Pretty much the greatest day in sports of the year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday was one of those satisfying days of sports where it felt like I was happy with a lot of the results of the games that were happening throughout the sporting world.  I don’t really have a horse in the World Series, but I’m inclined to lean toward the Milwaukee Brewers, and it was exciting to see them overcome an early 0-4 deficit and win game 2, to take a pretty optimistic 2-0 series lead before going on the road.

The one result that wasn’t quite what I had hoped for was the WNBA Finals game between Golden State and Atlanta and yes I am lowkey following the WNBA Finals for reasons beyond that it’s an Atlanta team vying for a championship, and it’s now a 2-2 series in a best of 7, that I am still hoping the Dream can pull off.

But the real meat of the day feast is still obvious college football, and objectively speaking, I have to say that this has been one of the most entertaining seasons ever, in the sense that it feels like every single weekend after the very uneventful week 1, has been riddled with upsets, there is no true team that seems like the obvious world-beating odds-on favorite to win the National Championship, and it seems like multiple top-5 or 10 schools are eating losses and the rankings are shuffling faster than item boxes in Mario Kart.

This is probably the level of parity that the NCAA really was hoping would be the case with the NIL era where talent can transfer and shift at a more rapid pace and help level playing fields across the spectrum.  In the few games that I do watch or catch a little bit of here and there, every time some player makes impact, commentators always seem to be pointing out where a guy used to play, and we’re getting to a point where the majority of active players on teams good enough to be televised all have a history of having played for someone else prior to landing where they currently are.

As for this week’s bloodbath, #2 Brigham Young, #7 Ole Miss, #8 Texas Tech, #11 Tennessee, #15 Iowa and #16 Southern California all took losses, with all of them except Ole Miss dropping to unranked opponents.  Pretty shortly the CFB rankings will assume control over the AP top-25 like it does every year, but there’s little reason to believe that things are going to change much, and that there’s still going to be a notable shuffle in the top-10 much less the top-25 teams in the nation.

Adding to the sweetness on top, is #11 Tennessee’s loss came against South Carolina, and having married into a South Carolina family, this is satisfying to watch for me as well, in addition to the fact that son of Frank, Shane Beamer is their coach, and frankly I just always enjoy seeing whenever Tennessee loses at anything because that’s the power of hate.

But the real reason of this post coming to fruition, and why the sports day was as glorious to me as it was, was because of the game of two unranked scrub schools, resulting in a victory that I’d been hoping for, for nearly 20 years, with Virginia Tech defeating Clemson, 20-16.

To most people, this was a background noise tier game between two schools that used to be noteworthy, but to me, this was the one game of the year that I had earmarked, and was basically my National Championship.  More than the Commonwealth Cup against Virginia, more than the game against Georgia Tech that I always love to smear in the faces of the locals here in Atlanta.

Prior to yesterday, Virginia Tech hadn’t beaten Clemson since 2007, when Tyrod Taylor was a freshman quarterback.  Tyrod Taylor has basically wrapped up a full-ass NFL career at this point, and his alma mater hadn’t beaten the Tigers throughout that entire time.  Dabo Swinney took the helm, and they’ve had a revolving door of outstanding quarterbacks since then, with guys like Tajh Boyd, Deshaun Watson, and Trevor Lawrence to name a few, and they’d been beating Tech like plantation owners.

It didn’t matter if Tech had one of their uprising years like in 2011 or 2016.  It didn’t matter if Tech had the supposed magic of College GameDay on their side, like they did in 2017.  Clemson would beat Tech in the regular season, as well as in the ACC Championships, and there was no team in the ACC that invoked more dread and a pit in the stomach than Clemson did.

I knew that this was a year in which the teams would collide again, but something did feel different.  Clemson’s football program was clearly on the decline, due to the rise of the NIL era starting to pick away at their talent pool, and the slow simmering of angst between their athletic program and Dabo Swinney.  Meanwhile, Virginia Tech seemed to be brimming with optimism, with the arrival of coach James Franklin from Penn State, and the litany of talent that transferred to Blacksburg to follow him. 

