I'm sure they're doing their best

Paul 00:00

Good evening, Drew.

Drew 00:02

Paul. It 's an end of an era today, buddy. What era is that? Destiny 2 is over.

Paul 00:14

I almost put that in the notes. I almost put that in the notes because I saw that today. Yeah, well it's not over. It's just it's dying.

Drew 00:25

It's i i I would argue that it's been dying for a while. Okay. This is just confirmation that Sony and everybody is just over it. So basically there was an announcement today that It's no longer gonna get any content. It's done. They're not gonna put any any more creative effort into it. And I would argue they haven't put Creative effort into it for at least a couple years now. Uh they said they are gonna keep the servers up and it's gonna be playable, but Like, why bother, right? And it's sad because I really there was a period where I played a lot of Destiny 2. I played it when it first came out. Same, same. I took a little break and then I came back to it after Forsaken and I loved Forsaken. Then I took another break and then I came back a little bit later and I played a shitload of it. Um so this this this sucks. I I I really underneath all the cruft and all the other live service bullshit they built into it was a really, really good shooting game. And uh have you tried marathon? I have. And that ain't it. Okay. Yeah, it's not for me. I mean the extraction I mean the the PvP V E part of it The PvE stuff is fun. Um but uh no, I could I could not get into Marathon. That that that wasn't it for me. Um but I I feel like this is a good segue that um Well yeah let's bump that up Yeah I um I made a concerted effort to play a Diablo 4

Paul 02:04

Okay. Okay. Okay. I s since uh for those of you uh we have we have a doc and the word playing is in quotes. So I'm not I'm I'm not expecting this to go well.

Drew 02:19

Um so after our last recording session and hearing you talk about how the skill trees were all redone and there's all this good stuff in the game happening, I was like, okay. I'm gonna go buy the least expensive edition of the expansion. Okay. Okay. And I'm gonna try Paladin. Now, for those of you that haven't listened to me talk about Diablo 4 before When I played it shortly after it came out, I played Barbarian. I did not understand, and I still do not understand how that class works. It's a little complicated. Yeah. The R sol

Paul 02:56

system is weird. Yeah.

Drew 02:57

It was a very inefficient soloing experience. I was not able to kill things fast enough. Um I was not able to kill things en masse easily. So I did not have a good time. And I and actually I think my barbarian got up to level 46, and that's just where I stopped. I'm like, this isn't fun anymore. I was dying way too much. I wasn't even playing on a super hard difficulty. I was playing on just a hard, I think. So I bought the expansion and my intention was to pick a paladin because I like the paladin class in the previous Diabos. and play through the entire campaign. So the original campaign. Okay. Okay. The first expansion that I completely skipped, which was I Vessel of Hatred. Vessel of Hatred. And then the new one. Uh apparently I misclicked because when I built my Paladin, it just threw me into the new campaign.

Paul 03:52

Oh yeah, you have that's the default. You have to yeah, yeah, yeah. Um it's kind of dumb, but

Drew 03:59

I played it on normal. I I I went online and I found a build and I was like, I'm just gonna follow this guide. I'm gonna play it. I'm gonna build, I'm gonna set up my action bar. And I'm not gonna worry about loot too much. I'm just gonna follow the leveling guide and I'm gonna do whatever. Yeah. Um my paladin and his hammers got through that got through the expansion in about 12 hours.

Paul 04:22

Yeah. It's the the the the expansions are never they're never very long. Like No. Yeah. Yeah. They're just quick little story bites. Yeah.

Drew 04:29

Yeah. And it was It was good. Like they gave me a nice recap of all the stuff that I never got to experience in the first one and then I guess what happened in the middle. Um And the reason that I have the word playing in quotes is that unlike the barbarian, uh, get faith, make hammers win It almost became like vampire survivors at one point where I'm just walking around and stuff's dying. Things are dying.

Paul 04:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Drew 04:56

Which I think is like The Diablo is what you're supposed to do, right? Like isn't that the point?

Paul 05:00

I mean blasting is the point, right? Like it's yeah, yeah. It's Going in there and just like, oh, there is a hundred enemies on the screen. God damn, that's looking at the title. I'm sure blasting is the point. Oh Anywho, yeah. My son also started playing Diablo 4. So So, okay.

Drew 05:24

Um, but now I'm at the point I I finish the expansion and I know that I have to like go back to previous content if I want to get a mount or if I want to unlock mercenaries and some of this other stuff. So that's kind of like the phase I'm in right now. Um But what I don't fully understand, and I've done a little bit of wiki reading and a little bit of research, is what is the thing that I do now? Normal is clearly too easy. I bumped it up to hard. I still wasn't Barely taking any damage and I bumped it up to just the next one which starts with a P.

Paul 05:56

Penn pentate? Pent pentinate, yeah. Yeah, pentinate, yeah.

Drew 05:59

Yeah. And I'm I'm now to the point where I have to use potions

Paul 06:03

Okay, okay, yeah, that that that's that's good. That's good. Yeah. Uh so if you want to continue to keep playing, uh so The there's one key activity that you need to keep in mind, and that is that that okay, the pit. The pit All right. What the pit will do, the pit basically starts as level one and goes up to like, I don't know, ridiculous level. But Those thresholds that I can't remember exactly what the thresholds are because they change them all the time, they essentially map to difficulty levels So you can run the pit and figure out like, am I ready for torment? Am I ready for torment? Because the torment, the torment difficulties is when you start getting like endgame gear. Right. Okay. You start getting mythics, m or ancestrials and possible mythic drops. And the higher you go in torment, the more likely you are to get those those styles of drops. So the pit is kind of your am I ready to do this thing. And then I would recommend, I would recommend the war plans are good because as you keep playing, it will introduce you to all the other endgame content, right? So it introduced you to uh uh Helltides , the Infernal Hordes, uh Carassed Undercity, uh Nightmare Dungeons, and then you also learn like When you get have you have you hit Paragon yet? Yes. Okay. Oh, I just dropped something. My bad. Cut that, cut that, cut that. This is the show. Okay. As you will get glyphs for your paragon board, the only place you can upgrade those glyphs is in the pit. That is it.

