Music

Have you ever seen those youtube videos with some DJs in the yellow tiled room and caption "I listen to all genres"? Yeah that's my music taste. Also, a lot of silly stuff and I can't play any instruments, even Guitar Hero.

Here's the list of a bunch of my most defining favourite songs. Those are just examples, this list will never ever be complete.

• Radiohead - Just
• Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Soulwax Remix)
• Cut Copy - Take Me Over (Mylo Remix)
• Billie Eilish - Ocean Eyes
• Joji - Glimpse Of Us
• Stromae - Papaoutai

I used to dislike songs in my native languages (Polish), I found the lyrics of many popular songs to be corny or too stupid. Songs in English are often excessively silly, but when it's not your native language, the feeling is not striking. Nowadays I appreciate Polish songs way more as the lyrics even when corny, more often hits home as an adult and my better understanding of English uncovers the silliness of some songs that I enjoy musically.

• Krzystof Krawczyk & Edyta Bartosiewicz - Trudno Tak
  
• Zbigniew Wodecki - Lubie Wracać Tam Gdzie Byłem
• Brathanki - Czerwone Korale
• O.N.A. - Kiedy powiem sobie dość
• Gedz - Chaos (Prod. Grrracz)
• Mata - Szafir
• Taco Hemingway & Otsochodzi - Nowy Kolor
• Abradab - Miasto Jest Nasze
• Łona i Webber - Co tam, mordo?
• Golec uOrkiestra - Crazy is my life - don't be fooled by the title, it's not a song in English, it's the pure fun energy of Polish mountains that could be enjoyed by the entire world!
• Paweł Kukiz i Jan Borysewicz - Bo tutaj jest jak jest

  I would like to explain why I love this song, somewhat ironically! If I were to make an English cover, the chorus is:
  

  ♫It's just the way it is
  ♫It's simple
  ♫And you know that all along

  
  The whole lyrics are just a very melodic way of saying that everything is the way it is, and I don't know why, but I hope it'll change. The quintessense of saying nothing in a profound way. Also, the vocalist or the original record Paweł Kukiz (Paul Cookies - not entirely true translation but sounds almost the same) has become a prominent politician in Poland, found it's own party, long time ago once had the third most parliament seats.

Books

The ratio of words that I've read in books to the words in all articles/news/websites/tutorials/wikis is about 1:100 and that's not great, but at least it's something. Here's a bunch of books that I actually remember:

• His Master's Voice - Stanisław Lem
• The Star Diaries - Stanisław Lem
• Tales of Pirx the Pilot - Stanisław Lem
• The Doll - Bolesław Prus
• The Spring to Come - Stanisław Żeromski
• The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
• Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
• Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
• The Plague - Albert Camus
• Ninety Eighty-Four - George Orwell
• Animal Farm - George Orwell
• Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• God Is Not Great - Richard Dawkins
• The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice - Christopher Hitchens
• The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind - Gustave Le Bon

So yeah, some Polish required readings, very basic political novels and a bit of Lem's sci-fi. Oh and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" thanks to PewDiePie's recommendation 👍

Games

I'm not an avid gamer but there were a couple of games that I played for hours and hours

• SimCity 3000 and 4 Deluxe
• The Sims 1 and 2 - I might think I'm just a house developer but I can fall into playing with sims too
• The Crew - you know, the one that got shut down by Ubisoft
• Black - FPS on PS2
• Just Cause 2 - fantastic tropical map exploration
• Crazy Taxi - game was wild and the map was so awesome! I remember that game now as Tim Walz was playing the game with AOC lol
• Need For Speed Carbon, Porsche Unleashed (free demo version, no money for games back then and now too)
• Test Drive 6 - love tracks based on major world cities
• Forza Horizon 4 - briefly as it was free on Xbox windows app
• Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Java version on phones and most notably San Andreas
• Euro Truck Simulator 2 - stunningly beautiful, after all newer DLCs like Iberia, East Balkans etc.
• 18 Wheels of Steel - my first truck simulator game, big fan of the map
• Michael Jackson Game - yup it was a thing, small platform type game
• Deluxe Ski Jump - favourite game on easy IT classes in elementary school back then
• Icy Tower - addicting time eater, both on PC and phone
• Prince of Persia first ever version
• Alex the Alligator - that 8-bit lacoste game is hypnotizing
• Worms - mostly by myself on the phone (Java Version on Sony Ericsson) and a bit on PC, but not 3D versions
• Mario - on Windows 95, don't remember the name but it was MS-DOS based version

Youtubers

YouTube was for many years and still is my main source of conveniently delivered knowledge and entertainment, I'm getting olldscool as I refuse to use tiktok for that. I used to follow some more famous American youtubers and watched closely what's going on in Polish youtube. Many of them become pretty uniteresting after many years, even tho their classic content is golden.

