Anyone who didn’t see this coming doesn’t know America

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This tracks.

This will (hopefully) be the only post I make about the election, and despite the fact that I fucking hate politics to begin with, I have a lot of feelings about the latest shitshow that routinely plagues the United States like one giant metaphorical sexually transmitted disease, and apparently have a lot of things to write about that I would be doing myself and the people I speak with on a regular basis a disservice to not get them off of my chest and burden them with alternatively.

I saw the outcome of this election, the minute that Joe Biden announced that he would not be running for reelection.  Everyone knew that by default, the DNC would push Kamala Harris to the candidacy, and that was basically the kiss of death right there, because if there’s one thing that America seems to dislike more than a known felon, sex offender, cheater and thief, is apparently women, and if there’s one thing America would hate more than a woman, would be a woman of color.

This morning, I felt dread in my stomach, my heart, my head, watching my girls eating breakfast.  They’re too young to know what’s really going on out there in the world, but it makes me feel sorrow to know that they’re living in a country that will never value them as much as a white man, because they’re both female, and of mixed-race.

This bullshit is not their fault, nor the fault of any children out there.  Whatever happened to the comprehensive goal of giving kids a world better than our own?  Real maturity in voting is understanding that you sometimes are voting for things that have no bearing to your own lifetime, but have immeasurable impact on the lives of those who follow after us. 

Americans are so selfish and short-sighted that they vote for the things that they think are going to impact them now, tomorrow, or at least in their lifetimes; and as evidence has shown throughout the course of history, those types of promises are as about as rare as encountering a shiny Pokémon.

Continue reading “Anyone who didn’t see this coming doesn’t know America” →

It’s almost as if Kenny Omega didn’t work for another promotion

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

YT: Kenny Omega makes his first appearance in six months at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Power Struggle show, promotes potential match at NJPW WrestleDynasty

One of the things that I’ve been saying, even since the inception of All Elite Wrestling, is that Kenny Omega’s heart has never left Japan, despite the fact that he is one of the founders and is a vice president of AEW.  If I had to guess, he left and helped start AEW because Tony Khan was paying truckloads of money to everyone to help get the promotion started, not to mention that he kind of hit a ceiling in NJPW.

Aside from the money, it was an opportunity to really shape and create and cement his legacy as one of the greatest talents to ever exist in the business of professional wrestling, and I can’t fault the guy at all for taking the bag and trying to secure his financial future while he was still a hot commodity in the industry.

But let’s try and be objective here, his body of work under the AEW banner pales in comparison to all the performances he’s put on while under an NJPW flag.  Yes, it’s debatable that he was younger, more prime, more spry while he was with NJPW, and his deteriorating health really started to come into play after AEW was launched.  All valid points; but I counter with his matches with Will Ospreay a year+ ago when they were doing several AEW vs. NJPW cross-promotions.

No doubt Ospreay is a world-class talent that is capable of having great matches with most anyone, but it’s not like he had to carry Omega; something about Omega wrestling Ospreay in Japan, the guy pulls out a legendary match out of nowhere and then has an encore performance against Ospreay again when the time came for him to return the favor.  Wrestling in Japan and against NJPW talent really brings the best out in Omega, and if this isn’t a sure-fire tell that the man really has never taken his heart out of Japan, I don’t know what is.

Getting back to the linked video though, this was a spirited, heartfelt promo in my opinion, of Kenny Omega being where he’s clearly the most comfortable, in Japan, speaking Japanese, to fans whom he can relate to, appreciate him, and shares a mutual respect for, and not the snarky, sarcastic overboard hipster fans that tend to make up the majority of AEW fanbase.

Listening him put over New Japan, the country of Japan, and how much he loves it, I can’t help but wonder what goes on through the mind of Tony Khan, his boss in AEW, when he sees his very own, highly-paid and highly-respected talent gushing so hard over his former employer?  It’s obvious that Omega has a higher regard for everything Japan over his actual employer, and I can’t help but feel embarrassed for TK and AEW that he’s putting them over so hard, because I’m hard pressed to recall at any point where he’s ever been so heartfelt and genuine to an AEW crowd.

Either way, when it really comes down to it, I really just hope that Kenny Omega has the opportunity to regain his health, and get back into the wrestling ring, because the industry as a whole is better with Kenny Omega in it.  I want the guy to be happy, because when his heart is into it, there legitimately are fewer better in the business that can put on an incredible match, but I’m dubious that whatever he does under an AEW banner would ever be able to compete with anything he does under an NJPW one.

