Tag: white people

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.

Beef S2: Everybody sucks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was a big fan of the first season of Netflix’s Beef which starred Stephen Yeun and Ali Wong.  The writing was strong, the acting superb, but above all else, it was a show by Asians, starring Asians, but not explicitly being “an Asian show.”  It was a fantastic piece of representation, while still having the storyline and relatable appeal to those that weren’t Asian.

But the thing is, the way the show concluded, I was thinking that there probably wasn’t going to be a second season.  That is, unless they conclude the original storyline, create a new one that’s similar in some aspects but is different, with a new cast.  And when I heard that Beef was getting a second season, I figured that such was going to be the case, and I looked forward to it.

Not going to lie, upon seeing that the core cast of S2 was Oscar Issac, the cute girl from The Great Gatsby, some other white girl, and a guy that looked like he might possibly have a drop of Asian DNA in his 23andMe, it was a little bit of a turnoff from the fact that S1 was this speeding Humvee of representation, and now we’ve got another clear instance of white folks latching onto a success story and sequel-izing it, but with far less representation, and far more white people.

The show dropped, and it went from something I was interested in, to something to catch when I get a chance.

Thankfully, it’s as if Netflix really is mainlined into my feelings, and when I turned on Netflix to watch WWE RAW is Commercials, I saw that the thumbnail for Beef S2 had Youn Yuh-jung (from Minari fame) front and center, looking like a powerful queen and not just some meek Asian background character, and it renewed a little bit of interest to the point where I would eventually start watching it.

The thing is with me lately, is that I feel as if I’ve become even more neurotic and temperamental when it comes to television watching, and that if I’m not in the right mood or mindset, there’s almost no point in watching television, because I just won’t give it adequate attention.  But as far as Beef S2 was, it was like, if I don’t get to this now, I won’t ever get to it, and then it’ll just get backlogged and never seen, and this property doesn’t deserve that.

That being said, I was probably like 75-80% prepared to watch the show, and I admittedly had a harder time getting into it, than I had gotten into the first season.

Frankly, it kind of felt like the show was taking a page out of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None property, where the last season had nothing to do with the original seasons, and was more of a case of latching a name with equity, onto a season of television that has nothing to do with it, solely to help bring eyes to it in the first place.

The black comedy genre seems to be hipster enough to just try and spin that as viable and justifiable tactic, and that’s kind of what S2 of Beef felt like.  Sure, there were conflicts, in fact, many conflicts between characters, but save for the first 20 minutes of the show, few were to the explosive magnitude that was remotely close to S1, much less warrant even being called something like “Beef.”

What I’m trying to say is that S2 didn’t really feel like there was much beef between characters, but other than the fact that it’s the same creator, could probably have easily been called something else, but obviously they want eyes on it and fast, so it’s just slipped into the Beef umbrella as Season 2.

Anyway, semantics aside, the show wasn’t that bad.  It kind of goes without saying that it’s not as good as the first season, but that’s an unfair standard to chase after considering just how good S1 really was.  The writing was sharp, the cinematography was crisp and noticeable to even my novice eyes, and there was a lot of subtle, situational humor throughout.

The show was really heavy handed with their criticisms of Gen-Z and considering creator Lee Sung-jin is close to the same age as me, it’s evident who his target audience is, and was probably cognizant that his digs at the youth of today would be watching, and would probably feel targeted, and that’s probably the point.

Regardless of the contrasting ages of the characters, there was one consistent theme throughout the show: everyone sucks.  Not in like an X-Pac Heat kind of, I hate them and they make me not want to watch the show, sucks, but in the sense that every single character has some serious flaws, baggage and personality traits that amount to them all, sucking.

Whether it’s being a workaholic, dabbling in flirtations over social media, projecting insecurities over inadequate education, persecution complexes, lack of accountability, just about every character in the series had multiple prevalent flaws, and they would all act out and take it out on everyone else, and everyone made their problems everyone’s problems, and such is kind of triggering to me, especially these days.