Long and forever unfinished list of great youtube channels:
Links, categories and descriptions are in progress, or not, I'm too lazy

• Jay Foreman - London Unfinished and Map Men is pure British gold
• Tom Scott
• Geography Now
• VSauce

• Technology Connections - that's the maniac that paints Christmas lights and makes million views because of his grandma's microwave!
• 8-bit Guy
• Veronica Explains
• Asianometry
• Fireship
• Big Car

• City Beautiful
• Not Just Bikes
• RM Transit
• Adam Something - not always agree, but I watch everytime the episode drops

• Some More News - not sure about the Warmbo lore, but hell the writers of those episodes are good, the funniest one is about Tim Pool
• Kraut - excellent analyses always insightful, serious and sometimes with impressive Polandball graphics
• China Uncensored, SerpentZA and Laowhy - how I know about good, bad and ugly reality of China
• J.J. McCullough
• Knowing Better
• Innuendo Studios - excellent explanations of fascist tactics
• Gattsu and Geopold
• Leeja Miller
• David Pakman Show
• John Oliver - for me, he's a youtuber, not a HBO show host

• Internet Historian - my goodness Cost of Concordia is the platinum of YouTube
• Future Proof
• Ordinary Things
• The Onion News - owners of the Infowars
• Drew Gooden
• Nerd City
• Ralf The Movie Maker and the spiritual predecessor (at least in my mind) Nostalgia Critic
• Pyronical
• H3H3, iDubbbz, Filthy Frank and so on - only the classics
• PewDiePie - still watch from time to time

Cozy Series

• The Office (US and GB) - US was the soulhealer during covid, UK version cringe is way more boring but hits much harder
• Parks and Recreation (US) - watched right after The Office US, Pawnee makes any day better
• Trailer Park Boys (CA) - except the episode with Jimmy Kimmel, what was that?
• Keeping Up Appearances (GB) - watched repeatedly from free DVDs from TV magazine
• Mr. Bean (GB) - almost all the stuff with him is great, especially the feature films and memes
• Top Gear (GB) - with the classic squad
• A bunch of Disney Channel serieses including: That's So Raven, Phil of the Future, Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, Suite Life up to Charlie, then from TV kid I became a computer and phone adult
• A bunch of Cartoon Network serieses including: Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpoof Girls, The Cramp Twins, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Johnny Bravo and so on and so forth, no clue about stuff there after 2010
• Ed, Edd and Eddy was the most impactful on me for some reason, someday I'll make a shrine on this site about the episode where the Eds have built a cardboard box city with skyscrapers, that one alone made me think about the urbanism in cartoons and silly kids shows.
• A bunch of Fox Kids/Jetix shows, don't remember them as vividly as CN and Disney ones but Goosebump episodes still haunts and Andy's quotes from Life with Louis by excellent Polish dubbing are legendary
• Gilmore Girls (US) - haven't watched it at all, my wife did and I just vibed to the theme song

Polish cozy series PL

• 1670 - new Polish comedy series streamed on netflix, set in times of the biggest prosperity of Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth but the characters make fun of current trends and memes. The series was described by some critic as the actual Polish 'The Office' as it also tells the story about crazy boss (nobleman of a village) and the love story of two characters that are aware of his antics. The Polish adaptation of 'The Office' also exist but it's not as relatably Polish as '1670'
• Ranczo/The Ranch - the series beloved by my mom about a village with ensemble of hilarious residents including good priest and evil mayor that are twins, corrupt politician, slow thinking policeman and so on. The main arc of the story is about the lady from USA that bought 'the ranch' and wants to get along with the community.
• Pokój 107/Room 107 - short series about living in dormitorym with a bunch of weirdos and fun ladies

Mostly Serious Series

I've never watched that much TV serieses or Netflix, that's why that section is pretty empty and misses some key shows that everybody watched.

