Tag: nostalgia

I guess too much salt can be a health violation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There is a remote possibility that at some point in the life of the brog, that I may have posted about this place in the past.  Either here, or on one of my social profiles when I was probably trying to be funny.

Either way, the thing is, I know exactly where this place is, seeing as how I used to be a resident of the south side of Metro Atlanta.  I used to live within reasonable driving distance to this place, and I in fact used to shop at the grocery store that was in the same plaza occasionally.

That being said, aside from the fact that the place is clearly named after the legendary WWE superstar/manager, it’s my familiarity with the place that adds to my general amusement of the fact that Mr. Fuji Japanese Steak House somehow managed to get a staggering 18 U rating on their State of Georgia Food and Safety Inspection score.

I mean, it seems pretty apparent that the food rating grading scale isn’t that far off from general public school grading scales.  100 the obvious goal, 90-99 is generally positively looked upon,* 80-89 being that solid B that lets patrons know that they’re still mostly safe, 70-79** being that dreaded C grade that might make a patron reconsider their choices, and anything below that would probably have someone who walked in the door turn around and leave immediately.  Frankly, that latter rating probably means the business has to shut down and address all transgressions until they’re legally allowed to operate again, but I don’t care enough to verify.

*unless your parents are Asian in which you’ve disappointed them for not just being perfect, but that you were probably 1-2 careless errors away from it

**writing this all out makes me realize that restaurant grading scales really is more Asian than American, because once you hit that C or below, it might as well be first-degree murder

So with all that in consideration, massive props to Mr. Fuji for violating so much shit that they got an almost unbelievable 18 score.  I remember back when I was in the 3rd grade and really struggling to get my multiplication tables, we had these daily drill worksheets that had like 100 math problems, and we all had 3 minutes to do as many of them as we could.  And the class had this board with every student’s name on it, and upon successful completion (80% or higher), students would get a sticker and advance to the next level.

I’m not sure how much this would be deemed acceptable in today’s standards, but like I said I struggled tremendously, and I got hung up on the third worksheet for the longest time.  One can imagine the number it was doing to my self-esteem to see the class chart when I was the last student stuck on level 3, while the rest of my class was pulling more and more ahead with each successive day. 

Eventually, multiplication just clicked for me and I would eventually go on a heater where I smashed #3, caught up to the rest of my class, and actually surpassed some of my peers before the entire introduction to multiplication drills came to a conclusion.

However, unnecessary as it was for me to write out that last paragraph beyond trying to ensure that any of my zero readers doesn’t think I’m still a mathematical luddite, backing back up to the point of why I brought up that nostalgia in the first place, there was once a day where while I was still struggling on #3 for probably the 11th time, I had bombed so badly that the teacher X’ed out the first ten or so wrong answers, and then just scrawled a giant red X throughout the rest of my worksheet, even though I did have 9×9=81 correct, because for whatever reason that one always stuck with me.

My teacher was that disgusted with my performance, that they basically threw in the towel on my worksheet that day, in exasperation.

I feel like whatever inspector came into Mr. Fuji to do their safety check, probably had to have hit a point throughout their visit, and just scrawled a giant red X on their checklist, before remembering that they were doing a state-mandated task, and then being thorough with their inspection, and writing down all the infractions as ticky-tack as “employee’s personal effects too close to food service area” to “entire planet of mutant cockroaches discovered in food storage areas.”

But 18 is a pretty legendary score of futility.  I remember teachers in the past would tell all the delinquent students who had a tendency to not do their work or turn things in outright, that a 60 F was still better than a zero in the grade book; sure 18 is going to be better than a zero for state safety inspections, but in this case, not by a whole fucking lot.  It’s like doing the SATs, writing down your name and banking those 100 points, but then turning in a blank scantron at the end.

Either way, pour one out for Mr. Fuji, as well as Peachtree City.  As a former resident there, I can tell you that there’s almost no diversity when it comes to eateries down there, and Mr. Fuji was probably one of the only places down there to get anything remotely tasting close to a flavor of the wondrous Orient, short of making it one’s self or befriending any of the Japanese residents that worked in the area.

Dad Brog (#166): Back in mah’ day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes as a treat, I take my kids to Waffle House for breakfast.  Or when I’m completely out of ideas of breakfasts for them, I throw my hands in the air and think F it, Waffle House.  Anyway, so I’m at Waffle House, my kids are going to down on a chocolate chip waffle, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a boy, probably somewhere between 11-13 years old.

