David Peach

Longer-form writing. Things I’ve maybe been mulling over for a while. There is no pre-determined topic — I could end up writing about anything really.

  • For a Few Dollars More

    For a Few Dollars More

    As I said the other day, I was about 30 minutes into For a Few Dollars More.

    Well now I’ve finished it.

    Wow.

    I loved it even more than A Fistful of Dollars.

    It had a bigger scale, and featured the excellent Lee Van Cleef.

    The man with no name and Van Cleef are both competing Bounty Hunters, both in search of a villainous gang leader with a big price on his head.

    After an excellent display of skill between the two of them in the dead of night, they decide to join forces to get their hands on the gang leader and the other members — all with varying prices on their heads.

    Clint Eastwood
    Lee Van Cleef

    What follows is an unfolding story that keeps its secret right till the end — right before one of the best film endings I’ve ever experienced.

    The ending isn’t huge and flashy. But the way it reveals its secret, followed by the music cue as a showdown begins, is just incredible.

    It elevated the already enjoyable film into one that instantly became one of my favourites.

    Now at the time of writing I am 30 minutes into The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I have more memories of this one than the previous two, but I’m looking forward to the rest of it with my new-found appreciation for the western genre.

    Fediverse reactions

  • An American, a Mexican and an Irishman…

    I’ve started watching films again.

    Robert DeNiro as The Irishman
    Clint Eastwood as The Man with no name

    The Irishman

    Firstly, I started with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

    Loved it.

    The main cast have been great in everything I’ve seen them in. And this film was no different.

    A masterclass.

    For me it had those Jackie Brown vibes, in that a lot of it felt like I was just chilling out with these characters for most of it. Characters I quickly became fond of, despite their dubious business dealings.

    And until I saw the conversation between Martin Scorsese and Pacino, De Niro and Pesci afterwards, I had no idea it was all based on a true story.

    It took me three sittings to watch it as it was done between sleeps (raising a 2 month old)

    Despite it being such a long film, I actually wished it was longer.

    A Fistfull of Dollars

    The first spaghetti western, and the film that launched Clint Eastwood’s film career.

    A Fistfull of Dollars is cool as hell.

    The man with no name wanders into a western town where two families are at war with each other.

    So he decides to cleverly pit them against one another for his own gains.

    I had seen this many years ago, but for some reason westerns didn’t do much for me. That was until I experienced the Red Dead Redemption games, especially the story of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2

    Since then I have been eager to explore more of the genre.

    To be honest I think I’m trying to re-experience what I got with Red Dead Redemption 2, but with other stories.

    But Arthur Morgan is always there at the back of my mind.

    Sobs.

    I loved this film.

    Trivia: this features the scene featured in Back to the Future part 2, and the emulation that Marty performs in Back to the Future part 3.

    At the time of writing I am 30 minutes into “For a Few Dollars More”.

    Only taking breaks as I only get chance to see them at night when I have baby duties and of course at that point I’m knackered.

    But I’ll get there eventually.

    And at least my little girl is getting a good film education early.

  • The ever-growing sleep debt

    I have a compounding sleep debt.

    We have a 2 year old and a 6 week old. To say my wife and I are tired is an understatement to say the least.

    Our children are definitely worth it all but I am looking forward to a full night’s sleep again.

    It’s like being in a constant foggy haze — a fugue state.

    The weird thing, is that I know I will miss these times. When they are all grown up, or even a little bit grown; when they no longer need us for basic survival; when I’ll no longer be woken at 3:30am to feed her a bottle, followed by an hour of playing Silent Hill 2 remake whilst she rests on me as her milk settles before she sleeps.

    Also those decaf cups of tea in the middle of the night. Delish. And the opening of the fridge door to get the milk, only to be greeted by an ocean of melted ice below the fridge door.

    These times will be but a memory sooner than I think — I should enjoy the insomnia while it lasts.

  • The Tsunami in the fridge

    This morning I opened the fridge door to be greeted by a slight splash of water.

