Tag: cashmoney

Just because “cool” is in the name doesn’t make it such

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol: Braves’ new spring training home unveiled to be CoolToday Park

Leave it to the Atlanta Braves to always put salary over substance, and until 2040, their future Spring Training home will basically forever, be called CoolToday Park; named after a local Sarasota HVAC company.  And despite the undisclosed financial details of the deal, naming rights aren’t cheap, but CoolToday somehow had a couple ten million dollars in order to secure the rights to a baseball stadium for an actual major league club.

Really though, come on now, CoolToday?  And with a logo that makes it look like it’s right out of the 1970’s?  Clearly, the effort doesn’t match nearly the dollar amount spent in order to get these naming rights, but when the day is over, who really cares because of, money?  But to those of us on the outside judging in, it’s a sad and mundane opportunity squandered to get something remotely cool out of the whole charade of the Braves fleecing yet another town in America for another ballpark the country does not need.

But again, leave it to the Braves to ignore everything with any substance in the pursuit of money.  I guess Publix or Red Lobster didn’t want to put in any bids, or be associated with a perpetual loser like the Braves, but damn would I have been excited had either of these native Florida businesses decided to slap their name onto the Braves’ ballpark.  Dare I’d say, it would definitely improve my enthusiasm to know that the company with the immortal chicken tender subs and bakery, or a company with LOBSTER in the name, would be the official home of Braves Spring Training.

I guess it’s no surprise that the Braves settled on some lame HVAC company to name the ballpark after, though.  I mean, from a business standpoint, if any company is going to survive for 20 years, it’s definitely going to be an HVAC company in Florida, and there will probably be no chance that they end up like Denver’s Sports Authority Field, where the naming company went under, but the venue was stuck with their name until it had to be legally changed.

Come on though, “CoolToday Park” sounds about as exciting as a sermon.  But considering how corporately stiff and rigid the Braves management from top to bottom, this is no surprise at all.

Good thing my ballpark journey is for the most part complete.  I can’t say I’d be particularly enthused about having to add an entry for CoolToday Park into my travels.

The prodigal Heap has returned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Brave Old World: Brian McCann returns to the Atlanta Braves after leaving the team five years ago

This news, brought a smile to my face.  Now I don’t expect ol’ Heap (a very insider hipster nickname for McCann stemming from the minor leagues) to inexplicably return to the form of the 22-year old All-Star that hit .333 and 24 homers all because he’s back in a Braves uniform, especially since he’s now 35 and very much on the declining phase of his career.  But it still makes me happy to know that Heap is coming home, because maybe it’s just the fanboy in me, but it just never seemed right to see a guy like Brian McCann suiting up for anyone other than the Braves.

Don’t get me wrong, I always rooted for him after he left, even when he was on the Yankees, and especially when he was on the Team of Destiny™ Astros, and I was very happy to see McCann, along with other Braves expats like Evan Gattis and Charlie Morton win a World Series.  But it often makes me happy when a guy who was a once popular member of the team, like a Jeff Francoeur, Jonny Venters or a Brian McCann, comes back to the fold.

It doesn’t really matter that when the day is over, he’s probably not going to be an All-Star again, much less even be reliably starting on a regular basis.  The traditionalist in me sees his value in that he’s a steady veteran leader that brings a lot of familiarity with the organization, and a now championship pedigree to a locker room that might be able to benefit from his experience.

But most importantly, he’s a local guy that was always beloved by the city of Atlanta, and him coming home, to try and help nurture and contribute this young and talented roster into more legitimate contenders, can only be welcome.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Josh Donaldson also signed with the team too.

Now if only the Braves could upgrade their pitching, 2019 could actually be a very interesting season.

Did Atlanta really lose the HQ2 sweepstakes?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In case you missed it, Amazon finally ended their year-long goose chase of deciding on what city was going to win the privilege and exalted honor of being home to HQ2.  And because contests don’t really need to have rules or hold true initial claims anymore, not just one city, but two, were picked to split HQ2 into what I guess might be HQ2 and HQ2-2 or HQ3 or whatever they choose to call it, but the bottom line is that there wasn’t just one winner, but two co-winners: Crystal City in Virginia, and Long Island City in New York.

Admittedly, in the start of the whole HQ2 saga, I was actually hopeful that Atlanta would end up being the winner, especially after it made it past the first few rounds of cuts, and bettors were actually placing odds on the whole thing, placing Atlanta along with Austin, Texas, as the odds-on favorites to be where Amazon decided to go.

I think a part of that was just kind of the sports fan in me, that is pretty eager to see Atlanta, or the state of Georgia get any sort of win, that even a competition like where a major corporation is deciding to go, would’ve been sufficient enough to be able to declare that Atlanta came out with a major win.  And the knee-jerk thoughts of what a company like Amazon would be capable of doing with its arrival, like jettisoning property values, infusing the city with fresh new people that might be able to break the norm and shape something new, and the outlandish thought that being home to HQ2 might just supercharge Prime deliveries for the hometown immediately came to mind.

But then as time passed, and the saga drug on and on and on, with more cuts and more bullshit happening, where Atlanta kept moving on, but kept dumping more and more money into trying to impress Jeff Bezos and Co. to come to Atlanta, it began to get old hat really fast.  Skeptics were quick to point out that a place in the DC/VA/MD would have the inside track, since Bezos owned the Washington Post, and why wouldn’t he want to base his primary business near the major media outlet he owned?

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My first-ever official promotion

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Effective today, I’ve just received my first ever promotion at work.  It sounds like something that probably should have happened at least a few times in my career, given the fact that I’ve been working as a graphic designer for nearly two decades, but seriously, this is the first time that I’ve ever received a promotion.

