Now

Last Update: July, 2026

What I’m up to now…

📍 Location

Still in Paris, year 7. Summer is in full swing — the city’s emptying out a little as everyone heads off, but the terraces are still packed and the evenings are long and golden.

🏠 Life

🩵 The Baby™️ / Azul continues to run the household at 2.5. Bilingual chaos, strong opinions, the works.

Lovely daytime date with my wife back in May while Azul was with the nanny — flowers, a good lunch, the kind of slow afternoon that doesn’t happen often enough. And then a few more in June for concerts & a standup show just the two of us. I truly cherish these moments.

Also got invited to our Colombian neighbors' summer party — one of those small building-community moments that make Paris life feel like an actual neighborhood instead of just an address.

🏃🏀 The leg is fully back after the March muscle tear — first run since the injury went well back in May, and Thursday-night pickup basketball is officially back on.

☕ New project brewing on the coffee front — rarely felt so aligned with myself about a personal project in a long time. More on that soon.

📚 Still juggling Americanah, Tonight in Jungleland (the making of Born to Run), and deep into the Angel: After the Fall comics run.

💼 Work

Still at Itonics. Coming off a spring that included a completely unprompted customer email that got forwarded all the way up to our CEO — the kind of moment that reminds me why I do this work.

You can read more at tibz.work or on LinkedIn.

🛠️ Building

Wrote about the AI-assisted personal guides I’ve built for myself — Paris, Berlin, coffee, workout, and a shared recipes page. All one tap away from my iPhone Control Center.

🎮 Play

Recent recommendations:

• 🎬 Letterboxd — Rewatched the Harry Potter and Scream franchises this spring, then moved into summer with new releases: Supergirl (★★★½) — “Simple story, entertaining summer fun. Kara is really good, Lobo is great! Felt very Guardians of the Galaxy but less goofy/on the nose." Also Michael (★★★½), the biopic — “Heeee-heeeeee. The pacing was certainly off at times… but overall very entertaining! And as a side note, I couldn’t help but think of my daughter during this movie 🍿” And Mortal Kombat II (★★★½), pure popcorn fun. 1,394 films logged all-time now.

• 📺 On the TV side — wrapped Drops of God Season 2 (still the best wine-tasting-as-heist show around) and The Expanse Season 6, a bittersweet, hard-won send-off that could’ve easily used three more seasons. Also on a World Cup docuseries kick: U.S. Against the World (from friends at Parkstories, following the USMNT from Qatar 2022 through hosting 2026) and The Root of the Game (a friend’s look at Brazil’s grassroots Varzea football scene). I also started and am really enjoying “The Madison”.

  

• 🎶 Last.fm — Muse’s The Wow! Signal in heavy rotation — got my hands on the vinyl this month, part of the actual Space Mission that launched a copy of the album to the edge of space back in March. Also deep into A$AP Rocky’s new album Don’t Be Dumb. John Mayer remains the all-time #1 with 3,849 scrobbles across 173,000+ total plays.

• 📚 Juggling a few books at once: Angel: After the Fall Vol. 1, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee (fitting, given the coffee project brewing), Tonight in Jungleland (the making of Born to Run, Springsteen’s iconic album.), Soft Core by Brittany Newell, and just started America by François Busnel.

• On the finished side: Hmong by Vicky Lyfoung (★★★★¼, finished today), Batman: Resurrection (★★★¾), and Joe Posnanski’s Why We Love Baseball (★★★★¼) — a real highlight, perfectly timed with the season. Also wrapped the first volumes of Spawn and Death Vigil, plus a French graphic novel called Sex Friends by Colin Atthar (★★★½).

• 🕹️ Tibzback_ on PlayStation, but “gaming” these days mostly means Wordle and Connections on the NYT and The Athletic — including the new Soccer Edition that launched for World Cup season.

• 📰 The Athletic, NYT, News+.

Live shows:

Caught Tom Misch live at La Cigale in June — a wonderful night, capped off with a late-night smash burger at my favorite rock joint in town, Numéro 10.

Then took myself out on a solo concert date for Billy Talent at Olympia, celebrating their second record Billy Talent II.

Big news on the concert front: secured tickets for Blink-182’s freshly announced European tour — playing Paris La Défense Arena in June 2027, with Pierce The Veil supporting.

Rest of 2026 still stacked: A$AP Rocky, Simple Plan, J. Cole, Good Charlotte.

Sports:

⚽️ The FIFA World Cup is underway in the US, Canada, and Mexico — following along closely, docuseries and all, plus daily Connections Soccer Edition puzzles. Allez les Bleus ! Time to bring a third star home! 🇫🇷

🏀 Heartbreak for Paris Basketball: after finishing first in the regular season for the second year running and fighting through the semis and finals, we lost the Betclic Élite title to Monaco in a decisive Game 5 (101-92) — the back-to-back bid falls just short. A hell of a season nonetheless. Onwards to next year.

⚾ Baltimore Orioles season continues. Go O’s!

💭 Things I’m thinking about

• The Muse vinyl arriving this month — a small, weird, genuinely special piece of mail, knowing it was literally sent to the edge of space before landing on my turntable.
• Paris Basketball’s season ending in heartbreak rather than a repeat title. Hard not to feel it, but also hard not to be proud of the run.
• The World Cup being hosted by “this America” — an America that the French sports press has been openly grappling with. Strange to watch from here.
• What it feels like when work relationships actually compound — that customer email in April still sits with me.
• Small neighborhood moments — a summer party with the Colombian neighbors, a slow date afternoon — mattering more than the big, planned ones lately.
• Building things quietly and consistently over long horizons. 13+ years on this blog now. Quiets a lot of noise about what things are “for.”