Welcome to the end of 2023, and the beginning of 2024. The outgoing year wasn’t exactly a masterpiece of a year for humanity, from what I gather, but personally I did alright.

After living in England for 16 nice and easy years, I’ve moved back to southern Germany. Mainly this is to be near my wife’s family. During the godforsaken lockdowns we were completely cut off from both our families, stuck on an island while assclowns like Boris and Merkel decided who we could see and when. God damn, it still pisses me off.

Now we can flout the rules with impunity, whether sneaking a cheeky Mother’s Day hug in while the cops are looking the other way. Or taking the dog for two walks in a day instead of the allotted one. Being a rebel is not what it used to be, let me tell you.

Moving back to Germany feels sort of like coming home. Not all the way home, to be sure, but probably closer to moving your way from Limbo back up to the Snow Level, or maybe even to the Hotel Level. It’s a big adjustment, but I don’t really feel it every day. I slipped back into most of my early-2000s habits quite easily. In fact, I’m writing this while sitting in the same pub, at the same table even, that I sat in while I wrote the majority of my posts up until 2007. The bar has changed many things, but the furniture is not one of them.

It was pretty easy going immigrating this time around, much easier than my first trip. I already speak the language, have a job, and am married to a German lady. This year I chatted in an easy manner with the immigration officials, got all my stamps, and had a proper visa within weeks of my arrival. I was here for ten years back in the day, eight of which were a tense Mexican standoff with their version of ICE, gruff bureaucrats looking for the slightest excuse to ship my ass back to America where I belong.

While 2023 might have been a catastrophic mess for most of humanity, I wouldn’t have noticed personally — that is, were I not addicted to social media shitposting and getting into political arguments with my parents after binge-drinking. That is my own personal Information Superhighway, one that is paved with bad habits and hurtful intent. So from that lofty perch, I gathered that humanity had something of a rough one.

Well I tell you something, Bucko: The solution to the 2016-2023 problem is not going to be 2024. Things are going to get worse before they get better. I miss the days when everybody just worried about things in America being batshit crazy. This time around, shit is hitting the fan all around Europe as well: France, Germany, even normally reliable Poland are all gearing up for a knockdown-drag out year. They don’t do it often, but when white people start getting all up in each other’s business shit can get crazy.