Drew 07:46

Okay, so that was gonna I I I came prepared tonight with questions. Okay. Because there is an insane amount of materials and activities. And it's just like, what do I do? And I thought War Plans was kind of it, because that's where I sort of like really started testing myself. And a lot of that stuff I can run solo. Nightmare Dungeons I really haven't done yet because I don't understand how to do them.

Paul 08:09

Nightmare Dungeons are just regular dungeons. that are a little bit harder. That's it. That's it. That's it.

Drew 08:14

But don't you need like a key or a trophy or something to go in?

Paul 08:16

So if you want to go to a specific dungeon, because each of the the you'll get keys and each of the keys have like certain things. Like this one will have more gems. And we'll have these type of enemies. But if you just do war plans, you don't have a key, it'll just send you to a random nightmare dungeon Right. Same thing with like you don't need a you don't need an infernal compass to do hordes if you're doing war plans, it'll send you to the basic one. Now if you want to go to like a higher difficulty or want certain rewards, then you wanna use your own and not let it automatically. Uh nightwear dungeons are really good for like crafting materials. Okay, so basically the loop is run the pit to figure out what difficulty you you can be at. Uh so each of your paragon boards, uh outside of the first one. Remember that you can you can add if you didn't realize this, you can add up to five different paragon boards. You start with one and you can add four more. Where do you get them? Uh so if on the board if you get your if basically if you you know you have a trail of things that you can get if you get to the edge of one of them it'll allow you to add another board onto there. Okay. On that space. All right. Each of those boards has two key things. It has a legendary node that gives you like a really good power. And it's got a in every board has a slot for a glyph And a glyph will do. This is the thing where I say just find a build guide because Paragon is so fucking complicated. Find one that you vaguely like. Whether you follow the loot or any of that stuff, just follow the paragon 'cause it'll tell you what to do and in what order. My build

Drew 09:52

my build page doesn't have anything for paragon.

Paul 09:54

So you what you might have to do is switch. So you may be running a leveling build. you have to find an end game build. I see. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. So the end game builds will have Paragon. And then the the glyphs fit into a glyphs glyphs socket and you as you level them up they get more powerful And the only place you can level up glyphs is the pit. So there is an incentive to run the pit anyway to get those glyphs. And the the higher level The higher level of the pit, the more reliable and frequent those glyph upgrades can be.

Drew 10:28

So Quick quick question about that. So I put a link to the leveling build that I'm or the the build that I'm using for my paladin, right? And I like that there's a little toggle on the skill tree that says leveling path. And it basically says at this level pick this. At level

Paul 10:43

so

Drew 10:43

we'll pick that How come it goes up to 84? I'm not getting skill points past 70.

Paul 10:48

Okay, so there will be in the seasonal progression, if you're playing a seasonal character, there will be ways to unlock skill points as part of the seasonal progression So you can get above your level and skill points by doing those things. Yeah, so this is a leveling build. Okay. So what you're gonna want to find is a paladin Endgame build.

Drew 11:12

Okay, verified builds, custom builds, leveling builds. Okay, so verified builds, endgame , uh class paladin. Arbiter hammered in endgame build guide. Okay. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Okay. So all right. So okay. So I really want to follow this.

Paul 11:35

Yeah, yeah. And like I said, if uh Whether or not you follow like trying to get those exact same pieces of gear, just being able to have someone who did the frickin' math for the fucking paragon board is is really helpful. Uh

Drew 11:51

Okay, so alright, sorry. This is probably super boring for everybody else, but like when I click on that build, there is starter, unique, and mythic. for the skill tree.

Paul 12:00

What's the difference? So that's basically going to be starter is going to be gear that you can find while you were leveling, right? They're just going to be normal, like level 800 gear. Uh the the second one is when you start getting ancestrals. Those are level eight fifty, I think. Okay. So they're a little bit better. Those can though m ancestrals have a chance to have a greater affix, which is one of those buffs on the gear that is higher than it normally can be. Also, a lot of times in that mid-tier, they start pulling in uniques. Uh Uniques are the there's there's two ways to get uniques. One, bosses. Bosses always have a chance to drop uniques, and there are certain bosses that drop certain uniques. So if you're fine to find if you're trying to get a particular unique, find a recent boss farming guide because they change shit around a lot. So make sure the boss uh has it Also, if you've been noticing, you may have been picking up uh like boss trophies in your in your inventory. It'd be like the crafting component. If you drop five of the God, this this I'm sure if people don't like Diablo, this is fucking insufferable.

Drew 13:20

Well, this is part of the reason I stay away, right? Like there 's a lot of depth here.

