I'm sure they're doing their best

Paul 00:00

Hi Drew, how you doing? Paul, happy new year. Happy New Year, Drew. Okay. Uh so uh there is a not uh a great Hopefully it's pretty slim, but there is a non-zero chance that this podcast will be interrupted. Uh, my wife and daughter are currently at the emergency room. Oh shit. What's going on? So uh I love my daughter very much. And if she listens to this, uh I hope she does. Uh she's not the most uh dexterous person in the world. She's kind of clumsy. Okay. Uh and uh she has a lot of apparatus for doing her hair that get very hot. Oh no. So okay, so all right, no. So A few days ago, she dropped, I believe it was her straight iron, onto her arm and burnt herself pretty good. This is not the first time she has done this. I I joke that she needs to like do her hair wearing one of those like uh outfits that like F1 like drivers wear that are fireproof. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so Uh we sit down to to eat dinner and uh she kind of reaches out her hand and my my wife kind of notices like hey the burn sight's getting all kind of like like it's it's it's puffy And then we see a red line coming off of it going up of her up her arm. And uh I'm like, you need to go to the emergency room.

Drew 01:32

Oh, it's infected.

Paul 01:33

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. It's infected. So hopefully everything's fine. I mean, I'm hoping like best case scenario, it's just like overnight like antibiotics or something, but Like, yeah, yeah, so that's happening now. I told my wife, like, if it's not urgent, send me a text. If it's urgent, give me a call. So Okay. All right.

Drew 01:52

Yeah.

Paul 01:52

Well, I mean, we haven't been able to record for a month. So what's one more week? Yeah, it's a hiatus. I mean, but I but you know what? Until then, I'm going to assume like everything's fine and let's just let's just let's just do it.

Drew 02:05

Okay, so in in in the spirit of late breaking podcast news, there there is a topic on the podcast list tonight.

Paul 02:12

Okay.

Drew 02:14

But can't but we can't talk about it unless M us did you receive a package yesterday or today that you did not order. No. Okay. All right. So we're gonna go ahead and strike this one. Okay. All right. Okay. We're not gonna talk we're not gonna talk about that today. Uh Okay. Not to spoil the surprise, but you you will have something arriving off for that topic. Okay. All right. Um yeah, much like your beloved handheld um sites that you order from where it comes from US warehouse um Okay. The tracking information uh is not great.

Paul 02:56

Um is it like a 17-track website or something?

Drew 03:01

Like they're coming from China. Yeah. No US warehouse. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, whatever that is. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we'll we'll we'll table that one because we got other things uh to to sort of talk about. Um so Sort of leading things off here, you're right, has been a little hiatus. Uh the holidays were pretty hectic for all of us, I think. Yep.

Paul 03:25

Yep.

Drew 03:26

Um, you know, uh for those of you getting caught up, so like just an example. Uh we're recording this now on January 15th. Um the last episode we recorded was two weeks before Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, a lot of that had to do with, you know, hey, Zach was home and uh Vito got his big boy operation and there was like a week where my wife and I did nothing but try to keep him calm. Uh turns out that's really hard with an eight month old puppy. Who I love by the way. He's my he's like he's my favorite dog in the world right now. I'll tell you what. Okay, so yeah, that's that's kind of where I want the topic to go. But that's not to say that you and I didn't get a chance to So we did we did have a game night. Mm-hmm. And I gotta say, um, first of all, yes. You were definitely Vito's favorite. Now, I don't know if that's because you were the first person to arrive or it you know Yorkis recognize their own.

Paul 04:24

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew 04:25

I mean, come on. Like, yeah, that's a good dog. Yeah, he's a dog. He was very excited.

Paul 04:30

Yeah.

Drew 04:30

He he is he is a dog. Um, he is a dog. Um there he was kind of skittish around everybody else, but eventually he calmed down and I was able to uh play some games. So the one game that you brought over that I actually really enjoyed was that Lord of the Rings game.

Paul 04:48

Yeah, Lord of the Rings, fate of the fellowship. Yeah. Yeah. It's like pandemic inspired.

Drew 04:55

Yeah. Yeah. So you you had talked about the game on this podcast when you talked about the little retreat that you guys did for work. And you know, I listened to it. I'm like, okay, well that sounds kind of interesting, but in my head I just kind of pictured This is just a rescan of pandemic. It's definitely not a reskin of pandemic. It's not. No. It's not. 100% not. There's there's way more mechanics. I want to say it is like pandemic plus plus.

Paul 05:20

Yeah, it's a little heavier than pandemic. Yeah.

Drew 05:22

Yeah, because there's like there's all these interesting different wind conditions. Just wiping the board clean doesn't really matter. It's important. Um, all the different characters have different powers and you sort of have to be cognizant about what they do. And um It can be a real fucking big kick in the nuts. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, yeah, it's me. As we witnessed. Mm-hmm. It's me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, but I I think the general consensus among the group that we had over to play the game was we would we would definitely play that again.

Paul 05:53

Yeah, yeah.

Drew 05:54

And then we played we played some heat, um, which is always a good time.

Paul 05:59

Yeah. And that the map, I think we played what, Spain?

Drew 06:04

Oh man, and that was oof oof that was a bitey track too Yep. Yep. That was uh that was something. I actually did better than I normally do at that game. I mean I did win, but I didn't spin out nearly as much.

Paul 06:18

Yeah, I miss I misplayed like the first turn a little bit and I spent most of the time catching up after that. I did catch up. Like I I was very impressed about how like like you know I didn't win either, but you know, I got caught I I got caught up and that was my goal. So yeah.

Drew 06:31

Yep. And then we played some uh take five or six nimped. Yeah.

Paul 06:37

Which is just Take Five. I I I bought that while I was at your house. And it came and uh that's been a big hit at my house. We played it at with the time with Zachary and the last couple of nights My daughter's like after dinner, can we play take five? And then we did. Yeah.