Typically in the past, if I ever wanted to pursue more money or actually advance my career out of complacency, the onus has really been on me to usually leave a place and seek out employment somewhere else, where I’d make more money and/or get a better title along the way.  I’ve never really taken titles seriously nor have I ever really feared about starting at the ground level, so despite my long career, I’ve bounced around a good bit, needless to say.

But considering that I like my job, the company I work for and (generally) the team I’m on, when an opportunity arose for me to advance internally, I thought about it for a minute and had one of those brief moments of soul-searching and realization that this was the perfect opportunity to actually-really-truly take my career seriously in a long-term and sustainable manner.  It took a little bit of time going through the interviewing and selection process, but I was pretty stoked when it turned out that I was the guy chosen to advance up the ladder.

So today marks the first day of work; in a new role.  It’s a new experience for me as instead of an office full of new faces, it’s an office full of familiar faces, except that I’m under a different title, new role, and actually have reports that I’ll eventually be fully responsible for.  I know there are a lot more meetings and emails and other Office Space-y things that go along with a corporate gig, but I’m also making more money, have some better benefits, and at a point in my life where I realize that I’m not getting any younger and should probably start taking the future seriously, I feel like I’ve taken a positive step in the right direction.

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The retro gaming fad is stupid

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let me clarify: I don’t have a problem with playing old video games on old consoles.  I do however, have a problem with video game companies throwing in the towel on creativity and effort, and simply repackaging old hardware and software, calling it retro and then selling them at prices that don’t exactly match the end product, all in the name of preying on the nostalgia of nerds like me and around a similar age.

Nintendo made ludicrous amounts money selling miniaturized versions of both the NES and the SNES systems that are basically glorified emulators with a safe set of classic games, most of which weren’t really that high in demand.  Sony decided to hop on the same boat and announced the creation of a miniaturized Piss1 console that will basically be the same thing with Playstation’s early library.

More recently, the software companies themselves have decided to produce such retro collections, such as Capcom releasing their Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, which is a bunch of ROMs of some of their unlicensed side-scrolling fighting games.  And just a few days ago, I saw that Konami has decided to re-release arguably the most successful Castlevania game of all time, Symphony of the Night.

Undoubtedly, all of these things have and will continue to make money, because if they were projected to not make money, they would never be happening in the first place.  But the fact of the matter is that I can’t help but think that this is all really stupid, and I can’t help but cringe at the idea of so many people, and plenty that I know personally, who are going to take the bait and spend absurd amounts of money for systems and games that we evolved and moved away from, for a reason.

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Life goals, battle mode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came into a little bit of fuck-you-play-money recently, so I did what any responsible adult would do – I went on a mad witch hunt for a toy from my childhood that I still wanted to this very day.

It only took nearly 23 years from the day I first decided that I wanted one, but I finally got my hands on a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (legacy) Megazord.  I’m serious, when I first saw the show when I was in the fifth grade, I remember thinking “man, this show is sooooo lame,” but then the next thing I knew, I was watching every episode and it wasn’t long afterward did the want to watch the show force me to learn how to program a VCR so I could tape the show because it came on at 2:30 in the afternoon and I didn’t get out of school until closer to 3:30.

When I first saw commercials for MMPR toys, I wouldn’t have imagined that they’d become the literal hardest things in the world to get a hold of that year, but then again to a fifth grader, there aren’t a whole lot of things to imagine other than more MMPR, video games, and trying not to get bad grades so my mom wouldn’t kick my ass.  But I learned really quickly the concept of supply and demand that year, when it became very apparent that every other boy around my age also wanted MMPR toys, and getting a hold of a Megazord or a DragonZord was going to be the equivalent of trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

Suffice to say, as much as my mom tried to spoil her son and acquire one, it didn’t happen.  I literally remember articles in the Washington Post about how they were the hot item, and how no toy store in the country could ever manage to get more than 1-3 of either in at a time, and people were literally waiting for doors to open on a daily basis to get them when they did.

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The unintentional greatness of opt-out clauses

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When the day is over, I’m not really a fan of opt-out clauses in sports contract.  They’re like slimy, sleazy trap doors out of contracts that professionals can claim they’re really going to commit to a team for seven years, but dude-bail after two years or five years, or whenever they’ve negotiated to have an opt-out available to them.  It’s like being in a fucked-up relationship where the dude is allowed to leave after the second year scot-free, but if they pass up on that escape window, then they’re locked in for the long haul.

More often than not, we’ve seen classic examples of guys who sign 7-10 year deals, with opt-out clauses after like three years; where the fans think they’ll have a guy for 7-10 years, they’re all stoked to see him play out of his mind in year three, put up career best numbers, lead their teams deep into playoffs… and then opt the fuck out of their contracts, and then put a gun to their teams’ heads and stick them up for another lucrative long-term contract, lest they become free agents and jump to whomever else would be willing to instead. 

Off the top of my head, Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia are prime examples of guys who have successfully parlayed the opt-out clause to perfection and bilked the New York Yankees out of more money than their original Yankee contracts were originally worth.  LeBron James is a perfect recent example of a guy who has not only opted out this year, but has done it twice now, opting out of the contract he had with the Miami Heat to escape back to Cleveland, and then now opting out of his deal with the Cavaliers to go to Los Angeles.

On the flip side, there’s the hilarious example of Dwyane Wade, who opted out of a guaranteed $16 million for one year with the Miami Heat, only to discover that nobody wanted him, and then came crawling back to the Heat, where he had to sign for two more years in order to get than $16 million back.

And that’s where we get a glimpse of the unintentional greatness of the opt-out clause, because every now and then it provides the opportunity for overpaid babies we know as professional athletes to get owned.  And there are fewer things I take a sadistic pleasure out of seeing than professional athletes getting owned financially.

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