Paul 13:25

Yeah. So if you finish the Lord of Hatred, you've unlocked the Haradra Cube. Yep. If you put five of those five of the same boss boss trophies into the Herodra cube, it'll generate a unique that that boss could drop. Okay. So that's that so that that's that's and that's that tier. And then the last tier is mythics. Mythics are purple gear and they're the highest gear in the game. They're they're rare. In fact, I am pissed. I have not seen it. I've played this game a lot. I have yet to see a fucking mythic drop. Fuck you, Blizzard. Where's my fucking mythic? Uh Yeah, so that's you know the the ever never ending quest for better pants. So like run the pit to figure out what difficulty you should be on. Now granted I would say Even though you could do torment two, but if it's a little bit tough, just do Torment 1 to you get upgraded. Speed is more important than uh difficulty. Uh and then you just as you get gear that you like, uh, you know, use the occultist or in the combination of the occultist to in Herodra Cube to m like get your gear perfect. Like there's a one affix on there like Poison resistance. I don't fucking need that. You can go to the occultist and re-roll that one affix and get something else. Add, you know, add your gem slots to it at the jeweler, temper it. Which is basically adding one more affix onto it. If you're something, if it's a gear that you're really gonna like, then you want to masterwork it, which is also what the blacksmith is basically just increases the quality. uh which makes it means everything a little bit better. Once you get to level 25, it basically uh greatly enhances a random uh affix on that. gear and then the last thing I think hold on what is it is it called Transmogrify Diablo for Trns or Transfigure Yes. So then the the very last thing you do to a piece of gear is you go to the Haraja Cube and you transfigure it. It'll add one more really powerful affix to it. But then the gear cannot be changed. It's done. It's done. It's cooked. Okay. Right. So that's kind of the thing. Uh, you know The nice thing about war plans is not only are you doing end game activity, but after you finish all of that stuff, it also gives you a nice loot drop uh at the end, so it's a nice way to get gear or more likely and often not gear that you don't need that you just turn into crafting materials. Uh but Yeah, and then that's the game until you decide that you're done, and then you stop playing. And then you pick it up next season and do it all over again. Or at least that's what I do. All right. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Drew 16:15

Huh. Alright. What do I spend all my massive amounts of gold on?

Paul 16:19

Nothing. Nothing.

Drew 16:20

Okay. Nothing.

Paul 16:22

I mean, you can you like If you do like re-rolls or things like that, that can cost lots of gold. Crafting like very high-end gems costs lots of gold. But I have never gold has never been the bottleneck. It's always been other kind of crafting materials that's been the bottleneck. So Got it. And like I don't sell anything. I always Excuse me. Ooh. Uh you just dissemble it. Yeah. That's what I do too. For materials. Yeah, because gold is just like everywhere. Oh, and if you really do need gold, uh have you done like the Infernal Hordes at all? Yes. One of the chests is like turn all your embers into gold and you just get like a shit ton of gold for one run and you're like, I'm good for the next few weeks.

Drew 17:05

Thanks. Um Oh crap, what was I gonna ask you? Um I seem to remember that you could spend gold to like get potion slots and stuff. Is that not the thing that's

Paul 17:19

that's no longer there? Yeah Yeah, they change how potions work. You get a base of four. It always ha has like a percentage you're like they used to have to upgrade your potions and and stuff like that. That is gone. Okay. The only way to get more potion slots is to get a piece of gear that gives you more potion slots. I have seen that. Yeah. And then some gear will also give you like 33 % healing received, and that makes your healing potions more powerful, but yeah. Got it.

Drew 17:47

Okay. All right. I mean, look, I know I put playing in pr in in quotes, but like Paladin's fun. Like I I like it and I like that I'm now trying to figure out like what to do. And I'm just wondering, like, am I gonna have to group with people to make this efficient? Can I play it solo? The

Paul 18:05

only thing like there is there is some content, uh, the Dark Citadel that requires you to be in a party. Uh, the only thing the only activity where the Amount and quality of loot increases based on your party size is killing bosses. That's it. Everything else is It doesn't matter whether you're solo or or in a group, you're gonna get the same chances from

Drew 18:37

when you say killing bosses, you mean dungeons, right?

Paul 18:40

No, they're separate bosses layers. So you're gonna be collect you're gonna be collecting boss keys. Okay. So uh if you go on the map, they're the they're the thing that they're not dungeons, they're called layers. And they'll have like the little archway and they have like a little red tree thing in them. And each boss, uh but it yeah, there's like the the beast in the mountain, or heck, even like you can fight Lilith again if you want You go there, there's an itty bitty little dungeon I usually just run past everything. Get to the boss. Summon the boss. Kill the boss. Use a Boss a layer a boss layer key to open up the chest, get the loot, and you can just keep you can repeat that constantly if you want to keep farming that boss over and over.

Drew 19:22

But you need a key every time, right?

Paul 19:23

Yes. But keys are pretty plentiful. Like where do you find them? They just drop uh yeah. I don't think I've seen one yet. You might, you might, y'all would look. You probably have some. Okay. Yeah. All right. Mm-hmm. Cool. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep going with it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like if you and if you if you look at the seasonal progression, like it'll it'll gently nudge you to things. One of the seasonal progression would be like, hey, make kill any boss and open their chest with the Boski at this level difficulty.

Drew 19:52

The cap the capstone activity, right?

Paul 19:53

Yeah. And what not even not even the capstone, but like the actual like Tasks. The tasks. It'll kind of just gently nudge you to like, you should be fighting bosses now. Like right. And and the pr the you primarily fight bosses to get uniques. I mean, yeah Yeah. Uh Infernal Hordes for loot, nightmare dungeons for uh crafting materials, uh Caressed Under City when you have to. Uh and uh Helltides because they're fun and they give we give loot. And uh the pit to figure out push difficulty and upgrade glyphs. There you go.

Drew 20:32

Okay.

Paul 20:33

All right. See this is why I come to you. I would have never figured any of this out. Yeah. And war plans are great. Again, like if you're gonna do that end game activity, you might as well be doing a war plan Because at the end you get a nice nice drop of eight. So

Drew 20:45

yeah, and a lot of experience too.

Paul 20:47

Mm-hmm.

Drew 20:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 20:48

So

Drew 20:48

I'm finding that's a really good way to level up my mercenaries.

