Tag: cashmoney

When being a Yes Man has its drawbacks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When Jim Carrey’s Yes Man was released back in 2008, I remember liking the film a lot.  Beyond just myself, I think it really kind of helped paint the picture of just how many people and much of the world were just a whole lot of cynical shut-ins, quick to say no to everything that comes in their direction.  Aside from the big crush I had on Zooey Deschanel back then, I really enjoyed the film, and it low-key inspired me to want to be more open minded and willing to say yes to things, even if I knew they might put me out of my comfort zone.

At first, things went about as well as things did in the film, with getting into swing dancing, and I found it somewhat liberating to try something new and experience growing and developing a new skill.  But just in general, I told myself to be more open minded, and say yes to things, and have faith and trust that other people might steer me in the right direction.

However, all these years later, sometimes I think that I’m too much of a yes man in my life, and that being open too much is putting me in a position in my life where I’m not particularly thrilled to be in, namely in a financial sense.  Sure, there’s an allegory about kids and the cost of raising children, but I’ve always been pretty financially conservative, wanting to save, liking cushions and becoming anxious when certain thresholds are below lines I don’t like being under, but these days I feel like I’m drowning, and that no matter what I do, or what cuts I try to implement, I just can’t make any headway or gain any sort of progress in the direction I want to be headed.

Yes I know that there are millions of people in the world who have it worse than I do, seeing as how I have gainful employment, as does mythical wife, but I feel like our lifestyle occasionally exceeds our means at times, and it’s in these periods in which I wish that I could be more of a NO man and just say no to everything that encroaches on my personal state of being, because being agreeable and wanting to please and remain flexible doesn’t seem to be fucking anyone over but me, and I think it’s an unhealthy dynamic I’m in when my mood goes sour and my world grows dark.

I feel like I’m living almost entirely in other peoples’ worlds and almost never in my own.  Not just in a financial sense, but also with time.  I give so much myself to my family and kids and my job, and there’s so little time for myself, and when I do have any I’m fretting about finances and dreading tomorrow’s responsibilities.  Relaxation truly is a skill that I do not possess.

The bottom line is that as much as I wish it wouldn’t dictate my well-being, I’m not feeling very financially secure currently, and it makes me feel embarrassed and ashamed to admit.  I’m 40 years old and I look around at the rest of my family and it feels like they all had their shit together better than I do at a similar age and I hate feeling so bothered by money, and had some actionable and tangible plans to gain some improvement.  Maybe saying no to more things might help me feel like I’m gaining a measure of control in my own life’s path again, but we’ll see what happens when a query is lobbed in my direction and I don’t want to feel like the bad guy.

It’s all going to be Cody’s fault

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In professional sports, occasionally there are scenarios where a first-place team somehow manages to pull off a trade or pick up a free agent of a very talented player.  In most of these cases, the overarching management of these teams hardly ever take into consideration stuff like team chemistry, because most organizations believe in acquiring talent when it’s available, and let the chips fall where they may afterward.

Typically, it’s kind of a jump ball of happens afterward; sometimes the new player adds value immediately, and a good team becomes even better, but in some cases, the new player disrupts the team chemistry that made the team a first-place team, and then there is some stumbling and new struggles, as the squad tries to adjust to find its new groove.  Sometimes, they get their shit together and make magic happen, but at least in my personal viewing experiences, they still fall short.

This is what I’m feeling is kind of happening with the WWE and the fact that they’ve handcuffed themselves to the acquisition of Cody Rhodes.

For about a year, if there was anything at all that was going not just smoothly, but on a legendary pace, it was definitely the Bloodline storyline.  Roman Reigns was clearly ascending to the top of the mountain that he was always expected to reach, and he was firing on all cylinders; in the ring, cutting promos, and elevating everyone that entered his gravity.  Roman and the Bloodline were proving the power of a well-planned, executed storyline that was more importantly given all the time in the world to breathe and organically proceed.