Whereas the NIL era was designed to liberate talent hoarded at schools like Clemson, ironically the once-talent rich Virginia Tech was the kind of school meant to benefit from such migrations, and going into the season, a more casual supporter like me didn’t know what to expect from the injection of new names and faces, as well as a new coach and whatever system he was trying to implement.

Obviously, the season started off with a bang, with Tech going 4-0, hanging 117 points on VMI and Old Dominion, before ramping up their difficulty with games against Maryland and Boston College.  But then shades of old Tech began emerging, with their complete failure against Pitt, and perplexing loss to Cal, with their defense glaring as the program’s biggest weakness.  And after a win against Georgia Tech that was mildly satisfying to me, I didn’t like that the box score revealed how hard they tried to throw the game.

So I had no idea what to expect this weekend going into Clemson.  Clemson was clearly vulnerable and not dominating like they used to, and their lack of ranking was appropriate to their performance, but they were still Clemson and I still had a complex built over nearly two decades of losses to lead me to feel dread and apprehension about this game, even if this really were a truly different Virginia Tech team, that had shown some flashes of brilliances.

Naturally, as is the case with any game I truly care about, I didn’t watch a single second of the game.  I actually went so far as to peace the fuck out as soon as South Carolina hit their game winning field goal against Tennessee, since ESPN switched to Tech/Clemson pretty much immediately afterward, opting to get on the treadmill and watch Landman instead of daring risk jinxing the Hokies with my accursed eyes.

I resisted temptation to check the score or even open the ESPN app to check other scores, because I have a favorite tag on Virginia Tech sports, it would inevitably flash up top, and I’d have ruined it for sure, and opted to watch AAA wrestling and any other television to distract me from what I was really caring about.

And at around 11:10 pm, did I finally open the ESPN app, dreading seeing something like Clemson 34, Virginia Tech 24, and much to my surprise, Tech was not the name and logo in the light gray.  20-16 Hokies; my eyes went wide, and I showed the phone to mythical wife.

Next came the box score; and it was typical Virginia Tech – lead early, the weak defense gives it all back and then some.  But then came James Franklin’s-led Virginia Tech, where the offense that isn’t complete trash fights back, and with 1:44 left in the game, scores a go-ahead touchdown, with just little enough time left for them to actually be able to hold on and preserve the first Tech win against Clemson since 2000 fucking seven.

Needless to say, I was elated.  I don’t care that people may argue that this is on a downward swing for Clemson, and/or that it’s on an upward swing for Virginia Tech.  I haven’t seen this result since three cars ago, three jobs and a freelance career ago, and when I was still in my 20’s.  Fewer teams in CFB have given me a final boss feeling than Clemson has over my lifetime, and I’ll take any win against them and treat it like a bowl victory any season.

I don’t care if they lose to Miami or Duke or Virginia later this season, this was the one game this season that I had earmarked as the one I wanted to see a W in more than any other, and with that succeeded, it really doesn’t matter what else happens this season.  Hopefully, it continues to grow the aura of the James Franklin era, but the season is already a success as far as I’m concerned.

Best season ever.

Glad I avoided that gross bullet

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I did my civic duty today and voted.  Honestly, I don’t like a lot of the candidates that were available to me, but at the same time there are a bunch that I didn’t even know who they were much less know their platforms.  A lot of voting simply based on party and weak hopes and dreams that change might occur.

But anyway, the point of this post isn’t the fact that I had voted, it’s based on the fact that mercifully, I was spared being given the new I Voted sticker that rolled out in Georgia this year, and was instead given one of the “old” stickers.  I actually had this post in mind, should I have gotten the new sticker, but even after getting the old one, I didn’t want this train of thought to go to waste, and here we are.

My knee-jerk reaction upon seeing it was that of feeling kind of skeeved out.  For the last decade or so, for fairly obvious reasons, there’s something about a lot of American symbolism that has turned kind of passively hostile, and almost threatening, like it’s been weaponized.  And I know that the flag in the sticker is a Georgia state flag, and that it’s the State Capitol and not Washington D.C., but there just something about the sticker as a whole that seems more agenda-led versus being a badge of honor of doing our civic duty.

