Tag: television

You can’t spell METALHEAD without ATL

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fox Atlanta: robot dogs deployed in Castleberry Hill to deter criminal activity

Among my favorite episodes of Black Mirror, METALHEAD is among the tops.  The cinematography, the atmosphere, the clever black and white presentation, but most importantly the plot of sentient evil robot dogs that were absolutely relentless killers of humanity was intriguing as it was terrifying.

Needless to say, if people didn’t have fear of the idea of robotic dogs before watching METALHEAD, they probably will afterward.

And in spite of the oft-utilized plot of robots achieving sentience and then turning on their creators in various books, shows, films and other media, humanity continues to insist that such is just fiction, and continues to solder forward building robots and artificial intelligence, all in the name of fucking themselves in a different manner. 

Out in like Boston, we’ve got robot dogs the size of deer running around already, and they’ve made robots that can basically do ninja warrior courses and moonsaults already.  And they’ve already shown glimpses of hurting humans, with one classic clip of a robot kicking a grown man in the nuggets.

Anyway, apparently in a neighborhood in Downtown Atlanta, they’ve decided to play with fire, and have deployed robot dogs to run security at an apartment complex.  In a way, I get it, Castleberry Hill is a rooouuugh part of town that looks nice in the daytime, but is a pretty statistically high-crime zone once the sun goes down.  And if humans have proven ineffective at providing security solutions in the neighborhood throughout the years, may as well seek alternate options, even if it meant unleashing potentially lethal-when-they’re-activated robot dogs to keep an eye out on the streets.

For the time being, they don’t have the firepower that Metalhead dogs do, and they’re probably not (yet) programmed to do whatever is necessary in order to snuff out human life, like hijacking cars and equipping themselves with kitchen cutlery, but one of two things are going to happen:

  1. Their cameras and surveillance capabilities will do a moderately decent job of deterring criminals, encouraging others throughout Atlanta to get on board with moar robot dogs
  2. Those criminals who are not deterred by robot dogs will open fire on, capture and hack, harm, or hijack them, leading to the manufacturer of these robot dogs to evolve and grow them into more closer to Metalhead dogs, with weapons, defensive capabilities, which could just as easily be construed as offensive capabilities, like being able to hijack cars and equipping themselves with kitchen cutlery, which will then encourage people in Atlanta to get moar robot dogs

What would be cool if they had now, is if like the Metalhead dogs, they had the ability to stick trackers onto crooks, with those little explosives with tracking shrapnel in them, so they could run up to criminals, pop a tracker bomb, and much like Metalhead dogs, get them embedded into perps to where they have no choice but to painfully cut them out or be absolutely boned as far as being able to be hunted down.  Could probably lead to some impressive busts when low-tier perps lead the fuzz back to their superiors.

Ultimately, it becomes this cycle of robot dogs coming, crooks harming them, until we get to #1, and moar and moar of these fucking robot dogs are unleashed all over Atlanta, all in the name of safety and security.  But really we’re all signing our own death warrants because once the signal from SkyNet is broadcast out, and all the robots dogs go all Terminator on humanity, we’re all fucked, and it starts in Atlanta.

Is there a more perfect show than Batman the Animated Series?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is more of a rhetorical question because the answer is no, there really isn’t.  Obviously this is subject to personal preference, but I can’t imagine that I’m the only one out there who has this particular opinion.

I had finished watching WWE Elimination Chamber, and it was a pretty mediocre show overall; although the men’s and women’s chamber matches had outcomes that I didn’t get right, the Becky vs. AJ and the Balor vs. Punk matches were very obviously predictable.  Danhausen being the mystery crate reveal made me feel like the whole buildup is this generation’s Gobbledy Gooker, but probably more accurately the WWE’s need for a wacky character they can push towards the younger audiences and kids to help move merch and gain wider appeal.

But the overall feeling I had once the show was over was general disappointment and apathy, but mostly disappointment that mythical wife had actually paid real money for ESPN Unlimited so that I could watch PLEs, and it just so happens that the first one I come across is a relative clunker.  I think it might be a safe bet that once Wrestlemania passes, to pull the plug on the service since we already have like four other services we’re subscribed to.

