Photography
A classic hobby today, since everyone has a phone, but I have a bit of a head start since I got my first DSLR in 2008. I am always a bit torn between sticking to classic ‘holiday’ pictures and trying out ‘artistic’ pictures: here are a few pictures where the composition was nice.
Left : Albert Kahn gardens ; Center : Belleville Park, Paris ; Right : Alcantara Park, Sicily.
Sports
After living for over a year in the Netherlands, I fell in love with cycling (among other things 😉) and I now do enjoy riding along the banks of the Marne until I reach Disneyland Paris (or until I get lost). I however miss the ridiculous speeds I could reach on the beautiful Dutch cycling infrastructure !
I also run regularly (10 to 21 k), play badminton when I have the time and would like to take dancing lessons again.
Piano
I have been playing the piano regularly for around 10 years now. Progress is slow and incremental, but inevitable, unlike research 😉. After playing the theme from the Piano, a bit of Couperin, the end theme from Undertale and a bit of Bach inventions, I now moved to Scott Joplin.
Video Games
I do play video games, a bit less than I used to, but the medium is still thriving and there are so many interesting concepts being invented, tweaked, remixed. I really enjoyed the fantastic Baba is You, a puzzle-game where you move blocks to change the rules of the game itself in real time ! I also had tons of fun playing Dave the Diver, a game that somehow manages to effortlessly blend deep sea action-adventure with … a sushi restaurant management game … and many, many many other gameplay ideas. I finally spent quite some time honing my skills on Hades, where you have to hack and slash your way out of Greek hell, or on Celeste, with its punishing platform sequences and moving tale about depression. I am indeed a bit nostalgic of the 16-bit pixel era.
Baba is You (from Hempuli Oy) : a fiendish platformer forcing you to think outside the box.
Dave the Diver (from Mintrocket Games) : catch fish by hand by day, prepare them by night at your sushi restaurant.
Celeste (from Extremely OK Games) : jump, cling to the walls, die, repeat !
I used to play Trackmania a lot from the original demo in 2003 to United forever circa 2009, and was even designing tracks for the Trackmania League, mostly for Trackmania United. You can still find my tracks on Tm-Exchange ! You will note the excellent screenshot quality and the unnecessarily passive aggressive track descriptions.