He’s by himself, and he’s wearing a bicycle helmet.  A few minutes later, I see one of the very-Waffle House servers handing him a plastic to-go bag, that couldn’t have had more than a single person’s food in it, he takes it, walks out of the restaurant, hops onto an e-bike, and rode off, presumably going home or wherever.

Now before this gets too ‘back in my day’-ish, this wasn’t uncommon behavior for me, or any kids that age when we were that age, it’s just that most of the time, we were on foot, because most of our bicycles back then didn’t have adequate storage capabilities outside of dorky wicker baskets that sat at the front of your handles, and the fact that most restaurants weren’t nearly as reliant on take-out service as they are today.  Kids in the 11-13 age ranges back when I was there, were more than likely going to the nearest fast-food burger joint, and if they were taking anything to go, it was in a paper sack.

However, what this line of thinking grew curious about was the fact that the kid got on a e-bike, and after 3-4 pedals to get the bike starting, it was full-motor from there on, and before he could leave my sight, he was no longer pedaling.  E-bikes have basically become actual motorized forms of transportation for those under the age of 16 and legally unable to operate a four-wheel consumer-class vehicle.

I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing yet, but above all else, it is just one of those things that really paints the picture of how big the chasm is between kids of now, to when I was a kid, and especially to those in the generations that preceded my own.  Who knows, maybe having access and experienced with actual motorized vehicles that are expensive, and require maintenance will help build a better sense of ownership and responsibility in the kids of tomorrow.  Or, it’s the first step to heading down the path of Wall-E, where kids no longer have to walk, or even pedal their own bicycles anymore, and they’re destined to become fat immobile blobs of humanity after eating one too many Waffle House takeout meals.

Sometimes my sister and I lament about the differences of the generations, when comparing our kids to our own childhoods.  How kids today simply don’t know how to be bored and fend for themselves in a lot of applications, and how they have access to stuff like e-bikes, motorized scooters, apps to order takeout and services that can deliver all sorts of things same-day and immediately.

Much like our own predecessors lament, I suppose it’s kind of like a rite of passage for when every adult looks at the generation after them and opines, they don’t understand how good they have things.

Whenever I visit my brother, he takes me on bicycle rides, since that is something he’s grown quite passionate about since he moved to his current locale.  It’s something I always enjoy doing with him, and as the old adage goes, you really do never forget how to ride a bike.  But because he has more regular experience than I do, and for lack of an alternative, he lets me ride his e-bike while he takes his regular bicycle.

Shit weighs a ton, and is definitely not the typical bicycle that you dismount while it’s still in motion, leap off and let it come to a crashing halt on its side in the yard of the asshole neighbor, but it’s still a bicycle that anyone who’s ever ridden one can get the hang of in ten seconds.

Motor assistance is a really weird feeling at first, but I definitely see the appeal of it, and I liked having it available whenever I felt like I was really falling behind my brother, but for the most part, I was determined to pedal as often as I could.  I’d always get paranoid whenever the battery dropped from 94% to 93% and I’d be driven to try and pedal some juice back into the battery, but the point remains is that just because I had it, I didn’t really want to use it until I felt like I had to.

When I go on outdoor runs, I’ve been seeing clusters of mostly teens, now that especially school’s out down in Georgia, riding on either e-bikes or e-scooters; and the common denominator is that almost none of them are actually powering them with their legs, and just riding them around like personal vehicles.  I mean it’s cool that they’re able to get from point A to point B with less physical exertion, but not only is it eliminating any potential exercise for them, but it’s like that line from Cars: cars didn’t drive on it to make great time, they drove on it to have a great time.

Some of the best conversations I’ve had with childhood friends have often come on these leisurely, casual journeys, from one house to another, or the woods, the creek or the train tracks.

But before I wrap up this drivel, I’m curious about the people who take their motorized shit onto trails like the Silver Comet Trail, where I like to do my long-distance runs, when trying to accomplish the diminishing number of virtual runs that I sign up for.  It’s always an annoyance having to share with tryhard aggressive e-bikers, but it makes me wonder, if people motor their way for 25+ miles, do they really feel accomplished as those cyclists who actually pedaled the entire distance?

Not that I care, but that’s a curiosity that I wrap this up with.

