Tag: cashmoney

New Father Brogging, #021

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As my paternity leave winds down, I naturally feel like the last six weeks have blown by, and that I wish I had more time.  Mentally, I’m not really that prepared to return to work yet, but it’s not like I really have much of a choice if I want to be able to provide for my family, other than to suck it up and get back to it.  But I definitely wish I had more time, without a doubt.

Overall, the last six weeks have been mostly anything but easy, as raising a child is definitely no small feat, and I should be fortunate that I even had the luxury of paternity time in the first place.  As necessary as it most certainly felt to me, the reality is this is something that my company did not have in place when I first started there, which wasn’t even a full five years ago.  I remember the big deal it was within the company, and even getting some national news traction about how when we went full paternity, and thinking nothing of it back then, because I wasn’t even married yet, but having capitalized on it now, I couldn’t be more grateful to work for a company that offers it, because I know that such is not the case everywhere else.

But throughout my paternity leave, my child has grown a bunch, begun eating solid foods, competently rolling over front to back to front, has graduated out of swaddles, and has been teething, chatting a lot more, and we’ve begun trying to get her to sit up on her own strength.  One of my prime hopes was that while I was off, we’d be able to get her into a casting call for some sort of baby company, and put her to work a little bit, and once she actually did get put on a shortlist of candidates, but then they hit us with the curveball that all babies would be required to be able to sit up on their own power.  Bummer

Aside from baby-ing, over the last six weeks, I managed to get my brog back up and running, although it’s an indeterminate time to whether when or if I’ll ever get the pre-2010 archives back up and running, because that’s way lower priority than the brog.  I also had some house issues, when some freakish storms exposed some leaks in my home, which turned out to be a time consuming and costly ordeal in its own right, which really messed me up, and I also found out that my own dad has been having some minor health issues on his own, leading to my sister and I to have some real talks about the inevitable future.

Needless to say, it’s been a time during paternity leave, and it’s hard to comprehend that these six weeks have evaporated so quickly.  Put being on full-time daddy duty 10-12 hours a day, with next to no help and practically no down time for myself, and it’s been very understandable when people try to expound the difficulties of parenthood.

To reward myself and/or indulge in some retail therapy, I decided to get myself a new belt, as well as track down my own belated birthday gift, in this sweet Power Rangers T-Rex DinoZord.  And the belt is mostly as a result of an Amazon gift card my sister got me for my birthday when her own attempt to get me the T-Rex stalled out due to a flaky seller in Japan, and much like Target gift cards, I’m left with a wtf do I purchase, until it came to my attention that Amazon actually had a few people selling legitimate belts.  So now I have a Ring of Honor tag replica, that guys like Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish, the Young Bucks, Hardys, AJ Styles, Kevin Steen Owens, Cesaro, CM Punk and Seth Rollins have held in their histories.

And modeling the belt is my new life-long tag team partner.  As intensive as some parenting might have felt at times, I wouldn’t take anything away from the last six weeks, and I’m sad that it’s likely I’ll not get another massive chunk of time like this to spend with my child for the immediate future.

It’s hard to even describe the cringe of Randy Orton apparel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Perusing through my news feeds, I came across this story that detailed how WWE wrestler Randy Orton has apparently released a clothing line, known as SLTHR; presumably as in “slither” because his in-ring persona is that of a snake-like aggressor who cannot be trusted and strikes quickly. 

After looking at his announcement image for five seconds, and the painfully low-effort design of Old English typeface, and the horrible utilization of the no-vowel spelling of words as if we’re trying to go back to Aramaic, and my face literally did the Steve Carell from The Office face meme.

Holy shit man, it’s hard to really put into words just how terrible the idea of Randy Orton clothing is.  It’s awful because in all the years Orton has been on screen in non-gear attire, it’s always douchey bro clothing, and it basically validates the blurred line between character and person that Orton’s personal clothing line is basically the same kind of crap.  It’s awkward because as much as Orton loves to pick fun at wrestlers with indy pasts or those who he feels has not made a respectful amount of money in their careers, a guy schilling out his own apparel seems a little desperate to be making more money himself.

And it’s just plain bad, the way it looks, how it’s branded, and how it’s “announced,” over social media.  If the one shirt is any indication of what any other products are going to look like (I can’t under good consciousness make any conceited effort to check out the rest), I wouldn’t be too optimistic.  I’ve never actually see anyone wear a WWE-licensed Orton shirt in public before, not even ironically, so I have a hard time believing anyone would be willing to actually spend real money and purchase much less wear Orton’s SLTHR crap either.