    Okay — not quite a tsunami — but that’s clickbait for you.

    Underneath the veg drawer of our modest 500mm wide fridge freezer lies a small pool of water in the recesses of its base.

    First thought of course is “Ah great. Amazing. The fridge is buggered. One of the stalwarts of the modern home… packed in.”

    But no.

    The fridge is fine.

    Upon lifting the vegetable drawer out I notice a block of ice on the back edge of the fridge base.

    What I’m assuming is that the temperature drops to freezing to create this block over time, then as the fridge goes through some kind of cycle where it’s not quite freezing, it melts a bit.

    I should do something about the temperature but I’m yet to find the dial.

    If I should find it surely I should fix the issue with a simple nudge in the direction of non-freezing.

    If I was loaded I could trash the old fridge and get a brand spanking new one.

    But then… That would be cold…

  • Overtaking — a wake up call

    Yesterday I gave a family member a lift somewhere.

    On the way there, entering a country road I began overtaking the car in front as I was struggling to get the person to their appointment on time.

    The road ahead was clear and overtaking was permitted in this particular part of the stretch.

    When all of a sudden a white Tesla — of all cars — came around a corner at the far end of the road I was overtaking on.

    So i put my foot down as far as I could to finish the manoeuvre.

    As I passed the car I was overtaking, the car In front was getting ever closer — not sure if they were speeding but being a Tesla I wouldn’t be too surprised.

    I then pulled across as the on coming car flashed it’s lights twice at me “I’m here”. I flashed once back “sorry”.

    Of course signalling with your lights is not encouraged and possibly illegal except under very specific circumstances.

    Nevertheless we exchanged our vague highway morse code.

    At the time it was obvious we weren’t going to impact.

    But since then I’ve been stressing about the “What ifs”.

    It’s even been running around my head about “What if the other driver reports me with dash camera footage, and I get prosecuted for dangerous driving”.

    My mind automatically goes to the worst-case scenario.

    Apparently if a letter isn’t received before 14 days has passed since an incident, then no action will be taken.

    Thirteen days to go.

    Hopefully I can look back on this post in a couple of weeks and laugh at myself.

    Either way it gave me a wake up call to be extra mindful. And to not risk it all to save a potential few minutes. Because the trade off could be the rest of mine, and any passengers, days.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Black Mirror: Common People

    Dark as fuck. And so brilliantly doing a send-up of the modern “subscription culture”.

    Both leads were great.

    This is the second thing I’ve seen Chris Dowd act in after The I.T. Crowd. So it was a complete departure for me.

    And he is incredible in it.

    Similarly with Rashida I’ve only seen her in The Office and Parks and Recreation.

    She too was great.

    They missed a trick in one scene though.

    When they thought that his wife’s implant was malfunctioning and they headed to the Rivermind building. They didn’t have Chris Dowd ask “Have you tried turning it off and on again”.

    This is the first time in recent memory I’ve needed to watch something light-hearted after seeing an episode of something.

    A bleak, subscription-based nightmare.

    And I loved it.

  • Hospitals and Supermarkets

    What do hospitals and supermarkets have in common?

    Go on – take a moment to think about it.

    Got it?

    No? Well, I’ll tell you.

    Both are places where absolute fucking plebs congregate right outside the front doors, smoking.

    Smoking is an individual choice, regardless of how completely dumb it is, but Christ if I don’t wish they would bugger off 100 metres away.

    And the complete hypocrisy of a hospital placing one of their smoking areas directly outside their cancer wards. *smh*

    Walking through a cloud of nicotine fog is not something I want to be doing.

    Go away smokers.

    Go away.

  • The Last of Us series 2 episode 1

    On the whole it was great to see the series back.

    I’ve played through part 2, the game on which this series is based, five or six times through. So seeing certain scenes happen in this episode that were towards the end of the game was very strange for me.

    But I get it from a storytelling perspective. Games are just completely different beasts to TV shows. Certain reveals and motivations need to be shown earlier.

