Metal Monday

Happy 311 day! Amber is the color of YOUR energy!

Also, you may have noticed that Metal Monday is now using BeeHiiv to deliver the news letter. It’s a great alternative to Substack and a far better writing platform than squarespace’s blog features. The posts will still appear on my personal website OwenMcClintic.com.

YouTube Obsession

Every spring, when the weather starts to warm up, I get an itch. I think to myself (a person who just learned to ride a bike in 2020) I should get a motorcycle. This has been true for me for the last 20 years and every year, without fail, I research getting my motorcycle license and buying a motorcycle. Part of that research usually involves looking up the best “beginner'“ products and a few years ago that led me to the channel FortNine.

Their videos are different to other motorcycle channels in that they provide a Bill Nye the Science Guy level of science to their recommendations and reviews. Also, they’re funny without being bombastic and loud. It’s subtle Canadian humor.

Watching

Welp, Dune Pt 2 is really freaking good. As a sequel, it couldn’t be any more different than Pt 1 and that really tracks as Pt 2 is basically the second half of the first book. Pt 1 is mostly conflict set-up and Pt 2 delivers all the action and explores conflicts.

I have a history with the Dune books so I was more interested in visuals and action than story. I know the story but I will always love to see how a director interprets Dune visually. Denis Villeneuve delivers a beautiful, non-stop, action packed romp through Arrakis that the 2:45 run time never drags. Go see it.

Reading

One of my most toxic traits is reading table-top gaming rule and lore books to games I will never play. As I mentioned last week, I love reading Warhammer 40k codices but this week I’ve been reading the incredibly dense core rulebook of mech TTRPG Lancer.

Lancer is a game that is mainly concerned about getting into a mech and shooting other mechs. The story is secondary to the battle mechanics and in may ways the setting is too. As someone who mainly reads these game books to get my creative juices flowing, Lancer leaves a lot of room for creative stories or -to put it another way- chucks the story heavy lifting to the the unlucky GM who decides to run this game.

Knowing the mechanical orneriness of the battle system, the developers also created a great (free) resource in the form of a online game tracker called COMPCOM. This thing is just fun to play around in, even if you have no interest in playing.

There’s also a really cool single-player supplement called Mech Rider. So maybe…maybe I’ll play a game myself someday. Maybe.

Playing

Death Stranding still has it’s hooks in me. All the better so I can finish up before Dragon’s Dogma 2 releasing on 3.22.2024.

Dragon’s Dogma is one of the most underrated action RPG released in the Dark Souls era (It has definitely grown in popularity since, partially because of the internet’s Austin Walker’s constant praise on various podcasts over the years) . It’s still worth playing today. I do hope DD2 tightens the controls a bit as that’s really my only complaint with the original.

Notable others

Zoomer absurdism is funny actually.