A little bit of cursory research reveals that the new sticker’s design was done by a pretty renown painter; I don’t like to actually write out their name, because I don’t want to give satisfaction of acknowledgement to people I don’t appreciate, but the thing is, most people have probably seen their artwork before.  They are kind of a go-to artist for political artwork, and to their credit, they have done a lot of good paintings throughout history, and there is definite talent in their hands.

I learned that the artist actually lives in Georgia, which explains the connection to why they could be tasked to do such a project like Georgia’s voting sticker, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still get this sense of skeeviness when I look at it, and I’m relieved I didn’t get one, because not only would I not wear it, I was premediating what disparaging places I could put it instead of wearing it, like inside the urinal at a QT or something, even if it would be a dick move to force someone to potentially have to clean it up later, but it’s a moot point because I thankfully didn’t get one.

But back to the artist, as stated, they are basically a go-to artist for the Republican party, and that’s where I realized where I’d seen some of their artwork before.  It didn’t take much longer to realize where this person stood on the political spectrum, but at the same time it wasn’t the least bit surprising, and in a way, kind of interesting to how it was so obvious from nothing but a 1.5” circumference sticker.

We’ve gotten to the point of society, where such lines are drawn so hard, the division is so staunch, and people are so clouded by solely political affiliation, that imagery, symbolism and visual associations have become very prevalent and are easy indicators for sides just from quick glances.

I know Georgia is technically considered a battleground state, but living here and seeing what I’ve seen over 23 years of living here, any shades of blue never seem present until election time, and regardless of result, always seems to shy away and always seem to be in the disadvantageous position in any sort of competitive arena.  I hope I’m wrong about it upon the passing of actual Election Day, but at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised to be left feeling disappointed by the night’s results.

Although I was fortunate this go-around, I think it’s inevitable in future voting days that this sticker will become the only option for the foreseeable future, or at least until the supply runs out, and hopefully they go back to something a little more basic and a little more neutral afterward; although I wouldn’t bet on it.

The only problem with Resident Evil was the name

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I recently watched the new Resident Evil film with tempered expectations.  Now I can’t say that I’m the greatest RE fan like I used to, seeing as how I stopped playing them all mostly cold turkey after RE6, but anything up to that point, I knew pretty much everything about as far as lore to that point, and to even the most minor of characters to have appeared in the series.

The series kind of went off the rails for me at after that point, as well as just life in general steering me away from video games, but it’s still safe to say that I am generally a fan and supporter of the RE intellectual property as a whole.

As far as live adaptations are concerned, that’s a whole different story, because with the exception of the very first RE film back from like 2001, with Milla Jovovich and WS Anderson, all attempts at creating live-action Resident Evil have been as successful as the Buffalo Bills winning the Super Bowl in the 90s.

All successive RE sequels after the first one sailed down a tremendous downhill slope, as they systematically started shoe-horning canon characters into a world that wasn’t really meant for them, and the end of the series was a really sad and merciful book end that felt like the creators were just trying to get to the finish by any means necessary.

The Netflix series I had some hope for, seeing as how television allows stories to breathe and develop, and it had its moments where I thought things were going to become decent, but the poor character development aside from Lance Reddick’s* portrayal of Albert Wesker were all annoying, and it devolved into another edition of zombie media where you start to stop rooting for the survivors and start rooting for the zombies and monsters to put an end to a bunch of dumbasses who put themselves into the predicament in the first place and deserve their just desserts.

*I can’t help but feel bad for Reddick, seeing as how this was one of the last things he did before his unfortunate departure from the world all too soon, much like Raul Julia ended his career doing the Jean-Claude Van Damme Street Fighter film

Needless to say, when I heard that another Resident Evil film was on the way, my initial reaction was that of eye-rolling and skepticism, based on prior history.  Even if it were being directed by Zach Cregger, the fact that the history of people trying to make video game movies is just a battle with a hill too steep to overcome, and I didn’t think that this was going to have much chance either.