Paul 20:51

Yeah. Yeah. 100 %. And if you ever feel like uh rolling an alt but you don't want to level it, the trick is uh you like the tree of whispers and you get those caches. Do a bunch of tree of whispers, put the caches in your stash, go to your alt, open those stashes, and you'll be like level 60 and like I wonder I wonder if there was a way to like just start at level 70. Yeah. Like whisper caches and you open those with your all yeah, you sits ridiculous The the whisper cache basically like scales to the person who earns it but you can open it with another character and you just go

Drew 21:37

Just go up. But you still need to like beat the campaign to unlock the endgame stuff though, right?

Paul 21:41

Yeah. So once you beat the campaign you can just skip it. And you make a character, you can just say s go right to the endgame.

Drew 21:46

Oh, like you beat it on one character and then okay. And you're unlocked for the account. Yep. But you're still at level one. Yes.

Paul 21:53

So someone can carry you or you can do what you say. I got it. I got it. I got it. Okay. Very and then and like uh you have to do like when you hit level fifteen, I think it's where it is you get your like your class quest that unlocks stuff, you have to do that once per account. To unlock it. You'll still you'll still get it. You'll still get the quest, but you don't have to do it. You get the you automatically unlock the abilities. So like enchanting for sorcerers, the book of the dead for uh necromancers, the weird soul shards for warlocks and what I can't remember what the oh it's the oaths for Paladin. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Once you do that that uh class quest once, you don't have to do it again. Got it. Okay.

Drew 22:40

Alright, cool. That's enough. That's enough Diablo talk then. Yeah. Uh I want to hear about your experience at Sonic Temple, which is why we couldn't record it last week.

Paul 22:48

Yeah, I kind of just I'm I'm really bad I I have this like brain problem where like I know two dates are coming but I don't realize they're the same date and I'm like going through my calendar like oh should I never responded to this. I suck But yeah, I spent Thursday, last Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at Sonic Temple. Okay. Uh It was a good it was a good time. Just general thoughts. Uh they have that that company has no idea how to handle parking. in the amount of traffic that comes through. So they j they just they just don't. They don't. So they don't.

Drew 23:22

I my TikTok feed, which I get a lot of local Columbus content for some reason, it's mostly just cars crashing into buildings. Yeah. I get yeah, I see this. A lot of people were bitching about the traffic.

Paul 23:35

Yeah. Uh The only day that I really so this this is what happened. Thursday, I was excited. There was a band at 12 that I wanted to see. So I got, you know, I got to the par that they were gonna open up the They were opening up an hour early, so like they were open up at ten. Uh the first concert was at twelve. I figure, you know what, I'll just get there early. I'll go and attend, I'll go around to all the vendors and stuff, I'll get my locker. And that's what I did and stuff. So Monday or Thursday I didn't have any problem. Friday, on the other hand, with parking, there was another event. happening downtown on Friday. That was Columbus State's graduation. Oh. It was fucked, Drew. This is the day. I'll give you the sh I'll give you the short the short of it. Uh the the the people at Sonic Temple were very clear in saying if you want to get to parking, you have to get off in 17th and go west towards the the stadium. Well, that was absolutely fucked, and I could not get over on the seventeen. So I thought, you know what Columbus is a series of squares. I'll go up to Hudson and try to get in there. Yep. Well with the graduation and everything, they had literally closed everything down. Oh no. And after about three and a half hours, I gave up. You just went home. I went, I drove, I got back on the freeway, I went south, I had some lunch.

Drew 25:03

Oh, okay.

Paul 25:04

Okay. I'm like, screw it. I'm not I I the the bands that I missed weren't like must-see bands anyway. I would have liked to seen them, but I was like, you know what? I just fuck it. I'm tired of being in my car. I have to pee. I am hungry So I went and I got some lunch and I just had a nice leisurely lunch. And then by the time lunch was over, I was I was on the subreddit and they're like, yeah, like Columbus Strait graduation is over. Things are getting better. I got back in the car. It was still a little bit of traffic. Uh But I eventually got there. I got to see all the bands I wanted. And on Saturday and Sunday, I just left early And I sat in the car for like an hour and played my ROG Xbox L I X. So play a little Halls of Torment in my car, uh, listening to music playing Halls of Tor Halls of Torment, and then I just got in like, oh It's 1215, it's op or it's eleven fifteen, it's open now. I guess I'll go in. And I didn't have to wait in line. I just walked right in, got there. So that's what I did. I just kind of adjusted my schedule Okay. Uh it was a really it dude but the prices were fucking insane. Uh just absolutely everything was so expensive. Like beers were like twenty bucks. Like for a tall can, but like still A can a regular old can of soda was five dollars. Water was like seven, eight bucks. It was just absolutely ridiculous. But I'll I'll draw uh in the instance of time, I will I will keep this brief. I will give you No, don't be brief. I'll give you I'll give you three bands each day that I really enjoyed. How about that? Okay On Thursday, the very first band I saw was Necrogoblicon. They are a band who one of the singers dresses like a goblin. And that's their whole shtick. That's their whole shtick. Uh they were really fun. It was really good. Uh I would say the uh the other the next highlight for me was cattle decapitation. I got to see them again. Then they only had a short set. Still a really, really good show. And then the highlight of Thursday was Behemoth. Ah yes. Uh I m I'm I went with my friend Jerry. Uh we were like maybe three or four people back from the rail for Behemoth. That was just an absolutely amazing, amazing experience. Did you wear your battle jacket? I did not. It was too fucking hot for that shit. No, no, no. No. Well actually on Thursday and Friday wasn't so bad. I was in jeans those days, but I I didn't, yeah, I didn't want any extra extra weight. Uh I would say Behemoth was my favorite performance of the whole thing. Yeah. Not the best, but my favorite. Uh oh. Explain the difference there. Uh The band that was my favorite just absolute or the band that was the best, just they just killed it, just crushed it. But for me being that close, Behemoth being like one of my favorite bands and being that close, I just enjoyed that so much more. It was just Like it was for me, it was like great. And then what

Drew 28:13

what songs did they play or were you happy with the set or

Paul 28:16

Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was a good set. It was absolutely a good set. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Uh On Friday, uh I'm gonna I'm gonna my my three, Static X, uh got to see them and and the the dude wearing uh D are you aware what Static X does now that Wayne Static is dead? Okay. No. They got a new singer. And

Drew 28:39

I need to open this up.

