Hey, it’s 2026 now and it’s time for some retrospective for 2025.

Three years in Serbia. More places are explored. More friends are found. Already applied for permanent residence.

There wasn’t a clear 2025 year theme, but retrospectively I think it was simplifying. Ditching log of watched/played, simplifying note and task management, doing mental work with my possessions. All “ing” because it’s process, not destination. For 2026 I wish to continue this trend, but will also try not to overcomplicate it. Yeah, overcomplicated simplifying, it’s a real thing by the way. Let it be “enough” word.

Working in the same place, 5 years already (the longest period in my life) and I liked it. Also I figured out my desired condition in context of tasks, responsibilities and so on. I’m not close to it, but moving in this direction.

The most important thing for me in last year was activities with my friends and loved ones. Simple meetings, calls, texting, concerts, board games, trash movies home cinema, joint celebrations and many other stuff – thank you all for this. It means a world to me, sorry for the cliche.

Best 2025 long-term activities:

• trash movies home cinema – we’re watching B-movies (or below B) together with friends, sometimes there are hidden gems;
• Baldur’s Gate 3 online coop – finally it’s over, but it was a ride;
• Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 boardgame campaign – half of the game year, enjoyed it so far;
• Exit Advent Calendar in December – boardgame of quest-room type in Advent everyday style – loved it.

I continued writing to blog, tried multiple formats – monthly, weekly, frequent short notes – and all failed. I want to try again with a regular schedule – but this time, post per week. Not weekly notes, just a post on concrete topic. And sometimes a bunch of unrelated thoughts. So it should be 52+ posts for the year, we will see.

There is no year movie for 2025 because at some point I dropped filming. There was a really cool edit of first weeks, but after that, I don’t know, am I burned out of this whole idea? Yeah, it’s still a good idea and I’m happy I made movies for previous years. But this pressure to film everyday exhausts me in the end. Maybe I would think of something like “2025 shards” movie. Maybe. But for now there is no 2025 movie. For 2026? Maybe. I will film some moments, but without weekly montage. We’ll see how it goes.

19 concerts (with more bands), 5 music festivals, 24 trips (local and abroad) – these are approximate numbers as tracked by my loved one. Good numbers, I think.

• Best trip – to Sutjeska national park in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hiking in beautiful mountains with good company – what could be better?
• Top festival – Tuska in Helsinki, worst experience – Rock im Park (but we’re still going this year, hah).
• Most unusual activity – grape harvest in the winery of our winemaker friends. Rakija at 8am before hard work is something.

Media

As I mentioned earlier, I ditched log of watched/played/read this year. On one side, it simplified my life. On the other, I could forget something. And I literally restored some things for top from my posts, messages and so on.

Books

• Most of the time I read Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo. 7 books total, liked it, especially from third one.
• Most enjoyment I get from short stories by different authors, mostly classic sci-fi.

Movies

Unfortunately, I can’t point to an outstanding experience this year. Many movies was good, but that’s it.

Notable mentions: Zootopia 2, The Godfather (yeah, yeah, first one), Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

Music

Besides Spotify top there were discoveries:

• Blood Command
• Darkways
• Behölder
• Himiko Kikuchi
• Sinsaenum
• Fragile Figures
• Khirki
• The Defect
• Saturday Night Satan
• God Module

Games

• Baldur’s Gate 3 – sorry, Karlach.
• Split Fiction – games by Fares are instabuy now
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – the most emotional one
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – best adventure
• Blue Prince, Taiji, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - all responsible for my intellectual torture
• Last, but not least – Tamesti. A complicated minesweeper game. Spent 100+ hours on it (more than spent on KCD2 with all DLC, wow)

Notable mentions: Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, Desperados 3, Inscryption, Dispatch, Strange Jigsaws.

Shows

Main disappointment in shows: Alien: Earth and the ending of Brassic. And I can’t point out anything as really cool this year. Peacemaker was good, but nothing more. Maybe Derry, but I didn’t finish It yet (heh).

What else (briefly)

• Ran navidrome server for streaming my local music.
• Steam Deck is a gadget of the year. So many cool indie games available only on PC now available for me too.
• Loved demo and trials of games – sometimes 15-30 minutes is enough to enjoy the game and forget it.
• Changed all software appearance to light themes and finally loved it.

That’s it, that was the year. Thank you for reading, see ya!