Tag: cashmoney

Blet Money, a year later

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I will always maintain that one of the better things I’ve ever incorporated to my brog, would be the On This Day plug-in that lets me narcissistically look back at the posts I made on the day in all prior years where I’ve posted.  Presumably, fewer things are going to inspire words to write other than myself, and every now and then I’ll see an old post that will inspire me to write pretty immediately.

That being said, a year ago on this day, I wrote about how I’d earned a not-insignificant amount of money from noting but doing internet surveys, earning anywhere from 29¢ to $1.58 a survey, sometimes taking a minute, sometimes 20, but covering a vast gamut of topics, whether I had any business opining about them or not.

Sometimes I had idea of what the surveys were collating information about, but there were tons of times where I had absolutely no reason to be taking these surveys, but it was supposedly $1.58 for 8 minutes of survey, so sure I’m now an IT manager for a large enterprise company sharping opinions about cloud deployment and SaaS whatever.  I treated it like LAIRE from Role Models, where I was role playing as things that I didn’t really have any substantial knowledge of.

Anyway, it’s been a year where I was humblebragging over $401.  I’ve been continuing on doing what I was doing then, and since then, the above is what I’ve currently got in the PayPal account designated for this little endeavor: literally one thousand more dollars than I did a year ago, for doing rando internet surveys for pocket change at a time.

I should also point out that this was originally done to earn money to buy wrestling blets with, and this amount seen above is after I’ve purchased two blets for myself (NXT UK, NWA Television), as well as a pair of WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships for my two daughters.  In all, I’ve made a fair amount more than what’s in this PayPal account, and I don’t see much reason to stop, as long as I’ve got the ability to earn something, when I’m doing nothing, which isn’t always, but I can make some here and there at least once a day.

Recently, I was spying on eBay one of my unicorn blets that happened to pop up: an original Figures Toy Co. Ring of Honor world championship blet, which is something that I’ve wanted for a little while now, but I didn’t want to spend $600 to meet the buy it now price the seller was asking.  I floated a few low-ball offers to test the water, which were predictably auto-declined, but I was hoping to wait until the end of the selling window and maybe float in $500. 

Unfortunately for me, there was someone who was willing to walk in the door and just pony up $600, and just like that the blet I wanted was gone.  Who knows when the next time this specific blet shows up again.

The thing is though, I was mentally prepared to unload this $500, but thanks to anonymous money bags, I didn’t.  But as far as I’m concerned, this $500 is truly disposable, and it’s almost like I want to do something reckless with it.  Sure, I could be the bigger person and donate it or give it to someone who could really use it, but I never claimed to be a saint, and I kind of do feel like gambling it in some degree.

And since I’m not about to go to any casinos any time soon, my mind has been very curious about dabbling my toes into the marketplace, and seeing what investing is like, because I know dick from butt when it comes to it.  I just know that I’ve always been fascinated with films like Boiler Room, the Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short, and I see a very realistic chance to take a little bit of risk with some truly expendable money.

I asked around, and didn’t get much excitement or real fun-sounding options, but $500 isn’t necessarily too small to take a chance on.  All the same, if I don’t find something intriguing enough soon, the feeling will fade, and I’ll just sit on it until the day my unicorn blet shows up again.

Anyway, what started out as blet money has grown into something a little more substantial, and with the potential to take the plunge with something a little more high stakes than internet surveys.  All I know is that the time I’ve spent writing all this bullshit, I could’ve been making a $1.80 on what I like to call, over-max surveys, when for a short period, there’s suddenly a number of surveys that exceeds the usual maximum $1.58 threshold, and my eyes get big and excited at the thought of making a whole thirty more fucking cents.

This just makes me want to see it more

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Funny how things work out: segment of internet looking-for-things-to-get-mad-about-people decide to get mad over Awkwafina’s “blaccent,” citing cultural appropriation, racism, hypocrisy or all of the above; and declare a boycott to Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

I’ve actually never heard of the property Shang-Chi ever, until news of an actual Marvel film featuring Asian people began to emerge.  I have zero clue to the property, whether it features mutants, or supers based on myth, magic or cosmic, or if Shang-Chi ever crossed paths with any X-property, the Avengers, or even had a run-in with Juggernaut since it seems like at some point, everyone has a run in with Juggernaut.