It’s like the intention to lose is deliberate

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

PBS: former Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Democratic nomination for Georgia governor

Before I went to my voting location, mythical wife and I were talking about how the State of Georgia was at it again, with Governor Yosemite Sam signing HB369, which long story short, basically hides political affiliations for those who choose to vote non-partisan, basically to intentionally create confusion and ambiguity so that people might accidentally vote for the wrong candidates.  Obviously designed to help Republicans in the bluer parts of the state, but just another means of capitalizing on the less intelligent whose votes count the same as those with higher IQs.

There was a part of me that considered picking a Republican ballot and trying to monkey around with their results, as if there weren’t going to be tens of thousands of brainless orange worshippers who wouldn’t offset my tampering, but at least I could tell myself if by supporting Brad Raffensperger, he’s a guy that seems to have a modicum of integrity in a toxic wasteland of politico.

But mainly because the Democrats of Georgia’s play was known and in my opinion a terrible idea, and it makes me think that they’re either really that arrogant and stupid, or that they’re secretly on the payroll of the Georgia GOP to just keep doing the same dumb shit over and over again and pretend like there’s any hope.

It was pretty well known that Keisha was going to get the Democratic bid for governor, and much like the last two Governor elections, it’s basically going to be another win for the red team, but way easier this time around, and it makes me think about the cliché seen above about the definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

For the third time in a row, Georgia Dems are trotting out a black woman to go for governor, and not that I don’t think a black woman would be capable of handling the role of the position, the Dems here seem to forget that they’re in Georgia, which is a state that historically has not been particularly friendly to both black people and women.

Furthermore, Keisha Lance Bottoms is no Stacey Abrams, and she lost twice.  Stacey was a respected, tenacious bureaucrat who actually did shit that mattered, like launching Fair Fight to try and aid in voter suppression.  Stacey was generally liked by all Democrats, black and white and everyone else, and her first run for governor, although was still an L, was the closest margin the Democrats had gotten in like the last 4-5 elections.

Keisha on the other hand, has had a maligned career as the Mayor of Atlanta, often seen as handpicked stooge successor to notorious clown Hizzoner Kasim Reed, who himself was revealed to have flagrantly blazed through mountains of taxpayer dollars on his own indulgences while Mayor of the Atlanta.  Keisha constantly put herself at odds with the orange shithead, and there was one particular incident I always remembered, when she basically tried to legalize street racing to a degree, and the implication was that her son was most likely involved in doing it, and it’s like she was trying to preemptively change the law so her son wouldn’t get in too deep of shit if he were to inevitably get caught.

The bottom line is, Keisha put herself into a position where not only will she not have the vote of white people, especially those who favor the color orange, but she was not liked by large swaths of the black community, who simply thought she just wasn’t doing a good job as Mayor of Atlanta, so why would they even bother putting forth the effort to vote her into the governor’s mansion?

Like, I can practically hear Sweet Georgia Brown playing on election day when voters hit the polls, and vote after vote is cast for whomever wins the Republican runoff, because it really doesn’t matter who emerges for the GOP, they’re going to stomp a hole in Keisha.  And after the election, when voter numbers emerge, I anticipate there being a really poor black turnout, because like I said, as much as there may be those who don’t like the color orange, but they don’t like the alternative enough to feel it’s worth leaving the house to vote for it.

If it were up to me, Georgia Dems should take a step back and try to get just one wishlist category a W; either push a black man, or a woman, but just stop trying to get a two-for-one, because fringe Georgia voters are way too racist and way too sexist to vote in a black woman.

And if they try again in 2030, insanity will be definitely confirmed and reinforced.

I haven’t felt this disconnected to the WWE since my parents took cable away

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is something that I’ve often wanted to write about, but mostly on account of the chaos that is my life, and/or not feeling like writing about it when I actually have a few minutes to write, it’s just constantly been put back on the shelf

And then other things would emerge from the passage of time, in the WWE universe, and my general notes of what to write about when I get to it modifies, tweaks and I always hope it stays connected enough to where I can consolidate it to all one singular post instead of branching out into separate ones that give me anxiety of an ever-growing topic list of things I want to brog about if I ever had the time (and the drive).

But as the topic of this post clearly states, I’ve never felt so disconnected from my general fandom of the WWE and professional wrestling as a whole, than I am feeling these days.  By now, it’s no secret to fans that parent company TKO has done a number of things that have gotten the attention of fans of the industry, such as cutting a large swath of the WWE roster, reports of requesting massive pay cuts out of those who are still left, and the subsequent voluntary departures of others who did not want to yield their contractually obligated salaries, among numerous other acts of The Man.