Drew 06:54

It's so good.

Paul 06:55

It's so good.

Drew 06:56

And it's so easy to teach. It's like, do you I mean there's there's no there's no rules, it's just numbers.

Paul 07:02

Numbers, yeah, yeah.

Drew 07:04

Yeah, so uh we did I did end up having a second game night that you weren't able to make it to, um, but we actually convinced my wife. My wife. Yeah. I heard that. Yeah, yeah. So that was fun. And she she enjoyed it too. So that I mean that's kind of the big Christmas break recap. We are recording episode 300. We never really we never really determine what we want to do. Although I do have an idea that I'll share with you. Okay. Okay. You know what would be fun? You know what we haven't done in a while? So we haven't done um like a stream and we haven't done an in-person thing. So what do you say Because um Twitch has really come a long way in terms of like collaborative streams.

Paul 07:51

Okay.

Drew 07:51

We should play some sort of co-op game. Oh, I'm and stream it together. I like that. What can we play? That's a great question. That's a great question because um You know, i i if if it's something you're gonna play on the console, that's not necessarily out of the question, but if it's something on the PC, we just have to kind of think about what that's gonna be.

Paul 08:15

Yeah, I mean I can liberate my son's gaming PC in a pinch. So which is still here. He did not take it with him to college. So good for him.

Drew 08:23

I assume he's back at school now.

Paul 08:25

Yeah, yeah. He started it back up this week. Yeah. Okay.

Drew 08:28

Mm-hmm. Yep. Uh so yeah. Uh I mean we c you know, we didn't really make a big deal out of the holidays this year just with everything going on. And um we are we did make it to episode three hundred, which is Me can you imagine that?

Paul 08:41

Like, yeah, we've been doing this for a long time. Yeah.

Drew 08:44

Absolutely fucking balkers. Um Yeah, so I I think, you know, let's just let's kind of park that and let's think about what game we could want to play. I mean, I'm sort of tempted to say Diablo just because you could like teach me how to play that game. Okay. Um, but there are like other fun co-op games that we could play.

Paul 09:03

Yeah, we can figure something out for sure.

Drew 09:05

Yeah. Okay. Uh so I think I think what would be kind of fun is I had put together sort of an agenda for tonight. Um, so looking back at 2025, because you and I have a lot of shared interests. Like we obviously played a lot of video games this year. There was a big year for music for you, which by the way, uh Side note, right before right before we started recording, I just happened to pop on Blue Sky. Dude, I've watched that like three times already. Oh I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of that song, and I'm also not the world's biggest guar fan. But we'll put a link in the show notes in case you don't follow either of us on Blue Sky. It is Guar covering Pink Pony Club.

Paul 09:50

Yeah. Like I said, I I think you know you've made it as an artist when Guar covers one of your songs. So, you know, big shout out to what's her like Chappelle Roan, whatever her name is. Like, yeah, congratulations You've made it. Yeah, you made it. You've made it.

Drew 10:04

100% made it. Yeah. Uh so yeah. So um what we're gonna do now is we're gonna do like our sort of best of 25 uh 2025 things and and we're like two weeks late doing it. this obviously but okay things that things that we really liked on a variety of topics and we're gonna start with video games because I think it's gonna be the most straightforward so Paul, when you look back on 2025, if you had to pick one, like what would be number one for you?

Paul 10:32

It's the one I put in the show notes first, Ghost of Yote. Okay. Yeah, PlayStation 5 exclusive for now, but Uh it's the spiritual successor to a ghost of Tsushima. Uh it adds a lot more mechanics. The story's good. Like I it's It's it's it's just a great if you like that game, you're gonna love this one. It's it's good, it introduces multiple weapons, the story is very interesting, it's beautiful. Uh yeah, it's just is an absolute gem of a game. I I l I love playing it. Yeah.

Drew 11:02

Okay. Now have you finished it?

Paul 11:04

I did. Yes, I finished it. Okay.

Drew 11:06

Yeah. Got it.

Paul 11:07

I haven't like I have not 100% it. I may go back and like go for the plat. As as uh Sony Pony say, uh go for the platinum trophy. But uh no, I've been I've been busy playing other things. So yeah. Other thing really. Uh what other thing? It's the next one on my list, man. Okay, so go ahead and hit it. Diablo 4, season 11. It's the what is the it's the season of divine intervention. Uh they changed the colour. Oh, did they this is the one where they added paladins, right? Yeah. If you pre-order the expansion, you unlock the paladin class. Well it's I mean I'm gonna play the fucking expansion drew like and not only did i buy the expansion i bought the most expensive most expensive one because i wanted to not yeah look at you not uh but even i've also played a little bit of sorcerer uh this time around it's they really like It's not Path of Exile hard now, but it is it is more difficult. They've changed like some monster behavior. They revamped some of the mechanics. And the paladin is just a fucking. blast to play. I've yeah.

Drew 12:14

I'm tempted. I I am tempted because I've all I I in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, like that was my jam. Yeah.

Paul 12:20

I always always like those classes. Yeah, it's it's a it's a fun, fun class. And yeah. Uh they just introduced the tower, which is like competitive leaderboards. I haven't played that yet. Uh, but I might check that out. Still in bait and I've heard it's a little buggy. But uh, I mean, I'm not gonna be in the leaderboards, right? Like I I have I I'm so mad. This is like I'm having so much fun this season, but it's the first time I have not seen a mythic item drop and I'm a little pissed about that.

Drew 12:45

So like Well I was I was I I I sort of get Diablo news tangentially and I thought that they had like made everybody happy at the loot now.