That being said, I kind of wasn’t really that interested in seeing it, because in spite of the equity that the Marvel Studio sand the MCU had built, it was beginning to feel a little bit like a checkbox situation where kind of like how Black Panther lit a fire under the black community, and based on how Crazy Rich Asians performed at the box office, Disney and Marvel decided to take a stab at tapping into the Asian community with a Marvel film, with an Asian-based story.

I wasn’t interested in seeing what I thought was going to be the affirmative action of the MCU, even if it had the legendary Tony Leung in it, making me wonder just how many times if at all, showed up in American film.

But as is often the case, when news like this hits, and I see people on the internet acting like buffoons, all it really serves is to make me want to defy them and see their stupid efforts fail, and therefore go see Shang-Chi.  Not quite to the point where I want to risk my health and go out into a theater, but I definitely have some intention to watch this now, for sure.

I mean seriously, people getting upset over the way Awkwafina speaks?  Because she occasionally uses a black affect when speaking, as if the terms wiggers and chiggers haven’t been a thing for the last 25 years, but is only taboo when a celebrity does it? 

Would Eminem have a career at all, if he showed up in this generation?  He’s white and therefore should not be rapping, because that might be considered cultural appropriation since apparently only black people are allowed to rap and speak in a certain manner.

Anyway, my favorite part of the article was when they cited that this isn’t the first time people had wanted to boycott Awkwafina:

It is worth noting that similar accusations of culture appropriate were lobbied against the Asian American actress when she voiced the dragon Raya in Raya and the Last Dragon, currently available on Disney+ and made 122.7 million USD at the Box Office 

So the SJWs didn’t learn their lesson from Raya and they think they’ll fare much better with Shang-Chi?  Yeah, I look forward to seeing just how much money Shang-Chi is going to bulldoze in when it drops, and see just how effective these so called boycotts are actually going to be.

Let’s not even discuss the thousands of people out in the world that aren’t Asian, but have some sort of Asian text tattooed onto themselves.  I’d wager there’s a substantial overlap of non-Asians with Asian characters tattooed on themselves with those who are pretending to be outraged and claim they’re going to boycott.

It’s okay though.  The internet doesn’t need to find out when these peoples’ friends talk about how decent of a film it might actually be, and whether it’s peer pressure, hypocrisy, or just being full of shit, they’ll still watch it anyway, all the same.

Thanks, I hate it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I like baseball.  I like wrestling belts.  You’d think a collaboration between the WWE and MLB to release team-themed replica wrestling belts would be a layup for a guy like me, right?

If you think so, you couldn’t be any more fucking wrong.

An obvious cash-grab for starters, but all I see when I think about the fact that there are going to be 20-30* belts that will be put into production starting in the 2022 season, all I see are 20-30 blets that stand in the way of the WWE getting off their lazy asses and actually making replicas of the only fucking WWE blet I want left, the NXT UK Tag Team Championship.

*why anyone would want a replica belt for teams like the Rays, Rockies, Reds, Marlins or Orioles is completely beyond me, but homers are homers for a reason

For the record, I don’t just hate these MLB-WWE collab belts, I hate every other belt out there that’s not an actual active or historic belt.  I hate all the shitty tribute belts that WWE makes that takes existing plates and slaps them onto some overly-designed shitty straps themed to a hall of famer, and calling it a tribute.  I hate Xavier Woods’ and Tyler Breeze’s shitty YouTube show belts that have come into existence ahead of the only active fucking belt without a replica available.  I hate when they take some shitty stinky brown leather and wrap it around an Attitude-era World championship and call it a Mankind tribute.

But both MLB and the WWE really like money, and it really is low-hanging fruit to make these and watch them sell a justifiable number of them to warrant the decision to produce them.  I can’t hate on the business of it, I just hate that these things are definitely going to stand in the way of what I actually want.