Television, which for me is currently limited to just RAW on Netflix, because I don’t want to pay for ESPN Unlimited for PLEs, I don’t want to pay for Peacock for sporadic SNMEs, and I don’t want to pay for whatever service is necessary in order for me to be able to watch theCW for NXT and FOX for Smackdown.*

*I don’t want to jinx it, but there’s also AAA, free on YouTube, which has been extremely gratifying to watch, as it fills a metaphorical void left behind with the closure of NXT UK, where it’s a smaller, grassroots territory with a ton of talent and I’ve been enjoying its product immensely, especially since the book was given to the Undertaker

RAW is next to unwatchable nowadays because at least 65-69% of the broadcast is commercial breaks, stacked on top of the near cartoonish amount of ads that are strewn about the guardrails, on the ring apron and printed on the mat itself.  Wrestler entrances are what really makes wrestling into pro-wrestling, and almost every match has one superstar getting the shaft of having their entrance covered up by 7-8 minutes of commercials.

I genuinely don’t remember the last time I saw Roxanne Perez’s entrance, Io Sky seems to have fallen down to the tier that is at risk of having commercial break entrances, and the New Day’s fantastical entrances have been on perma-commercial break.

Speaking of the New Day, they’re probably the most notable names to emerge from recent events as talents who refused to budge from their contractually obligated compensation, and were subsequently forced into departure as a result.  In one hand, it makes me really sad to see Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston leaving, but in the other, I’m so proud of both of them for sticking up for themselves, their worth and basically saying fuck no to TKO.

Normally, I think AEW’s track record of converting those who jump into lasting successful results isn’t very high, but if there’s ever been talents that probably have the potential to make a noteworthy splash, it’s The New Day’s who will obviously have to change their names, but the field has been set up to embark on a list of what-if programs, with FTR, Edge and Christian Cope and Cage, and of course, The Young Bucks.  And if they can somehow miraculously both pry Big E away from the E, and get him medically cleared, insert Kenny Omega into the mix for the long-fantasized Elite vs. The New Day.

Speaking of departures, the recent departure of Asuka under ambiguous circumstances was another massive blow, as far as my fandoms were concerned, because there were few more talented packages in the women’s division than Asuka.  Reportedly, she’s not released, she’s not quitting because of salary cuts, but I can’t help but feel that such things weren’t in her head when she chose to step away for a spell.  The firing of her partner Kairi Sane while in the midst of an active storyline, and the lame duck finish to an interesting arc are probably things that she considered, regardless if she refuses to admit.

And just in general, the quality of the product has gotten really poor, in general.  A lot has been made about the reduction of house shows and live events, and yeah it’s great that the talent doesn’t have to kill themselves on these televised events, but it’s not like these events existed solely to cash grab smaller towns.

Live events are basically live training and practice fields for talent to work things out and practice and grow chemistry with their partners.  When you take a lot of these events away, talents have less opportunity to build rapport and practice spots and move sequences in real time, and when it comes time to do them on live television, the results have been noticeably more sloppy.

Take for example, Sol Ruca.  Frankly, I think she is the very obvious face of the women’s division in the future, but her recent demotion promotion to the main roster has been anything but impressive.  And it’s not really any fault of her own, she’s been booked to lose to all the current mainstays, which is not illogical, but when you’re trying to build up a callup, jobbing them to oblivion isn’t the way to go.

But it’s the fact that she’s been thrown to the wolves with very little rapport building with the likes of Liv Morgan and Iyo Sky, both of whom she’s already lost to, but the matches were clunky, disjointed, and way below the standard that the level of talents should be capable of.

The reason why Sol was such a standout in NXT is the quality of the matches she had with all the girls down there, but the difference is that down there, Sol and all the other girls worked out a ton at the Performance Center, NXT runs live events throughout the state, and Natalya Neidhart runs an open training facility for all the local talent.  But on the road with the main roster, Sol has looked exposed and completely devoid of chemistry, because there’s frankly not enough opportunity for it to build.  On paper, there’s no reason why she should have clunkers with the likes of Iyo Sky and Liv Morgan, but if they’re not getting enough reps in off-camera, then it’s definitely going to show on-camera.

