I don’t know how parents regularly have their child(ren) sleep in their bed. Nine times out of ten we get beaten, kicked and headbutted. Best case, we get woken up multiple times per night. Worst case, we additionally get hurt. Plus, Zoe also wakes up way earlier than usual. The snuggles make up for the abuse a little, though.
Subscribe
I’m a freelance web developer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. I make a RSS feed reader called FeedCity. I’m also a passionate film photographer, a husband and father, a musician, metalhead, and movie fan.
- Author
- Daniel Pietzsch
- Rights
- © 2019–2025 by Daniel Pietzsch, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
- Public lists
- HWC DUS IWC DUS 2025
🎧 Carnage – LIK
Messing around with the website again. Now having pages grouping all blog posts (articles, notes and links) at /blog and all media posts (music, movies and books) at /media.
Makes it easier to scroll through all content at once.
🔗 Neuanfang mit Mitte 40 | WDR Doku
Ein Paar aus Ratingen lebt und reist seit 5 Jahren im Wohnmobil. Gute Idee, wie ich finde!
Noch vor fünf Jahren führten Diana Knigge und Phillip Alexander Schubert, beide Mitte 40, ein Leben im sogenannten Wohlstand: eigenes Café, schickes Auto und...
Here is the signal path and pedalboard settings for how I recorded “Bridge of Sighs”:
- Strat knock-off, pick-up switch in 4th position.
- Distortion with low gain.
- Tremolo in a subtle setting.
- A bit of delay.
- Some reverb.
- A clean amp in Garageband.
The audio in the video is a combination of the Garageband recording and the sound recorded by the iPhone.
🎥 Bridge Of Sighs
Playing Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs” on guitar. It’s a bit improvised, though. Of course, I first got to know this song via the great cover version from Opeth.
And still figuring this video stuff out. This time, it’s filmed with my iPhone’s back camera and shared in 1080p with 60fps.
Update: Settings.
🎧 Misanthropic Breed – LIK
I’m mainly in love with the sound of this album. But it’s also an easy album to like musically: well-done good old old-school Swedish death metal à la Dismember and Entombed. Just listen to “Funeral Anthem” to get a rotten taste!
Also: how can one not love that cover artwork?
🎬 Green Room
Suspenseful and overall well done. Certainly had parallels to Blue Ruin. But the latter was better.
📖 Off Grid Life – Foster Huntington
This is a beautifully made book with great photos and inspiring approaches on how and where to live.
Unfortunately, though, I found this too superficial. Maybe that’s fair enough, since it’s actually more of a photo book than a “book” book. But I was hoping a little more for stories about what it’s like and what it really means to live off grid in these housings. So, in this regard it was a little disappointing.
But this reminds me to check Foster’s blog again, which I remember to be more insightful1.
-
… but which I haven’t followed in recent years, because the RSS feed was and still is broken. And which – sadly – is (by far) not an isolated case for RSS feeds. I’m sorry for this brief appendix rant about the state of RSS… ↩
🎬 Death Proof
This was a whole lot of fun! Unrealistic, nonsensical, and over-the-top fun. A bit too self-indulgent (for Tarantino), and partly because of that a little bit too long. But overall dialogues, filming and the action were great! That car crash and the final car chase were simply spectacular.
🎧 Serpents of the Light – Deicide
For some reason, I was listening to this last Sunday. I haven’t listened to Deicide in years. But it remained in rotation.
It’s Easter after all.
🎬 Searching
This was ok. It was mainly interesting because of how it was “filmed”: completely through computer UI. And it was suspenseful. But in the end story didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I still wish more people/bands/utilities/companies/restaurants had RSS feeds, so this wouldn’t even be necessary.
Oh, sweet: NetNewsWire – my RSS reader of choice – added the ability to subscribe to Twitter timelines.
🎧 Only Ghosts – Red Fang
I recently came across their remarkable videos again. While a while back I mostly listened to their debut and “Murder the Mountains”, this time I’m givin’ their latest output a few spins. And I am not disappointed!
Videos are now served via HTTPS. This fixes playback in Google Chrome. For now, I uploaded a manually generated Let’s Encrypt certificate to my HostEurope webspace for that subdomain. So now, videos should finally be working for most people!
Gestern auf die “Heavy Metal”-Playlist von Amazon Music gestoßen. Als erstes kommt Iron Maiden, dann Metallica, und danach – natürlich – als drittes – ganz klar – gleiche Liga! – …
… Guano Apes! 🤷♂️
Argh! I didn’t know Chrome doesn’t allow mixed content (HTTPS + HTTP) anymore. So, I should get SSL sorted for my newly created videos.danielpietzsch.com subdomain.
Update: Sorted!
Das Kind hat woanders übernachtet. Endlich mal wieder in Ruhe Sonntagmorgens im Wohnzimmer Death Metal hören.
🎬 The Godfather Part 3
I think Part 3 was a great movie. The story probably wasn’t as enthralling as in the other two, so I think I agree with most critics it’s the least favourite film of the trilogy. But the whole opera bit at the end, that scream (!), and the end scene were very much worth it.
We got tested for Corona virus today. The results were negative.
In Germany you can currently get one free test every week. While we thought it’s pretty unlikely we’re infected, we thought it couldn’t hurt taking advantage of this (after all, we do occasionally meet a few people).
We used “Mein Corona Schnelltest”, and the whole process – registration, test, and test result retrieval – was quick and straightforward. Our test centre was set up in a mall where a shop used to be. I thought it’s worth sharing these two photos.
🎬 Adam‘s Apples
This was trying too hard being bizarre. It’s tricky to make a bizarre movie. And in this case it didn’t do it for me. I think it also wanted to be funny. I didn’t agree very often (and the jokes sometimes went too far for me). Great cast, though.
📄 Fixing video sharing
How I now host video files outside of GitLab Pages
🎥 “Crystal Mountain” Guitar Cover
My cover of Death’s “Crystal Mountain”.
I wanted to try out recording myself – both video and audio – and see how it goes. The playing is far from perfect, but I’m reasonably ok with the take. It was a first take after all, just to try out this sort of thing. I simply hit re...
🎬 The Godfather Part 2
Part 2 is on par with part 1, sharing the same minor criticism and major praise. Loved the background story about Vito Corleone’s life and how he became the “original” Godfather.
🎬 The Godfather
It’s a little intimidating to write about such a classic. But I agree it’s a great movie. Story, atmosphere, the filming, set design and costumes, acting: all superb. The only negative thing I can say, is that I sometimes found it difficult following the plot, with its many characters and all this macho mafia business.
Overall, though, it’s a classic for a reason!
This also must’ve been one of most explicitly violent movies at the time. And I found it amusing that I didn’t recognise Al Pacino and Robert Duvall at first, because I’m used to their much older faces from much more recent films.
📄 My sporadic and minimalist darkroom
How I use our little bathroom to make gelatin silver prints.
🎬 The Dead Don't Die
I came to appreciate Jim Jarmusch’s movies in recent years. But this was boring. The “Chardonnay”-scene was the only funny one. Well, and Iggy Pop as Zombie wasn’t too bad. But that was by far not enough to save the film. And it sure had potential with all those terrific actors. No, I’m sorry.
🎧 Wolverine Blues – Entombed
The recent death of singer LG Petrov prompted me to listen to this marvel again.
It’s the Entombed album I listen(ed) to. It’s so damn heavy and the drumming immediately brings me in a good mood. Just listen to the title track. Banger!
