Week 76: Cantina Carnitas

A week of being by myself, side projects, test coverage, a funeral, driving around Beds/Herts, eating the best burrito, listening to Progressive House, and hungover re-runs.

Posted on by Rowan Manning.
Tagged with Side ProjectsFamilyFoodMusicTVFilmsRSS

  • Charlotte’s been away and so I’ve been by myself for longer than I have in ages. I hung out with a few friends on Saturday. Otherwise, I’ve been a bit… lonely?

  • coverage.png

    I spent a lot of time working on a long(ish) running side project. I’m mid-way through building my own RSS and Atom feed parser for Node.js, which is maybe inadvisable but it’s fun!

    The only well supported one for Node.js that I’ve found (and have been using for a while) is missing a bunch of features I need and the streaming interface adds a lot of complexity.

    I disagree that 100% unit test coverage isn’t a useful metric 👀 especially if you’re writing a library.

  • As part of writing comprehensive tests for my feed parser, I compiled a bunch of example and real-world RSS and Atom feeds into a website that I can reliably use to run end-to-end tests. Feel free to use it and/or contribute more feeds with interesting quirks.

  • I saw some people in the office on Wednesday and it was good. I feel a bit emotional, I’m looking forward to seeing people again.

  • On Friday I had to go back homewards for the funeral of one of my close friends’ Nan. It was sad. Back in year 11 (I guess I was like 16?) we were allowed out of school on Wednesday lunchtimes, Scarlett’s nan lived around the corner from the school and so a group of us would pop round for tea because the Somerfield was a bit too far to walk to. I have such fond memories of these times.

  • After the wake I drove around a lot, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been home and had access to a car (which is essential in the sprawl of villages near the Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire border because the Tories have gutted public transport). I visited my mum, brothers, and grandma. Mum and I went to get food in Hitchin in the evening and I was overjoyed to stumble across Cantina Carnitas.

    Cantina Carnitas used to run a burrito wagon in Flat Iron Square near London Bridge, I used to go there for lunch all the time because for me they do the best burrito I’ve ever tasted. They make all their own chilli sauces, and the owner is lovely – he used to let me and Jake try sauces that he had in development and would remember our orders. I’m glad they’re doing well post-pandemic and I sat eating my burrito and sipping a virgin Margarita with a huge smile on my face.

  • Progressive House is maybe the best genre of music for driving that exists?

  • I’m a bit hungover today and wanted to watch something relatively mindless. My go-to is Marvel stuff and I’m annoyed that I’ve watched literally everything already. I just rewatched all of Loki and then rewatched Shang-Chi, both were just as good on the second watching. I cried a bit.