New year’s resolutions are not really my thing so I did not give it much of a thought as the previous year came to an end. Thinking a bit about it made me realize that there are a few things I do want to achieve this year and I would do well from actually writing them down. Maybe use this as a guide to look back at how far I’ve come once 2025 also comes to an end.
See my friend
We speak on the phone every now and then to catch up, but it has been a real long while since we last saw one another. We both agreed to set a resolution to rectify that this year when we talked in late December. It would be nice to catch up and from speaking to him I realize that we are both in, or have been in, varying degrees of Going Through Stuff and we could probably benefit from talking about it with one another.
Pay attention to live shows
Late last year a friend of mine alerted me to Röyksopp performing at one of the big clubs in town. Röyksopp were a big influence on me in my teens. I bought their debut album Melody A.M shortly after release and they have been favorites of mine since then. I even got the opportunity to tell Torbjørn as much after the show.
My resolution is to keep track of the listed live shows so I actually ‘get out’ once in a while. It has been far too long since I’ve seen any live bands or been ‘out’ on town doing extroverted things.
This has already paid off. I had a look at the bookings at Pustervik and as a result I’m going to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor in March. I don’t know much about them other than that they are roughly in my wheelhouse. I realized this after reading a review of their previous show in Göteborg two years ago which made me realize that it probably would have been something I would have enjoyed. I’m not sure if I should listen to their recordings or just go in blind.
Go on a Roller Coaster trip
I joined the European Coaster Club last year. I was hoping to go on one of their organized trips already back then but their plans for a big America trip were cancelled due to spreading themselves thin the year prior, so I have not yet been on any of their trips.
They recently sent out a rough plan of the coming trips for the year so I should also be a bit better prepared to plan my summer vacation around it.
Ditch Facebook
This has been on my mind to do for quite a while now. I’ve given up on posting anything on there since many years back now, but I’m still on there because there are some discussion groups that are useful. It also sucks how much Facebook makes up the infrastructure for the disc golf scene around here and I’ve felt that it would be difficult to get rid of while I’m still on the board of my local disc golf club.
The usefulness is diminishing quickly. There is a timeline but it is a fever dream of posts from my discussion groups drowning in a sea of Recommended Content, mostly consisting of garbage AI generated images. I’ve tried blocking every group that is recommended to me, but there is just an ocean of throwaway groups all matching the theme that Facebook thinks I’m interested in (abandoned buildings / urbex bullshit apparently) so it never even starts recommending garbage of a different topic, no matter how much I block.
If I go to a discussion group directly, can I still be sure I see a chronological timeline of posts made by actual human beings? Like I said earlier, looking on Facebook is like a fever dream. Reality has no meaning. Information is added, killed, distorted, diluted, reanimated, presented to you as a slurry. The things this site does to our minds I do not want to consider.
When the news of them wanting to create official LLM bot accounts I just started feeling embarrassed that I have not ditched Facebook sooner. Now that Meta is prostrating themselves before the Nazis, explicitly singling out the LGBTQ (with extra emphasis on the T in this case) community as valid targets of harassment and violence, I… Fuck man. Still having an account on there is a blight on my conscience.
Every day that passes without Zuckerberg standing on trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity is proof of a deeply unjust world.
Keep doing stuff with Blender
I want to end on a lighter note. I’m already doing this. Right now I’m learning some character modeling and I’m having a nice time of it. Still a long ways out from being able to share anything but it is part of the reason I’ve not posted much new stuff on this blog.
Happy belated new years everyone!
rykarn