Long-winded introduction out of the way now, I will say that Cregger’s Resident Evil actually wasn’t that bad.  The pace of the film was kind of like Cregger’s Weapons, where there would be some funny moments to help break the levity of the grand picture of the story, and when it comes to creating tension and moments where you as the viewer catch yourself holding your breath at points, it’s clear what one of Cregger’s strengths is as a director.

The main character is well-written and is a believable portrayal of a guy with his own struggles in life with scraping by while dealing with the very real prospect of having children and feeling unprepared, having the moral compass to want to stop and help a person in a car accident despite how easy it would have been to run away without consequence, to where circumstances force him to act and decide quickly to where he’s utilizing firearms that he’s not even remotely close to qualified to using competently.

But the biggest problem I had with the entire film is the fact that it was called ‘Resident Evil,’ because after watching it, nobody could convince me that Cregger or anyone else involved in the writing and production of this film have ever played a single game in the series.  Other than using the name ‘Raccoon City,’ a few choice designs of monsters and some really niche easter eggs for us old-head gamers, there’s absolutely nothing that really connects this film to its title or the RE IP, like at all.

The bread-and-butter bad guys of the series are zombies, and although there are some implied zombies throughout the film, they’re nothing like the RE zombies that are mostly slow, bite and eat humans, and use strength in numbers to swarm and overwhelm survivors.  The main antagonists that are lurking around in Cregger’s RE are more like Silent Hill-type creepy monsters that are these amalgamations of limbs and combined body parts, rolling around and stalking survivors, and if I had to get all Comic Book Guy on specifics, it’s like they were dealing with Las Plagas-variants, given that all of the infected pulled the shit where limbs and appendages would split apart and facefuls of tentacles were how they attacked.  Not much T-Virus or G-Virus or any of the traditional superviruses that is how more traditional interpretations of the RE IP typically begin.

Umbrella is mentioned like, once, by Paul Walter Hauser of all people, and as much as I love the roles he plays, he’s one of those dudes that immediately makes a situation funny, because he’s usually always some comic relief-type, and I know that’s Cregger’s style, but sometimes there’s not always a time for a chuckle, especially when trying to create tension and convey danger.

The point of all this is that the film is a decent monster/horror/thriller flick, but like the title of this post suggests, my biggest issue with it is that it’s called Resident Evil, because in the grand spectrum of things, it really couldn’t be further from feeling remotely like anything Resident Evil.  The title of the film immediately places a couple of expectations of what should be seen in the film, and the film barely scratches the surface on most of them.  Mentioning Raccoon City a few times, Umbrella once, and there’s a monster or two that kind of looks like they tried to stay true to their initial designs.

I’m not saying they needed to make a full-ass retelling of the story, complete with Chris, Jill, Barry, Rebecca and Wesker, and go from there, but at the same time, but like I said, nobody’s going to convince me that anyone involved in the creation of this film has actually played the game, much less even checked the fandom.wikia about Resident Evil.

The reason why I do hold the Jovovich/Anderson RE1 film in the regard I do, is because I felt that it did a good job of utilizing elements of the RE IP, while creating their own characters and scenarios, and it felt like Resident Evil, without having to be so hardcore literal about it.

It would be funny if this film goes overseas, and much like how America made Resident Evil out of Bio Hazard in Japan, other countries rename this film into something else, and then it goes gangbusters.  Because, if you didn’t know that this film was named Resident Evil, it’s a pretty decent horror thriller film, and it could probably do well if viewers have no preconceived notions that come with a familiar title.

I did Nazi that coming

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo Sports: Atlanta Falcons obliterated by the internet for unveiling a logo that resembles too closely to Nazi imagery

I often reference this, and it’s bad on my part that I can’t find the actual quote of it again, but there was once this saying I remember reading in regards to the topic of brands that rebrand too frequently, along the effects of, no better indication of mediocrity than frequent rebranding.

The obvious logic is that the brand and/or company is trying to hide the fact that they’re mid as fuck or worse and is trying to smokescreen the sad reality with distracting imagery and new logos.

