2024 is over, and that’s a good thing. It was not a good year.
2024 was, for all intents and purposes, a long blurry smudge of monotony mired with many minor personal disasters and distractions.
Playing about with AI-tools and participating in numerous webinars on the topic ate into so much of my time that most projects I had planned for the year remain handwritten bullet points on a piece of paper. I also had a serious flu that may or may not have been covid, a broken tooth, a parking ticket, a speeding ticket, and a nasty case of lumbago.
A guide pulley broke in my car’s engine, and my house’s basement got flooded.
The latter incident caused more mess than damage, final repairs of which are set to be completed early next year only. Seriously, who needs this shit?
These are white people’s problems that don’t normally happen to me, and they pale in comparison to the floods Central and Eastern Europe experienced, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, the civil war in Sudan, or the humanitarian madness caused by Israel’s conflict with every neighbouring country.
Perhaps these are all wake-up calls that things need to change since right-leaning political parties have gained ground following local and European elections. Putin (predictably) was re-elected as Russia’s president while Donald Trump (surprisingly) was again elected as future president of the USA following an assassination attempt and Joe Biden’s pithy performance. One wonders if newly convicted criminal Trump may have just become the sock-puppet of Elon Musk — who has recently expressed admiration for German right-wing party, the AfD. He might, however, be delighted to know that as of April it is legal to grow and smoke weed in Germany but visiting a Christmas market there remains a potentially dangerous outing due to risk of vehicular manslaughter.
Sweden joined NATO while Taylor Swift joined the billionaire’s club. Tupperware filed for bankruptcy. Mexico elected its first female president. Russia wasn’t allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics where breakdancing is now a legitimate athletic discipline.
Queen sold their music catalogue to Sony Music for over $1billion.
Flickr and Facebook turned 20 years old.
Julian Assange is a free man, and Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain have a grandson together!
Vodafone Germany shut down its last EWSD (TDM voice switch) in September.
Dead, too, are Elwood Edwards (the voice behind AOL’s iconic “You’ve got mail!”) as well as Ward Christensen (the co-inventor of the BBS).
Russian political activist Alexei Navalny died in a Siberian prison, and we bid farewell to talk show hosts (Dr.) Ruth Westheimer and Phil Donahue as well as football legends Franz Beckenbauer and O.J. Simpson. In 2024 we also lost comedian Bob Newhart, actors Carl Weathers, Donald Sutherland, Shelley Duvall, Shannen Doherty, Alain Delon, James Earl Jones, Teri Garr, and director Roger Corman.
Frank Farian, Quincy Jones, Steve Albini, Karl Wallinger, Duane Eddy, DJ Tomcraft, Richard Tandy (ELO), Sérgio Mendes, Kris Kristofferson, and saxophonist David Sanborn went to the great gig in the sky. US ex-president Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100.
Then, to round off a year of distractions, my dog had an unplanned litter of puppies.
In light of that, here’s a nice pair of (AI-enhanced) puppies for your own distraction.
Now piss off, 2024!
Images via the personal archives and tumblr.
