This is going to be a quick newsletter, because March has been kind of rough. In addition to my day job gearing up for busy season again, I keep having to backtrack on the Diner Punk camp rules to keep them from getting too complicated while still making them work for flavor and story-generation potential.

I’ve been periodically running the working draft of the rulebook trough LM notebook’s podcast, video, and slideshow generators as sort of a “tone check.” I figure if the AI is spotlight the things I consider important, I’m on the right track. Since the draft is getting more complete, a couple of them are actually complete enough to share. There’s a video below. If you want a deeper dive, I’ve uploaded one of the pocasts here.

Media
I’m still watching Orphan Black, but I’ve also been re-watching Community (again) and Freak Brothers. Freak Brothers is kind of a weird thing (and not just because it’s a Tubi original or because it’s based on an underground comic). The Freak Brothers are voiced by Pete Davidson (Phineas), Woody Harellson (Franklin), and John Goodman (Fat Freddy). Tiffany Haddish does the voice of Fat Freddy’s Cat. Weirdest of all, the show was developed by Courtney Solomon, who I know as the guy responsible for the shitty 90s D&D movie.

I’ve also watched several movies that I don’t have much to say about: Upgrade, Iron Sky, Space Sweepers, and Bottoms. They’re all a good way to waste time, but not anything to go out of your way for. I also watched two that were surprising:

The Lobster: I avoided this for a long time because from what I’d heard, I was pretty sure it would be either the kind of weird, absurd movie I love or the kind of pretentious “smelling its own farts” shit I hate. Turns out it was neither. It was just incredibly dull and somehow managed to get really stiff, awkward performances out of people who I know for a fact can act.

Sisu: Holy Shit. I have never seen a movie with such absurdly unrealistic action sequences with such such a “gritty realism” tone. It’s pretty gory and completely over-the-top, but I highly recommend it.

That’s all I got for now. Hopefully my brain will be clearer next month.

TYTYVM,

Steve