Paul 12:54

It so it's yeah they've they've tweaked some of like the the upgrade mechanics to make it a little less random Uh there's still just way too much fucking loot in the game. It just is like the expansion is supposed to introduce loot filters, and I cannot wait for that Like I hope it's just like auto salvages everything, not in loot filter, because you still need those crafting materials. But there's just like you spend like 20 minutes playing and then you spend 20 minutes Digging through your pockets, figuring out what's good, and like there's not enough staff space by default, and it's just, yeah, there's still some issues there, but Uh it's it's getting it's getting better. I mean, they've season ten was also really good, but eleven is really, you know, it's if you look at like the like the active player chart, just as the first season that's like retained Like the the amount of players that they had. Like you could always get a boost at the beginning of the season, but it hasn't really dropped off like the other seasons had. So I think they have a good one on their hands.

Drew 13:51

Okay, very cool. Uh now yeah, now for me, right? If I if I look back at games that I played this year, um There's like there's like three that really show up on my list. Two of them though really aren't 2025 games technically. I mean the Diablo 4. Well, but Yeah. That's like a live service game, right? They're always adding things. So like I I I see I can kind of see it. So Escape from Tarkov was the number one game that I played this year. I spent um I I only started playing it back in April and I amassed like a thousand hours in this game. Um very much like your Diablo 2 experience. It's go into a raid or, you know, a game session. Try not to die and whatever you bring out you keep. Whatever you lose or drop, you don't. And a lot of time that requires you to filter and play inventory, Tetris, and all this other stuff. Then Um, it's just really fun. I'm only playing the PvE version. Uh don't at me. Uh there's too many cheaters in PvP. Uh but the PV the PvP experience, like the core game loop and Uh everything about it was is just really fun. And I have a couple other people that I play with. Um I actually met some people this year by streaming it. uh who help me who help me out and they they still pop in and play with me from time to time. So that was kind of a cool experience. So that's a kind of honorable mention. Uh the other one's Factorio. Now Factorio has been up. I wanted to get into that. Yeah. Uh man, that is, I'll tell you what. Um I have a lot of friends that hate it. Okay. Um now when it comes to crafting games, and for those of you who don't know, this is like an automation crafting type game. You start Crash Landed on a planet. It is a pure overhead view game. It is not 3D. Which don't let that put you off. It actually is really, really, really good. Uh the the 2D artwork and sprites are amazing. Um for the amount of complexity in the game and the size of the planet that you get to explore, it's pretty freaking impressive. Um they did release an expansion called Space Age. Um which is just like yet another tier of grinding in that game. So the the whole premise of the game is automation So it's like you land on the planet and it's like you salvage pieces of your ship and you get metal plates and you get stone and you get wood And you turn those into other things. And then like you sort of realize like, wow, it really takes me a long time to click these buttons. Wouldn't it be great if I could make a drill? that extracted this and then I built a furnace that I could put you know with a conveyor belts that it all went into and then take the output of that and put it in a factory. That's what the game is. And it has even as even the base game and like there's a whole very, very active modding community that either makes the game easier, a lot of them Just add on to the game with things, adding additional resources, enemies, things like that, just expanding the experience. Uh I love it. I I really do. When I want a game that sort of like just tickles my brain a little bit, that's what I like to play because it's pretty easy to learn. It's really tough to master because you're always looking for ways to be more efficient. Um, and then as you sort of expand, you sort of have to build out the planet. And you instead of just building one little factory, you end up building a a bunch of little factories and they become one gigafactory. And there's trains. Yep. Yep. You can you can automate an entire train network in there. Um apparently, and this might this might actually tip you over the edge. They just released a Switch 2 version. I saw that. Yeah. And apparently it's great. Does it run really well? Okay. Supposedly it runs w really well and the whole touch screen interface really lends itself well to it. Now, I will tell you that the first time you play it, you should definitely do the tutorial. And after you finish the tutorial and you generate your first world. Uh there is like an enemy mechanic that also builds against you. So as you expand, you generate pollution, which causes the fauna to become more aggressive and mutate. Hmm. So there is a there is a quote unquote pacifist option where that all still happens, but they don't attack you unless you attack them. Okay. Um, because I will tell you, while it's very challenging and very fun to build out a defensive network, if you don't know when it's coming, got it, it's a huge pain in the ass. Like that is like, okay, I'm gonna just load by safe. Got it. But it's really good. If you've ever enjoyed games like Transport Tycoon or Roller Coaster Tycoon, it's very, very much inspired by those games. Um and then with Space Age, you have, you know, usually in base factorio, your goal is to build a rocket ship and launch it into space. Like that is considered the end of the game, even though you can keep playing. Now, once you launch the rocket, you go to space and you can travel to other planets that have like a different mechanic. Like there's a volcanic planet that's high heat. There is a planet that has like these really um interesting uh like bio-type resources like fungus that you have to harvest. Like it's It's really, really interesting. I have not completed Space Age. I have launched the rocket a couple times. Um, but anyway, that that but that's not really a new game for 2025. I will tell you that the game that I did buy this year and I'm enjoying very much is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. Okay. Okay. Now, uh, have you played this? I have not. No. Did you play the first one? I did not. Okay. So the whole premise of this game is it's medieval times the video game. Okay Uh it is extremely period correct. Um I've heard it's yeah, extremely accurate. Yeah. Extremely accurate. It's Skyrim for adults. It's it's It's Skyrim if Skyrim had consequences, uh, because like stealing from people, murdering people, being a bad person, that it's a playstyle, it's a lifestyle, but goddamn, you're gonna have a tough time. Um, if you if you try to hoe that road. Uh I I played the first one and I played it for like six hours and I'm like, this isn't for me. Uh, but then I saw the good press and awards and nominations that Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 bought. So right around Thanksgiving, I bought it. It was on sale. I bought it and started it up and I've been unable to put it down. The story is extremely compelling. It is a challenging game. Um, but it is, like I said, if you are into fantasy medieval stuff at all. Extremely good game. Combat is very satisfying. It is very hard. It is very unforgiving. There's a lot of systems and crafting and the storytelling is incredible. I want to say that it's one of the better video game stories that I've experienced in the past couple years. So if you're looking for a game to sort of just immerse yourself in, Um it does start out a little slow. Like the first two hours is just one long extended tutorial as you sort of get introduced to the world. But once it finally lets you loose and go do your thing. It's pretty fucking awesome. So that to me is my game of the year. I'm, let's see, how many hours am I into that game now? Let me check Steam real quick. I have not finished it yet, so I don't know how it ends. Uh Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I have played 30 hours. Okay. So I think I'm getting close to the end, but I couldn't tell you for sure. But it's uh it's really good. I would say definitely give that a shot.