But then Cody Rhodes’ contract with AEW expired, and suddenly the internet rumor mill basically exploded as it became apparent that he was not only not going to re-sign with the company he helped found, he was on his way back to the WWE; he was basically the surprisingly available talent that the WWE picked up solely because they could, but not necessarily because they needed him.

And much like how it happens in professional sport, every organization in the country always falls for the sunk cost fallacy, and because they paid a mint for new acquisition, they become determined to use them in a capacity relative to their salary, and not necessarily their talent or ability to fit into the puzzle.

Because Cody Rhodes cost the WWE a significant amount, he was immediately thrust into the upper echelon of the card, (re)debuting at Wrestlemania and fast tracked to a path to the World championship; regardless of the fact that there were all sorts of internal talents that were getting shafted by his return.  If not for the fact that he tore his pectoral and had to be put on the bench for almost an entire year, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to make this post because he probably would have already entangled with Roman Reigns at Summer Slam or Survivor Series and possibly have ended his legendary run and taken a championship off him.

And while he was down with injury, the Bloodline resumed their masterful storytelling, and amidst this, became planted the seed of Sami Zayn that grew into the phenomenon that’s captured the attention of wrestling fans all over with how it has played out so far.  Seriously, I didn’t think much of the whole idea of Sami Zayn wanting to be a part of the Bloodline, but it’s literally been the best storyline since the rise of Daniel Bryan or Kofi-Mania, and in fact better than those in terms of storytelling and how many people have risen their stock from just being a part of it.

But then Cody Rhodes had to go on and recover, and when it was announced that he was coming back at the Royal Rumble, it was basically a forgone conclusion that he was going to win the whole fucking thing, and obviously be fast tracked to Wrestlemania where he would fulfill his destiny (or his rumored contractual obligation to get a World championship run) and finally face Roman Reigns.

This is where I have this feeling like Cody Rhodes is going to ruin a beautiful storyline that’s been in the making over the last three years, solely because the WWE is insisting on utilizing him as World championship material based on the size of the contract he was given.

I’m not saying that Cody Rhodes won’t and can’t have a good match with Roman Reigns and possibly put up an instant classic, but it’s going to feel more forced than it is going to feel organic.  Which is a shame, because the beauty of the Bloodline saga has always been just how organic everything has felt because everything has been given time to sow seeds let things grow naturally over the last three years.

I feel like the smart play would be to have Cody lose to Roman Reigns, so that he could kind of start over and organically rise to his contention to the World championship(s), but if I’m a betting man, I don’t think that’s going to happen.  In reality, Roman and the Usos probably need some time off after carrying the company for the last three years, and even if the fans might not be sick of the Bloodline, the guys comprising of the Bloodline might be sick of the workload they’ve had and probably wouldn’t mind a little time off television to recharge.

All the same, I like to imagine a world where a lot of the WWE guys have a group text or something, where they bitch and complain about how Cody Rhodes’ return is fucking things up.  Obviously, such is likely not the case as Rhodes is often regarded as being well respected and liked by everyone in the business, but it doesn’t change the fact that his return to the WWE is causing some hierarchical restructuring to where someone is getting pushed down a rung.

It’s just kind of sad to me, because the Bloodline has easily been the best thing in professional wrestling in a long time, but Cody Rhodes of all people is the one who’s kind of fucking things up, solely because he had to become available and baited the WWE into picking him up and clearly had a lot of demands in the process.

If he were really as selfless as he likes to claim he is, he’d have let all existing storylines play themselves out and basically kind of stand aside and call next, and by next Wrestlemania in 2024, be ready to ascend to the top of the mountain then, and maybe all the fans will be on board the story he is destined to complete.

I kind of respect the brutal honesty

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not personal, Brooklyn. I just hate this city, the fans, and everyone in this organization and want to watch them burn out of spite.

