Slug · SHOP-002 · 410 wdsSHIPPED
Toploader Cards
A 3D sports card store. The shopkeeper is modeled on me and knows it.
Credits:r3fblender
shopkeeper needs a walk cycle
Chicago · Sunday editionVol. 1, No. 1Free, obviously
The Backlog Bugle
Breaking · this just in
Loki unimpressed by 3D printer, remains loyal to tennis ballLoki approves own pull request, cites seniorityArea man fixes bug by turning it off and on again, declines interviewLocal agent completes task, opens 14 new onesDog sits at keyboard, ships to production; owner takes creditMan insists 8-ball loss was "a data quality issue"Side project enters year three of "almost done"Euchre bot goes alone, regrets itLake Michigan wind declared "a feature"Print finishes at 3 a.m.; nobody asked for itPipeline runs on first try, engineer suspiciousLoki unimpressed by 3D printer, remains loyal to tennis ballLoki approves own pull request, cites seniorityArea man fixes bug by turning it off and on again, declines interviewLocal agent completes task, opens 14 new onesDog sits at keyboard, ships to production; owner takes creditMan insists 8-ball loss was "a data quality issue"Side project enters year three of "almost done"Euchre bot goes alone, regrets itLake Michigan wind declared "a feature"Print finishes at 3 a.m.; nobody asked for itPipeline runs on first try, engineer suspicious
Local man builds games, tools, and weird side projects. Also pipelines.
Chris Birk, a data & AI architect from Uptown with 15 years in the trade, reportedly cannot stop making things. Sources confirm most of them work.
By Chris Birk · Staff, apparently
CHICAGO — By day he builds data pipelines, warehouses, and AI agents for clients through his consultancy, CrossroadsCX. By night the same skills get pointed at a football tower-defense game, a 3D card shop with a shopkeeper modeled on himself, and a self-hosted agent named Crowley that works a kanban board without supervision. His code has been to Congress. It came back with notes.
“I like systems that hum along on their own,” Birk said, gesturing at a 3D printer mid-job. “And games with too much strategy. And making things that don’t strictly need to exist.”
Asked whether the projects were for work or fun, he declined to pick. The projects themselves are still on the editor’s desk, page 2, awaiting approval they will not receive.
Tonight’s weather
Clear night55° · calm
Good night for a side project.
Pictured: Loki, principal engineer, pushes to prod on a Sunday while Birk supervises from a safe distance, holding coffee. Uptown, Chicago. Staff photo.
Inside: Desk 2 · Sports 3 · Classifieds 4 · Puzzles 5 · Letters 6
1The Backlog Bugle · continued →
Proof · not for print
Section B · editor’s desk · proof 3
Projects, still in progress
Desk:
Chris — none of these are done. Why are they on my desk? Mark what’s shipped, hold the rest. Also most of the art is still TK. — Ed.
Slug · EUC-007 · 260 wdsSHIPPED
Euchre.pro
A euchre app. Lobbies, bots, and proper trump etiquette.
Credits:nextrealtime
bots go alone too often
Slug · GLS-001 · 640 wdsHOLD
Photo withheldsubject still under construction
Goal Line Stand
Football tower defense with WC3-style mazing and a season meta. Built by a team of AI agents and one guy.
Credits:unityagents
wave 14 still unfair. hold.
Slug · FLT-003 · 520 wdsHOLD
Photo withheldsubject still under construction
Flightplan
A control plane for my own AI agents. Like air traffic control, but the planes argue back.
Credits:claudegcp
v0.3 — permissions UI first
Slug · PHF-009 · 470 wdsHOLD
Photo withheldsubject still under construction
PhotoFind
Upload every photo from the wedding. It sorts them by face and sends each guest only the ones they're in.
Credits:deepfacegcp
site still says coming soon. so: coming soon.
Slug · CRW-004 · 380 wdsSHIPPED
Photo withheldsubject declined to be photographed
Crowley
A self-hosted agent that works a kanban board on its own. Occasionally opinionated.
Credits:pythondocker
runs. keep feeding it.
Slug · NCE-005 · 290 wdsSPIKE?
Photo withheldsubject may not survive the experiment
NC Elections Assistant
Ask who filed for what in North Carolina. A RAG agent answers, with receipts.
Credits:vertexrag
cite sources or spike it
Slug · POOL-006 · 330 wdsSPIKE?
Photo withheldsubject may not survive the experiment
Pool Analytics
Computer vision watches me shoot pool and tells me, precisely, how I missed.
Credits:cvpytorch
see Sports, p.3. ouch.
Slug · R3F-008 · 180 wdsSHIPPED
Photo withheldsubject declined to be photographed
3D Pong · Valheim Base Designer
Two weekend React Three Fiber experiments that escaped the weekend.
Credits:r3fzustand
fine. run as filler.
Stuck to the proof · drag them
todo
call mom. also fix euchre bots
both overdue
building
GLS: wave 14 — nerf the kicker
before Sunday
side quest
print card stands → sort the 2019 box
then pool, 7pm
New stories are filed as they’re built. The editor will find something wrong with each of them.
2Sports, next →
Section C · sports
Local man takes break shot, sinks two, misses rest
Sunk 0 / 9drag from the cue ball to aim
Uptown Billiards
APA · 9-ball Wednesdays · 8-ball Thursdays
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
UPTOWN — Press and drag from the cue ball to aim; let go to shoot. Pull farther for more power. Birk, who shoots APA 9-ball on Wednesdays and 8-ball on Thursdays, is building a computer-vision system to track exactly this kind of shot (see Pool Analytics, page 2, still a spike). Early findings: the model is more consistent than he is.
Box score
Rails restitution .80 · Felt friction .35/s · Spin none, he’s working on it
Rails restitution .80 · Felt friction .35/s · Spin none, he’s working on it
3Classifieds, next →
Section D · classifieds — Advertisement —
Need data that behaves? CrossroadsCX.
Pipelines, warehouses, and AI agents for teams that need things to actually ship. Agents wired into your warehouse and CRM, with a human approving anything that matters. Everyone’s being told they need AI. Some of them are right. We’ll tell you which, then build it.
crossroadscx.com ↗House rules
StackPython · TypeScript · dbt
WarehousesBigQuery · Snowflake · Postgres
AgentsVertex AI · ADK · Claude · MCP
CloudGCP · AWS · Azure
CertifiedGoogle Cloud Architect
Table stakesit has to ship
Ratesreasonable
4Puzzles, next →
Section E · puzzles
What’s Chris up to?
I live in Uptown, Chicago. I like systems that hum along on their own, games with too much strategy, and making things that don’t strictly need to exist. Hover a clue; the grid fills in.
- 1ACurrently playing, with a longboat (7)
- 2ACurrently collecting, graded (5)
- 3AShooting it, APA league, Wednesdays and Thursdays (4)
- 4APrinting on a P2S by this maker (5)
- 5AWhat gets built after hours (5)
1
2
3
4
5
Answers on page 7. There is no page 7.
Building
Goal Line Stand
season meta, wave 14 balance
Playing
Valheim
longboat still mostly seaworthy
Collecting
Sports cards
last pull: a rookie, graded
Printing
Bambu Lab P2S
layer 212 / 480 · card stands
Shooting pool
APA league, Chicago
9-ball Wednesdays, 8-ball Thursdays
5Letters, last page →
Section F · letters to the editor
Let’s build something unnecessary.
Correction: A page 1 story credited Birk with the code. It was Loki. The Bugle regrets the error.← Back to the front page© 2026 Chris Birk · Chicago