And frankly, given the news over the last months of NXT kind of being rumored to being shifted back into a true developmental territory, who’s to say that any of the NXT and NXT UK blets will even get to be sold for much longer in the future, especially if they’re deactivated and removed from television.

Only hardcore blet-heads like myself may have noticed that for about four days, the WWEShop released the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship Replicas that’s still listed as available in the Euro store, but was already taken down from the American site, which initially had me curious that they took it down in order to have a brand new blet available at promotional discount, but seeing as how it hasn’t been brought back, it makes me wonder if it’s more the possibility that the blets will be deactivated on television, and therefore not needing replicas to be sold online.

As far as the NXT UK Tag blets, I’m beginning to think that they’ll never even be made in the first place, because perhaps the division as a whole might get folded up, if the talking heads surrounding Vince McMahon in Stamford see them as a risky ROI.

At least I’ll have an Atlanta Barves blet available to me with the cash I’ve been sitting on for literal years, waiting for the one blet I actually wanted.

2 Under 2: Fuck Jimmy Fallon (#058)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I are raising our daughters with some fairly simple rules, one of which being no screen time until the age of 2, in which we will introduce small amounts of screen time of quality kid-friendly content with at least some educational value, and work our way up from there, so they don’t become lifeless couch potatoes by the time they’re age five.  Maybe that’ll happen when they’re seven instead, but hey if we can bilk out two years of life where they’re not parked in front of a screen, then all the better for us.

That being said, we’ve accumulated a lot of books over the last year and change, as books and reading have been among the primary forms of entertainment and storytelling to our first, and will be for our second.  Among the things that brings pride and happiness to me is seeing my first hustle over to her bookshelf, pick out a book, rush back, hand it to me, and then plop into my lap to enjoy some story time with dada, and her appreciation and enjoyment in books is already being established.

However, of all the books that we’ve amassed so far, few make me scrunch my eyebrow and hope that my daughter doesn’t pick it and bring it back, than the books mythical wife picked out by none other than quote-unquote “comedian,” Jimmy Fallon.  Everything is Mama and Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada, specifically, because I for one won’t go out of my way to pick either myself.

Why?  Because they’re both complete and utter bullshit.  Spoiler alert, both books are basically 15 pages of either “MAMA” or “DADA” over and over again, with literally nothing other than single contrast words and some singular illustrations.  I’m not saying my children should already be capable of reading The DaVinci Code or anything, but even infants and newborns deserve better than this horse shit.

Let’s be real here, if not for the simple fact that these books are “authored” by, and has the name of Jimmy Fallon slapped onto these things, these shit books would probably rank lower than the bible at being usable for toilet paper.  It truly is a case of how nice it must be to be a celebrity, because an unfunny hack like Jimmy Fallon can literally produce a bullshit no effort stack of cardstock paper, put his name on it, and it will make it onto bookshelves, and I bet if I took two seconds to look it up, these were probably New York Times bestsellers at some point in history, but I’m not going to because I’d rather spend 52 seconds typing this sentence up instead.  He’s probably made more than what I make in a year in salary, on the royalties of this fucking snooze job of children’s literature, which only further feed the angsty narrative of how unfair the world is.

The takeaway of this post is that if any new or impending parents ever read this, do yourselves and your children a favor and stay the fuck away from Jimmy Fallon’s shitty books, especially if you actually love your kids and want their brains to actually develop.  Might I recommend authors such as Anna Dewdney or Sandra Boynton instead as opposed to the guy who could barely keep it together on SNL and often times failed, to not laugh at his own unfunny shit jokes?

Black Widow: Just because it could be made, doesn’t mean it should be made

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let’s just get this out of the way: Black Widow is probably the worst film in the entire MCU.  Down there with the various Hulk films, but at least still better than other non-MCU turds like Ghost Rider and all attempts at The Fantastic Four.  But that’s not saying that much. 

The point is, Black Widow was not that great of a film, and probably should not have been made.  Its existence serves no benefit to the equity that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has built, and has in fact added unnecessary weight to the cash-printing spaceship the MCU franchise has been throughout the last decade, having produced and actually released such a turd.