Another funny thing to me is that this is barely a week removed from where Vince McMahon himself put the company on blast, to tell all wrestlers to stop using their WWE gimmicks and likenesses to try and profit on shit like Cameo, Twitch or any other third-party creative outlets.  Orton is notoriously infamous for being coddled and protected by the WWE, and numerous wrestlers past and present have all insinuated all the rules he’s been allowed to bend and outright break, on account of his privilege, and this is turning into a glaringly prime example of just such.  Sure, “Randy Orton” is actually Randy Orton’s name, and there’s nothing against the rules of him using it to sell his own shit, but the optics of this combined with the eggshells all his other peers are walking on certainly doesn’t help the overall picture.

Overall, just everything about this is cringeworthy and turrible.  For a guy that is currently being billed as the greatest wrestler of all time, it reeks of desperation, and much like Orton himself, seems so very flat, boring and completely lacking in creativity.  But hey, if there are any wrestling fans out there that get put into the friend zone of anyone they’re unrequited crushing on, at least now they have an official shirt that can wear to really drive home the reality of the situation.

Make Em Say Ughhhh . . . on the crapper

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I grimace face’d: has been rapper Master P releases line of instant food with the intention of replacing Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, aptly called “Uncle P’s”

Lately, I’ve been in one of my writer’s ruts.  My janky ring finger that makes it occasionally difficult to type, combined with the fact that now that my brog is back up, I haven’t really found a good rhythm to write, and I’ve kind of lost touch with all the sites I used to hit up to seek out inspiration.  And then there’s that thing called “the baby” which commands the vast majority of all my days, and I sometimes struggle to find things to want to write about, or find the time to carve out in which to do some writing.

It’s times like these, when stories like Uncle P’s Louisiana Seasoned instant food line, kind of help trigger my brain into spurting out words again, and see if I can break some of the rust that’s forming on my writing chops before they go too dormant.

Honestly, my first thought when I read the headline and then saw the hero image was, is this for fucking real??

I haven’t heard Master P’s name since like, 2000 when he showed up on WCW to do a rap vs. country music storyline that ironically ended up with the heel country faction helmed by the late great Curt Hennig inadvertently getting super over, when it was obviously clear that the rap faction was the intended stars.

He also released this shitty song that somehow was always in the top-5 music videos on MTV that I used to watch the countdown after school because I literally didn’t know what else to watch and MTV seemed like it might be cool.  Coincidentally, the lyrics are what I would imagine the average Uncle P’s customer would be doing, while on the crapper after eating too much of Uncle P’s hackneyed instant food products.

Continue reading “Make Em Say Ughhhh . . . on the crapper” →

Blet Money

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last two months, whenever I’ve had any downtime, I’ve been doing online surveys for mostly pocket change.  Jokingly, I declared that all of the piddly change I’d make would eventually feed into a larger pot, and that the goal would be to get enough money to where I could get myself a new replica wrestling belt for my collection, and hopefully by then, the WWE Shop will get their heads out of their asses and release an NXT UK Tag Team Championship replica.

Well, as you can see above, I’ve done quite a lot of surveys, and the pot has filled up way faster than I would have ever imagined, and I’ve more or less got enough money socked away to where I could be ready to pull the trigger most any available belt out there.  Shocking nobody, the WWE has still yet to release the one belt that I really want, but I’m hoping that perhaps the re-launching of NXT UK in mid-September might jog someone’s memory that there’s still an active belt out there that still has no replica available.

The funny thing is that a long time ago, I used to do random surveys on pen and paper, when companies would send them to me, with pre-paid postage envelopes, which made it easier.  I remember the first time I got actual currency in an envelope, which inspired me to keep going with it for a little bit longer.  Jen on the other hand, got a free pack of toilet paper to sample and judge, which was always funny since I was getting cash for doing surveys.

Ironically, it was mythical wife who introduced me to 1Q (yes that is my referral link), as an app that provided digital surveys, and the payouts were immediate and through PayPal.  Sure, they were only quarters, but still, a bunch of quarters turns into a bunch of dollars over time, and every little bit helps, when there’s one pot all this change is getting dumped into.

I say ironically, because this clearly re-ignited this compulsion to do surveys for pocket change, because it lets me at least be making something, in my downtime, as opposed to making nothing when I’m bored and doing nothing, although that’s hardly the case this day and age, seeing as how there’s a baby in the equation.

Continue reading “Blet Money” →

When the day is over, you just have to do the shit yourself

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because my mental being can’t handle loose ends, I decided to take it upon myself to put back up my own fucking fence, so that it’s one less thing that I’ll have to dump money into when it comes time to (hopefully) finding someone competent to fix shit around my house.  As mentioned before, in the process, I fucked up my finger pretty bad, but fortunately it wasn’t in a state where I couldn’t just bandage it up, wear gloves and not be able to continue working.