Paul 21:41

Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna add it to my PlayStation wish list so I don't lose track of it.

Drew 21:46

Yeah, I I would be curious if it ever shows up on like PlayStation Plus. But I don't know.

Paul 21:52

Kingdom. Yeah, no. It's we'll see. We'll see. I'm gonna give it a good old big old heart. Big old heart. Big old heart. That's that's the wish. Yeah, 6. 92 reviews on uh PlayStation, 34,000 ratings. Yeah, people must like it. Yeah. Oh, the Royal Edition's actually on sale right now for free.

Drew 22:12

Yeah, there is a lot of DLC. And uh Some of the DLC is technically horse armor. But there's there's a lot to it.

Paul 22:23

I like cosmetics. So yeah, I can't. Yeah.

Drew 22:25

Yeah. Yeah, you can make your horse look like a unicorn.

Paul 22:27

The sale goes through okay, yeah. Maybe I'll pick this up this weekend. We'll see how I yeah.

Drew 22:32

I can definitely see how it it wouldn't be for everybody, but I think it might be for you. If you enjoyed Fallout, if you enjoy Obsidian Games, this is made by Deep Silver. I think it's incredibly well done. Cool. Now, uh setting video games aside for a minute, um, you are obviously a huge music person. I am not. A little bit. I am not, so I don't have favorite music from this year. Okay. If I did, you would just make fun of me.

Paul 22:59

I I've I wouldn't make fun. I mean what do I listen to? Like, come on. Like Yeah.

Drew 23:06

Yeah, but but but not only do you have music that you're passionate about and a genre that you're passionate about, you know you know a lot about it. I don't. I spent a lot of stuff. That's not it's not me, right? I like music. Music is good But I'm not passionate about it the way you are. So tell tell us a little bit about stuff that you like this year from music.

Paul 23:26

Uh there's four slash five albums this year that I really, really enjoyed. You know, my best album of the year uh is the Callus Dow Boys, I Don't Wanna See You In Heaven. It's just an absolute frickin' masterpiece. Alright, here we go.

Drew 23:41

We're gonna play we're gonna play who's gonna listen to the track.

Paul 23:47

Yeah, and I w and I would not recommend some of the others just because I mean uh Okay. It it's you know, what if if you want to, go ahead. But like Cal is now boys, I don't want to see you have an absolute masterpiece. Like so glad I got to see them live finally Uh they come anywhere close again in the future. I they're in the studio making another album. I will I will travel to see this band. It was so it was so fun. It like in there like a small band, so like I bought like my t-shirt from like the bass player and the violin player. Like, like it's just it's just that's how that's how they roll. Uh Second, uh, it's a band I discovered like last year, I think, and they have a new uh album. Uh Sfayth, the album is uh Labyrinthine. I think I mispronounced that horribly. They call themselves like Fairy Doom. It's more doomy. It's more sludgy. It's a mix of clean vocals. It's an all-female band. Uh They're just absolutely incredible. They are touring, but they're not coming close. At least not like in a time frame that's easy for me to travel, but it it's it's really good. If you're looking for something. Fayttooth. Fay Fay Tooth, yeah, yeah.

Drew 24:54

Fay tooth.

Paul 24:54

Fay tooth. Yeah, it's good. Huh. Yeah.

Drew 24:58

They have a lot of piercings.

Paul 24:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and honestly, as far as the motto goes, it's it's more pro like it is heavy. But like there's it's mostly clean vocals. Uh there is some, you know, there is some screams in there as well. But uh Give me one.

Drew 25:14

Give me give me one track. I gotta hear. I gotta hear.

Paul 25:16

Give me one track. What would be the best track? Hold on, let me open my Spotify. Oh hold on, that's not showing me What is the most popular out song on that album? Give me some. Oh, uh, real-time update. My daughter is not dying. They're giving her some antibiotics and cleaning it up. So good for her. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no one is gonna die. Fait tooth, labyrinth, lapathing. Uh you know what? Uh Do the second track, Death of Day.

Drew 25:48

Uh Death of Death of Death of Day.

Paul 25:52

Yep. Yep.

Drew 25:53

Okay. Alright. Here we go. Kicking it off now.

Paul 25:58

That's just like heavy bass, if I remember correctly.

Drew 26:00

A lot of yeah, some bass happening now. Okay, here comes the guitar. Okay, starting out a little slow.

Paul 26:07

Oh, it's it's it's yeah It's like it's inspired by like it's when I say doom metal, doom metal is usually very slow, like kind of just sludgy, like you're just like walking through a swamp. Like you know

Drew 26:21

Okay, this isn't this isn't terrible.

Paul 26:24

No, no, no, no. And and there will be some harsher, more extreme vocals in there, but they're they're always kind of like Like it's secondary to to to the cleans. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, hold on. You getting yeah.

Drew 26:38

I want to hear some vocals where 46 seconds in

Paul 26:43

Yeah. Like around the yeah. Yeah.

Drew 26:47

Nope. That was a fake out note.

Paul 26:49

I think it starts around like the minute mark or minute minute and a half. Yeah.

Drew 26:54

Nope. Minute two. We're not there.

Paul 26:56

Okay, hold on. Okay, hold on.

Drew 26:57

No.

Paul 26:57

Oh. Yeah, at a minute. I just went to the lyrics and clicked on it. It starts. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 27:05

Okay, I okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there.

