June 2026 has been a mix of events and emotions. Like all the other times this happens, I feel the month is both memorable and long, and short and ephemeral. I always feel I did a lot of things but none of what I really wanted to do (and looking at my notebook, I can confirm that my wishlist of June is untouched).

The first main event of the month is the annual work meeting in Greece. It was quite some time since the last one I attended, and next year I will not go for sure (due to the wedding). So I thought it was a good year to join my teammates. It was only three days, and I am happy I joined. However, as a chronic introvert, these kinds of full-immersion social events completely stress me out.

When I came back, I hurt my back at the gym. This reduced my ability to train and move. It made me realize how much going to the gym and giving it 100% was helpful for my mental stability. I didn't have a proper training session for two weeks, and I have felt bottled up and frustrated ever since. The heatwave we have here in Italy doesn't help either, as it is unfeasible to go out after 8:30 a.m., and the tropical nights make me sleep poorly.

But I also had undisputed good things. This month we officially started wedding preparations. This is the kind of stress that, as I wrote last month, I seek. While many things are very, very vague, one thing is sure: we booked the wedding location and the date: 15 May 2027.

There are still 317 days to go. In the meanwhile, let's go to the meat of this issue. I read the last entry of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, read another strange book set in Syracuse, watched a romcom from 1966, a Pixar movie I didn't know existed and enjoyed yet another Canadian progressive rock duo. No, not that one. Another one.

Housekeeping

Not much to say this time. Sorry. As I said, I didn't do any of my personal tasks, and those include this blog and my coding projects.

Reading

• The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. This book is more about the concept of storytelling in human culture than a book that will teach you how to be a storyteller. There are some good points, of course, but it may not be what you are looking for. Overall, it is a nice book but gave me the feeling that it was narrated by an overexcited narrator, like in a DMAX episode about gold hunters or something.

• A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman. Book 8 of the acclaimed Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Maybe it is because this came after a book that concluded a big narrative arc, but I didn't like this as much as the others. It felt distant, weird for the sake of weirdness instead of having something connecting all the chaos. Maybe I didn't like the car-race gimmick, as it just adds to the chaos and feeling of disconnection. The final part, though, is great. It recaptures the saga's spirit and has great momentum. It is clearly a transition book to prepare us for book number 9. I cannot wait.

• Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. It is the best book that I didn't like. Well, that is not true. There are many things I liked. There are some scenes, like the one where they rehearse a scene from Medea, that are so beautiful and vivid they are burned into my mind. It is also a historical book that is not a historical book, as the characters in Syracuse talk in the manner of Irish sailors and do not behave like ancient Greeks at all (this is done on purpose to highlight how different Greece colonies had different flavors). But some aspects didn't work for me: the main character is unlikable, and the resolution is vague and underwhelming. In the end, I am conflicted. Part of me liked it. Part of me didn't. That's usually the mark of a book worth reading.

Watchlist

How to Steak a Million (1966)

As you know, every year I make a list of movies released decades apart from the current year. That is, in 2026, I made a list of movies released in 1936, 1946, 1956, and so on. I put How to Steal a Million on this list because I had heard about it and because it was one of the higher-rated ones for 1966. I knew very little else about it.

Because of this, I thought it was a heist movie. While there is definitely a heist in it, its essence is that it is a romantic comedy. It is the story of Nicole Bonnet (Audrey Hepburn), the daughter of the great forger Charles Bonnet, who hires Simon Dermott (a great Peter O'Toole), a "thief," to steal her own statue from a museum to prevent the museum from discovering the forgery.

Behind this plot is the story between Nicole and Simon. Starting antagonistic (Nicole accidentally shoots Simon in the arm), it ends in love in the most classic "enemy-to-lover" fashion.

The movie shows its age, but it is still funny and sweet. Definitely the best I watched this month.

