Cav's Place

This was another nice read, mixing the sort of “curiosities” that make up popular science with more advanced elements that nevertheless remain accessible and easy to read. And the effort made to show how other species perceive the world as differences, presenting each case as it is instead of focusing on comparisons to humans and which may be better or worse, is largely successful. But, past the chapters dedicated to specific senses, the twelfth one, where they’re all brought together, struck me as particularly interesting, and answered crucial questions that I hadn’t even realized I should have had. However, the thirteenth and last chapter is the most impactful, leaving behind the “dissection” of animal senses and presenting the harm we’re causing from this point of view as well, though light and sound pollution, but also in more indirect ways, which is an issue that tends to receive far less attention than other environmental concerns… Not that those receive anywhere near enough either, but that’s another matter.
The only issues, other than perhaps at times appearing a little more lighthearted than it should have been for my taste, have to do with the chapters about nociception and magnetoreception. Admittedly, in both cases the problem is mainly how little we really know about those topics, in case of other species in the former case and in general in the latter one. And while the rather meandering magnetoreception chapter does at least make it clear that the topic is being actively researched, the one about nociception and pain also shows that the matter isn’t even really being looked into, so the fact that it’s rather devoid of content isn’t the fault of the author, but it still stands out in a negative way.

Rating: 4/5

Eleven years ago, I was listing who and what I voted for ever since getting the right to do so, and the plan was to make another such post at the end of last year, considering the number of elections we had in 2024 and the fact that the next ones were only supposed to be in 2028. But, of course, after the first round of last year’s presidential elections was annulled, those ended up being rescheduled for this year, and Nicusor Dan winning led to the need for elections for the position of Bucharest’s mayor. So it’s only after these also took place that I can finally post the list, the unpleasant thing being that, according to the law, these last elections should have taken place in September, so before the old ID card expired, but PSD kept throwing a wrench in the plans and they only took place on December 7, so I couldn’t have one more sticker properly placed on the back of that card and have it in the picture I took before just that remaining free corner of the card was cut off when I submitted the request for a new one. Still, since those stickers are no longer placed on the new cards, not even for those who, like me, choose to not switch to the electronic ones, when I voted I could ask the guy to place a sticker on the old card instead, even telling him to squeeze it just in the remaining space, next to the cut part… But he ended up placing it over an older sticker instead, and when I peeled it off and placed it in that empty spot on my own, part of that old sticker got torn off, so a new picture wouldn’t look quite right. But, still, I like the fact that I can show that I at least voted each time I had the option while I had that card, the 2004 general election, the last time when the parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential elections took place on the same day, remaining the only time when I didn’t.
Sure, one’s vote is supposed to be secret, and I have seen people criticized or even threatened with legal action for making it public, but that mainly happens on the day of the elections, when it can justifiably be seen as campaigning, or when people with a certain degree of notoriety do it, since in that case it counts as an endorsement, while this is mainly for my own use and posted long after the fact… Perhaps too long, because I can’t remember my votes in some cases, so I’ll be listing more or less educated guesses and it’s not impossible that I’ll end up editing this post at some later point if I’ll somehow figure out that those guesses were wrong.

At least I do easily remember the oldest ones that need to be included in this post, the 2016 local elections, not that it’s hard, since I voted for Nicusor Dan for the position of Mayor of Bucharest, his USB party for the Bucharest City Council, their candidate, Roxana Wring, for the position of Mayor of Sector 3, and once again USB for the Sector 3 Local Council.

Since USB became a national party, renaming itself to USR, by the time of the 2016 parliamentary elections, I voted for them for the Senate at that point. However, my vote for the Chamber of Deputies was one of the 4295 that went to Remus Cernea, who ran as an independent in Bucharest.

Next comes the 2018 referendum that aimed to define marriage as explicitly between a man and a woman in the Constitution. Those who opposed the proposal called for a boycott and viciously attacked anyone who didn’t agree, the only hope of the proposal not passing being for the turnout to fail to meet the 30% threshold, but, as always, I did firmly argue against the call for a boycott and intended to vote no matter what. Still, if it appeared that it was touch and go, with the required turnout possibly just being reached right at the end, I had considered casting an invalid vote, so I once again waited for the last update and then, when it was clear that there was no danger of getting to 30%, I went and obviously voted no.

The 2019 European Parliament elections are the first ones that I’m not entirely certain about, since USR had been pretty much taken over by a group that I had serious issues with, and they also ran in an alliance with PLUS, while on the other hand Demos had made a doomed attempt to try to run, obtaining only 12028 out of the required 200000 signatures and obviously having their list rejected. But it seems that the only valid option was to vote for the USR-PLUS alliance anyway, and I do seem to remember that I was somewhat pleased with the activity of Ramona Strugariu, who’s the last person who made it through from their list and therefore the one for whom any additional vote made a difference. So I guess that I’m only mentioning the fact that I’m not entirely certain because I don’t have a very clear memory of the moment, but there doesn’t seem to be any risk of being wrong.