The best part of the whole quote is where he says “It’s not personal.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t pay that much attention to the NBA these days, but I know who Kyrie Irving is, and when I saw this come up in my news feed, I had to scrunch my brow and just go wow.  These are some bombs of words to be flinging out there, and in an age where people are reluctant to burn bridges because the internet has made the world small, everything is basically recorded forever, and people just don’t know when their words can come back to haunt them, Kyrie Irving still gave zero fucks and basically told not just the Brooklyn Nets, the team that he actively plays for and signs his paychecks, but the entire city of Brooklyn, New York, that he hates them and fuck you all.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Kyrie Irving; he’s this enigma of a human being that I feel was blessed with basketball talent, coasted through life, has enjoyed immense success professionally and made a tremendous amount of money, but is still somehow an insufferable asshole who seems to get off on being a contrarian.

However, personal feelings aside, like the title of this post says, I kind of respect the brutal honesty he had no hesitation in letting become a quote.  At some point in most peoples’ lives, who hasn’t been furious with an employer before?  Whether they cared to admit or not, felt the same kind of feelings towards those jobs, as he felt about the Brooklyn Nets?  And on top of the discontent with his employer, in the world of sports, fans are about the most insufferable people on the face of the planet, much less ones from Brooklyn, New York.

I don’t really like Kyrie Irving, but I can only imagine the amount of bullshit he heard from fans on a regular basis.  In spite of my personal feelings, I’m not going to deny for a second that the guy is talented as all hell, and is genuinely a generational-level talent; when he actually feels like putting in the effort.  He can score, he can pass, and he can take over games by himself; I imagine a lot of the shit he hears on the regular is why he hasn’t delivered a championship for as much money as he’s making, as if sports fans were completely convinced that one guy could actually accomplish victory entirely by themselves.

Michael Jordan couldn’t.  Kobe Bryant couldn’t.  LeBron James couldn’t.  They all had good teams surrounding them, and unfortunately for Kyrie Irving, he hasn’t had the right good team surrounding him since 2016, when he had LeBron James piloting the Cleveland Cavaliers team he was on.

So I kind of get and I do enjoy the unfiltered venom Kyrie Irving had to say about the Nets and the city of Brooklyn itself, and I applaud him for raising the bar for any discontented professional athlete that is demanding to be traded.

Continue reading “I kind of respect the brutal honesty” →

Of course David Chang thinks he’s too good for Costco’s rotisserie chicken

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not surprising, considering he’s an arrogant star-fucker: David Chang declares Costco’s signature $4.99 rotisserie chicken as “inedible”

The last time I brought up David Chang, I stated that I have a love-hate opinion of the guy, concluding that I was like 40-60 in favor of not cool.  But after hearing him shit on Costco’s rotisserie chickens, I think the needle pegs to 0-100.  The second season of Ugly Delicious wasn’t nearly as good as the first, and it’s pretty apparent that he’s so drunk on his own bullshit  and swept up in his own celebrity that he’s incapable of remembering where he probably came from.

Because I would wager money that in his lifetime, he’s consumed a number of Costco rotisserie chickens.  He grew up in the same area where I grew up in Northern Virginia, and regardless of geography, ALL Koreans love going to Costco, because of the savings available there, no matter how rich or poor they are.  And when it comes to getting bargains, pretty much few things on the planet are on the same level as Costco’s rotisserie chickens.

In fact, I bet his own parents in NOVA still go to Costco on the regular, pulling up in their probably Lexus, and there’s even a good chance that they themselves are still buying rotisserie chickens.  Maybe not necessarily to eat straight out of the package, but to shred up and use in a variety of other Korean dishes, that Chang alleges that still learns things from his mom.

But as for Chang himself, it’s clear that he thinks he’s too good for Costco chicken, and that the perma-$4.99 birds are way beneath him.  After spending the last few years gallivanting around the world and eating foreign foods on Netflix’s dime, and kissing the asses of Hollywood celebrities who all always think they’re some global foodies, he’s completely lost touch with the rest of the world that isn’t wealthy, and has jobs that isn’t opening overrated shit restaurants with weeby names despite being Korean, and might actually see Costco chickens as more than just an economic convenience.