Paul 27:07

Okay.

Drew 27:07

That's not bad. Yeah. That's not bad. Where where does the head where does the heavy stuff come in though? Like where does the heavy screaming come in?

Paul 27:13

Uh it's always very just like like there's multiple vocalists, so sometimes someone will be singing clean and there'll be like harsher vocals over top of that. Uh, so it's it's you know they do a mix. I would say they're primarily clean vocals, like 95% of it is clean. Uh The next album is all extreme vocals all the way down. Loner Shore came out with a new album, and it is called I Feel the Ever Black Festering Within Me. And it is great name. Great name. It is heavy. Warner Shore is one of the most popular metal bands out right now. Uh they're technically Deathcore. Uh Will Ramos for My Money is still the best extreme vocalist performing today. His vocals are just absolutely bonkers. Like you listen to him and you're like he has to be using distortion or something. Sometimes he does like layer his vocals, but like it's all him. Those noises are coming out of his face. It's very heavy. I would not recommend this be anyone's first metal band ever. I mean, it's more approachable than black metal, but Uh it's it's good. Uh they continue to knock out good stuff. I wish the vocals were a little higher up in the mix in this one, but uh it's still a really good album. They're coming to Sonic Temple, so I get to see them live. Uh And and last, another one of my favorite bands, a band called Face Yourself. They're also Deathcore. Uh they don't release full albums, they release like EPs. uh which are short shorter. Uh and this year they released two EPs. They're both really good. The first one is Martyr and the second one is Fury. Uh they're they're like Short, so like each song is like the longest song's maybe three minutes. Most of them are probably like under two. They're just short, brutal. Uh they're coming back to Columbus uh in May or March. They're opening up for the Browning. Uh I'm probably just gonna go to that show and see face yourself and walk right out the door. Uh but Okay. Yep. But it's it's good. So it was a good year for heavy metal. I mean, I probably could pick like a bunch of other band artists as well, but these are the my favorite ones of the year. Uh Yeah. Okay.

Drew 29:31

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I don't really have anything to add there just because like I it's not something I go out of my way to do. Um okay. So now let's talk about gadgets and other shit we played with this year. So you go first.

Paul 29:45

Why don't you go? Why don't you go? I just talked about

Drew 29:49

Bance for 30 for like 10 minutes. Yeah, so I would say that you know I've got a few and it's really hard to choose one. Uh and I am gonna cheat a little bit here. And one of these is actually an app, not necessarily a gadget.

Paul 30:04

Okay.