Paul 28:39

So Static X. He so Static X was a new metal band in the 90s two thousand had Wayne Static, the guy with like the the black hair that stood straight up.

Drew 28:49

Yeah, I see him. He's got a mask on.

Paul 28:50

Yeah, so when after Wayne Static died, Static X continued. They got a new singer, and that person literally wears a a half Wayne static, half robot costume. And that's how that's how he goes.

Drew 29:05

That's what I'm looking at.

Paul 29:07

Yeah, so he's a tribute to to Wayne Static. He doesn't try to be Wayne Static. He's like, yeah, like Just it's just it's an absolute just tribute to to that particular artist and singer.

Drew 29:17

Yeah, he's got like a robot mask, it almost like wires of Stanic

Paul 29:20

hair. Instead of hair, 'cause Wayne Static had that hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he would do it, he would grow his hair and then he would take black spray paint. to keep it standing up. That's that's how Wayne Static did it. Uh but they were really good. I I haven't never I haven't got to see them with this particular singer, so that was good. Uh I didn't know

Drew 29:39

when Static died. When did Static

Paul 29:41

A while ago, yeah. Okay. Seven Dust I finally got to see Seven Dust. Uh-huh. They are so good, Drew. So good. Like the good crowd presence that get the crowd going, lots of lots of crowd surfers. Like it was just an excellent show. Uh Seven Dust. Okay. Seven Dust gets radio play, so you you probably have heard some of their songs before. But the highlight, the best performance of the show was Lorna Shore on Friday night.

Drew 30:14

That's the one you were really raving about when you first said you were gonna go.

Paul 30:17

Yes, yeah. So it was good? Will Ramos, the lead singer for my money, is the best extreme vocalist out there, period. I do not know how that man makes the noises that comes out of his face. It is it is absolutely bonkers. But they they had about an hour long set. They they crushed it. It just just banger after banger. They had good like Um like the they had a video playing behind them. It was really good. Like it was just absolutely

Drew 30:47

they're coming to Mansfield, Ohio in July.

Paul 30:50

Yeah, to incarceration, yeah, I think. Yeah. Saturday was my day that I was short because I spent so long time in the car. Honestly, Saturday was probably the worst day. I'm just gonna skip right. I'm just gonna pull one artist for this Marilyn Manson. Ha. So apparently. No, granted, Marilyn Manson is still a piece of shit. Let's just all put that aside. He's a piece of shit. Okay. Abusive, not good, whatever. Whatever you want to think. He's probably a piece of shit. I don't know him personally. I don't know him personally, but he's probably a piece of shit. But he's gotten clean. And let me tell you, a clean Marilyn Manson knows how to fuck put on a fucking show. Okay, do so. At at his heart, he is a performer. Okay. He was he knew exactly like he's got some new albums. He played played like one song from his new stuff, and then it was just banger after banger hit single after single The musicianship was really good. He had a really good stage presence. His voice sounded great. It he was he did a really, really good job. I really enjoyed that show. Now the downside of Saturday is during that time I hurt my back. Oh no. Yeah. Were you in a pit I was watched Pit a Jason a few times. Uh I do not know how I hurt my back, but actually the only thing that made it really feel good on Saturday was uh Saturday at Maryland Manson was a very active pit, lots of crowd surfers, and it turned out that motion of helping people off of the ground to crowd surf really helped my back. So when I yeah so when I left Saturday I was cautiously optimistic my back was feeling good. But Sunday came along and it was really, really hurting. So much that I actually left early I did not stay for Tool, which I've heard that I did not miss much. Apparently Maynard wasn't feeling it and he didn't play like any hard songs. It was all melodic stuff. So apparently I did not miss much. Okay. But I did leave. Uh but I will pull the thr the three the three best bands that I saw. First thing I saw on Sunday was Castle Rat Okay. Castle Red. Castle. Okay. So this is Castle Rat is not my style of metal. It is very like power metal, very melodic. But what Castle Rat is, is imagine your most dysfunctional DD party becomes a metal band. Okay? Okay. They're all dressed up in fantasy characters. They have a little story that they tell while they perform. There's battles with swords. Uh and it doesn't hurt that the lead singer isn't that is you know not hard to do. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that was Castle Rat. It was a short set, but it was people

Drew 33:55

with plague masks. Yeah.

Paul 33:56

Okay. Actually I'm gonna pull four in for Sunday. Uh I got to see Avatar again. Always good. Always always a good show. They were on the the main stage. In fact, that was Avatar was the only artist that I saw on the main no, no, one of two. One of two on the main stage. the big stage inside the actual soccer stadium. I finally got to see Amana Marth. Uh they s they sing Viking Viking all their songs are about Vikings. I got to join the row pit, which is basically you sit on your ass and pretend like you're rowing. Uh that was fun. Uh and and then the the the last big band that I saw Saturday Sunday was Lamb of God. I got to see them again. And they just f they 're always they're always good. Always good. Just consistently good. And uh yeah, that was And then my back hurt and then I went home. So

Drew 34:55

how is your back feeling now?