Moving on, or in fact not really, since it took place at the same time as the European Parliament elections, the 2019 referendum is another one that I’m not entirely certain about. It’s quite clear that I voted yes to the first question, about prohibiting amnesties and pardons for corruption offences, but the second one, asking about prohibiting emergency ordinances in the field of offences, punishments and judicial organisation and extending of the right to directly appeal to the Constitutional Court against the ordinances, was more complex and I had questions about the exact results of such a decision. It does seem that I’d have probably also voted yes in the end, but I don’t really know, so this will remain with a question mark, even if not that big of one.

Another question mark has to do with the first round of the 2019 presidential elections. I once again have no clear memory of who I voted for, and it doesn’t seem like I had any reasonable option for a protest vote, so did I vote for Dan Barna, even though he was the apparent leader, or at least the public image, of the group taking over USR, or did I vote for Klaus Iohannis even then, just to go through with it? Or did I cast a protest vote for a candidate with no chances after all, even if I don’t recall doing so and I don’t see who I might have picked? A vote for Barna probably seems most likely, at least if I also think that he was in third place and Viorica Dancila was a particularly weak candidate from PSD, so there might have been at least a small theoretical chance of him ending up second and therefore PSD not having a candidate in the second round, so I’m going to list that I voted for him unless I’ll find some information that’d clearly indicate otherwise, but I really don’t remember.

Either way, at least there’s no question about the second round of the 2019 presidential elections, when I obviously voted for Klaus Iohannis. Of course, it was once again a matter of choosing a lesser evil, but there was no question about it.

The 2020 local elections are easy when it comes to the position of Mayor of Bucharest, since I obviously voted once again for Nicusor Dan… But that’s about it, and it’s also as far as I got with this post before midnight, so the rest of this paragraph was added almost an hour later, starting with wondering whether I voted for USR-PLUS for the Bucharest City Council or I cast a protest vote. And I seem to remember doing something of the sort, but in that case, was it for the Green Party or for PER? I didn’t want Florin Calinescu, who had ended up being put forward by the Green Party at that point, to end up in the Council, but knowing that they had no chances of meeting the threshold, I might have given them the vote. But PER was even more certain to be nowhere near that threshold, so they were an even more risk-free protest vote. At this point I’m going to very hesitantly say that I might have voted for the Green Party for the Bucharest City Council, but it’s little more than a guess. And I’m not certain what I did for Sector 3 either, obviously being pissed that USR-PLUS had chosen to support PNL’s candidate in an attempt to have any sort of chance against Robert Negoita, which was a false hope and just ended up angering people who also rejected PNL for no real reason. Still, it seems likely that I complained but nevertheless did vote for that common candidate, Adrian Moraru, for the position of Mayor of Sector 3. But what I did about the Sector 3 Local Council is once again a good question. The Green Party didn’t have a list here, but PER did, and USR-PLUS also had one, separate from PNL, so did I vote for them, hoping to cast a useful vote, to perhaps add to the opposition to Robert Negoita, or did I still cast a protest vote, in which case it’d have been for PER? Thinking about it rationally, voting for USR-PLUS seems more likely, but that’s once again just a guess.

I only edited the post again in order to add what follows Friday evening, but that didn’t help with the fact that I really can’t remember who I voted for in the 2020 parliamentary elections. I know that I even told those from USR that it’s unlikely that I’ll vote for them, and both the Green Party and PER ran, but considering who was on those lists, did I really go through with such a protest vote, knowing that there was no “risk” of them meeting the threshold, or did I vote for USR-PLUS after all? There was also the big push among activists, especially the left-wing ones, for a vote for Valeriu Nicolae, who ran as an independent in Bucharest for the Chamber of Deputies, and he ended up a mere 17 votes short, but I had some issues with that and I’m pretty much certain that I didn’t vote for him, and I think that I remember the relief that he wasn’t a single vote short. So… I really don’t know. Despite Florin Calinescu still leading the Green Party at that point, the fact that they definitely had no chance probably means that they were my option for a protest vote and I can rule out PER, and this may be plausible. But I find it almost equally likely that I eventually went against what I had said and voted for USR-PLUS after all, maybe hoping that they’ll somehow manage such an unbelievably good result that even Florina Presada and Octavian Berceanu, who had been demoted to clearly ineligible positions under any plausible scenarios, would make it. Or I could have split my vote between the two… And it really pisses me off that I didn’t write such a post after these elections, when I would have remembered, especially since no other elections were planned until 2024…

At least it’s much easier with these recent elections, starting with the 2024 European Parliament elections, when Nicu Stefanuta ran as an independent, after having left USR, and voting for him was an easy choice. And it was so nice that, against all odds, he actually made it, just edging past the threshold.

