisible: The Lost Subways of North America
• Les couilles sur la table: Nous faire justice | Réécrire l’Histoire en féministe
• Twenty Thousand Hertz: Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control
• The Allusionist: Craters
• Fin de séries: Friends 4/4 - Un problème de diversité
• Les couilles sur la table: Bande dessinée, bulles de verre

Series

In the last years, I have had the feeling that I don’t watch that many series anymore. But looking at this list now, I must admit this is simply not true!

• The 5th season of Fargo was great. They are back, after an unconvincing fourth (and third? I don’t remember) season.
• I have a bit mixed feelings about the 4th season of True Detective. The mystical stuff was not necessary. The crimes had a straightforward and great explanation, and they should have left it at that.
• After the 4th season of For All Mankind, I am definitely done with the show. I had my doubts during season 3, and now I’m done done. Too many characters are just insufferable. And so American.
• I watched all 3 seasons of Happy Valley, and it was a welcome change from the typical US series.
• This Is Going To Hurt had some interesting takes.
• I feel like Obituary could have been better.
• Despite enjoying Conan’s podcast, I had to stop watching Conan O’Brien Must Go. It’s just too cringey.
• The first season of Poker Face was too repetitive and predictable.
• Anya recommended I watch Staged. It was ok-ish, but I feel like watching it when came out would have made more sense.
• I have never played the videogame, but I found Fallout quite ok.
• I re-watched Sharp Objects, both because I like it, and because I sadisticly enjoy reminding myself of my 2023 dating fails (a person I liked in 2023 recommended me this show).
• I randomly watched Nightsleeper because it was suggested by the Swiss television RTS. Not bad, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.
• The final season of Tschugger is a must-watch for any Swiss German speaking person. For anyone else, not sure.
• I watched the first season of Arcane once again, and the new second season twice in a row. This show is the best animated series ever! And you don’t need to take my word for it. It won many well-deserved prizes since it came out. And it comforts me a bit to know that my taste in animation is confirmed by the industry. Same goes for the Spider-Verse movies. Watch them! And Arcane too! Now! Go!

Cinema

This year, I’ve been to the cinema twice out of boredom. I watched Civil War and Deadpool and Wolverine. Both are ok, but not worth a re-watch. I have also been to Dune: Part Two with Carmen. Definitely the kind of movie you want to see at the cinema.

Movies I have seen from the comfort of my home, but that are worth mentioning include Nimona, The Fall Guy, Challengers and Midsommar.

YouTube

My biggest media consumption this year was, once again, YouTube. I put a 1 hour limit on all my devices combined, but it served more as a “you have been watching for 1 hour already” warning than it prevented me from watching more. Topics are pretty much what I cover in these yearly reviews: BMX, mountain biking, video games, music, science. And of course some random shit the algorithm throws in. Here’s a selection of watch-worthy videos:

• Steve Van Doren | The Nine Club - Episode 315 is an interesting behind the scenes look at the Vans company. Steve Van Doren probably embellishes or exagerates some aspects, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
• BENNY ABEYTA - UNCLICKED, starting at 1:33:15, tells a crazy BMX injury story.
• Carspiracy - You’ll Never See The World The Same Way Again explains what I’ve known all along: our world is built around cars, and it’s stupid.
• DJ Mehdi : Made in France (4/6) | Le prince de la ville | ARTE. Anya sent me the link to this fantastic 6 parts documentary made by ARTE about DJ Mehdi.

Best BMX videos of the year?

• KAZ CAMPBELL - STYLE LORD
• Hard Yards 3 - Backyard Invitational - Colony BMX
• UK TRAILS - STAFFS: CHICKEN COTTAGE
• Magnetar BTS: Europe
• Backbone BMX Mixtape III

Travel

• Early in the year, I felt like seeing my BMX buddies from Genève again. Guiom joined me on the weekend trip. One evening we had dinner with Clap, Damien, Fouego, Alex, Moe and Jéjé. The next day I had lunch with Carla and François. Good times.
• When I was in-between jobs, I bought a monthly GA Travelcard to explore Switzerland a bit. The train ride over the Bernina Pass to Poschiavo has been on my bucket list for a while, so I did that while there was still snow. I also did the Furka/Oberalp Passes, after visiting Carmen in Sion.
• I spent again a couple of summer days on the shores of Lac Léman in my sister’s vacation home, working remotely. It’s perfect: during lunch time, you can go for a swim or a canoe ride, and in the evening for a bike ride. I went to Leysin twice.
• Damien was celebrating his 40th birthday and 20 years of veganism. He invited a bunch of people to his place in the south of France, close to Digne-les-Bains. It was a nice long weekend, despite the lengthy drive to get there, which Guiom took care of like a champ. I will remember the great food, seeing my friends, the laughs, shooting with a bow and arrow, kayaking down a hill on grass, witnessing cringey flirting.
• Since my new job paid for a yearly GA Travelcard (without me asking for anything), I used it to do more train trips. With Carmen we did 2 train days. One was for her to see the town of Appenzell, which I have ironicly also seen for the first time not long before. The second train day was a bit random. We met up in Bern, then went to Kaiseraugst for sightseeing (boring), to Liestal for pizza (yummy), and finally to Aarburg for more sightseeing (a bit disappointing too).

Dating

I have been on 2 dates only, both in January. With Sabina we went to have a drink at Loft Five, after barely chatting on Bumble. She kinda abruptly ended the date after 1h. Abruptly, but not surprisingly. Too many silences in the conversation I guess, and I didn’t show enough interest. The other date was with Yvonne at the Oerlikon Brauerei. Again, I realized quite fast that I wasn’t interested.

The rest of the year, I kept using dating apps: Tinder and Bumble, then deleted Tinder and tried Hinge. For me, people on Tinder make no effort whatsoever. Bumble has 2 advantages in my opinion. One is that the geolocation seems limited to Switzerland, resp. the country you’re in. I have nothing against our neighbors, but since I have no car and need to rely on public transportation, I don’t wanna rely on German or French trains and buses. The other advantage is that, by design, women have to write first on Bumble. Hinge has one great feature in which you can re-view skipped profiles. This means that you can do several passes, less and less selective at each round. But anyway, all this is pointless if you don’t try to meet the ladies IRL.

As for sex, I’m back in the state of mind in which I was in during 2013–2023: it’s something fun other people do.

Epilogue

I wondered how long it takes to write these year-in-review posts? It seems it can be roughly broken down into the following:

• taking notes all year long, listing TV series, stuff I buy, etc. probably amounts to minutes, not hours. So, let’s be generous and count 1 hour there.
• gathering the data from the podcast app, the bike rides from Strava, the links to the video games, series, movies, podcasts, then selecting the pictures, and cropping, resizing, exporting them, etc. took about 4 hours.
• finally, the actual writing, proofreading, checking all links, verifying the layout on desktop, tablet and phone, etc. amounted to 7 hours.

So there you have it. It took 12 hours to write this. I can’t tell if that’s a lot or not. I hope the content compensates a bit for not writing much the rest of the year.

As always:

Embrace the suck. Move the fuck forward.

See ya in 2025!