Paul 34:57

It's not a hundred percent, but it's much, much better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and actually what had happened was I was I w my back was kind of okay on Sunday, but then a pit opened up at Lamb of God. like right in front of me. Someone got pushed and everything kind of came back and I went like this with my hands and it all the weight hit my left hand or like it was my left side of my back that was hurting. And I and that happened. I'm like Oh no. Oh no. This is bad. This is real bad. Uh and then I could I we I sat and ate for a bit and tried to watch the mother band and I was like, I just I just can't do it. So I left. But man, getting old sucks. Walking back to the car sucks. But yeah, it was it was a good time, so lots of great bands. Uh again, it was just way too fucking expensive. The weather held out, only got rained on just a very little bit on s on uh Saturday. Uh not enough to really complain about. So It was a little warm, but I'll take warm over wet, so uh that's another good title. Uh me

Drew 36:02

let me noodle on that one. We can make we can make that one into something I think.

Paul 36:06

Yeah.

Drew 36:07

Okay Uh good man. I I mean I w when you reminded me I was like, you know what, I you did mention you were going to that. I mean I I know that's your thing, so I'm glad you had a good time. It was good. Now uh before we get off this topic though, what's your next concert?

Paul 36:23

Uh oh, okay. This is fun. Uh I have I have I only have tickets for two upcoming shows, and one of them may surprise you. Uh

Drew 36:34

Okay

Paul 36:37

Uh I am going to see Fayetooth at the end of August. They call themselves Fairy Doom. Uh so it's more slower, more sludgy. Okay. And I just bought a pair of tickets. In fact, I bought them yesterday. No, Tuesday, Tuesday night. A pair of tickets for me and my daughter to go see the Smashing Pumpkins when they come back come in town.

Drew 37:02

Oh, where are they playing?

Paul 37:04

Uh, the shot. Yeah, well buy a ticket. They're on sale now. Yeah. What they are doing is it's like the 30 or 35th anniversary of Melancholy and Infinite Sadness. Yeah. So what they're saying is the concert's two sets. The first is a tribute to Mer Melancholy and Infinite Sadness. And then the second set is the rest of their disog discography. So That's in September. Mm-hmm.

Drew 37:33

Let me see. Let's see what tickets are going for.

Paul 37:36

Yeah. I the tickets I got so I I Managed to get on in the Verizon presale, so I actually got them like a day early. Uh I think where are your seats? I am in section 123 row L.

Drew 37:55

Okay, so you're you're to the right of you're to the stage left. Wow, those are expensive.

Paul 38:03

Yeah, I think we ended up spent our tickets like with fees were about two hundred bucks a piece. But I mean that's Or

Drew 38:12

Selena's Cove experience.

Paul 38:13

Yeah, you can get all kinds of like upgrades and shit, and my daughter's like, no, I just want to go see them. So Uh which the Smashing Pumpkins are her favorite band and I enjoyed them very much when I was her age as well. So it's gonna be a nice band.

Drew 38:27

I liked I you know, I wasn't super into music. Um until like my late teenage years, but I was a Smashing Pumpkins fan.

Paul 38:35

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not familiar with like their most recent stuff, so I might have to dig d dive back in, but I pretty much dropped out after Adore, I believe, uh, which is the album after melancholy. Uh but

Drew 38:49

I'll see. I'll see if Mandy wants to go to that.

Paul 38:52

Yeah, so yeah. My daughter and I are going to that. That's in September, I believe, so. Huh. Yeah. Okay.

Drew 38:59

Very cool man. Well I'm glad you had a good time, and I'm glad you didn't like die or like didn't

Paul 39:04

die. Didn't die not die.

Drew 39:07

Alright. So um Paul, I'm too scared to develop a drug habit at my age.

Paul 39:15

Fair, fair.

Drew 39:17

Um, so I'm always looking for new ways to occupy my time and keep my mind engaged. Um now I'm a man of many peculiar and expensive hobbies, as you know. Um and I still do those things. Um but I'm always looking for something new and exciting. So When I bought my 3D printer, one of my things was I really want to make something on this that is interesting. And uh something that I can make that is durable and not necessarily resellable, but something that I could make and personalize and give as gifts. Okay. So what I've been doing over like the past month is I have been trying to make molds. Okay. Now, I want you to imagine a cube. Okay. Okay, just imagine imagine a cube, like Go yeah, okay, yeah, there you go. That's a cube. Yep, that's a cube. That's very cubish. For those of you who are listening, it's a Rubik's cube. Yeah, so hold hold that up to the camera for a second, right? So I could 3D print that. Yeah. Right? I could 3D print a cube. But I'm beholden to you can put the cube down. Um I'm beholden to the materials that I print the cube on. And they're plastic. Yes. Um so for example, if I wanted to make that a paperweight I would want to make it out of something heavier. Heavy. Yeah. Okay. Metal, stone, something like that. So the idea is you print something on your 3D printer. Okay. And then you build a bigger cube. Okay. Okay. That you seal up with hot glue, painter 's tape, clips, something. You set the smaller cube in the bigger cube, and then you mix yourself up some silicone rubber. Okay. Okay. So for those of you that don't know, like you can go to like any art supply store, you can go to Beesbo's place and you could buy What is essentially a two-part silicone mix where you have a base and an accelerant. You mix them one for one. You kind of sort around a little bit, right? You try to get all the bubbles out of it. And that is who hmm. Bubbles.

Paul 41:42

Are bubbles a problem, Drew?

Drew 41:43

Bubbles are a problem because you want to make sure that it's a uniform consistency. So what you're doing is you're pouring that in there, and it forms around the smaller cube. And after it finishes mixing, it turns into solid rubber Okay. That you can then like peel off of the other cube, and you are left with a form that you could then make cubes. You could make cubes out of other things. Okay. Now that is the simplest example. Okay. Okay. Now, when you're working in 3D space What do you do about negative space? What if you wanted a hole in that cube?

Paul 42:28

I don't know. How would you do that, Drew?

