14 years of socialism, or, Expat in OmanitstheEU

This month marks 14 years since both the birth of this blog and Pemulis and Joelle's one-and-a-half year sojourn in Europe (slightly extended) began. Interesting side note: DFW's magnum opus Infinite Jest (from whence come the characters of the blog!) turns 30 this month. You can read one of many takes on its place in the zeitgeist at its 30th birthday in the New Yorker here, and apparently you can also buy the Infinite Jest (30th Anniversary Edition) here which was just released today, February 3rd, 2026!

Fourteen years, it turns out, is a really long time. Long enough to have changed jobs three times (in the tech world it's also long enough to have changed jobs closer to 15 times), have doubled in size as a family with very grown up children (not mature, grown up), lost all your hair, witnessed a far-right fascist takeover of much of the western world, the coming bankruptcy of the UN, and probably a bunch of other things happening since fourteen years is as I just said a super long time. Still no Stanley Cups in Montreal though.

Since it's been 14 years then I guess that means we are starting our 15th year living "abroad". Seems like a good reason to come up with resolutions for the year. Here are a few of them:

1. Move somewhere (who knows where) so that Helga and Heinrich can each have their own room;

2. Not quit my job out of extreme frustration;

3. Become a cyclist again;

4. Run a marathon (boring millenial goal but why not);

5. Write more blogposts on GrenobleWMD than last year (very easy one);

6. Use my Vinothek gift certificate that my work gave me almost a year ago but haven't been able to use yet because as was mentioned in paragraph 2 we have children and can't go out for dinner unless we get a babysitter which we tried once and she tried to blame Heinrich for cracking the screen of her already-broken iPad.

7. More millienial angst-driven technological disenchantment digital fatigue borne analog nostalgia: take some non-over-processed photos. I actually quite like the look of the photos that I took on my "old" digital camera last year for the Feast of Corpus Christi (see here).

Already getting going on (7), here are some photos I took in the "raw" style using an App called Halide that allows you to turn off (yes you need an app for that) all the crazy photo effects and AI processing that happens automatically nowadays when you take a photo on your iPhone. I think they look kind of cool.

Our favourite bus: the 145

More analog nostalgia: my record player but with a bunch of junk on it

Early Instagram throw-back: terrible Latte art but no-filter, yo

2026. Welcome to it.

Here is a list of some of the things that have happened of note in the first four weeks of 2026:

- A fascist Kakistocracy led by an 80-year-old sociopathic narcissist dementia patient's private thug army composed of sadistic failed mall cops all behind on their child support payments murdered at least two US citizens in broad daylight and the depraved cowards leading said Kakistocracy then proceeded to blatantly lie to their citizens about it despite copious video evidence proving them wrong.

- The same fascist government threatened to invade Greenland upending the up until now most successful modern military alliance that had existed in its present form for the last 75 years. Then the morally depraved pedophile rapist-in-chief Herr Trump joked about doing the same to Canada.

- I got super sick probably with that new deadly Flu strain that while not as deadly as the low life incel army known as ICE is, is still pretty nasty. I then passed said deadly Flu strain on to Joelle and Heinrich. Strangely Helga was spared but it could be due to the chemically novel combination of poison and ice that flows through her veins where most people just have blood.

- The airline lost all of our suitcases for two weeks and when they finally returned mine it was delivered in pieces. Someone seemingly had been rehearsing for their ICE job interview and in the course of trying to destroy an inanimate object that they saw as a threat to their personal livelihood took a sledge hammer to the hard plastic shell and left it in tattered ruins.

- Elon Musk gave a talk at Davos. Why? Why does anyone listen to that wind bag shit head? Stupidest man on Earth.