Not everyone has the choice to pick Costco over Sprouts Alhambra, because Costco’s chicken is just too economically friendly that they can’t not buy them, even if the company has disclosed they lose money on every bird they sell because they don’t want to lose the customer faith.  To some, Costco chicken is convenient to process into other recipes, and to those who are workout buffs, the chickens are the absolute biggest bang for the buck as far as protein consumption is concerned.

But all this shit is lost on a celebrity fuck-boi like David Chang has become.  Yeah I’m sure he’s manufacturing hot takes like this in order to draw attention to his likely shitty podcast that he’ll probably abandon within six months because nobody is capable of playing the long game, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic to see that he’s gotten a little too big to be able to understand just why Costco rotisserie chickens are so popular.

Perhaps he should stick to trying to rip off Chick Fil-A sandwiches and falling short, or making bougie gourmet mac and cheese that still falls short to Kraft from his own wife.

Observations of doing online food delivery

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A while back, I came to the conclusion that in spite of the fact that I make more money than I’ve ever made in my career, I basically still have no money when it comes to any sort of leisure or just wanting to treat yo-self on rare instances.  To no surprise, it’s all going towards my children or expenses related to my children, and this is one of those instances where I think about how much simpler life can be for those without kids, not to say I have any regrets at all for having them they’re perfect and I love them until the end of existence.

But I don’t really do well when it comes to financial anxiety, and a lot of my general well-being is often tied to how comfortable I feel about paying bills while staying out of debt, and over the last few months, as much as I loathe and avoid it at all costs, I’ve had to carry partial balances over with my credit cards, simply because my outgoing money was surpassing incoming money, no matter how much I try to avoid it.

In the prior two years, I made a pretty penny on doing online surveys for nickels and dimes, enough to make people take notice in like the ten new wrestling blet replicas I was able to get with all of them, but that well has kind of dried up in the sense that the circumstances in which I was able to do them aren’t really applicable anymore, because my kids command a lot of attention, and I can’t absent mindedly bullshit my way through multiple surveys a day like I used to.

Needless to say, I had this revelation while I was in the car one day, that my household now has a third car that’s kind of dormant, and how it would be an ideal ride if I were to get into online food delivery.  It’s small, gets great mileage and is pretty fun and agile to drive, and it would be getting some use, instead of just sitting around deteriorating in dormancy.  Plus, the take home from doing online food delivery would be exponentially larger than doing online surveys, and it was something that I could do when the girls were down for the night.

And so I signed up for both DoorDash and UberEats, and over the last 6-7 weeks, I’ve embarked on moonlighting as a delivery driver.  Suffice to say, I’ve learned a lot in that span, but overall I can’t say that it’s been that negative of an experience as far as wanting to make some side cash for only as much effort as driving around picking up and dropping off bags of food takes.

It’s also been giving me a lot of perspective of being on the other side of the transaction, and naturally a remark like that isn’t said if it wasn’t to commentate on the sheer lack of respect and consideration customers have for their drivers.  Which is all a more eloquent way of saying that the vast majority of customers are a bunch of cheap motherfuckers who by all right shouldn’t deserve to eat if they’re unwilling to pay the people that bring their food to them.

For every generous tip I get from a customer who seems to recognize that I beat the estimated time, took into consideration the swing of their doors when placing their shit so they didn’t hit it, or other little things I do to make sure everything is right, I will have probably like 6-7 cheap motherfuckers who tip the bare minimum it takes for their order to not get outright rejected by all other drivers.  Like in 98%* of instances, I won’t even entertain a request where my take away is $2.75 or less because there’s a 100% chance that $0.00 is a tip and you’ll just be getting the base fare, and these are the shitheads that truly don’t deserve to eat if they’re not willing to pay for any labor.