Drew 42:33

Spurts my brain a little bit. So what you need to do is you need to print out the shape that you ultimately want to have. And then you need to print out other pieces of a contraption that can like insert another piece inside of that and hold it there. So that if you're pouring silicone rubber into it, it forms around the shape plus the cutout, leaving a space for you to then make something else out of, right? Suffice to say, what I have been making are candles. Oh wow Okay, so for those of you who can't see, uh, what this is, is what I did is I printed this bowl shape in my 3D printer. Okay? Uh-huh. Right? I then built a form around it. So basically it's like kind of like a cylinder inside of another cylinder where this sits at the bottom. And I actually have to put a screw through the bottom, because you know what plastic loves to do in silicone? Float. Float. Okay. So you have to put it put a screw through the bottom. I'm learning things. Yeah. Right? And then you have to put like on top of the cylinder, you need to print like a smaller insert that goes inside of here. So like when you're when you're pouring in the silicone mold You're basically pouring everything so that this shape is what you're pouring the next casting material into. Okay. Okay. So a lot of trial and error. And I can also do words. Right? I can do words, right, that are indented into that, into the mold.

Paul 44:15

Okay.

Drew 44:16

So then you so that took like two weeks of making a big ol' mess because uh Uh silicone is thicker than like your silicone mix is thicker than water, but any small crevice or crack in your form Uh life life uh finds a way, as they say. That goop that goop goes everywhere. Now the good news is once it's dry, it's really easy to peel off of stuff. Uh but it is sticky. Okay. Uh so that took about two solid weeks worth of fucking her out. Now I have a silicone mold. So the question is, what do I make this out of? Now this. Is a stone like material. Now I have experimented with different materials. Okay. I originally like I I was being served content where what people like to do is you find like a very, very coarse cement mix and you add some aggregate to it you kind of dice it up and you can add pigments of like iron oxide to it and everything to basically make this out of concrete Um, I experimented with that, but I did not have a good time for two main reasons. One, I tried several different recipes to get the right consistency. I could not get a good smooth finish and even the ones that I did, concrete evanescences. If you've ever been in a basement of a house with concrete block, like cinder block, you know how that white dust kind of forms on it?

Paul 45:54

Yeah

Drew 45:54

Yeah. That's what that is, right? As the f because like concrete takes a really long time to to cure. Or cement takes a long time to cure, right? Concrete is a ingredient in cement, one or the other. But as it but as it dries out, that stuff sort of like evaporates out of it. So like I would have to like make it and then like brush it off a bunch of times until it was like eventually like all four.

Paul 46:20

completely cure so it stops doing that. So yeah. Yeah. Which a l yeah

Drew 46:24

a lot more. Now you can get you can get incredible detail with it with the right VIX, but I was not successful with that. So what I found after doing some research was this. It is a compound called Jasmineite

Paul 46:42

Jasmineite. Yep.

Drew 46:45

So uh if you go to that website and you go to products, you're gonna want to go to products and then AC100.

Paul 46:54

Okay. Okay. Okay. Big big old tub.

Drew 46:59

Water-based eco

Paul 47:00

resin.

Drew 47:01

So it's technically a resin Okay. But it doesn't feel plastically like resin. It feels like stone. Okay. So it's a two-part mix. You buy you buy the liquid and then you buy what's called the base. And it's not very expensive. Like you can get a kilogram of the base and four hundred grams of the liquid by volume. For about fifteen bucks. Oh, that's yeah, that's not bad at all. Okay. Now you need a lot of it. So like to make one of these I need about 50 grams of liquid and the ratio is two and a half to one. So you need 40 grams of The base liquid and then you need uh 80 and then yeah, a hundred grams of yep, yeah, your math is good

Paul 47:50

I do a lot of coffee ratio, so that kind of math goes pretty quick.

Drew 47:53

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm speaking your language. So then you mix all that up. And um you can add dyes to it. And like the dyes are where this stuff gets expensive. If you buy like a little jar of dye, it is like 30 bucks. But you only need like one or two drops to color. So like for example, I made this one red for Databricks. Oh wow, that's really red too. Very red. Very red. Very red. But like Databricks red. See Databricks logo. Yeah, I was gonna say

Paul 48:20

that's a Databricks logo on there, isn't it? Yeah.

Drew 48:22

Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I give and I give and I give. They can let me have this one. Yeah. So anyway. Um Yeah, so like you that's the stuff you can do, right? Okay. Um so then like then what I had to do is figure out like okay, I want to try to perfect this because like it took a couple like fucking around to like get it and everything. Um then it became like you know perfecting the ratio to get the right amount so you're not wasting material, uh finding out the right color dye mix and how many drops and you know what color do you want this to be. Um but to take a quick deviation, like again, removing bubbles is key because what you don't want is you don't want to take it out of your mold and figure out that you had like a little air pocket right here. There's a big divot in it.

Paul 49:14

Right. Oh yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Drew 49:17

So that's when I went and bought a vacuum chamber. Uh

Paul 49:24

okay. Uh uh that that's one way of doing it, yeah. Yeah. So okay. I mean we do like we do like our gear. We do. Oh So

Drew 49:36

how big is the vacuum chamber? Um pulling it up right now. Okay, okay. So what I bought, oh come on, stupid Amazon. So I don't I've only used this for the Jesmondite mix once, but I typically do this when I'm making a new mold. So this is the Bacco Eng three gallon tempered glass vacuum chamber.

Paul 50:02

It's not as expensive as I thought it was gonna be.

Drew 50:04

Uh I cheaped out on this because they can be a lot more. Okay. But this holds three gallons and like you don't put the you don't put the material directly in it. You put the you put the material in something, then you set it in there, then you hook up the pump that takes oil. uh in the hose and you close the valves and you turn it on and you basically watch the material kind of rise up so you kinda have to like off on off On. Off. On. Okay. Right. Because you don't want it to overflow. Because what you're what it's basically doing is it's like sucking all the air out of it, but also pulling it out of whatever you have it in. Yeah.

