Metal Monday

YouTube Obsession

Recently, my YouTube algorithm suggested me one video:

And I am completely obsessed. I sent it to all my friends and flooded every discord.

Since then my feed has been filled with various “city pop” performances from the early 90’s. And let me just say: Early 90’s Japanese hairstyles for women were absolutely PEAK.

So since going down a City Pop rabbit hole, my feed has absolutely been taken over.

Just some favorites:

The cutest hair EVER.

Watching

I was riding the bus and saw a billboard for the 4th season of Slow Horses. Which came as a surprise to me as I didn’t even know that season 3 was out.

I heard good things about the first season and started watching right as the second season was releasing in late 2022. The Brits just do spy entertainment better. You can feel the Le Carre influences dripping off of the first season but Slow Horses really finds it’s own voice in the second season. Though I prefer the low-hum spy action of Le Carre, season 2 really starts to lean into the action and while it’s not my perfect spy show, it still scratches an itch for espionage thrillers.

As of writing, I am on the 3rd episode of Season 3 and maybe it will turn around but I’m really just annoyed with most of the characters. It is very hard for a show to sustain just one unlikeable main character but when your entire ensemble cast is portrayed as unlikeable… it’s just tiresome.

Hopefully some characters develop in new directions and I do enjoy when they do spy-crafty stuff, so I will continue to watch.

Reading

Five Decembers by James Kestrel is a Dad-ass Dad book. I mean that in the most loving way because I did like this book for it’s straightforwardness and pulpy adventure tropes. Also, it’s WWII adjacent, the most Dad coded World War.

The story is very traditional noir set in Pearl Harbor in the months leading up to December 7th, 1941. That’s the synopsis that got me interested in the book before I knew anything else. Joe McGrady is a detective that gets caught up in a murder investigation that leads all the way to the top brass of the Navy. It goes some places that ruins the charm of the initial setting but overall it delivers a John Grisham level plot intrigue and excitement.

My dad is visiting next week and I’ll be sending Five Decembers home with him.

Playing

I saw some gameplay videos from the multiplayer beta for Black Ops 6 and had a tinge of nostalgia. Nostalgia for Black Ops 2 matches with my buds form the headlight factory. I didn’t mention in my last post about Call of Duty, but when I play a COD I exclusively play hardcore matches. For those that don’t know, “Hardcore” just denotes that friendly fire is on, bullets kill much quicker and there isn’t a radar. I’m not someone who thinks I’m a “better gamer” for playing this way, I just hate that it takes 19 bullets to get a kill in regular matches. ANYWAY, I got real itchy to play some hardcore matches.

I’m proud of myself in that I didn’t immediately put down $70 to preorder BO6. Instead, I downloaded (a full 174gb and 4 hours later) Black Ops: Cold War, a game I got for free through my PlayStation Plus subscription. I played the campaign a few months ago; and it was so much of a Ronald Regan blow-job that even Nancy would been like “This is too much.” So I never finished the campaign.

The hardcore multiplayer, however, is really good. It tickles just the right amount of monkey-brain-number-go-up nerves that I’m really enjoying it. Maps are good, spawns are mostly great and the movement is arcadey af. And really, there is nothing quite like getting into “the flow” of a match, when you really see the strings, see the Matrix if you will: Knowing when spawns will flip, where players should be peeking next…it really is a great flow-state to get into. I will probably end up getting BO6 when it comes out but maybe I’ll be tired of COD bs by the time it comes out and I won’t be out $70. Maybe.

Other Notables

** Really wish there was a economic system that made millionaires illegal.

** A really cool science story…