The third stage of the Giro ends in Sofia tomorrow. The stage is already set, there are various events today and tomorrow, and the square is full of people. It’s a great honor for us to have one of the biggest cycling tours visit our country. I’ll try seeing the peloton, which is supposed to ride by my neighborhood in the late afternoon tomorrow.
Sofia is not a very cycling-friendly city but I hope events like this help popularize the sport. Cycling isn’t as good as walking 😀 but still far better than cars.
It takes courage to write something like this and even more courage to read it.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a monumental space opera. It’s 1219 pages, printed in small letters, sprawling across planets, ships, battles, and alien diplomacy. The story meanders between strongly engaging, tolerable, and occasionally exhausting, but it never becomes boring.
Despite its weaker scenes, particularly the space battles, I think it’s an excellent novel. It’s very ambitious, brave, and enormous in scale. It’s not the kind of science fiction you see often.
The premise is fantastic. Kira discovers an alien parasite with great superpowers, reminding me of Venom. Their connection starts a series of catastrophic events that only she and the parasite can stop. From there, the novel launches into a difficult to explain interstellar war. Spaceships fly left and right through the void, missiles hit and miss, long battles, strange species. Nothing to win and everything to lose.
There’s plenty of action, though the book is also emotional and a little sentimental.
I liked it, but I may not try reading another 1200-page space opera any time soon. Kira and the parasite are cool. 5/5
This is row 1 of the Nebula series, Paolini’s book is #3 from the left. 12 down, 3 to go.
I visited the official celebration for Saint George’s day, which is our military holiday. It was very lively, with lots of parents with kids, waiting to see the fighter jets. Good weather, blue skies.
Regarding the airplanes, I was hoping to see and take photos of our brand new F-16. Unfortunately, they flew over in seconds and I had a camera malfunction, so no photos from me. The organizers, who might be a bit east-leaning, made the star of the show our old Soviet Mig-29. They executed some aerobatic loops.
I drink Coca-Cola Zero almost every day. I know it’s an unhealthy habit but I’ve not yet felt the need to deal with it. As a frequent Coca-Cola consumer, when Coca-Cola Bulgaria started advertising their app, I installed it. I’ve been using it for almost two months, which qualifies me as an expert reviewer.
The Coca-Cola app lets you enter the unique 10-character alphanumeric codes hidden under the cap and probably somewhere inside cans. Each code gives you 1 or 2 coins, which you can then use to buy raffle tickets. The raffle awards vary from completely useless to just useless. I saw IKEA and Dominos vouchers a few times, otherwise not stuff an adult is likely to want.
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The awards, I challenge you to find the oddities.
Observations:
There are two types of coins in the app Diamond-shaped and C-shaped.
The diamond-shaped can only be obtained from the worst value Coca-Cola bottles, the 0.5l and 0.3l plastic ones. Probably from cans, although I couldn’t find any code there.
The C-shaped coins can mostly be used for raffles like a Coca-Cola umbrella or a ticket for the Coca-Cola annual concert.
A third type of coin was mentioned when I installed the app, and I must have 50 of it, but I never saw a raffle ticket that could be purchased with it or a place where I can see if I still have the 50 of that coin.
Despite collecting all these raffle tickets, the app doesn’t offer a way to see if you won anything or if anyone wins anything.
I’m unsure if I ever participated in a raffle or not.
Apparently, we have Coca-Cola imports from Moldova and Ukraine, and the bottles from these countries don’t have codes.
What’s the point of all of that?
It’s most likely to gamify the Coca-Cola consumption, targeting people who may be tempted by a GoPro camera, a VR set, or a low-end 40 inch TV. That is clearly not older adults. It attempts to add value to the worst-value Coca-Cola bottles that generate the most plastic waste but might be available in school cafeterias. I suspect it works well, otherwise they wouldn’t do it. Also, it is to discourage people from buying the imported Coca-Cola.
Did I win anything? I don’t think so. I expected that I will, at least, get an umbrella, a concert ticket, or get some indication that a raffle happened and I didn’t win. No Coca-Cola umbrella for me.
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