At the 2024 local elections, I voted for Nicusor Dan for the position of Mayor of Bucharest, REPER for the Bucharest City Council, Lucian Judele for the position of Mayor of Sector 3, and the REPER-SENS-URS.PDF alliance for the Sector 3 Local Council. And, while Nicusor Dan winning again was such a relief, I must say that I was particularly pleased when I saw that REPER had created this alliance just in my sector and put someone from SENS in second spot, which ensured that she’ll be elected if they’ll go over the threshold. Not that I thought that they will, considering the higher requirement for an alliance, so I was even more pleasantly surprised when I saw that they actually did make it. On the other hand, I wasn’t that convinced by their list for the Bucharest City Council, and in fact can’t say that I can “retrieve” the specific memory of casting the vote for them, but I definitely wasn’t going to vote for the alliance that USR was in, and a protest vote for PER was also out of the question when their list was bafflingly led by a guy who had broken away from Nicusor Dan’s NGO and started fighting against his efforts to defend green spaces from developers. And I also didn’t exactly like to vote for the candidate supported by USR and that alliance for Mayor of Sector 3, but Lucian Judele could have been a decent option in himself, while on the other hand Ana Ciceala hadn’t only just recently given birth but also chose to double down on that by running as “primama”, which is supposed to be a mix between the words for “mayor” and “mommy” but also basically sounds like “first mommy”, and focusing her program on developing infrastructure for small children and their parents, so I most definitely wasn’t going to vote for her. Not that it mattered, with Robert Negoita not only somehow still winning, but doing so with over 50%.

Moving on to the annulled 2024 presidential elections, I ended up voting for Kelemen Hunor, and it was actually less of a protest vote than it appears, because I actually thought that, out of the particularly poor choices that were available, he and Cristian Diaconescu were the most suitable for the position under the present circumstances, and Hunor being the president of the party representing the ethnic Hungarians meant that he was also a great choice as a vote against the rising far right, which tipped the scales in his favor in my mind.

When I edited the post Friday evening, I forgot to add the 2024 local referendum from Bucharest, which took place on the same day as the annulled presidential elections, so I made one more edit in the early hours of Saturday, to add this paragraph as well. The questions put forward by Nicusor Dan were whether the Bucharest City Council should decide how tax revenue will be allocated, with the understanding that in that case more will be directed to the City Hall and less to the Sectors, and whether the Mayor of Bucharest should emit building permits for the entire city instead of each Sector doing so independently, and I voted yes to both. On the other hand, PSD demanded the addition of a third question in exchange for their support for the referendum, that being whether the Bucharest City Hall should fund and implement a drug prevention program in all of the city’s schools, and I voted no to that, because such a program should be funded and implemented nationwide, by the government, not by the city.

Getting back to what I added Friday evening, for the 2024 parliamentary elections I didn’t just vote with a clear conscience, but also cast positive votes, actually for my choices, not against others or as a protest. For the Senate, I voted for REPER, who had Octavian Berceanu at the top of their list in Bucharest and had also opened their lists for Demos, one candidate from there being in third spot. On the other hand, while Ana Ciceala led the list for SENS for the Senate and I still wasn’t going to vote for her, I definitely voted for SENS for the Chamber of Deputies… Sadly, neither reached the threshold, REPER doing particularly poorly, while SENS proved why the continued persistence of those who call for an electoral reform, including them, to merely demand lowering the threshold from 5% to 3% instead of removing it completely won’t do any good, because they obtained 2.84% for the Senate and 2.99% for the Chamber of Deputies. And in fact there were no parties between 3% and 5%, so such a change would have made absolutely no difference.

Getting to the 2025 presidential elections, so those that were actually validated, I voted for Nicusor Dan in both rounds, being so relieved when he somehow managed to snatch that second spot from Crin Antonescu in the first round and prevented me from having to vote for that guy in the second round just to be against something even worse.

And Nicusor Dan becoming president led to the need for new elections for the position of Mayor of Bucharest in 2025, where I was among the 804 people who voted for Dan Trifu, sticking to the choice I had made as soon as he announced that he was going to run and still not wanting to vote for Ana Ciceala, even though she was in SENS and had changed her speech and program since running in this sector, while at the same time dismissing the calls to cast a “useful vote” for Ciprian Ciucu. But I must say that Ciucu is definitely a far, far lesser evil than the other two who were seen as having real chances, so it is a relief that many did cast that useful vote and made him a clear winner, despite what the polls had listed all along.