Overall, at a holistic level, it just feels that there’s an overwhelmingly oppressive amount of corporate meddling going on in the WWE by their parent company, and although the likelihood of the same result occurring being very low, seeing as how the E is still a veritable money printer, I get a lot of vibes of WCW’s tail end, with how much corporate meddling going on.  AOL Time Warner’s constant interference, and standards and practices basically killed WCW by a thousand cuts, and every time I hear or read some inkling of the corporate meddling by TKO to the WWE, I keep seeing some dudes named Ari and Shapiro at the root of some decisions that indicate that they really have no idea how to operate professional wrestling, and it always feels like there’s always some dude named Shapiro involved whenever it comes to money micromanagement in any arena, be it wrestling, baseball, or any other multi-million dollar industries.

The bottom line is that the WWE has been really, really hard to want to continue to support, and I feel this nihilistic line of thinking that TKO is really deliberately trying to alienate older, passionate fans of the product and industry, preferring to draw in fresh and younger and looser with their money audiences, which isn’t necessarily a bad strategy, but one that can only have fatal consequences down the line for when the ADD-ness of them all decides they don’t like, or wants to cancel wrestling.

There’s a popular saying that, nobody hates X more than X fans, so in this case, it would be that nobody hates wrestling more than wrestling fans, but I used to jokingly add “and Bret Hart” to the end of it, since ‘ol bitter Bret has absolutely nothing positive to say about the current state of professional wrestling, but nowadays, it seems like it’s more accurate to say that nobody hates wrestling more than TKO, because it just feels like with their obsessive pursuit of profit, they’re absolutely killing a property that has proven for generations how profitable and sustainable it can be, when managed by the right parties.

Backlash came and went, and it was one of the first PLEs that I didn’t watch in a while.  I tinkered with VPNs for the Royal Rumble, and plunked down a month for ESPN Unlimited in order to watch Wrestlemania, but the way Backlash’s card set up, it just didn’t look like it was even worth the effort to try and swindle my way to watch it por gratis; apparently my assertion wasn’t wrong, as it turned out to be a very mid card.

The last few weeks have been hectic for me, and I missed RAW last week and didn’t feel like I missed anything (I didn’t), and the latest episode, I kind of watched it for lack of anything better to do with that amount of time, and as I’ve been saying to mythical wife who’s often sitting next to me while I’m watching, the worst part of every Monday night is when I catch up to the live feed, because that means I’m not subject to have to watch the commercials.

As a wrestling fan, I’ve put up with the loss of kayfabe, the steroid scandal almost killing the business, oversaturation of product, AEW’s fans, Katie Vick, the Gobbedly Gooker, and all sorts of shitty stories, wrestler deaths, and tasteless storylines, and stuck around.  But at this current trajectory, there is a very realistic possibility that I’m just going to stop watching RAW, because all the commercials just makes it unbearable, and when it is on, the quality of the performing going downhill isn’t going to help its cause.

Going back to the title of this post, I just haven’t felt this alienated from something I’ve loved for as long as I’ve almost been alive, and it’s kind of sad, and I would wager that I’m not the only one who’s feeling this way out there.

Happy Trails, Ted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WABE: Ted Turner, unofficial godfather of the City of Atlanta, passes away at the age of 87

As a (for lack of a better term) Atlanta Braves fan, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a professional wrestling fan who witnessed the rise and eventual fall of World Championship Wrestling, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a resident of the Metro Atlanta area for over half of my life, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.

Frankly, whether or not they were fans of the guy, not a fan, or just somewhere in the middle, I feel like it’s accurate to say that if you lived in the Metro Atlanta area, it’s kind of hard to say that Ted Turner, or more accurately, one of his endeavors didn’t affect you in some way, shape, or fashion.

I know that in today’s twisted, demented, politically charged state of America, Ted Turner equals CNN which equals information source for the filthy gross fake news Democrats which equals Ted Turner being trash to an unfortunate majority of the unwashed right-leaning troglodytes of the country, but I would wager that the life and business dealings of Uncle Ted affected even those shitheads in a positive way, whether he provided employment, entertainment, or through some of the many philanthropic endeavors he was a part of, and in spite of the fact that people these days tend to dislike those with wealth, I can’t really run off many scandalous and negative things about Ted Turner off the top of my head.