• BoJack Horseman (US) - the deepest animation I can think of
• Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (US)
• Dexter (about 4 seasons) (US)
• The Wire (first and second season) (US)
• House of Cards (US) - the first Netflix original series I've watched, makes huge impression when you're young, get sadder and less appealing to rewatch when you get older
• Dr House (some episodes) (US)
• Samurai Jack - when it aired by the time when I actually watched TV I didn't liked it, maybe it was too slow or something. When I got back to some episodes because I saw Samurai Jack's review by Dem3000, the show as I get older got much more sense and its pace is healing.

Fun Movies

The perpetually unfinished list of international movies that I think that are quite fun to watch, I guess I'll have to divide movies as aaction movies and comedies are mixed here

• Baby Driver (2017 US)
• Robocop 2 (1990 US)
• Die Hard (1987 US)
• Grimsby (2016 GB US)
• Banlieue 13 and Banlieue 13: Ultimatum (2004 and 2009 FR)
• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006 US DE JP)
• Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre (2002 FR)
• Taxi 1 and 2 (1998, 2000 FR)
• La soupe aux choux (1981 FR) - classic Louis De Fines movie that I think about every time I eat cabbage soup
• Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007 GB FR DE US) - that Bean movie in France
• Bean (1997 GB US) - that Bean movie with Whistler's Mother iconic painting
• Rat Race (2001 US CA) - that Bean movie where Bean is actually Italian
• Rush Hour 1 and 2 (1998, 2001 US HK)
• Dumb and Dumber (1994 US) - Jim Carrey was an institution of comedy
• Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty (2003 and 2007 US)
• Shrek 1, 2 and 3 (2001, 2004, 2007 US) - Shrek transcends the category of kid's movie and any category of that matter, the legacy of the franchise into the global culture is stupendous - Shrek is love, Shrek is life
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010 US) - no idea about that Cera guy but the style of that movie, Brie Larson's song and that lady with colorful hair is very memorable
• Project X (2012 US) - that movie about a huge party caused several flashmob parties across Poland and made Facebook much more popluar here. I get bored of the song "Heads Will Roll" because of that film, as it still gets too often on my auto playlists
• Wedding Ringer (2015 US) - one of the best movies to watch with wife
• Guardians of the Galaxy 1, 2 and 3 - I don't want to put all the high-budget franchise movies on that list because there's a lot of it and pretty obvious, but the Guardians are the best out of them, especially thanks to Chris Pratt (as he's also a pillar of Parks and Rec too)
• Deadpool - yeah, it's fun, haen't seen the newer ones
• Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick (1986 and 2022 US) - just pure corny awesomeness, US success propaganda, happy endings and great soundtracks
• The Room (2003 US) - classic so bad that it's good, I also like the film about that film The Disaster Artist (2017 US) - it's pretty well conveyed story
• Placeholder for all the Monty Python movies, every film is sacred

Polish fun movies PL

• Pieniądze to nie wszystko/Money is not everything (2001) - the story is super funny within Polish reality and the soundtrack of this film should be a global Polish phenomenon
• Kiler 1 and 2 (1997 and 1999) - Buenos dias, seńor Siarra. - Buenos Aires!
• Chłopaki nie płaczą/Boys don't cry and Poranek Kojota/Coyote's Morning (2000 and 2001) - two seemingly unconnected movies about gangsters and loosers, a load of polish specific catchfrases comes from them
• Sarnie Żniwo, czyli pokusa statuetkowego szlaku/Roe's Harvest, the temptation of the statuette path (2006) - totally unintelligible for anybody with most sense of humor types and foreigners except Finnish FI people maybe
• Dzień Świra/Day of the Wacko (2002) - 'grey is the color pallete of Poland' type of comedy, everlasting classic and that's how my dad taught me English
• Seksmisja/Sexmission (1984) - it's Polish Space Odyssey, trust me
• Miś/Teddy Bear (1981) - movie filled to the brim with deep comedic lore of Polish reality under communism, to hard to explain by amateur like me. The actor that played the main character passed away yesterday
• Motór/Motoorcycle (2005) - not well known, low budget film about a bunch of guys that made their own little cult of motorcycles as the everyday life during Martial Law of 1981 was too depressing.
• Kogel Mogel 1 and 2 (1988 and 1989) - absolute classic story, the third movie made in 2019 is total shit, lame reinvented reboots are not only the plague of American blockbusters
• Karol który pozostał Karolem film series - that franchise as well as the leading actor Piotr Adamczyk deserves its own ✝️shrine✝️