Among this year’s slew of attacks on contraception, abortion and women’s rights, and now even China turning around from their previous policies even more and adopting more of a “stick” approach to increase natality that may well only lead to more STDs instead, the fact that the European Parliament voted in favor of the My Voice, My Choice European Citizens’ Initiative seems like a ray of light… Until you actually read any details and see how faint it is. After all, the Initiative doesn’t ask for abortion to be allowed all over the European Union, in fact even explicitly stating that it does not seek to change national laws in any way, but only demands the creation of a voluntary, opt-in financial mechanism to help countries provide abortion care to women who can’t access it in their own country and choose to travel to said other countries for it. Yes, that means that the intention is to provide those services free of charge to the women as a result, and that is important for many, but it may also be a lesser problem than the need to travel to another country for a procedure that’s traumatic in itself… And then there’s the question of what may happen to those women when they return to their home country that criminalizes what they just did.
What’s worse is that even such a weak demand faced a forceful opposition and actually seemed likely to be rejected until the last moment, so any hint of an actual reasonable request, like guaranteeing access to contraception and, when necessary, abortion all over the EU, would have reduced the chances to zero. And it’s not like this vote actually approved even this weak measure, the Parliament’s vote just showing support, the European Commission being the body that needs to approve it. And then, of course, even if it will be approved, the question of who’ll volunteer to opt into such a mechanism remains, the measure itself not even being worth the paper it’s printed on without the countries that border those that restrict abortion access becoming part of the mechanism.
Still, while I find it hard to actually be pleased by what, at this point, is little more than a declaration of intent, and a particularly unambitious one at that, it does once again prove that the European Union, or at least the European Parliament, remains the one faint beacon of hope when it comes to anything heading… Well, no, make that anything not rushing away from the right direction at full speed. Not that it’s not hard to even say that much, in good part considering the current dismantling of most aspects of the Green Deal, as woefully insufficient as it was even in its full form, the most recent being giving up on the 2035 internal combustion engine ban, but when the other “powers” of the world are definitely speeding along in all the wrong directions, here there may still be at least some sort of a starting point… If only we’ll actually manage to do something with it without things becoming impossibly worse first. And this may actually be the main reason why this is a ray of hope, faint as it may be: In part because it’s an approval of a European Citizens’ Initiative, a little step taken as a direct result of European citizens using a tool provided by the EU to demand it, but also because an opposing Initiative was rejected, albeit back in 2014.

Since I forgot to change the date of that scheduled post before posting the initial version of the one posted just before midnight on December 7, it ended up showing up for a moment, though I realized it and sorted it out right away. And then, a little after 12:05 AM, I went to the bathroom, to use the toilet and wash. I was done at 1:10 AM, but then I spent a little time on the computer and moved what I could easily move without turning it off, to have a little less to do after dinner, so it was almost 1:25 AM when I went back to the kitchen, but I still easily stuck to the dinner schedule, actually finishing at 3:35 AM. However, it was just over half an hour later when I really got to work on moving the desk back, and it was almost 5:20 AM when I thought that I was done and turned the computer back on… Only to realize that I had mixed the power cords and the one going into the computer was the one that should be left available for the old one, so I had to turn it off again and switch them. And it was 5:55 AM when I got in bed, by which point it was very clear that my digestive system was dealing with something.
On top of that, I also had a stuffy nose when the workers who were supposed to drill those holes in the walls rang the doorbell and woke me at 8:20 AM. Either way, dad told them to start with the living room and I rushed to change and remove the cardboard covering my window, after which I helped dad when they needed water and stood around while they worked, their power strip being moved to my room when they got here and staying here while they worked on the other bedroom as well, so my window had to stay open and the bug net moved aside until they were done and I only shut it again at 10:30 AM, when I heard them ask how to get back out and then immediately supply the answer themselves, saying that they’ll go through the balcony. And at least they did drill the hole on the other side, even though the plan supposedly calls for it to be drilled on this side where I have the computer, so it’s a good thing that I moved the desk, because they called someone about it, saying that they should all be aligned and there are even talks about moving it for the apartment from the fifth floor where dad had seen that it had also been drilled on this other side, but they did insist on the phone that we had furniture on that side… Only for dad to repeat, loudly, that he had moved the furniture from there, because at the same time I asked him whether it was really all right for the hole to be drilled on that side in his bedroom, so if the person on the other side of that call heard that, it’d have sounded really bad, and the guy actually snapped at dad to shut up because he was trying to say that it was furniture that can’t be moved, and later I heard him say that it has to appear like that because those in charge won’t care about a computer desk, but only about large furniture covering the wall.
Either way, I was once again frozen, on top of having only slept for some two hours, not feeling well, and seeing that my face was quite yellow when I went to the bathroom. But I had to at least vacuum the obvious dirt from my room, and dad also wanted to cook, so I took what he needed out of the freezer, and also washed what was in the kitchen at that point and cleaned up a little, before getting back in bed at 11:15 AM, at least to warm up a little, since the workers were drilling those holes at other apartments. But the noise was relatively distant, at least at some point, so after a while I did get back to sleep, and when I was woken up I fell asleep again almost immediately, at least until the drilling became much louder. According to dad, that must have been when they got to drill the remaining hole upstairs, for the living room, which must have been why that sort of noise didn’t last that long and after it ended, a little after 3:20 PM, I crawled out of bed to pee, hoping to be able to get back to sleep after that. However, despite only checking the time again and deciding to get up when it was almost 4:30 PM, I couldn’t do that. But at least my digestive system seemed to have gotten through most of the problem, though on the other hand my nose remained stuffy, and dad later asking me to hold the garbage bag open while he struggled to pour the contents of the vacuum cleaner’s bag in it and therefore clouding both of us in dust and dirt for quite a few minutes definitely didn’t help. Either way, some time after midnight I crawled back in bed and had another little nap, after which I couldn’t persuade myself to get back up for a longer time than what I had spent sleeping, so I only went back out of my room close to 1:50 AM and ended up eating dinner between 3:45 AM and 4:35 AM. And no visits were recorded for December 8.