Anyway, seeing as how the night wasn’t quite too late even though I would benefit from getting more sleep than I do on the regular, I felt like I didn’t want to end my television watching experience with an underwhelming wrestling show, so I switched to HBO Max where I knew that they had the entire library of Batman the Animated Series, and where I’d been watching an episode here or there, because it was perfect in the sense that it was high quality content that I’d already seen a million times and could multitask during, and the episodes are just 22 minutes, which means they’re no major time commitment.

It was while watching the episode of Clayface’s debut, it dawned on me that the reason why I seem to feel that Batman TAS has become somewhat of a default fallback, is because of what I just said, that it was the perfect show.  Not just for the aforementioned reasons, but holistically, the show is just perfect, in just about every other way as well.

Art direction, execution, writing, music, an entry of DC comics storytelling, light years ahead of its time, parading around as a kid’s show.  Believe me, I have seen every single episode of the show, and I’m having a really difficult time at thinking of any episodes that are actual 100% clunkers, with no redeemable quality to them, and by that criteria, I can’t say there are really any.  Sure, there are some episodes that I may want to skim or possibly skip, like the one where Batman is gassed by the Penguin, and he has to be saved by some kids, but by and large, I anticipate myself going to really enjoy the steady, gradual and methodical rewatch of Batman TAS with an episode or two every now and then.

And anyone who knows me knows that I almost never rewatch anything, because there’s so much content out in the world, lots of which I want to watch, that I very seldom go back and rewatch anything, because that time could be spent imbibing on something I haven’t seen before.

But Batman TAS?  It’s perfect in just about every subjective and measurable metric, and the most important thing is that it’s extraordinary ability to chase any shitty example of viewing media and bring me back believing that there’s good television out there, and that there’s really no bad time to catch an episode of the TAS.

I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently watched All Her Fault, and to cut to the chase, I thought it was pretty good; but I could have one massive major fucking gripe about the show, it had nothing to do with the story, the acting, or any plot critiques, but the fact that the show was filmed and presented with a low-contrast filter that basically made the show nigh impossible at times, or at least, actually impossible to see what the fuck was going on at times.

The above image might be slightly exaggerated, but it illustrates what many scenes throughout the show felt like when watching them.  The contrast was so busted up that there are countless scenes where you’re seeing moving silhouettes of people, and completely missing out on all sorts of bodily acting, facial expressions or reactions, and more than once, I found myself trying to tinker with my hardware’s settings, to see if it was something wrong with my configuration, only to find out that it wasn’t.

A cursory Google search revealed that I was not the only person who came to this revelation, and it’s comforting to see that many others endured and felt the same things I did.  As good as I thought the series was, I think it would’ve been better had viewers been able to fucking see shit, especially when there’s a lot of emotionally charged scenarios where it would’ve been helpful to see expressions and reactions to dialogue.

But other than the visual flaws, the story, plot and acting were all high quality, and I thought the series was solid from a storytelling standpoint.  It was almost laughable at just how lily white the cast and the scenarios were, and there’s something to be said about how fast affluent white people are capable of unraveling, and the types of demons that they all must be hiding in their closets, based on just how fast shit hit the fan with most of the characters in the series.

The point remains, you have a whole bunch of rich white people dealing with problems that stem with miscommunications with their nannies* and how fast they turn on each other when heat starts escalating, and everyone is driving around in Teslas, Rivians, Audis and BMWs throughout the Northside Chicago suburbs, and there are times where it truly feels really peak white people.

*yes, I am aware of the irony of taking shots at rich white people with in-home child care considering I have an au pair, but y’all need to understand just how fucking broke I am

However, what really made me feel like writing about the series, other than to trash their shitty visual execution, was the one thing that I never expected this show to have, that I will considerately hide behind the jump seeing as how it’s just a giant fucking spoiler:

Continue reading “I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it” →

I love how the Nick Castellanos saga has given more exposure to Presidente beer since it was on Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A drive into deep left field by Castellanos: Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos on the chopping block, attempts to get in front of a story of how his fallout in Philadelphia began, including specifying an incident where after being benched, he brought a Presidente (beer) into the dugout while criticizing the manager

Despite the fact that he landed on the Phillies and always seemed to drink the Kool-Aid and be one of those dudes that absolutely murdered the Braves, I’ve always kind of liked Nick Castellanos.  For all the silly reasons to like a player, like for many, it started with the whole meme of Castellanos blasting a home run in the middle of an announcer apologizing on air for making a homophobic remark, causing him to seamlessly segue out of his apology to report on the homer before easing right back into the apology. 