Drew 30:05

So the first one is is uh the 3M Peltor ComTac 6 Tactical Headset. Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at that. Tactical headset. Okay. We have had a great laugh about my tactical cosplay and my shooting competition gear. Ha ha ha. Yes. Yeah, Drew's a weirdo. This though, uh even though it says tactical headset, this is actually hear hearing uh hearing protection. Which makes yeah, you need that for yeah, 100%. Yeah, now in the past, typically what I do is I just wear earplugs. I have uh surefire earplugs. I'm not gonna link those. Um, they're relatively inexpensive. They're like 12 or 14 bucks. Uh they you can get different sizes and different things that fit in your ear. And that's typically what I roll with. Um a lot of people like the whole earmuff experience. Some people even double up, they'll do earplugs and a headset. Um now when I'm at the range by myself, um that's usually enough. If I'm just at the range with one other person, usually that's enough. But there's been a few occasions this year, especially when I've gone to competitions or I've gone to long-range uh shooting destinations where there's a lot of people. So a lot of lot of noise, a lot of stuff going on, and eat with with hearing protection on, you really gotta shout to get people's attention. Now, when it comes to hearing protection, there's a lot of different levels of protection. There's a lot of different features. Since time immemorial, like when I first got into shooting, It was all earmuffs and earplugs. That was it. That was your choice. And then as Bluetooth became more and more prevalent Um, companies started making Bluetooth-enabled headsets and they're really interesting. Uh for one, you could be Bluetooth to the headset and you could play music. So like if you were mowing the grass, for example. A lot of Lowe's headsets are rated the same as things for like hearing protection for shooting. Um, because it's, you know, rather than sharp loud noises, it's consistently loud noise or things like that. Uh but then what companies started doing is once they started embedding electronics into headsets, what they started to do was like active noise cancellation. And the whole idea behind that is, is you can put little microphones on the headset. And What you'll what you'll see this referred to is impulse. So, like let's say you and I are in a field and there and I have one of my guns. You and I can be talking and the headset microphone, like if you and I were both wearing active listening headsets, we could be talking to each other. The microphone would pick up our voices and amplify that so we wouldn't have to shout at each other over our hearing protection. And if in the process of me talking to you, I shoot the gun, the microphone senses the impulse. Filters out that noise from our conversation and allows us to still hear our surroundings without hearing the gunshot. Okay. So it's selective noise cancellation. Yeah. And and that has sort of become the norm for electronic headsets. And this particular headset is no different, except These headsets have something else too, and that is built-in wireless communication. So uh the reason that these are referred to as tactical headsets is that for military and security operations. You'll notice that the picture, if you go to that website, there is basically a microphone on this. And there's actually two microphones if you look really carefully. The first one is actually like a lead that comes off of one of the sides and goes in front of your mouth. The other one is on one of the ear cups. It's that little it's that little thing there. That is like the active listening piece that I just referred to. And then you have this communication device that can either be right in front of your mouth or you can put it off to the side. And in the and in the basic example here, there's also a down lead that comes off of that that you could plug into a radio. So if you are like a amateur radio operator for Example, and you wanted to have a headset that you could have in the field for shooting, but also have the ability to talk to people over UHF, VHF frequencies, that's what you can do. However, That's not what I bought because those are really expensive. There's one tier down from this, and it has what is called NIB or Natural Interaction Behavior Technology. Now What this is, is this is a turnkey uh near-field communication technology. Oh. So let's go back to that scenario where we're at the shooting range. There's a lot of sounds going off. Um and we're maybe Six or seven feet away from each other. You're on the firing line. I'm behind you spotting where you're shooting. Okay. Very, very common scenario. This is what me and my friend typically do. We take turns shooting and spotting, giving either corrections, pointers, things like that. The nice thing about this is that you know there's too much shooting and things going on. And even with the active listening technology, it's still hard to hear each other. The NIB is basically device-to-device communication. So either with push to talk or sensing when I'm talking, it transmits back and forth between the headset and will automatically transmit to any headset within a six-meter radius. Nice. So I bought one of these towards the end of the shooting season and I bought one from my buddy for his Christmas and birthday present. And we've taken them to the range. They're extremely comfortable. They're very lightweight. Uh the technology is really, really cool. Um it works really well. We we had them out there, you know, just testing it out and using it. I would say that this is one of the better investments I made. Typical good hearing protections anywhere from $60 to $80. These are significantly more than that. Um, so it's definitely a little bit more of an investment, but with as much shooting as I've done this year and the things that we want to keep doing, like it just kind of makes sense. To do that. So I want to say that of all the different things that I have sort of bought this year, this was one of my better ones. Now, the other one that I want to highlight here, and we've talked about it on the show before, feel free to go back and listen to it, is my travel router. Yep. I have fallen in love with this thing. I love taking this thing places. I still think it looks like a happy robot. It is a little happy robot. So this has made probably a half dozen business trips with me. it made it it made it back to and from Europe for us. So like it's great to be able to just go to a hotel room, plug this in to the wall, and then uh once you join the, you know, it joins the hotel Wi-Fi. Your phones, your computers, whatever, just keep joining this. So everywhere I go, I never have to join my computer to a hotel Wi-Fi. I never have to join my phone to a hotel Wi-Fi. This joins it. And then because I'm in the ubiquity ecosystem, my ubiquity router has built-in VPN protocols. WireGuard is one of them and this router supports WireGuard. So like you configure WireGuard on the router, you configure WireGuard at home. And anywhere I travel, I lit my workflow is literally plug this in, have it join the hotel Wi-Fi. uh have my phone join it and you can either configure the touch screen or a little switch on the side to turn on VPN and I'm VPN in my house. I get Plex. I you know my communications are a little more encrypted. It's not just you know over the air Wi-Fi anymore. Uh it's great. I mean, I've thrown it in my carry-on. I've thrown it in my travel bag. Um yeah, I I I think everybody should have one of these. If you i i i seriously considered getting you one for christmas, but I have another plan. Apparently. I do. I do. But that that was the other one. And then finally Sort of like runner-up app of the year is uh applied ballistics quantum. Quantum. Yes. So again Taking the shooting thing really, really serious this year and getting more and more involved with it, uh, a good ballistic calculator goes a long way. And this is considered to be the best. So what applied ballistics is, is they are a laboratory that does testing on all sorts of different ballistic projectiles. And they build up a database of ballistic coefficients and performance things. And they have developed this app called A B Quantum. You can download it on the App Store. There is a free version. And there are other like subscription-based options you can pay for. Now, at a glance, this is just another ballistic calculator, but it also gives you hit probabilities around a certain distance. It is really, really good out of the box, even though we still have to do some uh ballistic coefficient truing and things like that. Uh it allows you to store multiple rifles, multiple cartridges for those rifles. And it gives you just really, really good information. But what also really sets this apart is that it is an ecosystem of applications. So like if you're on the website for A B Quantum. And you sort of st you sort of scroll down, you can see that there are different levels of licensing, like ultralight, elite, and then professional and what they give you. Um there's not that much difference in the cost between elite and professional, so that's just what we buy. But if you scroll down, there's a section on that webpage that says platform details. Yeah. And there is the section that says device connectivity list. I want you to click that. Okay. All right. Now. Ooh, optics. They license this technology to a bunch of partners. Okay. So the way that you want this to work is that your ballistic calculator is this app. Now, that means that I can set up my rifle, I can be on the firing line, and if I know my distance to target, I can plug in all my numbers and I can get a ballistic solution. Right But if you have other devices, like a rangefinder, for example, that is A-B quantum powered. It can send data to the ballistic calculator.

Paul 40:20

Nice.

Drew 40:21

If you have an anometer that is A-B compatible, it can send weather and wind information to the ballistic calculator. So the whole idea is you build out your ecosystem and your workflow here to say, okay, I've got my kestrel enometer over here that's giving me wind speed and direction and humidity and temperature. I've got my lasier rangefinder binoculars that are giving me distance, elevation, and angle of attack. That all gets fed into my ballistic calculator with all my other constants. Now my ballistic calculation is even better. So that has been the big investment for me this year is uh going down this ecosystem. And I have other laser range finders and things that I've tried with varying degrees of success. Um, but this has been a really good experience. The app is super easy to use. Other like range finding apps that I have are super finicky. They're just not it's not good, they're just not good apps, but this is like a really, really good app that's really, really well designed So that's that's kind of my big three devices of the year, if you will. Yeah. What about you?

Paul 41:28

Uh, you know, my favorite device of the year has to be my Asus Rogue Xbox Ally X. The thing that you weren't sure you were gonna keep. Yeah, I love that thing so much. It is It is uh it is just an absolute delight to use, even though I've kind of just written off the whole Xbox full screen experience for now. It's fine. I just use Armory Crate. But like It's gotta it it's so ergonomic. It plays the games I want to play, you know. I mean it's not the most powerful PC in the world, but it does get the job done. It's just, it's it's an absolute frickin' delight. I love that thing. It's it's good. If you're looking to get into handheld gaming, you know, I I think it's And all there's the Legion Go S is also getting lots of uh reviews, but I think the ergonomics of uh the ROG Xbox L I X. But the price is gonna go up soon, so get on it. Uh because gestures at everything.