To summarize, among the shit that the clown of a “handyman” I “hired” to fix my window did, was not just remove several fence panels,  but also damage the posts in in the process of fishing the $450 scissor lift rental I made on his request, off of my backyard, which also tore the shit out of my turf (photos below).  He claimed that he would take responsibility for the damages, but shocking nobody, he’s been as evasive and vague as an extreme cheapskate when the bill shows up, about when he’s actually coming to do anything, and frankly I don’t actually believe he’s going to do anything, and I’m going to light him up on the internet and hope it hurts his future business, because an asshole like this doesn’t need to be out there pretending to be a respectable handyman.

During the days of ghosting, I would step outside and just look at the unfinished job of the fence, and get madder and madder, and I realized that this was not good for my mental state.  Just because I didn’t want to do it didn’t mean that I wasn’t capable of doing it, and considering the sloppy nature of this guy in the first place, it would probably be in the best interest if I did it myself, to ensure that it would be done well.

So janky finger injury aside, I assessed where things stood, and came to the conclusion that this was one of those situations where I would just have to do this shit myself.

Continue reading “When the day is over, you just have to do the shit yourself” →

Am I naïve for having so much faith in people?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sorry, I just can’t get over this yet.  I wasn’t really planning on writing about this again, but on the day my handyman was supposed to come back and finish fixing my fence, he no-showed on me, citing that he was going over on another job he had, which is understandable, but the objection I have is the fact that he had stated that he was going to make it by a particular time.

I’m okay with the need to reschedule and adjust, but don’t leave me hanging and make me have to be the one to get some fucking answers when it was probably very clear that the job was going to be going long, and I wouldn’t have had to feel like a hostage in my own house waiting all day, because I wanted to talk to this guy before he got to work to point out some things.

Alternatively, the title of this post would’ve been “To blow up, or not to blow up,” because I’d been thinking about this a lot over the last day, about whether or not I should light this guy a new asshole on the internet for the absolute putrid way he’s running a business.  There’s a part of me that just wants this to all end, and leave things civil, and let an up-and-comer not get obliterated on the internet, but there’s another part of me that’s sick and tired of constantly waiting for this guy to show up, the fact that when he did show up, he fucked me harder than Andy Dufresne probably did in Shawshank Redemption, and that I’m practically waiting on him to cut-and-run on me, leaving me at more than just a $450 loss.

Originally, I figured I wouldn’t bother, because as shitty of a business this guy is running, I have reservations of blowing up a guy with a million kids and clearly in need of a job, because a bad reputation isn’t just going to cost this guy a few projects, but could very well be the difference with him being able to provide for his family.

But seeing as how he’s clearly got other projects, ones that he prioritizes over mine, which he royally fucked up, I’m a little less piteous of his situation, and I’m feeling pretty steamed over the fact that he left me out to dry.

Continue reading “Am I naïve for having so much faith in people?” →

To add insult to injury

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The fucking handyman broke my glasses.  Not directly, but as a result of dealing with him, my glasses ended up breaking, and I definitely blame him.  These things cost me $300 back in 2015, and will probably cost me a good bit to replace, even with my insurance credit.

After he royally fucked my yard, and gave his word that he would take care of the repairs, he ended up hanging out at my house until nearly 9 pm, hosing down the scissor lift that was caked in mud, and very likely going to cost me an extra $200 in cleaning charges, plus if there’s anything wrong with it because it was drug around off-road, that’s on me too.  Periodically, I went outside to check on him, and towards the end of his night, we were discussing the next steps in this negative project, and how to get us back to even ground.

But because I’m a responsible fucking person, I’m wearing a mask; but because I’m wearing a mask, and it’s humid-as-balls Georgia, my glasses are fogging up, so I take them off and set them on top of mythical wife’s car.

Long story short, I forgot to take them back inside, and the next morning, I’m doing my thing around the house, and then I get the idea to take my daughter out on a stroller walk, since the weather isn’t too turrible yet.  I’m looking for my glasses, and I can’t find them anywhere, but eventually I just say fuck it, because I don’t need my glasses to go on a walk.  I load my baby into the stroller, and we head outside, and I’m just off the driveway, when I see something on the ground.

Hm, that looks like a lens from my glasses.  I pick it up, and I hold it up to one of my eyes, and it’s at that very second it all comes crashing back to me, where I had left my glasses last.  I quickly start looking around, and then I see one of the arms, and then the mangled frames, and then I see the other lens, somehow bent.

A true FML moment, right then and there, because everything was then as clear as if I were wearing my glasses.

Obviously, it is nobody’s fault but my own, but after the service raping of my yard and fence, I was pretty out of mind for the rest of the day, and clearly it impacted my ability to remember simple shit, like retrieving my glasses, so when the day is truly over, it really is the fault of the fucking handyman.

$450 down the drain, and now a likely $300 more to get a new pair of glasses, because this is one of those rare instances where my Asian-ness kicks in, and I liked having a pair of expensive designer frames.  Fuck this guy