But then it became apparent that there seemed to be this hilariously coincidental tendency for Nick Castellanos to crank home runs out at awkward moments of announcing, leading to the whole meme of Bad Timing Nick Castellanos, and that’s really all I needed for him to land in my general good graces.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 2025, Nick Castellanos was pulled out of a game for lackadaisical effort, and he took so much offense to it, that, in his own admission, he had grabbed a beer out of the clubhouse and brought it back to the dugout where he was prepared to drink it in the middle of an active game while criticizing manager Rob Thomson’s leadership of the team.

This apparently fractured his position with the team, and with some dwindling performance, has made it really easy for the Phillies to want to cut him, despite the fact that they still owe him $20 million for the 2026 season, which they are responsible for, regardless of if he’s playing for the Phillies or not.

I’d love it if the Braves picked him up when the Phillies inevitably do release him, because he’d only cost the team $780K, with the Phils being on the hook for the remaining $19.25M, because he would provide some good depth for when inevitably Ronald Acuña, Jr. gets hurt again, and Castellanos could supply some power off the bench, but I wouldn’t bet money on the Braves getting him.

Regardless, anticipating some fallout for why the Phillies want to cut him so badly, Nick Castellanos took some time to hand write out a summary of the incident in Miami that seemed to be the beginning of the end for his time in Philadelphia, and as admirable it is that he wants to take accountability for his actions and control the narrative by admitting it first, one of the things that stuck out for me, was the oddly specific clarification that it wasn’t just any old beer he brought into the dugout to start criticizing Rob Thomson with, it was very specifically identified as a Presidente.              

I’ve had Presidente beer before, several times in fact.  There was one season of Dexter where just about every character was drinking it whenever there were any characters drinking beer, and the subliminal saturation of it did its job, and I grew curious about the brand, and when I happened to come across it, I didn’t hesitate to grab a sixer to see what all the fuss was about in Dexter.

It’s really not that great of a beer, but the connection to Dexter still made me like it.  And also being the baseball nerd I really used to be, the fact that it was a Dominican beer made me feel some connection to all the Latin players that populated the majority of the MLB.

Needless to say, the mention and inadvertent plugging of Presidente by Castellanos opened up that curiosity from the past, and I’m tickled that he clearly must be a fan of the brew to the point where he had to be very specific at mentioning that it was a Presidente that he brought to the dugout.

The Presidente brand must also be pretty amused, or a little mortified that they got such a generous free plug, because the reality is that they probably haven’t gotten this much advertising since that season of Dexter.  And because it’s coming from a player that I think positively of, it’s bringing that similar curiosity I had over ten years ago that if I were to come across a sixer or a forty of Presidente, I might have to pull the trigger.

Mina Kimes destroyed Dan Orlovsky like Sting vs. The Demon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This would have been a little bit better had Drake Maye not shit the bed so badly, and the New England Patriots actually won the Super Bowl, but I don’t really want this to go unmentioned, because it was truly a masterclass in pwning a noob.

But prior to the actual Super Bowl, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes absolutely unleashed a massive pwning onto fellow analyst, former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky, on the subject of why Drake Maye received her MVP vote over Matthew Stafford.  I admit that I have a lot of reasons why I’m fond of Mina Kimes, from the Korean heritage, that she shares a name with one of my kids, is a pretty girl that likes and knows sports, the fact that mythical wife and I met her before she really broke through covering a League of Legends event, but biases aside, this was truly a demonstration of a person completely dominating another person in a debate.

It was like when the KiSS Demon had a 1v1 against Sting in WCW, one of my friends then whom was watching the event with us, was talking about how this was the night, this was when The Demon was going to break through, he was going to upset the legendary Sting, etc, etc.

They brawled for about a minute outside of the ring, but once they got into the ring, Sting dropped the Demon in like 43 seconds, after some quick Stinger Splashes and a Scorpion Death Drop.

Kimes vs. Orlovsky was kind of similar, but in reverse, where Kimes just buzzsaws the shit out of Orlovsky in about a minute first, and ol’ Dan sputtering and futilely swinging wildly, trying to salvage any sort of face at getting completely wrecked, but basically getting shut down repeatedly.  Honestly, he would’ve looked better and cooler had he just sat there silent after Kimes’ onslaught and just said that he had no rebuttal.