Personally, it’s one of those things that I never really thought about, as far as whether or not I was a fan of the guy or not.  In one hand, he has money and is rich therefore I should be inclined to lean towards disliking the man, but in the other hand, other than the day he decided to cede control over his own company and sell to AOL Time Warner, which ultimately killed WCW and made the Braves into the soulless corporation it is now, there’s really nothing that I found particularly offensive about the man.

The man put Braves baseball into the national spotlight, force-feeding the country through TBS, contributing almost entirely to why the Braves have such strong brand recognition and pockets of fandom throughout the entire country and beyond.  Ted Turner was one of the only people in the world to really go toe-to-toe with Vince McMahon and not only challenge him in the wrestling industry, but punch him and draw blood, before the pendulum would eventually swing in the other direction, but let the record show Ted Turner’s success.

And of course, like many who live in the Atlanta area, I too had my stint(s) with the Turner company, having worked for Cartoon Network for two of the more noteworthy years of my career, as well stints with Turner Sports as well as NCAA.com.  Many in Atlanta joke about how you can’t really say you’ve ever lived in Atlanta unless you’ve worked for some of the big dawgs of town, like Coca-Cola, Delta, The Home Depot, or Turner, and I remember the feeling of professional pride I had when I was issued my first @turner.com email address when I was brought into Cartoon Network.

Rich as he was, Ted Turner never seemed to be of that devilish, moustache-twirling kind of evil asshole as many rich white guys are often seen.  The man seemed to genuinely care about the City of Atlanta, and dumped tons of money into the arts, culture, city projects, and was always reliable to find a way to get his name on all sorts of charitable causes throughout the city.

Whenever I’d have friends in the car, it was night, and we were headed southbound towards Midtown, I’d always refer to the 17th Street bridge, going under it, and when you emerge and the Atlanta skyline is unveiled to your eyes, as the mouth of Ted Turner, because there’s just something about seeing all the high rises and lit up buildings as you emerge from underneath a bridge that always seems kind of magical when you see it.

I actually saw Ted Turner once, a long time ago, when I was at a Ted’s Montana Grill; naturally I saw a strikingly attractive older woman, but then right behind her was a man with white hair and a white moustache, and it dawned on me that it was Ted Turner.  I remember thinking, man, he’s way shorter than I thought he was, because whenever he was on television, he was always in his power suits and framed real tight to make him look like a massive, giant man, but in reality, Ted couldn’t have been more than like 5’8.  But all the same, for a rich guy that most snarky people would assume would be too good to eat amongst pleebs, even at a joint named after him, it was refreshing to see him actually at one of his own restaurant’s locations.

Unsurprising, there’s not really anything substantial about this post, but I guess what it really all sums up is that Ted Turner was Atlanta, and his passing really means something to Atlanta, whether or not people want to admit it, and I just wanted to share some not-negative words about a guy that had a lot of contributions to things that were important in my life, and that I appreciated who he was, and what he meant to the city I live in.

Free is a four-letter word

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And is about as inflammatory and prone to resulting in aggravation, disappointment and general negativity as some of the more notorious four-letter words out there in the common lexicon.

I’ve spent the better part of a week this month at my dad’s old place in Virginia, my old home, cleaning it out, because as he’s no longer living there, the only logical thing to do would be to empty it out and get rid of it.  Of course, that isn’t going to happen on its own, and nobody in my family really seems as eager to not let a valuable asset potential degrade due to neglect as I am, so that has almost entirely fallen on my shoulders to do, despite the fact that I would rather have been doing a hundred other things than driving all the way up there just to clean and struggle to do my job remotely since that home hadn’t had internet access in the last two years.

I had the brilliant analogy that my dad was basically like Wall-E, in the sense that he seemed to collect an inordinate amount of useless and worthless trash and tchotchkes, but he was pretty good at organizing it and making it look fairly orderly within his own home.  However, when it comes to sorting and determining what could be salvaged and what needed to be tossed, it became very, very quickly apparent that the load didn’t jive with the time available, and that pretty much everything needed to be trashed.

It was like an episode of Storage Wars where Dave Hester would always brag about the potential profitability about every single storage unit he won, but that’s because he had a consignment shop where all the bullshit he collected could sit on shelves and make a nickel five months later, as opposed to being moved immediately.  My dad had a lot of stuff that honestly could’ve made a few bucks here and there if time were on our side, but in the span of a week, I wasn’t about to try and organize a last second single home flea market for the legions of crap that my dad had hoarded over the last decade and a half.

