Ah, what a year. A roller coaster of everything.
Ups and downs. Highs and lows.
Surely it was anything but boring.
A lot of first-timers this year – first broken bone, first festival in the Netherlands, first full year with no meat, first business break up, first online sales of my content, first (almost) emotional breakdown, …
But first, the positives.
I ran and exercised more than in the previous year, and I was really happy with the progress, until …
BAAM! bike crash, broken collar bone and one month of emergency rest.
Six screws and one metal blade later I’m now healed, and that’s all in the past.
I still am happy with the activity’s progress, but I know a lot more can be done.
Music
I listened to a lot more music than in previous years. A big thanks go to the Ment festival that challenged me to listen to all of the artists, but then managed to go over almost all, but not all all. Shoutout to Andraž for making it happen year after year for a decade already now.
I also rate each album I listen, based on how I liked it at that particular moment. This is a vanity metric to please my ego, but of course this can and does change over time.
Best album of 2023?
Two things … best album does not mean it was released in 2023, but that I just listened to it in 2023 for the first time.
So, my favourite album of 2023 was … it was two actually. One was released in 2023 and one was not.
AUSTIN by Post Malone … so good ❤️
Atamorgana by EZY-G & YNGFirefly … this album is crazy. Crazy good. Slovenian. Couple of years old, but it’s still amazing. Thanks to another Andraž for showing it to me.
Does Maribor have a nastier and more vibrant rap scene than Ljubljana?
Went to the Best Kept Secret festival in the Netherlands with some seriously great people. Shoutout to Nejc, Marko, Žiga, Daniel.
According to Last.fm, my most listened-to artist of the last year was still The National.
The most listened-to album of last year was Thin Mind by Wolf Parade.
All “top numbers” are the result of my Apple playlist I listened to 90 % of the time, to be honest.
Writing
I’ve been pleasure writing a lot more last year than any year before that, which makes me happy.
Most traffic came from Reddit and Facebook, but Google Organic is also getting some muscles.
Traffic growth is a result of my more active participation on Reddit and both spikes are the result of two posts I did about ai and drove a lot of traffic and some sales of my Gumroad products.
Business
It’s been a crazy year. After four years of slow but steady progress, last year was the first year where some serious reflections were made.
I wanted to write more, but couldt put myself to it.
So thats it for 2023.