At least I could sleep quite well, waking up a few times but getting right back to sleep until 2 PM, when the noise got louder and I was kept awake for a longer time. But I eventually managed to catch a couple more brief naps until dad getting back and another “round” of louder noises made me get up, just before 3:45 PM. And then I had lunch, did the day’s squats, and went out at 7:35 PM, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol, picking up one more on the way to Penny Titan and putting them in the machine from there before getting what I wanted and a bun, with the evening discount of only 30% from there, to be able to use another one of those vouchers from their coins campaign, along with the one received for the recyclables. And after arranging the purchases in the backpack I entered that Mega Image with it, seeing that the bakery discounts, still of 50%, were already made, but just buying some garlic and adding it in the backpack before deciding to stick to the idea of running the following day and therefore not coming back too late.
Still, I did make the detour to Carrefour on the way back, once again entering with the backpack and getting some expiring chickpeas that actually have the same expiration date as those I purchased back in July, when they had a regular discount, and which I’m yet to use, so these were much cheaper and I really shouldn’t have bought those, not that I could have known it then. Either way, I got a bag of cat litter as well, scanning it to confirm that the price was the one from the catalog, since the price label listed a slightly higher one, and then I also used the voucher received for previous purchases when I paid. And then I added the chickpeas in the backpack, grabbed some recyclables on the way back, put them in the machine from the nearby Mega Image, and cashed in the voucher, only leaving the cat litter aside when I went to the checkout to do that… And then I grabbed one more recyclable right after walking out, plus one without a label that seemed to fit the label that I still had, but I wasn’t going to go right back and put those in as well.
I was at the door at 9:55 PM, having carried 12 kg, and I only weighed 45.5 kg. Then I cleaned the litter box and went to drop a bag of trash down the chute, washed what was in the kitchen, ate a sweet pastry, diced two small apples, mixed them with some sugar, and ate those as well, and just after 12:20 AM I went to the bathroom, to use the toilet and wash… With water that was below body temperature, so it wasn’t even 12:50 AM when I was done, and then I got under the blanket, thinking to stay there until I’ll stop shivering… But that didn’t seem to be happening, so I had to make do with just warming up to some extent, since even so it was past 1:35 AM when I went back to the kitchen, and after also taking a cold pill that was most probably expired since September of 2024, I ended up eating dinner between 3:40 AM and 4:10 AM.