I moved to Georgia in 2003, and since I’ve lived down here, the Atlanta Falcons have changed their logo two times, three if you count this debacle that they seem to have pulled back on like they were slamming their brakes like Takeshi Nakazato.  The thing is, I kind of feel like I get what they were trying to do, incorporating the red, white and black stripes they used on their uni pants pre-2003, but never did they have the Falcon logo on top of it like they had done, and clearly nobody stopped to think of what it might resemble when they put it together.

And as is often stated when a juicy meme goes into the general population and goes viral, the Internet remained undefeated, with their quick and sharp evisceration of the Atlanta Falcons profile picture.  Aside from the headline that I clearly hoisted for the title of this post, I saw a lot of bonkers-good quips and lines that made this some red-hot entertainment for a few hours:

I give this a nein (out of) 10
The Bird Reich
28-3rd Reich
Falcons were up 28-3 at Dunkirk
Falcons leading the league in blitzkrieg

And so on, and so on.

Obviously, I have some other thoughts on the matter, otherwise this wouldn’t be a brog post; the first of which is that whomever made this logo, surely, has to be the same guy/company/agency who did the logo for the Metro Atlanta elementary school rebranding for East Side Elementary, seeing as how they basically lifted the Nazi eagle emblem for their school.  And that it’s both sad and concerning how there are creatives out there that are either that uneducated, and/or are that insistent and determined to sneak Nazi imagery into logos that will be seen by the public and hope nobody notices.  Also that they both happened in the Metro Atlanta area is something that is disheartening to me, as a resident of the region, but then again, we had actual full-ass Nazi demonstrations not that long ago, so it’s not like they’re trying to really hide or anything either.

Additionally, it’s no secret that the owner of the Atlanta Falcons is Arthur Blank, and it’s no secret that he’s the co-founder of The Home Depot, and it’s no secret that his co-founder was Bernie Marcus, a Jewish man.  Both are massive pillars of Atlanta just beyond the Falcons and THD; they created the Georgia Aquarium, and have their collective fingerprints in all sorts of projects and companies throughout the state.  Blank may be the owner of the Falcons, but Bernie’s fingerprints are still all over the place.

I’m going to assume Arthur had nothing to do with, and probably didn’t see the logo before it went out, because he’s a pretty smart guy, and I’d hope he’s at the age where his education level might have encompassed WWII and a bit of background history on the Nazi party, and may have realized just how fucked up and disrespectful to his late-partner and friend might have been.

Either way, this was funny for a minute, but the reality is that the Atlanta Falcons still suck as a football team, and this was a really hilariously bad attempt to smokescreen their below-average season with fancy pictures, but at the same time it seems appropriate that a team that’s as piss-poor on the field is performing as piss-poorly off of it.

Seems like a good excuse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Driver clocked going 124 mph on I-285; cites “I had a bad day at work”

Honestly, I’m amazed that this guy was able to get to 124 mph on I-285 in the first place.  If he was busted by Dunwoody police, he was definitely on the top end stretch of 285 that has the worst traffic among all other segments of the 64-mile circle around the city, and I almost find it hard to believe that the guy was able to find enough open road to open up whatever whip he was riding to get up to 124 mph.

I’m not going to pretend like I’m the world’s most safest driver and that I have never hit 124 mph or higher in my lifetime, but on this part of 285 that I’ve driven with some regularity, I’m lucky to ever be able to get to 80 mph, much less be able to sustain it to be able to go even faster, before either a sea of brake lights, and/or the usual slop of untalented drivers all over 285 makes me have to slow the fuck back down.

But citing a bad day at work as the excuse for going two times the legal limit?  That’s weak sauce, boss.  I feel like when this cop propped the question, it was an opportunity to come up with a clever rebuttal that might have been able to get himself free, if it were funny or memorable enough.  But I get it, it’s heat of the moment, people generally clam up around the po-po, and this guy just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Because by that logic, if it were just a bad day, the top end of 285 would have thousands of idiots flying by at 124 mph+ on the regular, because driving around Atlanta is typically rage-inducing in itself, and no doubt if aggravation = speed, we’d have drivers all around the city routinely hitting 120mph+

Either way, I don’t know whether to be glad to read of a story of police actually apprehending someone committing a moving violation in their cars, or even more disenchanted by the fact that a police officer doing their job and pulling over a speeder and writing them a ticket, is considered newsworthy.  Because boy do I have a lot of tickets that I’d write to a lot of motherfuckers for way less severe infractions than going 124mph if I had the ability to.

