It’s create day at IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf, and I’m trying to make WebSub updates work for my site (and this is an update).
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I’m a web developer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. I make a RSS feed reader called FeedCity. I co-organise the local Homebrew Website Club. I’m also a passionate film photographer, a husband and father, a bass player and guitarist, metalhead, and movie fan.
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- Daniel Pietzsch
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Quite a few exciting days lie ahead of me:
- There’s the IndieWebCamp on the weekend.
- There’s Beyond Tellerrand on Monday and Tuesday.
- And I’m going to launch the product I’ve been working on alongside those event.
😅
Last Sunday, I’ve been on another photo trip with Florian. We had a great time in fantastic weather at the Tetraeder in Bottrop. He took some fabulous photos:
I made a thing using CSS to display a four-image slideshow at the top of the Forkalyst homepage. I was (and still am) experimenting with positioning, gradients and animation. It took me longer than I thought it would and I’m still not 100% happy. But I reckon it’s good enough for now.
🎬 The Substance
This might be the most disgusting film I've ever seen. And it's not "just" all the guts and gore; it's all the food stuff, too. And all those close-up and wide-angle shots really emphasise it all. It's quite remarkable how this movie made me feel. And those makeup and "costumes": so good! I really wonder how this got so mainstream. Anyway, it's really a courageous piece, directing- and acting-wise. And it's funny, too. It's so over the top, it could not not be funny. The society criticism is not subtle at all, and I found this rather fitting. Writing all this, I kind of want to watch another round. But I'm not quite sure, if I'm courageous enough.
Photography-wise I’ve been fairly unmotivated recently: no posting, no development, no scanning and only taking few photos. But today was finally a good day again: I spent the whole day outside in the sun with the family and friends while shooting two rolls of Foma 100 with my Lomo LC-A.
📄 Film Development Timer
Today I’m making public my little film development web app: https://dt.danielpietzsch.com.
A (command line) utility I’ve been using a lot lately is GitUI. It makes all my day-to-day git-related work easy and enjoyable.
📄 Buying music again
For two years now, I have been buying music again. Opposed to streaming that is. There is a variety of reasons for this.
Here’s Terry B’s highlights following Monstertrack 2025 winner Emma Missale on her fixed-gear no-breakes bike through New York. You can also watch the full race, if you have two hours to spare.
🎬 Don't Torture a Duckling
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Not too much gore here - although the ending is hilariously excessive in that regard. It's more of a murder mystery. And it has indeed quite a lot of great ideas and encourages you to solve it yourself. Good one. But: Catholics again 🙄. And what's up with that slow-motion water in that aquarium?
🎬 Conclave
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
A mystery thriller set in the Vatican. And all the gossiping cardinals are no better than ordinary men. Well, apart from the newly elected pope. And then this ending. Catholics 🙄.
🎬 The Art of Destruction
I never listened to Destruction all that much. But I had a great evening at this premier at the cinema with friends, the film crew and a few beers (and a whole bunch of other metalheads). Entertaining movie about a sympathetic band and how difficult it was during the pandemic for a band that usually plays around 150 gigs per year.
I started sorting out my blog posting workflow again. Ever since the Git-based CMSes stopped working, I posted considerably less. I’m using Jekyll to build this site; and creating a file, adding all the frontmatter, making a Git commit and pushing the repo is just too much overhead for me.
So now I have started to automate all those above steps. For now, this works on iOS/iPadOS for my Notes. I currently start writing in the Drafts app; then I can trigger one Shortcut which handles everything else for me via the Working Copy app. And Gitlab CI builds the page as usual.
🎥 Forkalyst Live Cut
I cut a little 2 minute video from a handful of phone recordings from our gig last saturday.
Played a very good sounding and good looking gig with Forkalyst at the Sojus7 in Monheim last Saturday.
🎬 Vampires
This is certainly not my favourite Carpenter movie, but I think it was totally fine. Although I prefer those wine-sipping romantic European vampire films that this one mocks. I have criticism regarding the reduction of pace in the middle, that strange love story, James Woods’ annoying character, and general more leaning towards an action zombie movie. But I generally liked the acting and characters, Sheryl Lee slowly turning into a vampire, and the whole splattery action at the party in the beginning is pretty damn good.
📄 New homepage for my old band
I built a new website for my old band “Ravage”: totalravage.com.
🎬 Broken Flowers
In my quest to watch every Jim Jarmusch movie at least once, I finally got to see this one. And this didn't disappoint either. The whole premise of a Don Juan type character, named Don Johnston - played by Bill Murray - on an adventure to find of which of is ex-girlfriends send him a mysterious letter, telling him about a now 19-year old son he didn't know about. His neighbour - who, with a wife, 5 kids, and 3 jobs, is the exact opposite of the Don - excitingly planned the whole trip for him and gives him advise throughout the quest. All those characters and situations are hilarious. And it was fun to notice all those parallels to Jarmusch's other movies - particularly Ghost Dog.
🎬 Ms .45
A rape revenge story set in 70s/80s NY. Sounded good, looked great, interesting characters and plot. Good one!
🎬 Barbarella
A classic I’ve not seen before. I wouldn’t say one has to know this, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. And I was very much enjoying myself, especially with those "Mondo Bizzarr"-audience at the cinema. The plot is more like a series of scetches and the dialogue is rather peculiar at times, but honestly, everything is so silly and over the top, it’s funny again. And all the sets and props are lovingly done. “Sieg der Liebe!”
Ok, I took one digital photo at our Landschaftspark outing.
🎬 Black Swan
Enjoyed this once more. All the characters are great and so well acted. (And good job in casting both Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder, two actresses I occasionally confuse anyway.) It has just the right amount of supernatural elements. And I was reminded how much I like the music from Swan Lake.
Last saturday, I spent a lovely day photographing at Landschaftspark Duisburg with Florian. I can’t share my film photos so quickly, but he can share his - and did. Check it out:
- 2025-02-01
- 2025-02-02
- 2025-02-03
- 2025-02-04
- 2025-02-05 (One more!)
🎬 Wild at Heart
Very violent. Very sexy. Very funny. Very suspenseful. Very sweet. Very quirky. Surprisingly metal. Very nose-y. Very entertaining.
Dern and Cage are just fantastic. And so is Dafoe. And everyone else too, to be honest.
🎬 School of Magical Animals 3
Ähnlich wie Teil 2: wieder ganz gute Songs, mit einer unterhaltsamen uns sympathischen Geschichte. Vielleicht mehr was für junge Teenager, aber der Tochter hat's gefallen und somit hatte ich auch Spaß. :)
🎬 School of Magical Animals 2
Nettes Wohlfühlkino. Gute Songs. Tochter happy. Was will man mehr!?
🎬 You Hurt My Feelings
This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Nice little “slice of life” movie. Every body is so nice. And sweet. It’s funny, too. And it turns out nice in the end. It’s just nice. A little tame maybe. Was ok.
🎬 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
I’m on a quest to watch all Jim Jarmusch movies. This, once more, was right up my alley. The calmness, the humour, the characters. It again featured hilarious dialogues where people don’t understand each other. And towards the end I noticed that the comics the characters are watching seem to give away what will happen next. So I need to watch this again to see what I can discover.
🔗 December 2023 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
I managed to wrap up my photos from 2023 on the last day of 2024. Hooray!
Your typical December photos.