Metal Monday

YouTube Obsession

Over my life I’ve held many various jobs. I’ve also had many jobs that required me to do many various things. One of my favorites was working for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR). I worked, specifically, for Spring Mill State Park in Lawrence County Indiana, cutting out dead brush and trees, and clearing out culverts, pipes and debris dams among other jobs (see below).

I’ve spoken before about how I love dam busting videos. Adjacent to dams are pipe clearing videos and they give me so much satisfaction because I used to do this for the DNR and I loved every minute of it.

That is one thing I miss about some of the more labor-intensive jobs I’ve had: They were satisfying. The zen-like process of beginning a task and seeing results almost instantly beings joy to my monkey brain¹ . Something I can’t really replicate in my current office environment job. These videos give me a bit of that satisfaction.

I will say, the people that use their bare hands or walk in that stagnate-ass-water barefoot are beyond insane. Use a garden hoe or claw like the guy in the first video. Clearing a grate for YouTube views is not worth the staff infection.

Watching

I love Uncut Gems. I watch it every holiday season. I refuse to explain but it is a Christmas movie to me. I love watching characters unknowingly and instinctively create chaos in their lives.

Now, now imagine Uncut Gems in 1957 New York City and you have Sweet Smell of Success. Sidney Falco twirls around a bustling NYC starting two fires to put out one all in the name of making it big. And in this story “the big time” has an agent: Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker.

Faustian at it’s core, the achievement of this movie is how it creates such magnetic yet despicable characters. Capturing the exact moment Sidney sells his soul will stick with me. I don’t want to give to much away because this movie should be watched.

Playing

In the midst of my BattleTech obsession Piranha Games released MechWarrior 5: Clans on October 17th. Now, I have played MechWarrior: Mercenaries and while I like the idea of a first-person mech shooter in the Battle Tech universe, in practice, the game never came together for me. Parts feel unfinished and it is definitely balanced towards co-op.

Much the same can be said for Clans. However, it does deliver a fun -if a little tropey- linear BattleTech story and improves the controls (especially for console). Your AI squad-mates are much smarter this time around requiring less management from the player.

With the more guided campaign comes less control over mech builds. Which feels perfect for a beginner to the universe but as a veteran of BattleTech (2018) not being able to tinker with exact tonnage of my mechs is frustrating. I also found managing the RPG elements of the game to be simultaneously obtuse and claustrophobic. There appears to be so much flexibility in how to upgrade your teammates but then, due to the lack of mech customization, there is really only one optimized upgrade path for each teammate.

Despite my complaints, I do think this is a perfect game for newcomers to the series. There are a lot of improvements from Mercenaries and the focused story really sells the universe.

Listening

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember that if there was a popular TV show, toy or culturally relevant news phenomenon in the 90’s, there would inevitably a cassette of songs based on the IP. The Simpsons Sing the Blues comes to mind as well as Jeff Foxworthy X Alan Jackson “Redneck Games”.

Like is this a thing anymore? Are there very popular songs that have dialog from movies, or stand up sets cut in the middle of them anymore? Not just fan edits, but commercially viable songs that people produced, are those on the radio anymore?

These were songs were played on the radio! Unironically. The Titanic one was so popular that there was a parody with South Park dialogue that was, yes, played on the radio² .

All this to say: My partner introduced me to Barbie Dance Club, a cassette from the 90s that has some really era-perfect tunes³ .

Instant workout classics.

Other Notables

** I heard somewhere that “Freud is always wrong, but in the most interesting ways.”

** Ken Klippenstein’s substack is great and you should read it. Specifically this piece about the media and it’s coverage of Israel.

** Major cool uncle vibes…

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1  Mowing lawns is another example.

2  I could not, after hours (read: 5 minutes) of searching, find any record of this. If anyone does know where to find the My Heart Will Go On - with South Park dialogue please send it to me at [email protected]. All I can find other than references in comments of reddit posts is this post from the Muppet Central forums from 2007. I am so close to creating an account and bumping a nearly 20yo post.

3  Turns out that Paula Abdul is the singer performing the vocals in these songs, so it makes sense that they are absolute bops.