Take 5, D.

Weekly Update 2025-12-28: Crystal Ball Edition

What happened during the week of December 22nd - December 28th:

๐Ÿฅ Last week's hectic work pace was immediately replaced by the holiday lull. Both Wednesday 12-24 and Friday 12-26 were really quiet, which was something of a relief. I know this is temporary, especially since health issues never take a holiday, but I'll take the peace where I can get it.

๐Ÿ‘ต๐Ÿป Unfortunately, the prior sentence is a deliberate segue. My grandmother entered hospice care on Tuesday 12-23, with pre-established orders to terminate food delivery and medications. She will only allow specific pain medications to be administered, so the end could come quickly...or in keeping with her all-Italian stubborn nature, she could live to ring in 2026. Her 94th birthday will be at the end of January, though it is highly doubtful she will live to see it. When she passes, she will end the line of my grandparents, either biological or through marriage.

๐Ÿ“ธ On Monday 12-22, I found out that I was approved as a contributor for 35mmc! Last week's prediction of missing the Sunday cutoff turned out to be true, but that didn't stop me from submitting my Photo Of The Year article. If by some Christmas miracle it gets published, I'll of course include a link, but it's likely it won't be published until 2026.

๐Ÿ”ฎ As this is my last weekly update for 2025, I will try something different here and make some predictions for 2026. This may be a one-off thing or an annual series--who knows? Anyway, take some of these predictions with the proverbial salt grain:

That's all I have from my crystal ball. Enjoy the last few days of 2025, and I'll see you in 2026.

A Couple Two Tree Items To Note From Last Week:

External Actions

Internal Labor

Media

Obligations:

More Info About The Media Selections From This Week:

There are so many best-of and year-end wrap-ups with media this week, so it was a bit of a challenge to find material that wasn't in that vein. I had the On Margins podcast queued up for a few weeks, as it's Craig Mod interviewing a long-time friend and guest W. David Marx about his new book. Both Craig and David were keen to talk in depth about the book, leading to numerous tangents. My only quibble about the podcast was with the eagerness both men had, as they often talked over one another in their excitement. If you can get past that, though, you'll find the discussion about 21st Century culture's elevation of poptimism goes hand-in-hand with the unabashedly pro-commerce approach of tastemakers and influencers, and how "it's popular because it's good" leads directly to "it's good because it's popular." The old idea of "selling out" is apparently as quaint and outdated as rotary phones, as it's now time to get that bag by all means necessary.

Volkswagen's oft-delayed and oft-changed ID.Buzz EV minivan may be a one-and-done model in the US. Word has come out that there won't be a 2026 model year for the ID.Buzz, and its future in this market has yet to be determined. Metafilter's own mathowie documented his drive of the ID.Buzz from Texas to Oregon, both as a way to test out the vehicle in real life and to opine about EV ownership in general. For my upcoming trip to San Diego, I found that an EV rental was surprisingly the cheapest option during my long weekend stay, so I asked myself "why not?" My driving won't be anything like Matt's, as Southern California has a substantial EV infrastructure, whereas a lot of his route didn't.

Side note: you are all fired for not telling me about Larry Dickem. If you aren't familiar, then watch the two episodes I linked above, and thank me later.

Japan seems to have just as much of a love of trains as England. Two examples of this fascination come our way courtesy of travelgeek, who spends one day at a handmade railway made by a bunch of railfan dads, then another night in a train hotel on a recently abandoned railway in Miyazaki Prefecture. The railway was closed as a result of a 2005 typhoon, which unfortunately exacerbated the prefecture's population decline. To travelgeek's credit, he doesn't shy away from showing the rural depopulation, but he also doesn't dwell heavily on it either.

Staying in Japan, the two Japan Times articles are neat bookends for each other. The aforementioned depopulation is one aspect of Japan's overall population decline, which has opened the door for non-Japanese folks to live and work in the country. A weak yen and Expo 2025 combined this year to drive tourism in Japan to an all-time peak, which when combined with the foreign worker influx has meant non-Japanese folks have a larger presence in the country. There's been something of a backlash to this foreign presence which is covered by both articles: the first spells out potential legal changes to real estate ownership, medical bill payments, entry/exit fees for tourists, and Japanese language classes; the second criticizes the emphasis on regulation and order over harmony, as there's still reluctance to admit that foreign workers in Japan are a solution to depopulation and not just a short-term gap.

Finally, it's time to end with podcasts. The holidays have really messed up my listening schedule, so I have quite a backlog to sort through. These particular podcasts happen to be newer than others on my list. ABV Chicago runs down some local-to-Chicago winners from this year's FoBAB, with the Black Horizon beer sounding like a real winner for both L. and myself, though I'd probably sneak in the Cruz Blanca for myself. Meanwhile, the Errant Space podcast was a perfect selection of background music I listened to while polishing up this post. Drone music seems to hit harder in winter for me than other times of year, so as the weather changes from unseasonably warm to something more appropriate for late December, I greatly enjoyed having wormlogo's music in the background.

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