Eviction Notice: the extreme politics household

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a household in my neighborhood that would classify as an extreme supporter of orange guy.  Unfortunately, they live pretty close to me, so it’s impossible to not notice the majority of the bullshit that I’m about to detail.

When I first moved into the neighborhood, it didn’t take long before, for whatever reason, they put up a T/P sign up in their yard; mind you, this was in 2017, and we were already a year into this dictatorship, and I can’t help but feel like this sign going up was kind of directed at mythical wife and I, for being this mixed couple that had the audacity to move in fairly close proximity to them.

The sign got blown away during the hurricane season months later, and I remember lol’ing heartily at seeing the stand of the sign still in their yard, with the sign itself nowhere to be seen.

Suffice to say, 2020 was not a good year for them, having to exist in a world where their lord king was knocked out of power, and I guess I was delusional to think that that would be the end to their bullshit, because it was only the beginning.  Their property and their belongings eventually became their canvases to express their disdain with the state of America, and over the span of the last few years, there have been a revolving door of signs, flags, cardboard cutouts and other orange guy paraphernalia adorning their house, the yard, and even their own primary vehicle.

I don’t pay a tremendous amount of attention to world news or political news because I would rather stab myself in the dick, but it was always obvious that Joe Biden did something, based on the rapidly changing reactionary décor of the orange house’s entrance window; sometimes it would be an upside American flag, which really should be reserved for genuine states of distress but here we are, a black and blue WE BACK THE BLUE flag, a red MAGA flag, or sometimes a lifesize cutout of orange guy is just thrown up there, smiling like the sex offender out at the rest of the community.

Unsurprising, their front yard has become a battlefield of orange guy supporting signs over the last few weeks, and it started with one generic sign, but over the span of the last week, the signs have multiplied greatly, with all these fairly niche and overboard signs featuring silhouettes of the orange guy, presumably after the first assassination attempt, really expressing their defiance of Democratic America, and the fairly recent array of signs that are basically the lowest common denominator of ORANGE GUY GOOD, KAMALA BAD, like ORANGE GUY LOW PRICES / KAMALA HIGH PRICES and ORANGE GUY SECURE BORDER / KAMALA OPEN BORDER, etc.

But what really served as the impetus to this post, is their car.  Not long after the events of 2020, I noticed that they had decals of the orange guy on their car; the ones that are of his profile, and placed on the windows, so it looks like he’s riding in the backseat of their car.  But the best part is that they apparently only have adhesive on one side, so although it looks normally placed on the passenger side, on the driver’s side, orange guys is rear-facing; much like the infant he acts like all the time, so it is kind of appropriate.

However, a few days ago, I noticed that there was some writing on their doors.  I was outside with my kids and I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t make out what the writing was, but either they had started a side gig of some sort and had some company name or information on their door, or they had to have some new orange guy-related message affixed to their car because why the fuck wouldn’t they do that.

Later in the day, I was picking up some food at Chick Fil-A, and as I was circling through the app-only lane AKA the greatest invention in the food service industry, I noticed a car in the non-app lane AKA the pleeb lane, that had on the door, the words “GARBAGE MOBILE.”  My brow scrunched in confusion at seeing this, like why the fuck would anyone want to call out their ride as being a garbage mobile?  Were they in the waste industry or something?  But then I glanced up and I saw the backward orange guy on the window, and my jaw kind of quarter opened at the realization at whose ride I was seeing.

Okay, so my thought process was that either some filthy libs had enough of seeing the orange guy mobile, and decided to vandalize them with a sticker calling their car  garbage mobile, or something had occurred in the political arena where orange guy was called a piece of garbage or something, to put focus on the word garbage in the first place, and this fanatic voluntarily put this sticker on their car, because their modus operandi since I’ve known of them has always been reactionary and petulant, and they’re not intelligent enough to realize that they are willingly calling themselves garbage.

Asking my friends, who follow news and politics more than I do, I learned that while on the campaign trail, apparently Joe Biden called orange guy, his supporters, or something under that dumb orange umbrella, trash, and there appears to be a contingent of his brainless disciples that seem to want to be voluntarily owning the terms, trash or garbage, and here we are, where extreme orange-ites are putting stickers on their cars calling themselves, garbage mobiles.

