Metal Monday

YouTube Obsession

I know Hbomberguy is the YouTuber people clamor about when he drops a new video, but one of my favorite channels OKI deserves the spotlight since he just posted his longest documentary yet.

OKI’s release pattern is sporadic to say the least, but his off-mainstream topics are endlessly fascinating to me. Check out all his stuff but I absolutely love his series on a French family held hostage by paranoia and manipulation.

Watching

Godzilla: Final Wars is just awesome. Easily in my top 3 Godzilla films. If you’re familiar with my taste in movies (Sully yourself here, here and here), you know that I believe the worst thing a movie can be is boring. Final Wars is unrelenting, action packed and filled to the brim with over-the-top tropes and call-backs. It makes sense that this was the last Godzilla film before a 10 year hiatus. It cannot be topped. I was smiling the entire movie.

Don Frye is not a great actor, he’s wooden, flat and unreadable. And it’s perfect for this movie. In my Lettderboxd review, I call the acting “pitch-perfect” because it’s on pitch with the rest of the movie. Does that track? It’s like how the best acting from Denise Richards was her role in Drop Dead Gorgeous, not because she’s a great actor, but because she is the best actor for that role¹ . But really, ultimately, Don Frye -in the that red army communist coat and hat, mustache and gnarled ears from years of fighting- just looks so cool. Platonic theory would no doubt classify him as a true form. No focus group character design could come close to create how perfect Don Frye looks.

See this movie.

Reading

Every time homelessness in LA gets brought up conversation one point is always mentioned: Substance abuse.

Lemme TLDR right off the bat and say: California should not require sobriety for housing. Above all, I think Housing First is a great model that (like other safety-net welfare programs) is immensely underfunded and over-scrutinized. And really, the true answer is that homelessness is only a symptom of runaway housing market, America’s insanely obtuse healthcare system and an ever-widening wealth inequality gap.

However, some proponents of Housing First tend to flatly dismiss sober requirements as harmful. This a reasonable position to hold considering a large element of drug use is environment and safety. Guaranteeing housing without being sober certainly allows people who use to experience safe living before they have to put down their drug of choice.

As recovering alcoholic who has been homeless in and out of sobriety let me just say this: Harm reduction kills addicts and alcoholics. However, there are a magnitude of differences between someone who “uses drugs” and an addict, someone who drinks and the alcoholic. The major difference is that the alcoholic will drink if they’re under a bridge or if they’re in a fully paid-off condo on Miami Beach. They will drink if their mother died or if they finally got that huge raise at work. What I’m saying is that alcoholics and addicts use because they like the effects created by drugs and alcohol, not any environmental stressor. This is the importance of sober requirements for those who choose sobriety.

In a perfect world there would be enough funding to support both but there should always be a sober option.

Finally, shout-out to folks who work and volunteer at these housing facilities. Truly, the unsung heroes of this story.

Playing

When Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint released in 1019 it sucked. It’s predecessor, Wildlands introduced open-world design to the series and it met an overall positive response. Despite some half-baked late-game mechanics and its odd use of setting² , I really loved Wildlands, enough that I was pumped for the release of Breakpoint. But it they made it a looter shooter and removed the AI squad mates that made Wildlands so fun. It was also buggy as hell.

Needless to say, everyone hated it.

So they did something pretty commendable, they re-hauled the game to play like Wildlands and made the looter shooter elements completely optional. Going so far as to allow the player to tweak the the majority of gameplay settings to their liking. Now, it can be a completely guideless and immersive tier one operator sim: No dots on the map, no HUD, no mission waypoints, weapon restrictions, etc. The story definitely plays to the people who think tier one operators are cool, the large open world clunkiness is still present and unfortunately, it is still an always online game even when playing solo, so when the servers are finally pulled poof dead game.

But if you like the gameplay loop there’s a lot of game here. You can regularly find it on sale for $5 and it’s worth that.

Other Notables

** Interview with Don Frye about Final Wars and his diverse career in general

** Idk, I could watch this all day

1  I still maintain that drop dead gorgeous is the best casted movie of all time.

2  The game is set in the very real country of Bolivia. Oddly bold choice of the designers to have game be about disavowable American tier one operators meddling in a South American country. A bit too real. One might even say, off putting.