    Dina and Ellie at the Jackson New Years Dance

    I just have to mention though. The Jackson dance scene was just incredible. I’m not 100% sure, but it seemed to be a shot for shot remake of the same scene from the game. And it hit just as well.

    In fact, dare I say it hit slightly harder — mainly due to Joel seeming to have slightly more of a temper against Seth.

    The shots, the dialogue, the chemistry between Dina and Ellie, and the music just fell right into place here.

    Beautiful.

    I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

    My prediction is that the series will end at the closing of the third day at the pinnacle theatre. It just seems like the most logical place for me for it to cliffhanger.

    But who knows what changes they will make.

  • What the hell was I thinking

    “What the hell was I thinking?”; “Huh?”; “Who’s the fucking idiot who did this?.. oh. It was me…”.

    Three questions every developer / coder / programmer / whatever-er asks themselves from time to time.

    And I am definitely no different.

    I built an initial version of a web-based tool for work some time ago. I built it with some speed to get it done as quickly as possible. But I should have taken longer and focused in more on the ongoing code quality.

    I wrote tests from the get-go, but I let it slip a little when I would dip back into the project for little updates and tweaks across the last twelve months.

    The other day I ran a static analysis tool over the project for the first time.

    Christ on a bike.

    So for the past day or so I’ve been battling hard to climb up the 9 rung ladder to the highly sought after status of level 9 all green. (Larastan/phpstan this is).

    I’m currently on level 7 with about 15 errors to fix.

    I have found that from implementing the fixes — many of which have been type hinting and generics-related — I am understanding the code — and the underlying framework Laravel — much better.

    I’ve even found a very odd design decision in Laravel. The `auth()->id()` method can return either of the following:

    • int
    • string
    • null

    Why not just “int” and “null”?

    Anyway.

    It’s been fun and I’m looking forward to fighting through level 8 before defeating the final boss — level 9 All Green. 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  • Modern tech is cancerous – I’m going clear

    Most of modern tech, be it devices or software / digital services are corrupt and cancerous. They promise increased productivity and ease of use in exchange for your privacy and your control.

    My aim is to go clear, as much as I can, and document that journey here.

    Some things I have already done, such as switching to a privacy-respecting email provider like Protonmail. And a privacy-focused messaging service like Signal.

    My aim for these posts is to give others a kind of guide to do this themselves. Some of the steps will be difficult for those who don’t have the privilege of time and / or technical know how. This is also part of the problem – some alternatives are not easy or convenient to switch to. But I will do my best here.

    I’m not bothered about privacy — I have nothing to hide.

    people without a real clue. Also people without curtains on their windows or doors on any toilets they use.

  • Don’t stop building

    I really enjoy building scripts for my own workflow.

    I wish I had the skills to build things in the real world, but until then I’ll keep building stuff in the digital space only.

    Although I love working with PHP and Laravel, it is Bash that has re-ignited a passion in me to just build stuff without thinking its got to work towards being some kind of “profitable” side project.

    Don’t. Stop. Building.

  • Website under construction

    I’ve always believed that people should own and control their own place on the web. That is, if they want to.

    I have actively kept a personal website for myself for about 10 years now.

    Gosh… 10 years…

    In that time I have moved between about 5 different domain names, different focus topics, and different reasoning behind why I want to publish online.

    I have finally settled now on this domain that you are now on – davidpeach.me.

    I’m also in the process of recovering my old posts that have been thrown by the wayside as I have dicked about changing domain names etc over the years.

    A mixture of Twitter archives, manual database backups I have kept, and some new sources I will be incorporating, mean I am finally going to settle down in this place online I am now calling home.

    I am also re-implementing aspects of the Indieweb movement for content ownership and communicating that to other websites.

    I owe a big thank you to Chris Aldrich too. As it was his website I came across that inspired me to bring my website back to what I have always wanted it to be. Hopefully, thanks to the indieweb helper plugins I have installed, Chris may just get notified on his website and post a reply back — from his website over to mine using the webmention protocol.