Honestly though, this doesn’t make the brog had it not been for Kimes’ absolutely brutal and personal approach.  People get owned on television and on the internet countless times every day, but seldom is it so surgical, so precise and so targeted as Kimes carved into Orlovsky.  And it was this specific line in which she started her vicious assault that I loved the most:

I’m a voter, and I voted for Drake Maye. And I’m right. And I’m going to explain to Dan Orlovsky why he’s wrong,”

It doesn’t even matter that she rattled off like 17 reasons that validate her claim.  It’s the fact that she anticipated all of Orlovsky’s or any detractor’s possible rebuttal points and preemptively shuts them down with tangible evidence and statistics and puts her opponent into a checkmate position before he can even make his own opening move. 

It’s like when I’m playing Aether Keeps in Fire Emblem Heroes, where the carefully curated enemy team from some player in Taiwan kills five out of seven units before I can even make a first move, but unlike Orlovsky, I just stare at the screen for a second and then just surrender the match without wasting anymore time.

Instead, Orlovsky tries his best to rebut anything, and even adds a little anecdote:

This is my biggest pushback to you, and this is where you lose it.

Except what he says next was something that Kimes had already anticipated, already got in front of it and shut it down, and had to remind him that she had done so, leaving Orlovsky to just sit there looking like he had shit his pants.  It’s very, very, very apparent that Mina Kimes knows what the fuck she’s talking about, especially when it comes to football, but regardless of just how bright she is, she’ll never not have the gender bias from her peers and most ESPN viewers that assume she’s wrong solely because she’s not just a woman, but isn’t a former player or team personnel.

But if those passive slights are what is fueling such surgical brutality from Mina Kimes to all her naysayers, I’ll be waiting with popcorn for the next time she murders someone on the stick.

Ain’t nobody ready, for Mina Kimes.

Dad Brog (#162): Three over three

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m halfway tempted to change the title of my dad brogs to the above, but really the hope is that this is a one-time blow-off kind of rant, and that when the smoke clears dad brogs remain being about my kids and my journey through fatherhood, and not really any further about being a parent to an elderly Korean parent on top of it.

Regardless, three over three is pretty succinct in how I’m feeling these days, because I have three human beings in my care that over the age of three years old, and they’re basically all fucking kids.  Two of them being my actual kids, but the third being my dad, whom, like many Korean parents throughout history, has chosen to go down the path of being as inept as possible, as needlessly dependent as possible, and to require as much care and patience as an actual child needs.

I thought I was right on the money when I came up with the general basis of The Korean Story™ but one thing I was completely blind to was what life was going to be like when the parents actually do hit that feeble senior life, and it’s the responsibility of the children (me) to basically become the parent, all while trying to not inhibit progress when they (in)conveniently want to remain the parent and demand respect and authority without any warning, spontaneously.

But basically my dad has become my third child, much to my dismay, and over the span of the last 12+ months, it’s been my biggest challenge trying to be the adult in the room, and steer him into decisions that are my best attempt to be for his benefit; just like my actual children.

It also doesn’t help that conversing with him, I can understand about as much as I can my actual kids’ excited ramblings about Pokémon or whatever fandoms they fancy at the time, primarily on account of the worsening language barrier, and the rate in which he listens to me when I’m trying to tell him do so something is about as successful as with my kids, that’s leading me to feel this way.

But it’s at its worst when I’m with all three of them at the same time, and my kids want attention, and my dad wants to ramble on about something that’s not important but he’s pretending like the fate of the world rests on it, that I’m asking myself what my life really is right now, and I’m pondering just how bad my blood pressure must look at these specific junctures in time.

However, the difference between my kids and my dad is that they’re heading in opposite directions as far as their attitudes towards independence.  Whereas it’s a routine struggle to negotiate with my kids on what they think they can do versus what I know they’re not capable of, it’s a constant struggle with my dad to try and get him to do things that I know he can do once he learns how to, but he refuses to even fucking try because he’s assuming everything has passed him by and that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.

I got him a television, a smart one, so that he could avoid having more than one remote control, because the presence of anything higher than one results in a system failure, and the television would collect dust, unused.  I set up the wifi, Netflix, and an app specific to Korean television, but trying to explain the concept of apps is like trying to explain quantum physics to an inanimate onion.  I’ve set things up so that turning on the television and going into the Korean television app would require three total key presses, had him write it down with drawings of the buttons, but after two days, I’ve learned that he’s hit system failure and hasn’t turned it on since the one time he tried and failed to get into the app.