Drew 42:25

Yeah, no sh no shit. You know, you know what's really funny? So um a friend of mine was looking to build a computer and I'm like Oh now's not a good time.

Paul 42:33

Yeah.

Drew 42:34

So here, let's let's let's play a fun little game right now. Okay. So just for funsies, I was on the Micro Center website as I do. As one does. As one does. And one thing I really love about Micro Center. is they do a really good job of doing uh bundles. Okay. So like if I go to the Micro Center website right now, I can go to PC parts and I can go to AMD motherboard bundles. Because if I was going to build a system right now, I would build AMD. And they have a bunch of different options in here. They have they kind of give you like some base starter things. So, like, for example, there is an AMD Ryzen 7 900 X3D, widely considered to be like one of the best all-around, if not gaming CPUs you can buy. They're bundling that with a 32 with 32 gigs of RAM and an ACES and an ACES B650 motherboard. Is that the best motherboard in the world, the most powerful chipset? No, but if all you're gonna do is throw a graphics card in it, hey, it's totally fine. How much do you think? 800? 749, very good, very close.

Paul 43:33

Yeah, yeah.

Drew 43:34

Okay. Now one thing I really like about the Micro Center website is you can customize that bundle. So let's say we wanted to go a little bit bigger, right? So if I click if I click the button here to customize the bundle. And I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna take the 32 gigs of RAM to 64. Okay, so I I gotta like click through their thing here. So just bear with me. So I'm gonna say 64 gigs of RAM, which is we'll just do two 32 gig chips. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh I will not, I won't even pick the fastest. I won't even pick the fastest memory.

Paul 44:09

So it was 750.

Drew 44:11

It was seven fifty. I've doubled the RAM.

Paul 44:14

Doubled the RAM. Nine fifty? Higher?

Drew 44:21

Eleven hundred bucks. De almost fifteen hundred dollars.

Paul 44:26

Fuck.

Drew 44:27

Okay, now now hold on. Hold on. I got one more for you, okay?

Paul 44:29

Okay, okay.

Drew 44:30

Let's say that you wanted to go big mode and you wanted to go 128 gigs of RAM. Okay. Now now let's be clear. That's never been cheap, right? Like a like a 128 gig kit, if you can even find them, have has always been a little pricey. But I'm gonna I'm just gonna say Hey, I want to throw 128 gigs in this. The motherboard supports it. Uh, it's two 64 gig chips. Okay. Again, not picking the fastest memory on the list here. I'm just picking middle-of-the-road stuff. Is that going like 1600?

Paul 44:58

Well, what do you what do you think the total is? So before it was you said it was what 12? Is that what you said? 14. 14. Oh 14. Oh, oh, so it's gotta be 1800, 1800, $1,800. Two grand? $2,200.

Drew 45:16

Now, now hold on, right? I'm just gonna do one more thing, right? Like the motherboard here, like I said, if if it were me, it weren't, it wouldn't be the motherboard I would choose. Like I would go to uh like a full ATX motherboard and I would go with one of the more c uh common chipsets here. Uh so like a Asus uh let's see here actually i'll just do gigabyte like a gigabyte x eight x870 chipset um the total cost of that bundle now with an upgraded motherboard 9800 x3d 128 gigs of ram is 25 Almost $2,600, okay? Wow. Okay, now now keep keep that number in mind. No, no, no, no. Just just keep that number in mind for a second, okay? Now AMD also makes prosumer parts, right? So we're gonna we're gonna do the same exercise real quick. AMD motherboard bundles. This is very relevant to my interest, right? This is like this is like flirting with being a new Drew's computer corner, but just bear with me. So AMD Threadripper, that's their uh that's their high-end PC part, okay? They have a bundle on their website that is a Threadripper 9960X. Okay. Uh just to give you some stats real quick. That is a 24-core processor. Okay. It's like a four gigahertz processor or something like that, right? So it's it's pretty beefy. It is shipping with an AMD TRX50 motherboard. Now, those are not cheap, right? Those are designed to be motherboards that support Multiple, multiple high-end PCIe lanes, have a ton of like storage options, building connectors, all sorts of stuff, right? Really, really expensive motherboard. And it's bundled with um Again, not the most expensive. Okay. But the bundle has 128 gigs of RAM in it. And it's ECC RAM, right?

Paul 47:13

This is workstation.

Drew 47:14

This is workstation level stuff. How much do you think that bundle is?

Paul 47:17

$4,000.

Drew 47:19

No. $2,600. So so hear me out, right? Yeah. The comp the computer to my right. The computer to my right. Is an AMD 90 uh 985? I uh one of the higher end X3D 9800s, AM5, good Asus motherboard, 64 gigs of RAM. For what I could build that for right now, I could build a 128 gig thread ripper system. With with with ECC RAM for a workstation. Like am I gonna game on it?

Paul 47:55

No. Yeah.

Drew 47:56

But like if I it like I have been fucking around with AI here. Like I could drop like a good Blackwell GPU in that. I'd be pushing 10 grand. Right. But I would still have more cores, more memory, everything else than a regular desktop PC.

Paul 48:12

Yeah.

Drew 48:13

So I I was going through this exercise and I'm looking at that number like, am I going to build a new thread ripper system? Because the bundle. Do it for the content, Drew. I mean, here's the thing, right? If if I if I click that bundle and and like it starts to get a little pricier if you change the the if you go with like what a a slightly higher end motherboard, but I don't think I would need to for this application. The memory. I wish it would show me the bundle, like what you're saving. Yeah, the the memory the memory is showing for two for two grand, right? For two grand. But you're bundling and saving. It's crazy. It's absolutely fucking crazy.

Paul 49:00

Yeah, I read that like some of like the pre-built like gaming PC manufacturers are now just selling their computers without RAM. Basically, like it's your problem. Like Which is so fucking stupid.