Needless to say, before I proceed with this post, in the event that any of my zero readers have not been privy to the happenings of the MCU, I will put the rest of this behind the cut, because that’s just the kind of guy I am, act as if the whole world is reading, even if I know that nobody is.

Continue reading “Black Widow: Just because it could be made, doesn’t mean it should be made” →

The new era of college sports

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A while back, I used to have the attitude that agreed with the notion that college athletes shouldn’t be getting paid to apply their talents under the banners of their respective schools, and that the education that they receive, should they actually choose to accept them, was compensation more than adequate in the tradeoff.

Things change though, and for every Cardale Jones that flaunts his hired gun status that gives no shits about a college education, are still countless other student athletes who are stalwarts at the college level, but the harsh reality is that they have very little to no actual future in professional ranks.  It’s those guys that that have helped change my tune when it comes to compensation for student athletes, because college is most likely going to be the pinnacle of their athletic careers, and it would be great if they could cash in on a modicum of it before their window of opportunity to earn, is shut.

So the news of the NCAA now allowing student athletes to start making money on their likenesses, endorsements and social media accounts is definitely a positive step in the right direction at a knee-jerk reaction, but at the same time, there’s a lot of gray area and things that could potentially go in an unsavory direction, that spurred this train of thought post.

Like I said, my knee-jerk reaction is one of positivity, and general happiness for all student-athletes who will now start to be able to make some money off of their sweat, efforts and contributions.  They won’t be explicitly being paid by their schools, which is still something that I agree should not be allowed, but it’ll be nice to know that an innocuous autograph session or them showing up to a local car dealership or restaurant to make an appearance can get them some punishment-free cash, just because they play some sport for their school.

The one thing I like the most from this is that I think it will help curb the culture of one-and-dones, in mostly basketball and football.  Fringe prospects that aren’t Zion Williamson or Trevor Lawrence-good might actually stick around for another year or two, and now have options to choose from whether or not it’s worth becoming a benchwarmer in the pros versus remaining a god on campus and cleaning up on endorsements and other profitable endeavors.

College-good athletes will be more likely to stick around four years, and not only will their teams benefit from having physically and mentally matured juniors and seniors on their squads, the ones that actually take life seriously might actually get educations and graduate legitimately, instead of a parade of paper African-American studies majors trying to survive illiterately in the world after college.

The benefit to this is that fringe contenders’ windows of contention might remain open a little bit longer, because key members of contending teams might stick around longer if they’re capable of earning while in college, instead of bolting for any Euroleague hoops or XFL or CFL if they can’t make it to the bigs directly. 

And it goes both ways when it comes to the power schools in the nation, because obviously schools with preexisting relationships with major companies will still get the lion’s share of top prospects, but if programs start to get a little crowded with upperclassmen staying in school, it’s going to funnel prospects or force incumbents into the transfer portal to go to other schools, which may or may not raise the amount of parity throughout college athletics.

But like I said, it’s not a perfect solution, and for all the good that’s possible, there’s still a lot of room for negative things to be or remain the case; like the aforementioned obvious aspect that the major schools with preexisting relationships with companies like Nike, UnderArmour and other relationships are still going to get the best prospects, due to their now-available opportunities for endorsements, so it will still probably feel like the rich will remain getting richer, while all the other schools will feel like they’re fighting over scraps.

And foolishly counterpointing one of my positives, programs like Duke will be tailor-made to probably do well under this new era of college sports, because as much as everyone loathes Duke, Duke is great at producing college talent.  Sure, a lot of it has to do with Coach K’s brainwashing, and he is allegedly on his way out, but the fact of the matter is that Duke rosters historically have been loaded with well-built teams that dominate the college level, and keeping these rosters mostly together for 3-4 years at a time might result in some return to prominence by the Dukes and other programs that operate in similar manners.