The workers woke me early in the morning, with what sounded like scraping and cutting either foam or EPS outside my window, and at one point some loud banging as well. I don’t know when it started, since it was a while before I checked the time and saw that it was close to 8:50 AM, but they eventually moved away and I caught another little nap or two until a few minutes after 10 AM, when I stepped out of my room as dad was getting ready to leave and asked him what had they done. But he didn’t know, having just heard the banging but saying that he hadn’t seen anything changed, so after spending a few minutes on the computer, until he left, I went to pee and blow my nose, what came out being a deep yellow with a greenish tint and rather chunky, and then, a little after 10:20 AM, I got back in bed, managing to get back to sleep quickly and staying asleep until 1 PM, when the alarm rang and I got up. Then I had the usual stuff, the yogurt being a bio (organic) one expired for a few days and replacing one of the almonds with an apricot pit. I had two left to crack, but unless there was a tiny core that flew off when I managed to crack the shell and I couldn’t find it, the second one seemed dry. Either way, I left at 3:40 PM, wearing the full running gear, one armband, and that thing that goes on my neck, the reported temperature being 10-11°C, dropping by a couple of degrees by the time I finished. And on the way to the park I was stopped by a couple, or more exactly by the guy, who asked how many kilometers I run per day, seeming a little disappointed when I said that it’s just once per week, and usually ten, sometimes 16, but then asking a few more questions about running and seeming to also have a discussion with the woman through me, in a way.
The time was 48:55.89, with sector times of 4:19.79, 5:10.03, 6:10 (6:09.50), 4:37 (4:36.94), 5:14.41, 6:06 (6:05.40), 4:28.44, 5:09.03, 5:55 (5:54.53) and 1:47.82, making for lap times of 15:39.32, 15:57 (15:56.75) and 15:32.00. I was hoping to be less slow than the previous week, but didn’t really know what to expect, and that first sector wasn’t exactly promising. But it could have been worse, and the second sector wasn’t quite that bad, so I was thinking that I should just cover the first lap in less than 15:30… Only to be shockingly slow on sector three, leading to once again wondering whether I’ll even stay under 50 minutes. And sector one of lap two only made those concerns even more founded, though I then did enough over the next two sectors to at least cover the lap in less than 16 minutes. But that required already starting to push by the end of that lap, and just staying under 50 minutes was not a target that I cared to aim for, so I pushed harder from the start of lap three, hoping to somehow squeeze under 49 minutes after all and thinking that I might just have a chance after sector one of lap three… Only for the following sector to change that. But I still went for it on sector three, even if I didn’t really think that I still had enough in me, and did just enough to give myself a chance at the end of the lap. I still had to gain some seconds over the final sector, however, so I pushed every step of the way, even if my nostrils were tightening and I even breathed in through my mouth, through gritted teeth, a few times, but I did manage a surprisingly good time on that final sector, ending up frustratingly close to the previous week’s time. But it was still worse than then, and that was a bad time anyway, so this was only worse…
Towards the end of lap two I started feeling like I hadn’t left everything in the toilet and the feeling continued on sector one of lap three, when I also felt some warnings from the back of my left hip, but then both of these issues went away. On the other hand, at the end of the long straight of sector one of lap three I felt that I had pushed too hard and had to slow for a few seconds, though I then managed to push through the issue. However, my nostrils started tightening as I continued, the problem becoming more notable towards the end of the lap and getting even worse on the final straight, as I already mentioned. Otherwise, there was a pretty normal amount of weaving and going the long way around, but no notable issues caused by people, except perhaps slowing a little on sector one of lap two, as I made my way through a roadblock. And on sector three of lap three I might have also slowed a little while trying to get a better look at the time. But I kept running on both of these occasions, so they wouldn’t really be worth mentioning if I had anything else to list.

After having a quick look in the nearby Mega Image on the way back, I ate lunch, put jam on a large doughnut and ate that as well, did the day’s squats, changed, albeit leaving the running t-shirt on, cleaned the litter box, and went out again at 9:10 PM, dropping a small bag of trash down the chute and taking those recyclables with the deposit symbol that I came back with the previous evening, picking up some more on the way to Kaufland and putting them in the machine from there. That label wouldn’t stay on that one that I was trying to place it on and after a few tries the machine printed the voucher and asked for assistance, probably signaling a fraud attempt, but I just moved to another, was more careful, and it worked on the first try, so I got a second voucher. Then I washed my hands and it was almost 9:45 PM when I entered the store, finding that the bread that had a good regular discount those days was already bagged and that the price label listed the full price, but I took it, looked for a price checker that worked, confirmed the discounted price, and took three of the four remaining loaves. Then I also took two expiring mixes of baked and salted almonds, cashews and walnuts, which had a great discount, plus a few bananas and a handful of Moldovan plums, the evening discounts being good but not great, used the vouchers received for the recyclables at the self-checkout, and took my time to arrange the purchases in the backpack, walking out right at 10:30 PM. And on the way back I checked two Mega Image locations, entering with everything and then just walking back out, and picked up a couple more recyclables.
I was back at 11:20 PM. Then I cleaned the litter box again and went to drop what I had gathered down the chute, ate a banana, put the purchases in their place, and at 12:45 AM I went to shower, with water that was even colder than the previous evening even though during the day it had been burning hot. And the site continued to list everything being normal in this area, though there is a nearby area where it’s listed that the water temperature doesn’t meet the required parameters. Either way, after trying to let it run a little and noticing that, if anything, it seemed to get even colder, I just went ahead with it and was done just before 1:10 AM. Then I washed what was in the kitchen and cleaned up a little, including sweeping the floor, dealt with one of my breads, took what was the last cold pill that I could find that didn’t have damaged packaging, and which wasn’t even expired yet, and opened one of those nut mixes and ate the cashews and walnuts, plus just a few of the almonds, keeping the rest of the almonds to use before runs, and since the whole thing has some 950 calories and the ingredients list almonds as making up just over a third, I got over 600 calories just from that, maybe more like 650. And then I ate dinner between 4:35 AM and 5:15 AM, the abdominal pain which I had started feeling after getting back and which I initially thought might have been caused by needing to pee quite badly and struggling to hold it in on the way back that evening only getting worse after eating those nuts and the situation definitely not improving after dinner, though at that point it was clear that I had a lot of gas. But things did seem to get somewhat better by the time I went to bed, at 6:55 AM.