The point is, this is a household that strikes me as extremely, extremely weird, because their entire identity is absolutely nothing but their political beliefs.  Like, I’ve been the sports guy, the baseball guy, the wrestling guy, the blet guy, girl dad, and various other guys in my life.  At no point in my life, would I want my entire public facing identity being tied solely to politics much less any single iota.

And that being said, if I had the power and ability to kick them out of the neighborhood, evict them and get them the fuck out of here and replaced by a household of more sensibly existing human beings, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  And in all fairness, I’m not targeting them solely because they’re orange guy cultists; I would be just as eager and willing to eject out a household of left-wing extremists who were as obnoxious about their political identity and had absolutely no personality other than politics.

There’s just so much to the world that a higher importance than fucking politics, that anyone who can’t see that, and lets politics consume their entire existences, I don’t want them living near me.  Get the fuck out of my community, please and thank you

The hardest part of every day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Is trying to suppress how difficult life is in conversation, because if I were to be too honest about it, I would come off as curmudgeon and probably seen as overly cynical when I’m just being honest, and then such would become my reputation if it already isn’t at this point, and because perception is reality, everyone around me would tread even lighter than they already do to the point where I would become alienated more than I already feel like I am.

Because if I were to explain that I wake up every single day of the week at 6:40 in order to be ahead of the kids as far as breakfast and preparation for the day goes and the only time I ever get a breather is when my mother-in-law visits or I’m physically out of pocket, that might sound kind of rough, to almost never get a breather or opportunity to sleep in, ever.

I love my kids, but they’re at an age where everything is a fight, everything is a power struggle, they’re going to bed later than they’ve ever gone before, and by the time they’re in bed, I’m usually already hangry and frustrated at the fact that I will now have maybe two, three hours if I’m willing to stay up on the later end, to actually not be a dad, which is a paltry amount of time to accomplish really anything, as if I had any hobbies left at this juncture of my life.

But first I have to reset the house for the next day of kid carnage, and the vast majority of the time it’s just me that’s doing any of it, adding to my daily frustration level.  I do the dishes, pack the kids’ lunches, pack my own lunch, generally tidy up what needs to be tidied up, and by the time I’m done with everything, I’ll maybe have an hour before I should really be thinking about going to bed in order for this song and dance to repeat the next day.

Yeah, my life really isn’t something that I imagine anyone would envy, other than the love I have and get from my beautiful kids, and along with the aforementioned struggles above, is the fact that I feel like I’m trapped inside a bubble of being incapable of expressing myself, other than a brog nobody reads which is the closest thing to an outlet I have it feels like a lot of the time.  I don’t feel capable of being able to unload with my family or friends and I definitely wouldn’t entertain the thought of opening up to colleagues.

But it’s fucked up that I feel it’s better to be disingenuous rather than entirely honest, because honesty would hit like a sledgehammer, and I just don’t think people are tough enough to be able to handle it.  I already feel like an island most of my life, which is absolutely frightening because the last person I want to be like is my island of a dad, but I just don’t think there’s anybody who could take the truth without it blowing up in some way shape or form.

How does this manage to continue to happen?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: New York Jets WR Malachi Corley drops ball before crossing into the end zone, negating touchdown into turnover

I don’t care enough to verify the details, but I’m fairly positive that between the NFL and CFB, this exact scenario has happened at least once every single year for like, the last decade or more, where a player with a guaranteed touchdown, boneheadedly drops the ball before crossing the plane of the endzone, negating six points and instead turning the ball over.

It never fails to astound, or fire me up whenever I hear about these instances, because I guess it pushes past my already extremely low standards as far as the intelligence of people are concerned, and I just can’t believe that there are people this dumb, that repeatedly keep squandering their privilege to be playing kids games at the highest levels and getting paid egregious amounts of money to do so.

It’s never not mindblowing to me, because throughout the history of the sport, all offensive skill players have always been like, GIMME THE BALL, but all of these clowns who have dropped the ball at the one-yard line couldn’t be in any more rush to get rid of the ball in their hands, to the point where they’re making these dumbass drops.

I just think about how in Forrest Gump, when Forrest was returning kicks for Alabama, his first TD return, he just kept running past the end zone, smashing into the band en route into the locker room tunnel.  A little overkill, but a definite example of protecting the ball and securing the score. 