Finally, let us not overlook one of the more annoying outcomes of this development: the era of self-promotion and rise of obnoxious social media presences of student athletes now who are going to embark on missions to promote themselves, develop personas, brands and identities to try to monetize and make bank while they’re in college now.  If I had as much time to fart around on the internet and sports websites as I once did, I can only imagine how obnoxious things have the potential to be as college athletes across the nation will be getting up in our virtual faces trying to become famous so they can make money.

Either way, it’s ultimately a step in the right direction, with both positives and negatives up in the air, and the fact that it’s so new and unrefined, it’ll take all of two seconds for college athletes and the inevitable wave of agents that will prey on them, to find all sorts of loopholes and gray area for things to get muddy really fast.

But man, how much must it suck to be the graduating seniors of 2020/21’s NCAA athletes?  Sure Najee Harris probably was cleaning up on all sorts of under-the-table non-monetary compensation while winning a national championship for Alabama, but how salty do you think he’s going to be knowing that all the freshmen coming in are going to be able to make money without needing to hide and be as secretive as he once was?

About AEW’s replica blet…

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure how I ended up on ShopAEW’s distribution list, as I have never purchased anything from them, or ProWrestlingTees.com at any point in my life, but for whatever reason, I still get their periodic emails.  It’s hasn’t really been a nuisance yet, and as much as I clown on them as a promotion, I do think that they still produce some decent merch from time to time, 75% of it being for Britt Baker.  And I figured if the company were ever to eventually release replica title blets, this would probably be the most accurate source to get information about them.

Well, that time finally came, and I saw an email titled “AEW World Championship Replica Title” and my interest was immediately piqued.  Honestly, I’m not that big on their world title; if I had my pick on any of the actual AEW blets available, it would be a Tag Team blet, and since Miro became TNT Champion, it’s slowly softened my opinion on what I originally designated a Popeyes Blet.  But as a collector of replica blets in the first place, I still wanted to see what was going, in case there was an appealing price point that could change my mind.

$699.  Six hundred, ninety-nine dollars. 

For a replica blet.

My knee-jerk reaction is definitely, yeah fuck no

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shitting on this blet because it’s AEW and I know I’ve been quick to shit on them for all the dumb things they’ve done so far.  I’m not shitting on this blet because of its seemingly high price tag; frankly, this isn’t the most expensive blet out there.

I’m shitting on this blet because it has a high price tag for what they’re not going into any real detail about.  I even watched the video of it in case there was some more clarification on what materials they’re using and the quality of the metal, but it’s instead just more fluff from Pentagon’s valet/AEW’s Spanish language announcer, Alex Abrahantes.

New Japan sold official replicas of IWGP belts, which ranged from $2,080 to $1,800; but they’re clear that they’re using 18-karat gold, and the craftsmanship is very Japanese exquisite.

Even WWE sells more expensive blets, like their deluxe line, which justifies the cost by using real leather, and then they have nearly $2,000 elite replicas which are basically actual, television-ready replicas that are made from 10-karat gold and cubic zirconia stones.

However, WWE also sells all sorts of “more affordable” replica blets, usually not exceeding $399, and are always going on 20-30% off sale, and that’s the bread and butter in which I like to throw my money away at.

The fact that AEW comes out of the gate with a $700 blet doesn’t particularly seem like a great idea, but that’s just me.  Especially if there’s zero information on why it costs that much, other than “simulated jewels.”  I know I’m one to speak seeing as how I have literally 20 replica blets, but not one of them has exceeded $349, and nobody’s ever looked at a blet of mine to try and validate its authenticity.

But as someone who’s literally purchased blets before solely because the price point was appealing, if AEW really wanted to move a lot of blets, having more cost-effective alternatives to their $700 coup de grace would probably result in more profit which ultimately should be the goal of any self-respecting retailer.  It boggles my mind how many examples of people and companies who raked in millions selling a whole lot of cheaper, that there are so many out there that still think selling a lot less of really expensive, is a viable business model.

I know the blet industry is about as niche as they come, but if AEW, WWE and NJPW want to actually compete with Pakistanis making bootlegs in caves out of scraps, they all need to rethink their strategies and start releasing some more cost-effective alternatives and an NXT UK Tag Team replica.