I’m pretty sure it was past 10:30 AM when I was woken up by awfully loud drilling, but I didn’t need to pee and remained curled up under the blanked for quite a while before crawling out just enough to check the time and see 10:48 AM. And then the drilling started getting more distant and probably even stopped at some point, so I could get back to sleep, being woken up again around 1:10 PM or so, since it wasn’t yet 1:15 PM when I got up to pee and exchange a few words with dad before getting back in bed. But I was just wasting time, the noise not letting me get back to sleep, so a little after 1:45 PM I got up again, cleaning the litter box and getting on the computer as dad was getting ready to leave. But I was too sleepy to do much of anything, so at 3:20 PM I got back in bed yet again, despite the noise, most of it coming from upstairs by then, the workers who’re retrofitting the building seeming to have moved away from this area. Still, after just lying there for quite a while I eventually managed to catch some brief and agitated naps, only getting up again several minutes after 6:10 PM. And at night I ended up eating dinner between 3:50 AM and 4:30 AM.

At least I could sleep quite well until the afternoon. I did get up to pee once, and was briefly woken up a few more times by noise, but I was mostly asleep until just before 2 PM, when it seemed that dad was about to leave, so I waited for him to do so and then went to pee again before getting back in bed. However, the noise got much worse after that, in good part coming from upstairs, but a fair bit was from outside as well, and at one point I heard a worker wonder whether someone was at home, so what naps I still got were brief, agitated, and filled with those highly realistic bad dreams. But I definitely wasn’t going to move around and risk being seen, especially after hearing that question, so I only got out of bed several minutes after 5 PM, when I knew that the workers were gone. And then I did the day’s squats, cleaned the litter box, and at 8:35 PM I went out, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol.
After having a quick look in that Profi Go and picking up two more recyclables on the way, I reached the Mega Image that closes at 10 PM several minutes before 9 PM and put the recyclables in the machine. Then, seeing that no cheap buns were left in the bakery area and not really caring for anything else if the discounts were still going to be of 50%, I waited for the cart with the products that were discounted by 90% to be brought and wanted to make sure that I won’t miss it… Only to notice a good price for cabbage and think that I could take my time to select a good one and remove the outer leaves, since the employee was placing the discount labels on the bakery products, yet when I looked again I saw that the cart had been brought, and I had once again missed anything more interesting, only some sauce being left, which I didn’t care for. But I had seen some chicken parts that had a 50% discount and which dad could use, so I bought those along with the cabbage, which I had weighed first, at the unmanned checkout, to know what the total would be. And then I used the voucher received for the recyclables when I paid, after the cashier accidentally scanned the regular bar code for those chicken parts at first, so I said that the total couldn’t be right and he saw what had happened and corrected it. And then, thinking that the handball match was starting at 9:30 PM, I jogged back, though I picked up another recyclable and meant to put it in the machine from the nearby Mega Image, only for it to report that a bin was full as soon as the person who was using it when I got there was done, so I came back with it.
I got back at 9:35 PM, noticing that something had bitten me on the right leg, right where the top of the sock was… And that the handball match actually started at 9:45 PM. Either way, I ate a few plums and rearranged some things in the fridge to make room for that cabbage, and a little before half time dad got back, looking really unsteady on his feet and just barely dragging himself to the couch, quite literally dragging his right leg with his hands and complaining of terrible pain in that area that’s been bothering him. So I exchanged a few words with him, but I meant to have another look in the nearby Mega Image at half time, expecting the bakery discounts to be made, so I dashed back down at that point to do so… Only to find no bakery discounts and, despite standing around for several minutes, no sign that they were going to be made. On the other hand, I saw that the price of cabbage was a little lower than what I had paid in the other location, but all of it from this location looked really bad. So I had nothing to get and just came back up.
Dad was getting ready to take a bath when I got back, but he also seemed at least a little drunk, so I asked him about that and he said that it’s nothing compared to the pain, which I took as an admission, becoming concerned that he may fall asleep in the bathtub again. Either way, I then went to drop a bag of trash down the chute, then ate lunch, mixing some partly melted candies which had been brought by dad during summer, in the heat, into it instead of eating them separately, and then waited for dad to come out of the bathroom, so it was past 12:35 AM when I could finally go… And just over 35 minutes later when I was done, even though I also used the toilet before showering, because by that time the water, which had definitely been hot earlier, was barely around body temperature. That made me crawl in bed again, only getting back to the kitchen just before 1:55 AM and ending up eating dinner between 4 AM and 4:40 AM, during which time I also checked the price of cabbage at Mega Image and saw that the lower one was the correct one, so it wasn’t like that at this nearby one just because it was so bad and I had for some reason ended up paying a little more at that other location… And by now I noticed that it should be even cheaper at Auchan, and I could end up going there one of these days, so I shouldn’t have bought that from there, and it’s not like I touched it yet. But, to return to that morning, dad got up to go to the bathroom while I was getting ready for bed, so we talked a little more and I got in bed at 5:55 AM.