*why not 100%?  Because sometimes UberEats will do these quests that give you bonus money for completion of trips, regardless of their amount, so if I’m teetering on a quest completion, I’ll take a shit fare if it means getting a bonus afterward

But the majority of tips that I accrue are somewhere in the $2-3 range, and these are orders that looking at the things they’re ordering, are usually well over $20-30, meaning on average, these are barely 10% tips.

The point is, it’s a good thing that I’m doing this as a side hustle and not relying on this to be my primary income, because I think I would go insane by how much passive abuse I’m getting from cheap-ass customers who use the veil of anonymity to justify being cheap assholes to have their shit delivered to their doors.

Another thing I’ve observed is that initially, I thought doing this, I’d be exposed to a lot of new restaurants where I could passively learn about through delivering their stuff.  I mean I’ve found a few places that I wasn’t really aware of, but when it really comes down to it, I’d have to say the majority of the drops that I’m doing are usually delivering someone their fast food, or Chinese food, or chain-establishment pizza, which really befuddles me, because I’m usually passing a number of Chinese or pizza joints on the way to these delivery spots, so I have no idea how these algorithms are when it comes to people and their choice of food.

I’ve learned that chain joints like McDonald’s, Popeyes and other massive chains don’t really give two shits about service time and having an order ready for pickup, because no amount of negative feedback to them is going to really improve their operations, so when I’m able to be picky about things, I try to tell myself to avoid them, because the bane of my existence is waiting for these businesses to prepare orders, and not a single night has gone by where there hasn’t been one pickup that hasn’t made me wait because I’m fast and they’re slow, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re the ones who cost me the chances at getting better tips on account of being extra early.

Favorite words to see: Leave at door
Least favorite words to see: Meet at door
You guys are assholes: Customer PIN required

Overall, the experience hasn’t been that bad.  I’m making some side cash in about 60-90 minutes on the nights I decide to go out, and I can usually do like 2-3 drops whenever I do go out.  It’s a decent way to clear my head and do something mindless, but at least make money in the process, and with these funds, I’ll hopefully be able to supplement my income for the ever-mounting expenditures that seem to be creeping into my life, or maybe even sack some of it away for some me-shit like a new raptop or inevitably, moar wrestling blets.

And to get in front of an inevitable question: yes, I have taken a French fry from a customer’s order before.  They didn’t tip, Chick fil-A didn’t seal the bag, I was hungry, and I didn’t know how to cancel orders yet, so in order to feel like I was getting any sort of retribution to an asshole, I totally took a French fry out of their order.  So the picture of Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai isn’t entirely just coincidental.

I don’t think many people realize the ownage here

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously after winning a second national championship, there’s been a lot of rhetoric thrown around about the legend of Stetson Bennett the Fourth, about how he’s basically bigger than god in the state, he’ll never have to pay for a meal or a drink in Georgia for the rest of his life, etc, etc.

And honestly, good on his part, because after living here for 20 years now, I never thought I’d see the day when Georgia would actually reach the top of the mountain much less win two in a row, after the years on top of years I’ve passively witnessed the Dawgs come close but choke, mostly to Alabama.  As a Georgia resident, I am happy to see the hometown team reach the pinnacle of college football not just once, but twice in a row is pretty sweet.

I recently saw this ad come across my theFacebook feed, and was pretty surprised to see the God of Athens going so all-in as the poster boy for Raising Cane’s chicken.  To my understanding, Cane’s has a pretty big, almost cult following in the markets they exist in, but down in Georgia, is Zaxby’s country, their carbon copy franchise.  No seriously, their menus are nearly identical, and I remember the first time I ever came across a Cane’s, it was in Las Vegas, and their menu looked surreptitiously familiar, and my close friend I was with, when ordering her usual Zaxby’s equivalent, I implored her to get the “Cane’s Sauce” and sure as shit, it was the same thing as Zaxby’s Zax Sauce.

I have no qualms with Cane’s, but as someone who discovered Zaxby’s first, between my friends and I, I usually just refer to Cane’s as “Zaxby’s Red” for obvious branding reasons.

