Tag: blog

Cats, Cakes, and Skyscrapers

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

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 shows the Millennium Center’s tower 2 and 3 (~112 meters). By height, these rank as the city’s first, second, and third tallest buildings. The final photo is one of the tallest socialist buildings, which looks like a dwarf next to the Millennium Center, despite standing at 70 meters.

What the first 3 buildings have in common, apart from being tall, is that they all got stuck and remained unfinished for a long time. Capital Fort and the Millennium Center were eventually covered in glass and put into operation, but Sky Fort still lacks windows on its top four floors, which may take years to resolve.

Cake

The goal of my walk was to get a birthday cake from Vila Rosiche. Somehow, they’ve survived the gentrification and the enshittification of the city center brought on by the ever-growing number of tourists, and they’re still baking excellent cakes. Dropping a casual recommendation, as for whatever random reason, people find this blog on Google, searching for local experiences.

Looking for well-kept secrets in Sofia? Have a cake in Vila Rosiche. They have a small and well-hidden garden, which makes them fine for tourists as well.

Cat

This little fellow wanted to explore the internals of my car. Thankfully, she eventually came out for some pets and let me take a photo.

Complaining

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
View all responses

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. At one point, I read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Carnegie is strongly against complaining. He thinks nobody enjoys listening to that and he’s a smart person. I suspect he’s at least partially right. So I’ve been putting some significant effort to not do that, or at least not as much. Also, some of the most popular subreddits on Reddit are all around people complaining about their relationships. So maybe at least some people find diving into other people’s problems a good use of their time.

Overall, I think have a good capacity to complain, and also a strong desire to not do it. Here, I let myself complain about cars, which I believe are bad for everyone, and about AI overviews of websites, which I believe are unfair use of other people’s intellectual property.

Speaking of heritage, here’s a Sofia classic. Pickled food and cats

47

~ Veselin ~ 40 Comments

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:

11, 23, 47, 59, 71, 83, 107, 131, 167, 179, 191, 227, 239, 251, 263, 311...

I think Douglas Adams made a mistake when picking 42 as the answer to everything. 47 would’ve been a better candidate because of how prime it is.

In any case, 47th Happy Birthday to me 😀

Gamebook Collection

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

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 tool, I flagged all of my gamebooks. It took me almost two hours. I was surprised by many things, some pleasant, and some not.

  • I only have 230 gamebooks out of 491. I thought I owned a lot more than that, given how much space they take. I somehow Imagined that I have 300+.
  • There are maybe 20-ish I was absolutely certain I owned that didn’t appear, including some I purchased within the last 1-2 years. Maybe I mixed the shelves at some point.
  • Found 5-6 duplicates.
  • Found two super-rare books I had no idea I owned and prepared one of them for reading.
  • Found 2 books that I own but the tool doesn’t have 😀

I’m not sure how I feel about this experience. I need to think about it. Buying and reading gamebooks brings me joy but keeping them at home brings me dust and clutter. I don’t like dust and clutter.