Also, the Koreans that were in the show, are all corrupt and up to no good, and I’m just kind of like, couldn’t we just swap these alignments to the white folks instead??

As a result, it wasn’t a season that I could actually binge or watch too much of at once, because regardless of the time that I don’t have that much time I want to dedicate to watching television, at the very most, I only watched three consecutive episodes, before I felt like I needed to take a break.  Mythical wife, who caught some of it, only needed to half-watch two middle episodes to come to her own conclusion about just how much all of the characters just sucked, and I wasn’t far off from that assessment myself.

It made it sometimes feel like a chore, and by the time I got to the final episode, I had the attitude of simply wanting to finish what I started, versus bating my breath for the season finale on pins and needles.

Don’t get me wrong, such reactions aren’t indicative of the quality of the show, so much as I feel like such was how it was designed to make viewers feel, and it was working on me.  it was still a good show that I’ve clearly given a tremendous amount of thought and reflection towards, but it’s also definitely the type of show that needs a palette cleanser, or at least some Ted Lasso or Batman the Animated Series for me to kind of let me get the stink of all the Beef S2 characters out of my head.

Either way, characters sucking by design not-withstanding, S2 of Beef wasn’t bad.  Not nearly as good as the first season, but I’ve definitely seen worse things that commit the biggest sin for my preferences: making me feel like I’ve wasted my time.  Beef did no such thing, but like I said, it definitely has a droll outlook of the world that tends to affect my mood adversely, and it’s just one of those stories that requires a pick-me-up afterward.

Anytime I read about the environmental effects of AI

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I think about this snippet from the epilogue of The Big Short detailing Michael Burry’s lone investing focus.  Back in 2015 when the film was released, I didn’t really think about what was really implied by Burry’s decision to start betting on water, but I could imagine reasons similar to what happened in Flint, Michigan, or the fact that in spite of the world being like 90% water, I don’t imagine even close to a tenth of that is drinkable water, and clean water is probably going to be a bigger commodity in the future than it really sounds like it should be.

But with all the chatter about the growth of AI, and how a single ChatGPT query results in the consumption of energy that is capable of requiring like a gallon of water to cool down some servers in a data center in the middle of bumfuck flyover America, this is what makes me wonder if Burry knew something was on the horizon or something a decade ago.

Either way, every time something comes out about the environmental ravaging AI is capable of, this is the image that comes directly to mind, and I find myself thinking about this more and more as AI is blabbed about more and moar.

lol MARTA #437

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AJC: (Paywall, but headline tells the story) Days away from the start of the FIFA World Cup, the new, state-of-the-art MARTA trains of tomorrow have not passed mandatory safety tests, and remains possible that they will not be ready for the largest sporting event in the world

There’s really not a whole lot to add to this story.  I figure to most people who live in the Atlanta area and are familiar with MARTA’s history, this is pretty much the least surprising thing in the world that Atlanta and MARTA fumbled the bag and in all likelihood won’t be ready for the World Cup despite having years to get shit done.

Progress in Atlanta moves at a snail’s pace, and frankly the metaphor is an insult to the speed of snails across the planet, because Atlanta routinely falls short of expectations unless there are millions of dollars in a treasure chest at the end of a rainbow to incentivize expediency, like when they miraculously rebuild I-85 three weeks ahead of schedule, which was still about like six weeks slower than the time it took Fukuoka, Japan to repair a sinkhole the size of a crater in a weekend.

I vaguely remember a similar situation way back when the College Football National Championship was being hosted in Atlanta, the city really wanted to get the Atlanta Streetcar up and running, mostly for appearances on a national level, because the little ass street car wasn’t going to be realistically moving more than a few hundred people for an event the size of the Natty.