Hoppers (2026)

I am usually aware of Pixar movies. Even if I don't watch all of them, at least I know they exist. But Hoppers completely fell off my radar. I didn't know it even existed until it popped up on Disney+.

I came into this movie with no expectations, and it turned out to be my favorite Pixar movie of the last five to six years.

I loved that it never goes in the most obvious direction. You have Mable, a young girl with the goal of defending nature at all costs, who finds a technology to hop her consciousness into an animal-shaped robot that allows her to communicate with the animals. This could have easily been a "let's unite the animals against the humans" kind of movie, but it isn't. It always goes in a slightly different direction, exploring the relation between humans and animals way deeper than expected.

I really liked it. It was a lot of fun. It has great action scenes, George the Beaver King is a wonderful character, and it contains one of the best accidental murders in animation (as far as I am aware). Highly recommended.

🦫🦫🦫🪵🪵🪵

All the Rest

• Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026) A cheaper, bland, "Mission: Impossible" and probably an unnecessary movie. The series ending was good enough. However, I didn't hate it.

• Creed III (2023) It is a bit ironic to say this, but this movie lacked punch. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the soul of the other two.

• Eternity (2025) Overall, it is a fun movie with some very good bits, an interesting premise, a beautiful aesthetic, and a masterfully written character (Larry). I found the ending very formulaic, and the movie loses power after the midpoint.

• Bullet Train (2022) There is some hate for this flamboyant Kill Bill-like movie, but I liked it. I had a good time on this Tokyo bullet train.

• Office Romance (2026) A possibly okay-ish romcom, destroyed by the cringiest decisions ever.

• Voicemails for Isabelle (2026) They played super safe by engineering the most "commercial" romcom of modern times. Good for them, because it worked.

• Hudson Hawk (1991) Oh my. A Bruce Willis movie with the most unfunny slapstick comedy ever. What the hell was that!

Music

June has not been a great month for music. At least for me. Between the travel, the back injury, and the heatwave that forced me to be stuck in a air-conditioned house, I didn't spend a lot of time in my favorite environment for music explorations: morning walks. If I look at the statistics, I listened to just 400 tracks, mostly the radio while working. Too little to extract a winner.

Therefore, I'll talk about the last album I bought this month.

Crown Lands is a Canadian duo of progressive rock, very reminiscent of another great (and favorite of mine) progressive Canadian band: Rush. The band, formed by the vocalist/drummer Cody Bowles and the guitarist/bassist/keyboardist Kevin Comeau, composes lengthy, dreamy, progressive pieces focused on indigenous lore and anticolonial themes.

Since their debut in 2020, they quickly obtained a fantastic reception. Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie cited them as his best new band in 2021, they opened KISS concerts in Canada, and they even got an honorific mention by Gene Simmons himself.

Their new album, Apocalypse, was released on May 15th, but I discovered it only a month later and it became my most listened album in June. You can find it on Bandcamp or on your favorite streaming platform.

Gaming

No gaming this month. Absolutely zero.

Other Interesting Things

• 👾 4 × 3 - This is an online words game by Hank Green. It is very similar to The New York Times' Connections but with a twist.

• 💾 Elixir v1.20 released: now a gradually typed language - Elixir, as you know, has been my language of interest in recent months. Finally, they released version 1.20, which provides a great step toward better typing. I am very happy about this!

• 📝 There Are No Instances in atproto - Dan Abramov explains, in a snarky way, why you cannot use the concept of "instances" in ATproto. Because I really like the AT protocol (the protocol powering Bluesky, Eurosky, Flashes, Tangled, and more), I thought it was useful to share it here.

Conclusions

And so here we are. We've crossed the 50% mark of 2026. It would be a good time to stop and reflect on how the year is going so far. But for the first time in ages, I am more interested in the coming months than in the previous ones.

I have nothing planned for July. I need to save money, you know. But there is something very sweet about July evenings, and I'll try to pay attention to them and enjoy them more.

I hope you have a sweet July. See you next month.