Drew 49:13

Which is so fucking stupid, man. So fucking stupid. Anyway, I got a I got a big kick out of that. So yeah, that's that's awesome. Yeah, so I yeah, so um that was one of your other ones.

Paul 49:24

And then you got the Yeah, I mean the other one, it's it's my iPhone 17. Pro in the city.

Drew 49:32

It just unlocked when you showed it to me.

Paul 49:36

The live activity of the Blue Jackets game there. uh and some email sub some some AI summaries of some emails I got. Apparently, hey dudes having a sale. Okay, cool. But I love this thing. It's so fast it's I don't have the thermal problems and it's of a beautiful orange color. I love this thing. I'm so delighted. So it's so pretty. It's gonna be hard giving up an orange phone next year. Uh yeah. But we'll see.

Drew 49:59

We'll see. Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous of it. It does look pretty nice. I saw it when you had it here. Uh so that concludes our 2025 recap. Um Uh we're already at fifty goddamn minutes on this podcast. So two other little Yeah, why don't we do the next one and we'll leave my last one for next week that we'll Yeah. Yeah. So this uh the last thing we want to talk about, and this is more current events, is it was announced that Apple was basically gonna use Gemini to power Siri.

Paul 50:25

Mm-hmm.

Drew 50:25

Yep. End of an era. End of an era.

Paul 50:27

I mean I'm just proud of Apple for realizing that like we can't ship something as good as Gemini and just like Just like screw it, we'll just we'll just buy it. We can't build it, we'll buy it. I wanna know what I want to know how much money they're paying or like Like are they just trading the same billion dollars back and forth? Like here's a billion dollars Apple for Google being the default search and here's a billion dollars for Gemini. Like who knows? But uh the interesting part is it's still gonna run on Apple Cloud Compute. Uh like it is gonna be a tuned version of Gemini cut like built for like Apples. It's gonna power Their uh like the article on The Verge mentions like their foundation models. Those are the those are the models that like run on device. That like you can access as a developer. Uh, and it can optionally go to like Apple Cloud Computes, like it's that whole stack. They're basically just throwing away all their models for now and just like Gemini.

Drew 51:30

I I got I gotta say, um, you know, I I have I have fucked with local models and I have fucked with like pay-per-token models and things like that. things like that. And I think it's Gemini versus the world. Like I think Gemini's one of the better ones. That and Claude Code I think are the two that if I if you're gonna force me to use two of 'em As a general knowledge assistant, I think uh Gemini is really, really good. Um, and then Claude has been pretty good at helping me do some things locally too. What what are you are you still using Copilot or? Are you using Xcode?

Paul 52:03

Yeah, so I personally pay for an open AI subscription, and I've used that with Xcode. uh my company, they've uh we started out using like GitHub Copilot and all those models, but they've recently like started using Claude Code and it's like noticeably better. So that's what they've been using primarily. Um it's more expensive, but like even then for the price, like it's easy to justify like, okay, it's two like what 200 bucks a user a month, I think, for like the high end. And it does it does really good. And like it's easy to get $200 worth of productivity out of that thing. So like Oh yeah. Yeah.

Drew 52:40

It's like just like st standing up scaffolding of like a class or something. Yeah, it's great.

Paul 52:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 52:46

Yeah, I'm a b I'm I'm a sort I'm sort of a believer in that. Um it's interesting because um right now I'm on a quest to get a really, really good local chatbot running.

Paul 52:57

Okay.

Drew 52:57

Um and I'm just I'm just hamstrung with uh again, part of the reason I was looking at ThreadRipper systems is I'm just kinda hamstrung on resources. Because uh the video card in that system right now is only a twenty-four gig uh of video memory and then it only has sixty four gig of RAM. So even if I do some like GPU offloading, like some of the bigger like 96 billion token models are just it's it's just not gonna work. Yeah. So yeah, it's pretty good though. And like I said, my work, uh, I get a subscription to Cloud Code through my work. Um, I we have like every AI tool imaginable, uh, just because we like incorporate that into our platform. Uh so yeah, I get access to a lot of cool stuff. But yeah.

Paul 53:38

I I was at the uh like last month I was at like Gartner Infrastructure Operations Cloud Services Conference. Big big nerd. It's basically my job. And uh At breakfast, I usually just pick a random table and sit down and talk to somebody. And uh happen to sit by someone. Uh she worked for a company that builds data centers. Obviously, she's real busy. And she's like, yeah, like, but like they're actually having a hard enough time finding enough concrete to pour for these data centers. Because like Like they need like their their they these servers weigh more than other servers. So they can't just use uh Like they can't re-retrofit existing data centers because the servers are too heavy. So they have to build new ones. So they have to pour lots of concrete to support this stuff. And they're just yeah, it's like just this The stupid things AI is taking from all of us and include it's concrete. Yeah.

Drew 54:33

I mean, I personally think we're probably in a bubble at this point. Oh, it's gonna burst at some point. I think I think when it crashes, it's not gonna be pretty for everybody. Don't look at your 401k that day or your any investments. Just just leave. Just just ignore it. Yeah. I'm not looking, I'm not looking forward to that. But yeah.

Paul 54:51

I mean, I don't think LLMs are going anywhere, but like, yeah, at some point, like some of these it's gonna be some consolidation, some uh yeah. Okay.

Drew 55:00

Well, we'll bump we'll bump your next topic next week. I think that's a pretty good podcast to welcome us back to the world of recording. Yeah.

Paul 55:07

Uh I'll wrap it up. DoingTheirBest. com. You can find all of the show notes there. We're also on the YouTube. Search for us on YouTube. If you see the watch the video version of this podcast. And don't forget TikTok. Yeah, we're posting shorts to YouTube Shorts and TikTok. Apparently, like, I don't know, like each of my each of the videos I posted on YouTube Shorts has got 1200 views for some reason. So pretty good. Yeah. So uh but yeah we're we're we're we're everywhere you want to be and uh hey thanks for listening