Whenever a highlight of dropping the ball at the 1 occurs, I always wonder why players insist on being closer to DeSean Jackson instead of being closer to Forrest Gump.

There’s really not much more to add to this, aside from the continued disbelief that this somehow manages to happen at the frequency in which it does.  And while writing about it, YouTube delivers, as there’s actually a pretty interesting video that has chronicled this baffling phenomenon, and there’s a frighteningly more number of instances that have occurred than I was aware of, which doesn’t help the narrative of how bullshit stupid it is.

A microcosm of societal problems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My subdivision is an interesting representation of what I think is reflective of the United States these days.  There is seemingly a pretty divided line that separates those residents whom are either original owners of their properties, or are owners who have lived here for 25+ years, and then are all the people who are very much of the next generation of homeowners, like my household, and have lived in the neighborhood for anywhere from 8-9 or fewer years.

Unsurprising, there exists some very stark correlations to how they lean politically, easily represented by the political signs that are proudly propped up on the yards of many homeowners, and as we inch closer to the merciful November 5th election date, the intensity in which these wastes of resources are popping up, and it’s evident that it’s not so much how much they actually support these crooked politicians as much as they are wanting to subtly tell their neighbors that they oppose their choice in political affiliation.

But at the root of all these political pissing contest participants, are still human beings, human beings with feelings, human beings with care, human beings with intentions, and human beings who probably just want to exist in peace without too much bullshit in their lives.

One of my best friends and I, we couldn’t possibly exist on opposite sides of the spectrums when it comes to political beliefs.  They support a candidate, I don’t care too much about politics but I don’t really care for that person because of all the flagrantly racist and classist rhetoric that has been demonstrated.  But my friend and I, we don’t talk about politics, at all.  I don’t know if they even know that I disagree with their political choice, and frankly one of my biggest dreads is if one day they realize it and decide to sever our friendship because of it.

Regardless, I hold this person in the highest regard, we chat on a near daily basis and I’d take a bullet for them.  I like to think they feel similarly for me; because behind politics, we’re still human beings.

I took my kids trick or treating on Halloween, because that’s what we do as parents, and this was actually the first year that I took both girls out to trick or treat, and let them stay out past their bed times and be wandering around at night.  My neighborhood is pretty awesome when it comes to trick or treating, and this was one of the things I always envisioned being in the future when I had moved into it, and it was pleasant to go around and watch my kids have fun and take part in a timeless tradition.  And all through the neighborhood were all sorts of other families and groups consisting of my neighbors, young and old doing the same thing; it was fun knowing that we were in a community full of kids that my kids will someday play with, go to school with, and grow up with.

On our return route, there was a home with an orange guy sign in their yard.  Sitting out on their front stoop was the guy that lived there; older, white, male, sitting in lawn chair, carrying a bucket full of candy for kids, sitting between two lit jack-o-lanterns.  Very evident that he was participating in giving out candy for the kids.

A group, consisting of two, maybe three households and all their kids, I watched as the kids slowed down and looked up at the home with the orange guy sign in the yard; and then proceeded to keep on walking, and going to the following house, that had no sign in front.  None of the parents reacted, or encouraged the kids to go on and get free candy and ignore the sign up front.

Needless to say, when mythical wife and I approached the house, I encouraged my girls to go up the driveway, reminded them to say trick-or-treat and thank you, and hollered a thank you to the man myself, for being kind enough to be participating and giving candy to my kids.  He was kind to my children, and I was grateful for his positive interaction with my kids.

I might not agree with his politics, but at the root of it, he’s still a human being, and if he was being human enough to participate in a timeless tradition, then I would be human enough to send my children over to him and be gracious and polite and make him feel included.

I’m not saying I’m better than my neighbors or anyone else by my choice of actions or even writing about this scenario, but I do think that this was a microcosm of the divide in population that is plaguing America.  Too many are making politics personal, and I can’t say that I blame anyone for becoming jaded, lord knows I am too, but there are just times in which it’s really easy to set politics aside and just being fucking normal people to one another.