But they failed, and didn’t complete it on time, and when they did finally get it up and operational, nobody cared, nobody rode it, and it’s about as much of an afterthought to the city as much as the Dallas Austin-produced ATL Anthem that was supposed to be the city’s song, akin to Sinatra singing New York, New York, but still cost taxpayers around $5M to make.

So it’s not the surprise of the century that Atlanta and MARTA are on a one-way crash course to yet another failure, and more than likely won’t have the purported trains of the future ready in time for the World Cup.  And even if they did miraculously pull off the impossible, there’s no way that they would have passed the mandatory safety checks and requirements, and I could see a situation where a shiny new Cerberus-looking train car, packed to the gills full of Spaniards* and the motherfucker goes off the rails and causes some tragic accident.

*I double-checked Atlanta’s guaranteed match list, and holy fuck did we get the shaft on country draw, where Spain is pretty much the only powerhouse country playing here, with the rest of the field being Czechia, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Haiti, Cabo Verde (?), and Congo; I didn’t even know many of these places even had national teams, much less ones good enough to qualify for the World Cup

Alternatively, once the festivities begin, futbol fans will be subjected to the old and busted, urine-smelling incumbent trains, where local bums and panhandlers are probably rubbing their hands together at the opportunity to grief and harass riders from various other parts of the world, who just want to get to Mercedes-Benz Arena (that’s not allowed to have their own logo in sight, lmao).

Either way, I heard that thanks to the political situation in ‘Murica, there was a lot of reconsideration of would-be fans, travelers and futbol enthusiasts, as far as hotels, tickets and the promised influx of money that an event the caliber of the World Cup is capable of bringing in, and I thought to myself, even if Korea isn’t going to get a match here, it might still be a cool thing to go to a World Cup match, and maybe even take my dad with me.  But then I discovered that the duration of the entire Group Stage, I will be out of the country, and by the time I get back, will be only critical knockout futbol matches, where the cost of those tickets will probably be back up to $FuckYou.99/each.

Perhaps I might luck into some watch events in Seoul for when Korea takes the pitch, I can’t imagine that even remote, they could be any less chaotically disorganized as Atlanta and MARTA are.  But thank goodness I won’t be around in the city for when the World Cup will inevitably be causing all sorts of chaos around town, and no thanks to MARTA.

The whitest problem since desegregation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: City of Alpharetta proposing ordinance to provide residents relief from pickleball noise

Imagine the shit-eating grin on my face when I read just the headline of this article, and immediately trying to think of the words to best ironically describe the inhumanity of pickleball noise, ruining the lives of residents in Alpharetta, a lily-white suburb 30-80 minutes away from actual City of Atlanta, depending on the traffic.

I mean, there’s really not much to add, the headline does a pretty succinct job of painting the picture of the problem that is about as peak white people problems since Bad Bunny performing at the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve posted specifically about Alpharetta; a few years back, there was a situation where residents got really salty about a change in policy that meant that they weren’t allowed to fly Confederate flags during a Veteran’s Day Parade, so the city opted to just cancel the parade outright.

Even in the year, two thousand and twenty-six, shit like this actually is, written and reported on.

Still though, it’s entertaining to me that pickleball is about as white people sport as lacrosse and calling cops on colored folks, but it’s gotten so overly popular to the point where the goofy-ass sounds of pickleballs getting whacked have turned heel on the people that brought them into existence, and instead of trying to fix the game, white people are doing what white people do best – try and transmogrify the laws to where they can deal with the issue while avoiding any conflict at all.

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’d be curious to see the venn diagram on this one

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my current dad-related nonsensical missions is that I need to get him a Georgia driver’s license, or rather at this stage, state-issued identification because pffh ain’t no way he’s driving anymore in his current state.  Despite the fact that his current license is still valid until 2027, he’s been harping on me to get it changed over, as if there were some sort of threat of grievous harm if he doesn’t, naturally because it’s something one of his buddies said, and in true Korean parent fashion, what a buddy says >>> what your children says.