Box full of optical mice?  Trash.  Bag full of brand-new commercial painting supplies?  Trash.  Boxes full of partially used duct and electrical tape?  Trash.  Box of tool grade rope?  Crate full of commercial paper towels?  Industrial tubs full of liquid soap?  Trash, trash, trash.

Amidst all the crap were all sorts of personal and family mementos too, stuff that my sister, my mom or myself didn’t take with us when we all inevitably moved out.  And as much as I tend to hesitate when it comes to disposing of anything of such nature, I walked into my week of work with a credo, to harden the heart and let shit go, because otherwise I would accomplish nothing.  If nobody cared about this stuff to take with them when they left, nobody is going to care about it when it’s tossed.

High school yearbooks, shop class projects, little pieces of crap that I may have saved at random points in my life, all part of the trash pile.  I had a moment of quiet shock, when my mom took her wedding photo album and tossed it into a box marked for disposal, but seeing as how they are divorced, it’s understandable, but still no less slightly mortifying as a child of said union.

When my work was done, the house was still in pretty much chaos, but at least it was fairly organized chaos.  Originally, I had planned on just being a repeated shuttle back and forth to the dump to dispose of everything that needed to go, but my aunt and my mom meddled and convinced me to pay for professional disposal.  Having a little experience with it, I knew to expect a bill north of a grand if we were going to go that route, but the thought of saving myself and my car the labor didn’t hurt, so that’s the choice I made, and I made some calls and reached out to a few companies, and landed with one who would come at a later date to come pick up all the trash.

Among all the crap, I had pulled aside some items that even I thought, would go quickly, if offered for free to the community, like some extension ladders, a television, and a weed-wacker.  Long story short, the ladders moved, but with resistance, and I ended up donating the television and the trimmer to Goodwill when neither generated a lick of interest.

Additionally, there were also a lot of furniture that I felt had some value in it, and I figured it shouldn’t be hard to leverage the Salvation Army to come pick up some free furniture that they could then flip at their consignment shops; yes, I’m aware of the general negative reputation the internet has over the SA, but I just wanted to get this house cleared in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible, and in the past I’ve used them to help clear out my old house, and they seemed like a logical option.

After I had left, and the scheduled day of the SA pickup had passed, I called my mom whom I entrusted to be on site to let the SA guys in, and she told me that they took nothing.  They came into the home, examined all the marked items, deemed them not suitable quality, and refused to move anything that required traveling a flight of stairs.  I knew right away that it wasn’t so much that everything I offered was inadequate, as much as it was around 3:30 pm when they showed up to my place, their truck was probably full, the workers were tired, and they simply did not want to go through the labor of hauling off all the stuff I had asked them to.

So I basically got exactly what I had paid for – zero.

There’s the popular adage that people should never stop learning, and it was at this moment that I decided that I have fully learned an important lesson that I will try to implement into my remaining life, and that free, is bullshit, and to look at anything in life that claims to be free, with the skepticism that I would look at anyone proclaiming to be a Nigerian prince.

Free, always sounds awesome, but free comes with a whole slew of conditionals that are mitigated when there’s some form of transactional currency.  And the drawback to free always seems to be at the extreme risk of something often times more valuable than any form of currency, which is time, because with the case of the Salvation Army, their refusal to do their job because their service was free, still cost me a great deal of time, as I did not have a fallback plan, because they did me right in my own previous experience, which was a fallacy in its own right that I need to be mindful of in the future as well.

But I think about all the times in my life where something has been free, whether it’s been me trying to get something, or me trying to give shit away, and almost all of the instances, have involved aggravation, regret, and questioning why I did in the first place.

It’s like the IHOP fallacy, whenever they do like their free pancake day or whatever, you see on the news people who wait hours for a free short stack of pancakes, when that same short stack would’ve cost like $7 and get it immediately if you paid for it, making those who think about it realize that paying > free.

I’ve gone through great lengths in the past to get free bobbleheads at ballparks, and looking back at all those instances, I can count on one hand where it’s actually been worth it, and I actually applaud myself in any instance where I may have self-policed my time versus free scale and altered my choices in the past.

I also think about the sheer aggravation of trying to give stuff away on stuff like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, because it seems like something that should be layups, but the flake rate for free shit is so astronomically high, so often times I just end up throwing perfectly good shit away, because I simply grew exasperated with trying to not be wasteful and giving away perfectly good goods, because I’m just tired of people.

