Bruncvik

In 2013, I posted on Facebook, urging my Czech friends not to vote for the eventual winner of their Presidential election, Milos Zeman. I called him and inept drunkard, and compared to him to the then Slovak President, Ivan Gasparovic. The next day, the Slovak police paid a visit to my parents (I've been living abroad by then), and offered not to create problems for them if I deleted the post, because Mr. Gasparovic was offended by being compared to Mr. Zeman. As soon as my parents called me, I dropped everything and deleted the post.

This was in a presumably democratic member of the European Union, and I didn't even think twice. I'd probably self-censor if I lived in a dictatorship. Sorry; I'm no hero type. I do have my opinions and express them when able, and don't when it would cause problems for me or my family. I think I'm just an average person.

This is also the reason why Metamucil doesn't sell in Europe. Seriously: just looking at the left picture gives me constipation.

(I understand that the pic is a joke, but anyone who has a coffee and a fag after breakfast can attest to their wonderful laxative powers.)

The ending of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. It pisses me off to this day.

One thing to recognise here is that neither governmental party was able to field a viable candidate against her. FF, the major government partner, had their candidate quit the race after the first debate. FG, the junior partner, nominated a candidate who clearly didn't want to run, due to all the skeletons in her closet the media are now dragging out.

To be fair, however, the government always faces an uphill battle. Our President, despite being largery powerless, had been viewed in the past two decades or so as the moral counterweight to the immoral government. Nominating a former government minister was thus a very tone-deaf decision.

At first I thought I was on c/running and was about to agree.

One more week till Halloween. The next day the Christmas season starts, and I'll gave the three TSO Christmas albums on loop.

I used to live in the US back then, and it was cheaper to leave voice messages than text. So, I did. One time I called my sister in Europe, and since she didn't answer, I left a voice message. She called me back later, pissed off, because she had to call her provider to set up her voice mailbox, because "normal people just text when there's no answer." These days, she sends me long voice messages on Whatsapp, which I ignore for weeks at a time. Oh, how the tables have turned...

It's more about not buying services from companies that profit from providing services in the occupied territories, such as Airbnb and Booking.com. The Irish government is bending over backwards for the hospitality sector, so this is in line with their policies.

Today, my longest walk was 6.8 km. Took about 2 hours, but I had frequent stops as I was collecting kids from their schools and taking them to their respective sports clubs. When I have to go to the office, I run commute, 8 km each way. My watch says that my average step count for the past 7 days is 20,109 per day. I may be an extreme case, but walking 3.7 km to the library would be so routine I wouldn't even think of taking a bus.

IT

Back in 1995, I was still using Gopher, when someone showed me WWW. I soon found the chatroom at Mrshowbiz.com, and was hooked to this new Internet technology.

But my favourite was Geocities. Had several sites there. They taught me HTML coding, and that there was such a thing as too many "Under construction" animated gifs.

Samsung Galaxy S2. I've been always using it only for calling, texting, checking the weather in the morning, and automatic sync with my watch after a run (and perhaps with some light Internet browsing), so combined with a phone case, the phone has seen very little outside world, which limited any potential damage. I did have to replace the battery twice, though.

Now that my Canon Powershot died, though, I'm still considering whether to upgrade to a phone with good optics or get a new camera. They are roughly the same price.