I'm one of many Bulgarians who like to celebrate things with grilled kebapcheta. We adopted the Christmas Markets from the Germans but added our twist - kufte, kebapche, turshia, and high prices, instead of bratwurst and super-high prices. Get your small Coca Cola for 2 euro and you're ready to board your sled to Laplandia. I already switched to this diet about a month ago, although the food comes from less fancy places. I visited 3 Christmas markets during my morning walk, NDK, the National Theater, and Knyazhevska Gradina.

A solid story about a stalker who is unusually creepy and perhaps more dangerous than the million others like him. A beautiful journalist receives threats and unwanted advances, like flowers and chocolates, combined with threats. The detective trio Jake, Nicole, and Pancake are trying to help because they see the danger past the weird acts of attention. However, they have trouble figuring out who he is. This type of people normally physically chase their victims, while in our case, the perpetrator hides in the shadows. I guessed who the villain was maybe five pages before the official reveal, so I’m not sure whether to feel proud of myself or not.

It's difficult to spot due to its perfect urban camouflage. Somewhere in the darkness, two carnivorous eyes are staring at me. The predator is stealthy.

I slipped on my 10K-steps goal for November, despite having two additional weekend days in the month. I found it quite difficult to maintain the average and eventually didn't make it. The weather, knee pain, lots of work, zero hiking, a couple of emergencies, and several low-energy days all contributed. At least WordCamp Sofia was good.

I managed to finish 7 books this month. Best The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin - the duology is over, and so are all the books by Nora Jemisin, translated in Bulgarian. I liked it, although the memories about it are already fading. For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor - the self-replicating Bobs have reached a hostile alien form, they named "Others". The Others show no mercy. Charity 1 by Wolfgang Hohlbein - speaking of mercy, the aliens in Charity show no mercy either. The destruction of humanity is almost complete, yet there's Charity.

I only have a few photos from the WordCamp contributor day that happened today. I joined the polyglots. This photo doesn't give enough credit to the group that managed to almost fully translate WordPress 6.9 in Bulgarian. I participated by translating or approving hundreds of strings. The group was lead by Vladimir Vasilev, who has lots of experience and helped us translate better. We had free food and free Coca Cola Zero.

I had the privilege to be part of the organizing team of WordCamp Sofia. Day 1 of that event is behind us, and Day 2 is a contributor day, which will happen tomorrow. We gave away over 430 badges, however the exact number of attendees will need some special counting and may be lower. As the Volunteers Lead, I didn't watch many talks but still had the chance to hop in and see some. This is a tiny part of the front row, with Petya Raykovska speaking and some current and former organizers.

This is the Track 1 hall, looking forward to seeing it full of fellow WordPress people. I didn't do much advertisement on the blog but didn't need to - more people got tickets than we hoped for. The team is great and I hope that we'll have a nice event this weekend. By this time, the things are in motion and the conference should be fine even if most organizers stay late at the speakers dinner and don't come tomorrow.

Given that the last catseller was a bestseller, here's another one, selling books and postcards. Same place, Ivan Asen II street, a few hundred meters from the other cat.

A revolt is brewing. The occupation of Kisua has turned into something closer to enslavement, and the cultural rift between Gujaareh and Kisua makes the coexistence expensive. The soldiers from Kusia abuse their powers a bit too much and the locals use every opportunity to disobey. In the middle of it all is our new hero Hanani, an apprentice healer, and Wanahomen, the heir fighting to reclaim what was unfairly taken (according to him). As they find allies and fragile trust, a quiet front opens. A dream-plague slips through the dark and kills innocent people's souls in their dreams.

Arch Enemy's vocalist Alissa White-Glutz parted ways with the band and released a new single in a different type of metal. The style is not what we would expect from her, apart from an occasional growl. I'm not even sure what it is. Tried finding but the engines weren't helpful. Reminds me of the gothic rock from the 90s and a favorite bands from that time like Lacrimosa and Lacuna Coil, with slow and simple sounds, not necessarily anything harsh. I have to admit that this new song suits her well and I enjoy her recent work - both with Arch Enemy and without.

Ivan Asen II street, Sofia.

What do you think happened here?

It might not be that easy to guess the jubilee from this cake but it is contemporary. Nikola, from 6, turns 7. Happy Birthday, Nikola!

In a brief moment of insanity, I went over the strings for WordPress Mobile iOS and translated most of them. They are getting more and more difficult as the translation percentage approaches 100%. No surprise there that the people maintaining the Canadian language were unable to translate the final 2% 😜. I may be able to get that number to 98 as well but 100 looks out of reach. Some strings in the app mean absolutely nothing to me and even the translations to other languages make no sense. I'll post an update once the next Jetpack Mobile appears with these translations.

I attempted to take a few photos of this cat family but the rosehip took the focus. I need to level up my photography game to give these cats the credit they deserve. The little single-blue-eye void even yawned for me. Not sure if I'll have another chance with these two - Sofia has so many cats that it sometimes feels you never see the same cat twice.

I’m blessed that I don’t need to drive in the city, thanks to Automattic’s remote-work policy. But this morning, I had to drive 17 km through the city during rush hour to pick up my mom. I felt like a racecar driver again, one I used to be when I was younger. Locked in a constnat competition with hundreds of others, trying to catch every green light because those precious 30 seconds somehow feel like a matter of life and death. It reminded me of a post I wrote 2.5 years ago about…

It's difficult to imagine this chain of events, but here we are, documented with a photo. A hot water pipe bursts. One person puts a used tire in the pool, another hangs a red-white striped ribbon to indicate that. If you cross that hot pool, please use the tire. It's dark and rainy. Resident cat acts as a life guard, watching carefully 😳 😳 😳 - no swimming. Not sure why cats hang in wet grass like that, but they seem to not mind it.

The source of the failures seems to be Cloudflare. Thankfully, WordPress.com is not affected and my blog is up. Relying on the cloud has its downsides. The Internet was simpler when everyone kept their own servers in the basement.

The void was very friendly and didn't murder me with a stare.

Sofia has a bit of an energy drink problem. The energy drinks work so well in our city, that the people consuming them fly away from their cans. Here are the top 3 leading local energy drinks from under a single bridge.