The point of all this is that I have, I truly have, learned, that the word free is not necessarily a good word anymore, and is instead a loaded word, full of conditionals and rules and invisible clauses, that one really needs to understand the risks when they inevitably grow tempted by it, solely because of the potential end result of a transaction with nothing exchanged.

So many times in life, it’s simply better to just grow up, pay up, and get shit done, without any of the bullshit that free entails.

If not to tease with, then why??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Autopian: there exists a single Honda Odyssey Type-R minivan, and it has 550 horsepower, turbo charged, and a six-speed manual transmission

I’ve said it before, I have no qualms with minivans.  They’re spacious, versatile, provide tremendous utility and purpose, and I couldn’t give two shits less about the reputation that comes with being a parent driving around in one.  The only reasons why I don’t have one today is that the industry clearly knows the value of their utility, and when I was car shopping, none of them seemed remotely available south of $60,000, and the fact that mythical wife absolutely abhors them, and feels tremendously stronger about reputation than I could.

Needless to say, when I saw the words “Honda Odyssey Type-R,” it did elicit a jaw drop of the smallest sense, because it was the amalgamation of two things that pique my interest; the adult parent appeal of minivans, clashing with my boyhood fandom to Honda’s Type-R performance division, to create this wholly unnecessary, nobody-asked-for-this soccer rocket of a ride, that has garnered enough intrigue to where it’s becoming a brog post.

Everything about it is just so laughable, from the aggressive Type-R styling hints, from the grill, red H emblem, accents, to the more obvious things, like the quad pipe exhaust, aggressive as hell rims, and the hood air intake.  As much as I want to lament about how unnecessary this is, the fact of the matter is that this is the only one in existence, a one-of-one, the chic IT phrase of today to denote its exclusivity and rarity, and I think most everyone can agree that in spite of its existence, the chances of this, or anything closer to this seeing the light of day commercial remains pretty slim.

The go-parts of it are especially entertaining, considering most of minivans are hauling so much weight, there’s almost little logic to running anything other than a V6 motor of some sort, but in true Honda and true Type-R logic, they’ve smashed in a turbo-charged inline-four, from the Civic Type-R into this minivan, and are alleging a horsepower of 550 hp.  And paired to it, is a six-speed manual transmission, and the best part is that it’s coming out of the dash like the random Civic Si from the mid-2000s that most car heads agreed was kind of a flop; but it kind of makes sense in the context of a minivan.

So yeah, six-speed manual Honda Odyssey pushing 500hp+.  I’m surprised the Type-R badge on the back of it isn’t bigger, and frankly isn’t just the entire sides of the ride, like a Fast & Furious Team Toretto graphic, because if something is going to remain a 1-of-1, it needs to shout it from the rooftops a little better.

It’s like whomever designed this, they like the idea of being a sleeper car, unsuspecting and inconspicuous, but while they were putting it together, whether Honda superiors or their own arrogance started to intervene, and hints of obvious aggression and performance began to permeate the overall package of it.  It’s white and ordinary looking from the onset, but then there’s the rims, and when you see the back of the ride, window covered with more stickers than a Takahashi brother from Initial D, huge exhaust pipes that look more suited for an insurrectionist’s Dodge pickup, by the time you notice the tiny-ass Type-R emblem on the back, the jig is already up that this is no ordinary children hauler.

And not to go unnoticed was that the driver’s side was on the left, which is to say that this was clearly designed with teasing Americans in mind.  Minivans don’t really have the purpose in the world than they do in America, other than kidnapping in Taken-like films, and this would be too conspicuous for crime.  But it seems obvious that this was meant to tease and tantalize the American market, and I would have to acquiesce that it’s working, because I would probably trade in my car and our third car to get my hands on one of these, without even considering the consequence of being short one car for my household of three drivers.

Which leads me to wonder what the point of this thing coming to fruition even is, because like in the linked article above, minivans now are already costly expenses as they currently are, but then adding the cost of what a Type-R designation does to it, I can’t imagine that there are a lot of families out there willing to drop what I’d guess would be between $80-90k for a fucking minivan, even if that Type-R badge tickles the tits of all sorts of boyhood dreams of once-boys-now-dads out there.

All the same, consider me thoroughly entertained by the creation of a Honda Odyssey Type-R, even if there’s only going to ever be the one in existence.  My 18-year old self can get together with my 40+ year old self in my brain and lament on how great it would be to finally own anything with a Type-R badge on it.