I could pretty much sleep until just before 11:30 AM, when dad was about to leave and loud noises started coming from upstairs, so I got back in bed after going to pee, but getting back to sleep was quite a problem and I was just catching agitated naps. And the thing is that I only decided to get up when I noticed that it was starting to get dark, checked the time, and saw 4:26 PM, and at that point it had been mostly quiet for some time, but I had also remained pretty much awake just during that time, at most drifting off very briefly once or twice, and I’m not even sure of that. Either way, when I later turned on the TV tuner’s software, the image went briefly dark again, making me think that it may have something to do with that. But what I was really anxious about was that my cousin from my father’s side was supposed to come in the evening and take a look at what had to be done around the apartment, and dad had said that he should be here around 9 PM… Only to get back around 8:30 PM and say that it was supposed to be around 10:30 PM instead, which pretty much threw a wrench in my plan to make mamaliga in the evening. And things got even worse when it was actually almost 11:10 PM when he got here. At least he agreed with my ideas and dismissed dad’s, so after he left dad had to admit that I knew what I was talking about when he had snapped at me over what he considered to be senseless plans. And, even if it was so late by then, I then did make mamaliga after all, “cheating” in order to be able to say that I took a first bite in my room before 3 AM and having a little more in the kitchen, but actually starting to eat in my room close to 3:20 AM and finishing at 4 AM. I got in bed at 5:30 AM. And no visits were recorded on December 13.

As for today, the initial plan was to post something else, but that’s not written while this personal update is, and I’m going out again this evening, so let me start from the morning and say that I managed to get back to sleep quickly after the first time I got up to pee and also after waking up when dad left, but after going to pee again, around 11:20 AM, there was some noise from upstairs and it took me quite a long time to fall asleep again, probably only doing so after it was pretty much quiet again. And even after I did, I only managed some agitated naps, with bad dreams, before the alarm rang, at 3:20 PM, and I got up to watch handball, also doing the day’s squats and making the system backup during the match, since Windows updates are paused until December 15 and I learned that some November updates have been offered even to those who don’t use a Microsoft account to enroll for extended support, and also that the option to pause updates gets disabled, so I have to see what I’ll do about that and whether I can avoid dealing with the matter for a while longer. Either way, I ate lunch during the final, with some nicer bagels instead of bread, leaving a few to munch on towards the end of the match, and now I’m rushing out.
However, before I do, it seems that I need to once again mention that the middle button of my mouse seems to be double clicking even worse, and it is still under warranty until February, but it’s not being produced anymore, and even the brand vanished, being completely taken over by Turtle Beach, so I wonder what may happen if I’ll send it to be fixed, because I want this model, not the money back, which I won’t be able to use to get another one like it, or having it replaced with the newer model, which has three buttons less.

This is probably the year’s last post in this series, and it’s obviously once again rushed, but it actually includes what for me are two new finds, since I stumbled into the first one just this week and into the second probably in early November, and definitely after writing the previous post from the series. On the other hand, the band that I mentioned skipping over in that post remains skipped over, because I happened to stumble into some new material from one that I’ve been meaning to include in such a post for many years, so that’s the third one, I just don’t want to put four in a post, and looking for a fifth is definitely out of the question just now.

That first band is Dirkschneider & the Old Gang, and back in 2020, when they released an EP, it was apparently just meant to be a one-off charity side project of veteran Udo Dirkschneider, yet it has developed into a full-fledged project and recently released a full album. So I’ll go with the song that I stumbled into, Blindfold, as my first pick, while the second, from that older EP, will be Where the Angels Fly. Of course, the level of polish and confidence goes without saying when such veterans are involved, but I wouldn’t have paid attention without a female vocalist, so the fact that the much younger and less experienced Manuela Bibert keeps up is what interested me the most.

The second new find is Remina, and if Heike‘s haunting vocals and that overall sound seem familiar, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, and the other band members have been working together in other projects as well. So, if you know what to expect, rest assured that they deliver. And if you don’t, or if you just want my usual two picks anyway, I made it easy for myself and went with the only one that has an actual video, Silence and the Silver Sea, from their recent album, and The Endless City, which is the only one from their first album that at least has a lyric video.

As for the band that I’ve been meaning to mention for years, that’s SEVI and their recent release, from their upcoming album, is Vampire Love, so that’s my first pick. And I’ll go with Broken Wings as the second one, in part because I have this feeling that it’s the song that made me add them on the list way back then, though I’m obviously not in the least certain of it. Either way, they’ve been around since 2010 and I wonder why don’t they have a page on Metal Archives, since I don’t see why they’d be rejected. But that’s not my problem, so I’ll just say that confidence should once again go without saying after all this time, and while they may not be that memorable in terms of the overall sound, the powerful vocals may actually stand out.