I wouldn’t dare say that my dad is lacking in intelligence, but what he really is, has become fucking lazy and defeatist, and is making his unwillingness to learn my problem, and the problem of the scant everyone else in his life who has tried to help.

And let’s not get started with his iPhone, and it just makes me mad at the world for advancing into gradually worsening ageist times that completely ignore the existence of the elderly, who almost have no options other than smart phones, full of all sorts of features and functions that they not only need, but their presence makes the elderly go into system failure, and just give the fuck up on them, which doesn’t help that we’re in a modern age where not having a phone is tantamount to not having lungs.

Today, I went to visit my dad, and brought the girls with me, so we could do an activity that I intend on making a permanent standing monthly event, on top of any other visits that could happen throughout.  And as much as I love knowing that my kids can actually spend some time with their grandfather, and that my dad can actually spend some time with his grandchildren and actual blood relatives, much less human interaction, it was pretty high-stress.

Being the only adult in the room for hours on end gets tiring, and have my kids wanting to run around and touch and climb everything in sight, and then there’s my dad with shit for legs, needing a walker, always a fall risk, and there’s always a deficiency in coverage somewhere when trying to do the even most mundane things like get in the car, go into a restaurant, or any small task.

My dad hardly understands the girls’ speak, the girls don’t understand anything my dad says, we all love each other, but like so many cases in my life these days, I’m smack dab in the middle of being pulled in numerous directions, and I’m fried by the end of the visit.

Naturally, coming home, I get obliterated by two massive highway issues because Georgia is smart and loves to do all their road construction right in the heart of the weekend, and then I come home and my wife is pissed because I’ve been gone too long and even if she understands the circumstances, it’s me that the anger is taken out on, and I’m just like what the fuck, might as well blow my fucking brains out.

Shit like this is why I haven’t been so apt to buy into the concept of thinking or hoping that with a new year comes a fresh start, because I know all the shit going on in my life; it doesn’t matter what number is at the end of the year, because a lot of the things I’m going through are some long fucking games, and ain’t no resolutions or hustles going to change anything quickly short of winning the lottery and just buying off a whole shit load of the problems away.

It’s almost funny how it wasn’t long after getting my vasectomy that my dad decided to transform into the third child I wanted to avoid having by having a surgical procedure, but considering the angst and darkness that swirls through my mind when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and overstimulated, it most certainly is fucking not.

Suck it, Frogs

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pasticceria Internazionale: Korea wins the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, defeating France

A long time ago, my dad told me that if you train a Korean in something, they are more than capable of becoming the best in the world at it.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t in such phrasing, but he basically did tell me that Koreans are basically good at everything they put their minds and hearts into, and such a notion was proven correct as Koreans won the Baking World Cup in France, defeating not just the French, but also Taiwan, whom placed third and second behind them.

Honestly, it really isn’t that much of a surprise, considering the general nature of Koreans is that they’re very detail oriented and more than competent when it comes to intricate processes like machinery, or baking.  And as far as my experiences in America as well as Korea are concerned, if you see a bakery with a name that’s remotely French, there’s a very high chance that it’s being operated by Koreans.  They’ve taken to French Baking like a fish to water, and all you have to do is watch any episode of Culinary Class Wars to see just how many Koreans are adept at French cuisine in general.

With the win, Korea joins the United States and Japan as the only countries to now have multiple Baking World Cup wins, since the whole competition was started 24 years ago.  It’s funny how it was started obviously by the French, and they’ve basically already been outclassed by everyone else in an arena that they basically invented.  Then again, the United States has only won one World Baseball Classic, and Team USA basketball now requires Herculean performances in order to stop getting pwned by the rest of the world in hoops.

Koreans can’t seem to win at anything on their home soil, except for the occasional League of Legends Worlds, and if the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie were to be held in Seoul, they would undoubtedly not place.  But I can kind of get it, as far as competition goes, I’ve personally always felt more at ease when I’m the one on the road, and not feeling any sort of hometown pressure.

Regardless, I’m tickled to even learn that something like the Baking World Cup was even a thing, but I never want to any time Koreans flex their dominance against the rest of the world in any way, shape or form.  Of course Korea are the best bakers in the world, even better than the Frogs that invented the arena.  It’s like that SNL skit where fake Celine Dion keeps hijacking other singers’ songs and proclaiming to be better than them at their own songs, except Korea dominating France very much happened.