Paul 50:39

Yeah.

Drew 50:40

Um not gonna lie, it's a little scary. Um it's not a ton of pressure, but like when I initially hooked it up, I was like, I should probably go get some goggles. Yeah. Yeah. I

Paul 50:52

can 't yeah. Things under pressure can explode.

Drew 50:56

Yeah. And like that lid, by the way, does not clamp onto that sil onto that tub.

Paul 51:01

It just sits there. So I guess it uses the vacuum itself to keep keep on.

Drew 51:07

Yes. That yellow, or sorry, that orange ring around it is like a giant gasket that just kind of sits on top of that thing. So like if you ever ding that thing or like chip it, you're you're done. You're fucked. You're done. You're never going to use it again. Yeah. So yeah, I I ended up getting one of those to sort of do that work. Okay, so how how do you pronounce this brand name, Bacon? Baconj. Baconj. Bacon Baconang Bacon and eggs. I don't know. Like Yeah. A decent review and wasn't gonna cost me an arm out of leg because I wasn't sure how much I was gonna use it and

Paul 51:48

how much noise does that pump make

Drew 51:50

Not a lot.

Paul 51:51

Okay.

Drew 51:52

Yeah. Because I here's the thing. I'm only really taking it up. It's it's just like you turn it on a little bit, you let some air bubble up, you turn it off, you let it go back down. Turn it up on and then like when you when it's not rising and falling anymore, you're done. So then you pull it out, then you pull it out and you have to pour it like really slowly to not introduce more error whenever you're pouring it into the mold. So it's a little bit of a A little bit of a skill issue, right? Like you kind of have to like figure it out. Okay. Okay. Okay. So now I've got I've got this, right? I could sand this. I could paint this if I want to. Um you can add like matte or glossy finishing stuff to it like this has like a matte finish on it so yeah this is the natural color like if you don't do any coloring it's kind of like an off-white which kind of looks decent right

Paul 52:44

looks nice yeah

Drew 52:45

So then I was like ,

Paul 52:47

really sharp though, I have to admit. Like that looks real freaking sharp.

Drew 52:49

Yeah. I made some I made some gray ones today that I'm waiting to wait to harden it up back there. And by the way, this Jesmite stuff sets really fast. Like You only get like twenty minutes of working time with it and then it starts to set up. Oh wow. Um but the curing time is only like three hours Okay. So like I can yank it out of that mold and start working on it. Um I did buy a respirator uh because I do not want resin in my lungs. Um good call. Especially if I'm sanding it, right?

Paul 53:17

So I have a

Drew 53:17

I have a little respirator in there too, so that was an expensive thing. So then it became time to it's time to make this a candle.

Paul 53:25

Okay. Yeah. And I 'm I assume candles are pretty much a solved problem here in year of our Lord twenty twenty twenty six. Or am I wrong?

Drew 53:34

No, you're not wrong. Um, but you just have to get the right material. So I'm I'm happy to announce that I'm a soy boy.

Paul 53:42

Soy can. Okay.

Drew 53:43

Yep. Yep.

Paul 53:44

Freedom soywax. Yep.

Drew 53:47

Yep, and uh I just needed to buy something to melt it in. Um so what I ended up getting is the Ven Pau candle candle wax melter I love these names. Uh-huh. Venpal candle wax melter with pore spout candle making kit for adult beginners. 1. 5 liter large capacity, comma for making candles and soaps. Comma Kid includes wax melting pot and stirring spoon. It's a lot of things. A lot of comma slices in there in that that title. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so you throw your wax beads in that, you turn it on, you melt it. Um I bought some wicks. You're supposed to soak the wicks in the wax for a certain amount of time. Uh and then um I'm not making scented candles. I'm never gonna make a scented candle. Scented candles are stupid. Okay. Um just live in your house with this natural smell, you fucking jerk.

Paul 54:47

The amount of Senate candles in this house, Drew, would would probably infuriate you. Yeah, probably. So many.

Drew 54:52

So many. So what I like about this is it dries just white. Right. So it's just a nice white contrast, like that's all I wanted.

Paul 55:00

Uh-huh.

Drew 55:01

Yep. So you throw basically I scoop out some beads, throw it in the wax melter, let it melt, pour it in there, and then like the wicks that I'm using are like these little wood wicks. Yeah. And what you can't see, because this is opaque, is there's like a little metal clamp in there that it sits in. So like after you pour the wax, but before it sets up, you just kind of set that in there. And because it's metal, it sinks, and then it just kind of forms up around it. So that is uh that's what I've been up to. While you're enjoying concerts, I'm over here inhaling resin and making candles. Making candles. Making candles.

Paul 55:36

I never would have guessed candle making. to be your new hobby, Drew.

Drew 55:41

I mean, look, man, work is tough and I need something to help me just unplug for a little bit and Now that I have the process down, I can go back to my workbench. I can put on my PPE. I can mix up some stuff. Pour it into my molds that I have made. I've got like four different molds that I've made out of silicone and I can make some of these, let them set up, come down the next morning, take them out. um sand them down, uh put a put a clear you know, put the finishing thing on it if I want it, and then melt some wax and let them set up for a little while. And you know, these are these are cool gifts. So like if somebody wanted one with like their logo, for example, I could be like, Yeah, I could do that. That's cool. You know, it it would probably take me a couple days to get the mold, but once I have the mold, I can start Crankin' out candles. That's awesome. Yeah, so that's what I've been up to, buddy. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah All right. That's a show. That's a show. That is a show.

Paul 56:39

Welcome back. I'm so glad we're back. Yeah. Wow. Uh yeah, you know what I'm gonna say. Doingtheirbest. com. You can find all the show notes, the video version of the podcast And hey, thanks for listening