That being said, there was one house that I avoided while trick-or-treating, as did pretty much everyone else did as well.  The one that had a whole army of signs on their lawn, demonstrating a level of fanaticism that is outright scary obsessive, and raises questions to where they were on January 6, 2021.  But politics aside, they’re also a household that just one of those crabby neighbors who goes out of their way to be as unwelcoming as possible, and had no lights on, no pumpkins or any décor that wasn’t orange in the holiday sense.

People like those, are kind of a lost cause, and them even not wanting to be nice to the kids of the community, makes it easy to acquiesce their desire to be isolated.

Suck it, MLweeB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not too thrilled with the fact that the Dodgers completed their season of destiny and won the World Series, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for Freddie Freeman, who was obviously named the World Series MVP after batting .300 with an OPS of 1.364, four home runs, 12 RBI and the legendary walk-off grand slam in game 1 that basically set the entire tone of the series afterward.

Even though he plays for the Dodgers, the team he left Atlanta for, there’s not a bone in my body that holds any resentment or ill-will for the man, as he’s a first-class outstanding human being, embodies everything that’s good about baseball, and is someone whom requires a genuine effort to not like.  I am stoked that he has now won his second championship, played his butt off to win the WS MVP he easily deserved, and is getting the mainstream accolades and recognition that he deserves.

I just don’t care for the fact that the Dodgers organization are the world champions, because they kind of validated the importance of spending money, as they committed over a billion dollars ($1.185B to be exact)  to just four players, on top of their existing $230M payroll, and being a Braves fan, it’s aggravating to see teams that spend money that succeed, knowing the team I follow will never, ever spend in the same manner, and instead feed us all sorts of bullshit rhetoric and make excuses on why they won’t, despite all the evidence that exists that shows the economic benefit of a championship team.

Plus, the swarms of insufferable bandwagon Dodger fans scuttling out of the cracks and gutters like the cockroaches they are getting to be happy is annoying to me, and makes me make the face of the Friends watching meme whenever I see or hear all the front-running celebratory garbage that comes from them in the news or on social media.  It’s bad when I would rather put up with the devil I know in Yankees fans getting to be happy over Dodgers fans, even in spite of the shenanigans of the two outfield goombas who grabbed and tried pry the ball out of Mookie Betts’ glove among other typical bad Yankee fan behavior.

But most of all, the Dodgers winning the World Series is precisely what MLB wanted to be the outcome, because they’ve gone full weeb-mode this season, what with pushing Ohtanimania down everyone’s throats, and seemingly every popular team there is making a mad dash to acquire Japanese talent, none more than the Dodgers with not just Ohtani, but also Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and they’re all treated like these mystical Mr. Miyagis demonstrating karate for the first time in history based on how every little thing they do is made such a big deal about.

Make no mistake, the season Shohei Ohtani had was other-worldly, but for every game where he had a homer and two steals, Yamamoto goes five innings with three earned runs, and it’s applauded like he just pitched a Maddux.  Shota Imanaga has a low ERA in the first half of the season and people act like he knew how to throw a disappearing pitch, meanwhile the Braves’ Reynaldo Lopez led the league in ERA up until like August, but nobody cared about him because he wasn’t Japanese.

I think my favorite part of the World Series was that in spite of the monumental rocket ship the Ohtani hype train had strapped to it, fans and viewers were treated to a series of futility as he went a pitiful 2 for 19 (.105) in the series, an OPS of .385 and no home runs.  Aaron Judge was absolutely dragged by the media and fans for being ineffective, in comparison to Ohtani, he went 4 for 18 (.222) with an OPS of .836 and one home run.  It’s just that the Yankees as a team stunk it up throughout the series and used Judge as a scapegoat, while Ohtani could easily hide underneath Freddie Freeman’s Superman cape while the team kept on winning.

Which brings us back to Freddie Freeman, whom is the only thing I like about the Dodgers winning the World Series, because a I genuinely like, enjoy and admire, gets to be the focal point and superstar, everyone in Atlanta already knew of, everyone in Los Angeles is probably well aware of now, and probably every baseball fan in the world is aware of now too.

When the lights were the brightest, the stakes were the highest, Ohtani absolutely crumpled under the pressure.  Yamamoto, to his credit did pitch a great game in his one start, but when all was said and done, the World Series was the Freddie Freeman show, and even if it means that the Dodgers are World champions, I am okay with it.

This is Freddie Freeman’s world, and everyone; Ohtani, Yamamoto, the country of Japan, the rest of MLB, are just living in it.