The thing is, Zaxby’s is not only based out of Georgia, their headquarters is in Athens, right near the University of Georgia.  I actually interviewed with their corporate offices, but the flaky response to whether or not I’d need to make periodic visits to the office in Athens, which is nearly 90 minutes away from me made me not pursue it, but the point is the fact that Zaxby’s allowed Raising Cane’s to somehow swoop beneath them and sign the kid in their very own backyard, and make Stetson Bennett their poster child is a pretty devastating blow.

Then again, Cane’s apparently has that killer instinct about their company, because while I was interviewing with Zaxby’s, it was brought to my attention that there’s actually one solitary Raising Cane’s location in Georgia; and it happens to be in Athens.  Very cut-throat and guerilla of them to do such, but it was clearly enough for a guy like Stetson Bennett to probably have tried them at one point and have enough of a positive association to the brand to when they came knocking with some NIL money, he signed on.

Although I said I have no beef with Cane’s, I’m still a Zaxby’s first person, because they’re here and available.  When I travel to places that have Cane’s, I enjoy them all the same.  But I have to give some respect to Cane’s for landing such a critical hit to a chief competitor, because as I said, I don’t think a lot of people are going to understand or realize just how much of a big deal it is that Cane’s got a hold of Stetson Bennett and not Zaxby’s.

Blame yourselves and god

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Y’all did this to yourselves: The Home Depot changes pay policy to pay hourly associates down to the minute instead of rounding to nearest quarter hour

When I was an hourly associate for THD, I learned pretty quickly about the quarter hour rounding mechanism of the time clock.  I typically liked to work 8-4-ish in order to help negate Atlanta’s shitty traffic for this was still during the age of commuting a long, long time ago.  I learned pretty quickly that I had until 8:07 to punch in and still “be on time,” and that I could begin my walk out the building at 3:50, and make sure to punch out at 3:53, and I would be credited for having been there until 4.

I wasn’t really ever a massive nickel-and-dimer while I was hourly, but I’d be lying if I didn’t let the notion of “giving away” some work influence some of the things I did in the office in order to make sure that I would be on the more favorable side of the rounding than on the negative.  Seldom did I let myself get rounded down, and occasionally oopsie, I’ve got a quarter hour of OT now, my bad, but I can justify it lol.

But the point is, just about everyone knew about the way the clock worked, and you’d never see more people be obvious about it than at like 3:50 or 4:50 pm where people are milling around, walking a lap around Main Street, waiting out those three minutes from where seven minutes turns into eight minutes, and it would be the right time to punch out and get credited for 15 minutes.

And of course The Home Depot knew about it too, but in spite of my shitty last boss, I still hold the company in high regard, and they knew all their hourlies were doing what they were doing, but as long as the work got done, on time, fucking let them.

Now I’m sure the initiative for the dissent of this probably started at the store level, because individual store managers are more likely to be tryhards on power trips who want to flex their position onto their subordinates, and I could totally see a blowhard store manager get on the case of associates who are threatening to encroach on a bonus quarter, and demanding they punch out before they get credited for it.  And those who get chewed out will then be salty and full of piss, and bitch and moan about labor theft, and here we are, where the company as an entire whole fucking corporation has to change their policies.

The thing is, I would wager money that there are going to be waaaayyyy more associates unhappy with this development than those who are happy with it.  Store managers will still get on the case of associates to make sure they punch out at the top of the hour, and every associate who relied on those 7-minute windows to beat traffic, school bus routes, or just be able to get out of work at optimal times, will now be forced to wait.  People punching in will be dealing with more anxiety and stress when there’s a traffic jam or a bad red light that takes too long, and nobody wins when there’s excessive nickel-and-diming going on.

But as I stated above, y’all did this to yourselves.  Companies like THD don’t make changes for one store, it’s all or nothing, and because of the dissent of a few, vastly way more will suffer the consequences.