🎸

I finally got “Bow, East” onto streaming services. I originally put the release up on Bandcamp last year and then discovered that Spotify, Apple Music etc will not except a single track release where the track and release title don’t match. I did what anyone would do - huffed.

I then spent almost a year spinning my wheels about if I should give in and rename the track, or add a silent track, or split the single track or any other of a thousand alternatives. I ended up biting the bullet and splitting the single track into three which does fit pretty well given the composition has three “movements”. Anyway, links to the release on different streaming services can be found here.

🎧

I ended up getting very into Saint-Petersburg’s Black Metal act Somn after loving their half of the split they did with Wowod. Their first album is definitely worth a spin:

👨‍💻

Collect v2023.1 launched at the end of the month. I spent a chunk of the release cycle adding selectable geo shapes. This will likely be hugely useful for folks, but building out these kinds of features can be a little mind-numbing as Collect supports three different mapping engines (Google, OSM and Mapbox). See previous posts for shenanigans around that. I’m currently “on strike” from maps work until I feel less burnt by it.

I also ended up working on a couple of other projects this month:

• I added support for dynamic colors (or “Material You”) to my absolutely essential roast chicken time calculator app “Cluck”. I’ve not been able to update the app in the Play Store yet as I messed my developer account up when I detangled my email from Google and still need to fix that with Google’s support. As a side note, Jen is still mad at me for “zuckerberging” her on this app.
• I worked on a short side gig helping some folks deploy their own instance of Postfacto, which coincidently then disappeared from the internet before reappearing a few weeks later as an archived repo. Postfacto has stagnated for a while now and, although it’s always sad to see things get retired, it’s nice to see a decision get made about its future.

🍷

Before leaving the US, I spent a great night out being a pretend somm for my bestie and all round good guy Colin Deeb in Oakland’s Slug Bar (which I’d heavily recommend). My choices for the night were:

• Costadilla - O-X 2021
• Gut Oggau - Maskerade Rosa 2020
• Le Coste - Litrozzo Rosso 2021
• Costadilla - 280 slm 2021
• Vini Viti Vinci - Irancy

I guess there was only so long that I was going to stick to my “only local wines” rule.

We spent the end of March (and a good portion of April) in Lyon, so I ended up drinking a ton of Gamay. More on that next time.

🎲

I’m still board game free given we’re on the move, but I did spend way too much time on a replay of Death Stranding on my Steam Deck. It’s still absolutely baffling (in a good way) that this game exists. The Director’s Cut is well worth picking up if you’re in the mood for a first or second go around.