Mostly Serious Movies

The perpetually unfinished list of international movies that I think are at least somewhat meaningful for me, I must divide all those movies better as teenage dramas with somewhat serious topics are mixed with more mature stuff
Polish films with descriptions are in progress

• Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn (1986 SE) - not necessary serious movie but definitely a pure Swedish nostalgia
• Scrooge (1970 SE) - absolute classic and memorable musical
• Jump In! (2007 US) - one of those very few Disney feature films that have somewhat meaningful story
• Honey (2003 US) - basically the Jessica Alba movie that my sister really likes
• Crossroads (2002 US) - basically the Britney Spears movie that my sister really likes
• Kontrol (2003 HU) - the film that single-handedly made me go to Budapest on my own, that dark yet absurd and hopeful climate of the underground.
• City of God (2002 BR) - forever defined the way I look at Brazil
• Tropa de Elite (2007 BR) - after watching 'City of God' I found this series of films about Brazilian police, now I know it stars the guy that played Pablo Escobar
• Lord of War (2005 US FR DE ZM IT DK GB) - how Nicolas Cage and Jared Leto sell guns
• Goodfellas (1990 US)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014 US DE)
• Drive (2011 US)
• John Wick 1 and 2 (2014 and 2017 US)
• Whiplash (2014 US)
• Logan (2017 US CA)
• Ronin (1998 US GB FR)
• Robocop (1987 US)
• District 9 (2009 ZA)
• God Bless America (2011 US)
• Léon (1994 US FR) - came for Gary Oldman's 'Everyone' roar, stayed for everything else!
• Pulp Fiction (1994 US) -
• T-34 (2018 RU) - first movie that I've watched with friends via discord
• The Pianist (2002 FR PL GB DE)
• Spirited Away (2001 JP)
• Truman Show (1998 US)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004 US)
• Blue Lagoon (1980 US)
• The Island (2005 US)
• The Social Network (2010 US)
• In Time (2011 US)
• The Time Machine (2002 US) - that machine looks sick and the scope of the story is epic
• Terminator 1 and 2 (1984, 1991 US) - movies about the Governor of California that tries to destroy and then save the future of Los Angeles
• Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018 US) - watched just recently, fits perfectly to the current situation in the US

Stuff that I don't like that much

This section is going to be without specific categories cuz when it's hard to make me really dislike some piece of media so much, that I specificaly have some thoughts about it, usually I just ignore.

• Smoleńsk (2016 PL) - the film as disastrous for the status of Polish cinematography, as the actual plane crash of the President of Poland in 2010 was for the entire nation. It's more focused on how the evil media of the opposition covered the news and conspiracy theories than what exactly happened. It would be funny but it's also a bit distasteful, regardless of political views.
• Avatar 1 and 2 (2009 and up to 2022 US) - you know, the blue people and stuff, first was ok, second was worse, but overall those are prime examples of overhyping to the brim.
• Fox News - specifically that ensemble of prime propagandists like Tucker Carlson, Linsay Graham and that smug Jesse Watters. I didn't follow those American shananigans before covid that closely so I didn't expect that the propaganda is USA is so powerful, I want to go back to times when the the only Fox TV channel I know was Fox Kids.
• Tik Tok - that's the true and literal brain drain. I already saw in real time how not tech savvy people are enthusiastic towards some very weird AI slop. The AI powered kids dressed as politicians and disfigured dancing couples combined with America's Got Talent show footage watched on the loop by my grandpa truly terrified me. I'm of course I will never fall for it, I'm way more smarter and responsibler, I watch Instagram and YouTube Shorts instead...
• Ads - the unskippable ones, like death and taxes