Well well well

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

USA Today: parents of 13-year old who died after crashing his e-bike face possible jail time for child endangerment

Unsurprising, not long after I come to my own conclusion that e-bikes are potentially problematic, especially when combined with the severe seeming lack of understanding of rules and law, does this story come to light, of a kid who apparently not only had an e-bike, but an e-bike on steroids, where everyone’s calling it an e-motorcycle, capable of going in excess of 50 mph.

Now there’s never any joy or enjoyment when it comes to the loss of life, but there is an air of I told y’all so about the dangers of e-bikes, and a diminished sympathy when the context emerges that the parents willingly bought their son a super-version of an e-motorcycle that could go so fast, and not learning their lessons from the reported incident just months earlier that resulted in a broken leg for their son.

The fact that the kid’s only form of PPE was a standard bicycle helmet, was pretty unfathomable for a piece of equipment that could basically go faster than most Kia Rios or Nissan Leafs.

And whether it’s sheer negligence or ignorance that bicycles, regardless of if they’re electronic or not, need to be treated and riders adhering to the same laws as someone in a Ford F-250 or a Bugatti Veyron, the deceased kid had reportedly a history of driving his bike like an idiot, running red lights, popping wheelies and just general unsafe operation.

Unfortunately everything is for naught at this point, because the kid hit a median, flew off his e-bike and slammed into a light pole, which supposedly is what killed him, and there’s very little loss of life that isn’t sad and unfortunate, this being no exception.

I have some scooters in the garage for my kids to play on, but they’re the old school Razors, and most certainly don’t have any motors in them.  They have yet to fully learn regular bicycles, and I certainly wouldn’t consider e-versions of anything, until they’ve mastered the basics, and even then, I think it’s safe to assume that I’d be much more overseeing of their safety and conduct than these shitty parents were with their kid. 

It’s unfortunate that it resulted in a death and there’s no lesson for them to take away from this, but my point remains, e-bikes, motorcycles and scooters are dangerous, dangerous modes of transportation and recreation, and people and parents really need to be better educated of them, and the laws around local transportation, before any more people get hurt or killed.

As much as I like the feeling of being right about things, I certainly don’t take any enjoyment about reading about deaths or people getting seriously hurt on account of e-vehicles.  Further advancement of legislation on these things is probably pending some shithead in Washington needing to have an incident of a family member getting affected by e-vehicles, before anything more is going to happen, unfortunately.

Dad Brog (#178): I wonder where this savage comes from?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What we have here is a photograph of a worksheet that my younger child did in class; it was the 50th day of school, which means it was the 50th day of elementary school ever for my child, and they were having a little fun with the number 50.

However, as we can see, #2 has decided that this was a great opportunity to, in writing, get some things off her chest; stating that what she would never want 50 of is, her older sister.

I’m pleased to see that she even nailed pluralizing it too.

I asked mythical wife if maybe there was some spat in the drive to school, or at arrival that compelled #2 to want to air out some grievances with her older sister, but no, nothing at all.  Just plain old sibling angst, bubbled up to where it’s now in writing.

All the same, it is a pretty savage take to have, but such is the nature of my younger child, whom many have used the phrase, spicy, to describe her personality at times.

A while back, before mythical wife and I got married, my now mother-in-law posted a reel of a runway model with a veil being held up by balloons, tagging then-mythical gf, cheekily suggesting it for her own wedding.  With no hesitation, she responds with how much she hates the idea, hates the video, and hates how frequently it seemed to show up for her.

When I saw her comment, I decided to troll my then-future wife, and rebut that:

this cauldron of hate is my future wife.

I thought it was funny.

Point is, this kind of answers the rhetorical question that is the subject of this brog post, and clearly this apple hasn’t fallen that far from the tree.  

Heaven help the world once she’s out on her own.