I knew getting into a regular cadence with these updates would be an uphill battle but it’s been particularly tough to get motivated this year. I’ve fallen into a bit of a depressing spiral lately but my family has been super supportive and helped keep me on track. This, like most things, will pass.

Gaming drought

I haven’t had much to play lately after burning out on Baldur’s Gate 3. I thought about maybe trying Diablo IV again but opted instead for the mindless zombie looter State of Decay 2 while I wait for Persona 3 Reload. Though maybe I should give Dragon’s Dogma another spin to prep for 2?

/uses

I built a uses page after going down a bit of a rabbit hole around discoverability on the indieweb the other day. Specifically, I found a site by way of Matt Stein that showcased different “uses” pages from others around the web and decided to make my own version of one.

It was a fun little exercise, having to distill the many things I use into a simple, digestible list. It’s also handy to have a record of which models of things I’m using in case I decide to upgrade anything at some point.

Collections

As I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, my lovely wife got me a record player for Christmas so I’ve been hoovering up whatever records I can find. Is This Thing Cursed? by Alkaline Trio gets here today actually. I’ve been giving some thought to building some kind of a “Collections” page but I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort at this point. Regardless, my record collection stands at fifteen and growing.

Intermission

My blog does this thing that I thought at one point was neat where it changes the accent colour on every page change/refresh. I’m starting to think it’s a bit annoying? I don’t know, maybe I’ll remove it. We’ll see.

I started using a service called Letterbird by the folks at Good Enough, who also make PIKA. It’s a neat idea that gives you a super basic (but customizable) contact form, which is sometimes all you need. I love the work they do: really simple solutions to specific problems. Great stuff.

Blogrolls

Keenan showed off their new blogroll and it looks great. It’s a bit overwhelming to be included amongst so many great sites but I’m thoroughly flattered nonetheless.

Recent reads

I’ve finally dug into my graphic novel backlog a bit, finishing Night Fever and Where The Body Was, both by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. I really can’t get enough of their work. They’re by far the most consistent team in comics. I don’t know what they’re doing next but I know I’m buying it.

Where The Body Was had a particularly interesting angle, telling a story across multiple perspectives, even going so far as including a map of the neighbourhood so readers could orient themselves throughout the story.

It took two weeks but I’m finally feeling better. Having run the gamut of headaches, nausea, fever, chills, and back to headaches, I’ve had my fill of sickness for a while. If you needed another reminder: mask up. It’s terrible out there.

Game collection update

I hacked together a way to track the games I’m playing in a more visual way on my blog. First, I created a new content type from posts, complete with its own dedicated page in the dashboard. I can set a title, description, platform, a link to IGDB (or elsewhere), and a featured image to have it appear in my /now page. The next evolution of this would be to connect to IGDB’s API and automate it but I’ll save that for a rainy day.

Speaking of games

I’ve started The Invincible, a hard sci-fi walking-sim based on the 1964 novel by Stanisław Lem. I’m not far enough in to give a good review of it but it’s been enjoyable so far. There hasn’t been much on my radar since Alan Wake II. Next year starts with a bang. Persona 3 Reload, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Dragon’s Dogma II are all coming before April.

Mammoth 2

There’s a new version of the Mastodon app Mammoth out today. I was apprehensive about it during my earlier testing but it’s grown on me. The For You page and Smart Lists, in particular, are interesting. They improve discoverability of new people to follow and news stories for topics you’re interested in. I’m curious how those will evolve and improve.

Some inspiration

Luke reached out yesterday and praised my /now and /photos pages. He and José said they felt inspired to make their own. This made my week.

Default app updates

More than 250 people have shared their personalized default apps list. This is crazy. I’ve already changed some of my apps since posting my initial list.

• I couldn’t resist the savings of my Spotify family plan and switched back from Apple Music.
• I’m now using NetNewsWire (with iCloud) for RSS feeds instead of Reeder and Feedbin.
• I use Safari’s built-in feature for saving articles to read later, switching from Instapaper/Matter.
• I turned to Keychain after struggling with 1Password’s recent updates.

And finally, some links

• Evergreen.ink
• More Games Where You Build The Little House, Please
• Thieves return stolen Android phone after realizing it’s not an iPhone: ‘We don’t want this’

I’ve watched Michael Camilleri write over 200 of these things so I thought it might be time to give it a shot myself. I can’t guarantee I’ll do this every week but I want to try and push myself out of my comfort zone a bit.

Sick, sick, sick

I spent last week in Montreal on a work trip and got home last Friday (after a 4 hour delay). The travel took a toll on me, clearly, since I’ve been battling a sore throat, cough, and head cold since getting home. I’ve tested for COVID a couple times and been negative so if there’s a silver lining, it’s that.

Blog updates

In between coughing fits, I found time to update a few pieces of my blog. Among the notable changes:

• New footer design: The new version not only looks better but offers more functionality by housing social media accounts and my new blogroll.
• Blogroll: As mentioned, I created a new menu that connects to the WordPress dashboard. This lets me easily add some of my favourite sites to have them show in the newly designed footer.
• Now page: If you’re unfamiliar, a now page serves as a snapshot of the author’s current activities. In addition to a list of personal projects, I’ve added a widget from Literal to show what I’m reading (spoiler: it’s always manga), and tapped into the Last.fm API to show my most listened-to albums over the past week.
• Photos page: I built a plugin for WordPress that creates a nice grid of all my photo posts. Photos only appear on this page, not in my post loop or RSS feed to reduce the noise. I don’t have many in there yet but I’m considering importing my old Instagram photos at some point.

Connections

This week, Keenan reached out by email with a quick hello. It was very nice. You can find their website in the blogroll below.

Wrapped / Recap

Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay came out this week and, given I’ve switched between both this year, I was able to compare the two. I enjoy the simplicity of Apple’s version more than the graphically intense presentation Spotify goes with.

For those curious, I ended up with a total of over 45,000 minutes listened across both platforms and Beach Bunny was (unsurprisingly) my top artist.

Some dusty links

Here’s a few items from my Matter queue that’ve been sitting for a while.

• The vanishing designer
• What to Blog About When You Don’t Know What to Blog About
• Human Made by HINOKODO