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We all tested negative on Tuesday. And that means life for us is largely back to “normal” again. So far. It steel feels like things can change again at any minute. 🤷‍♂️

In other good news, my shoulder is constantly getting better and I can do most things without pain now.

Some interesting insights into how Kubrick worked, what he thought abouthis films and how they were made.

Made me want to (re)watch his movies.

We waited three days for the results. And since 1pm today it’s certain that Zoe and Nicole had – or still have – COVID. Very likely the Omicron variant. My own PCR test result was negative.

That explains Nicole’s somewhat heavy cold symptoms last week. But both are now feeling ok again. To be honest, Zoe only had some heavy coughing the night from Monday on Tuesday. Otherwise she seemed happy and healthy as ever. (Fingers crossed, no long-term symptoms will develop).

Maybe I’ll still get it (or have it already). We’ll see. (Nicole and I have spent our time mostly in separate rooms for the past few days.) We’ll all get another test (non-PCR) on Tuesday. When those are all negative, we’ll hope some normality will return.

We’re definitely happy we decided to already get boostered end of last year.

I have settled on Kodak HC-110 to be my one and only black and white film developer. Here's why.

So my shoulder seems to get better slowly but steadily, thank you!

But the corona situation is frustrating. Now the PCR pool test today was negative while we know of one kid, that also was part of the pool, that had a positive self-test in the afternoon. And last week there was a positive PCR pool test with all the children’s individual tests afterwards being negative. And now I’m questioning all the tests!

So we’re thinking about leaving Zoe out of kindy this week altogether again, just to be safe and not risk an infection. I think at least half of the children in her group have it right now. And with seemingly unreliable tests, it seems like the more cautious action.

My shoulder already doesn’t hurt as much. But I still can’t put socks on by myself.

So, ok, next week is not off to a great start, either. Fell while skateboarding today, and now my right shoulder hurts and I don’t want to move it. Then, this time there have been Covid cases in kindy. Luckily Zoe and the two of us are fine (so far), but it sucks for all the parties that are directly affected. And now the kindergarten is understaffed; and we’ll first try to get another PCR test for Zoe before sending her again (and wait for others to test, too). That means work-juggling continues.

Sorry for the negativity. Maybe now 12 hours of shoulder pain is making me a little grumpy. 🤷‍♂️ (don’t feel sorry, I fell while skate-boar-ding🙄.)

Here’s a little Monolord bass riff for you. Could never get this out of my head after I first discovered it. It’s good practice for my finger playing, which I’m still not fully used to (but which is a lot more fun than playing with a pick – for some bass parts at least).

And this entry is also a little test for my new video setup, which should look (and sound?) better than previous tries. And this new arrangement is also a little easier to set up, so I’ll hopefully record a little more in the future.

Oh, and I bought another bass. A 5-string this time. Because I ended up leaving my first bass in the rehearsal room permanently, I missed one at home.

So, we had a bit of a Argento theme going last weekend. This reminded mea lot of Susperia, but was not as good unfortunately. Visually, yes,very nice. Great ideas and scenes once again. And that whole hauntedhouse theme. But storytelling was a bit all over the place and I wasleft wondering what the purpose of certain scenes were beyond “let’s putthis cool scene in there, too”. Still: certainly not a wast of time thisone!

This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.

This had a bit of a slow start and the acting was partly a bit amateurish. But overall, this was a very enjoyable watch. The story was very good overall, it had suspense, and some scenes were just great. The whole sequence with the dog! Or the grand finale. I mean, he was standing *exactly* behind him!

And it’s all fine, chopping off limbs and murder people in unimaginable ways. But when their friends then just shrug and get on with it, that’s just next level crazy stuff!

While I did come to enjoy cycling videos, this wasn't for me. It waslacking context, editing was terrible, and some driver's attitude andmad skills rubbed me the wrong way. But I might just be not familiarenough with the whole bike messenger, alley cat race scene.

There was some great driving, though! And the filming was probably veryunique at the time. I mean, come on, two comparatively big cameras on ahelmet (there were no GoPros at the time), plus more mounted on thebike, and then keeping up with drivers racing through dense traffic,producing useable footage. That certainly get some stars from me.

It’s been a bit of an chaotic week here. Zoe being sick at the beginning of the week, and then two positive Covid PCR pool tests in kindy (at least one of which was false alarm) meant she was home four of five days. Works just fine with two working parents. Not. Hopefully next week will be better.

I recently bought Pixelmator Photo for iOS and now I can finally do all my image editing on the iPad.

Which is missing for me from Apple’s “Photos” app is a “Retouch” tool, which I use for dust-removal – and for which I had to use the Mac-variant for. Until now. Because Pixelmator Photo has it. I don’t know what took me so long.

I DIYed me some wind-noise reducers using a sock and a bit of velcro. With my new bike, I started riding a bit faster and one thing that bothered me was all that wind noise. So I looked for possible solutions and came across these catears. But before ordering something pre-made so seemingly simple, I wanted to try making something like this myself. So, I cut a sock, glued on a bit of velcro and wrapped the whole thing around my helmet strap. Et voilà. And it indeed works and reduces the wind noise significantly. And it does not look too strange IMO.

In December we watched this as Zoe’s first feature-length movie. It wasa good choice: the “bad guys” weren’t all that bad, the action wasmoderate and it was just 70 minutes long or so.

We all enjoyed this and Zoe got a first taste at paying attention to astoryline for more than the 15-20 mins she’s normally accustomed to.

This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.

Hm… I liked the characters and dialogues for the most part. But the build-up was way too long, leaving me questioning if this indeed is a crime/mystery movie. Meh. The house is very cool, though!

As I hoped, this was a good fit for my slightly hungover self. A simpleplot, no surprises and some good old-school special effects.

But it was very obvious and (because of that) a bit unintentionallyfunny: I thought a lot “say what!” during the dialogues. And the actingwas all so keen, over the top, and the characters were all so damninvolved in their quest and full of clichés, putting a smile on my face.But the smile was only short-lived, because you know it’s really seriousand you want them to succeed.

A great movie! I love a good dialogue and this has plenty of that. Plus,well thought-out characters, very well played. And it has Steve Carellin it!

Maybe the ending could have had more bite to it (I don’t even know whatI mean exactly), but other than that, this is very much recommended!

This was quite clever. And funny. I enjoy a good time travel movie. Notthe best of its kind probably, but definitely an enjoyable watch!

Persuaded Nicole to (re-)watch this with me. I still found thisentertaining. And it brought nostalgic feelings back.

I watched this for the first time in English. And I must wonder why –why??? – they didn’t put in just a little effort into making the Germandialogue realistic.

Everyone is so damn cool in this. But overall, a solid movie, althoughthis is not the kind of (action) film I enjoy all that much anymore.