When I moved to Georgia in 2003, I remember going to a Department of Driver Services office, saying I needed to get a Georgia license, and basically the only things I needed were my current, Virginia license, and some sort of proof of address.  I did have to take the written test on the spot, but because I am not a halfwit, such was no problem, and I was in and out of the DMV in a reasonable amount of time without too much aggravation.

I took my dad to a DDS office, and because nothing with my dad is ever easy, naturally there was a line stretched all the way back to the door.  I had my dad go take a seat while I camped the line, and I had the positive wherewithal to look on my phone to make sure I had what I needed, lest we waste any further time to get up to the desk and be told we didn’t have sufficient materials.

In addition to his existing license, and proof of address, it turns out that the criteria for getting a Georgia identification from somewhere else now requires:

  • (At least) one more piece of mail to prove address
  • Social Security Card and/or tax return
  • Proof of US citizenship, such as US Passport, immigration card – existing drivers license not valid for this purpose

Seeing as how I did not have either of these bullet points, I immediately pulled got my dad and we left the DDS, explaining to him that shit’s changed, and this license mission isn’t going to get done today, and that we needed moar shit before coming back.

It’s apparent that the process has been deliberately made as hard as possible for immigrants to accomplish things by the book, but not at all surprising that things are the way they are like this.

Naturally, my dad has lost his current passport, despite the fact that he visited overseas as recently as 2022, however, I was able to find the last three passports he had previously, all expired, and one being his Republic of Korea passport.  And fuck if he knows where any documentation of his US citizenship certification or immigration card or his Social Security card is; and add insult to injury, I found the envelope that his original SSA card came in, but the card itself was removed from the perforated sheet, lost to the aether of age and neglect.

So, in order to get my dad’s Georgia identification, I will have to get him a replacement passport.  Thankfully, as I recently did my dad’s 2025 taxes, I have those to stand in place of his SSA card, and I have proof off address and his previous license that he’ll have to turn in.  But ironically hilariously, I still have to get him a new passport so he can get a driver’s license equivalent.  And obviously, anyone who’s ever had to get a passport before knows just how much of a pain in the ass that singular task is, but I have to go through it all in order to just get to the next step of a different pain in the ass task.

Regardless, moar bitching about my dad wasn’t what prompted me to start writing this post, but because it’s on the topic of passports, all this nonsensical shit poured out because it’s somewhat related.

But I was reading about how the Orange Administration is taking credit for a law that’s actually existed since 1996, about how those deadbeats in the country who are being on child support and alimony will have their passports revoked.  From what I understand, this policy has really existed since 1996, but the amendment that the Orange Party is taking credit for is that instead of waiting for passport holders to try to use their passports before getting rejected and revoked, they’re instead just going to preemptively revoke them through public records.

So in other words, a whole lot of nothing, in actuality.

But the funny thing is that I’d be curious to see the data of just how much impact this is actually going to have in the country, because I have a hard time imagining the types of deadbeats who fall tremendously behind on their child support are really the types to be having passports in the first place, so they can jettison away from the United States in the first place.

Same logic applies to the types of people who will be crawling all over themselves in order to get limited edition passport books with the baked potato’s disgusting mug on them, as part of the United States 250th birthday bullshit.

Yeah, the schmucks who are interested in limited edition passports with their god-king on it, or/and the types to be behind in child support, I can’t imagine there’s a big correlation with them having or even needing passports in the first place.

The funny thing is that in the grand spectrum of effectiveness of getting deadbeats to pay back child support, I feel like the states that have laws that are along the lines of those who owe, can’t get hunting and/or fishing licenses, probably have more success than any rules mandated by the stooges in DC.

As the subject says, I’d really be interested in seeing a bunch of venn diagrams to illustrate the effectiveness and correlations between shitheads who don’t pay child support, versus people who have/need passports and those who have/need licenses for redneck activities like fishing and hunting.

I’m willing to be the latter is better at getting people to catch up on their child support than penalizing passports is.