Dad Brog (#179): The Insufferable Six

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I touched on the apparent martyr complex that my eldest daughter has developed over the last few weeks in a previous dad brog, where her go-to reaction to hearing anything that she doesn’t like is to immediately proclaim that I, or mythical wife, or both of us, love our second child more than her, that nobody loves her, nobody wants her to be happy, etc, etc.

But after a few more weeks of dealing with this bullshit, I’m ready to proclaim that year six has been the hardest point of parenting that I think I’ve come across over the last six-plus years of raising a child.  Neither of my kids really went through the terrible twos, and comparatively, year three was harder for both of them, but neither of those years compared to insufferable six that I’m dealing with, with #1 these days.

It’s almost like having a colicky baby all over again, where once the lazer is charged, there’s pretty much nothing that can be done except to let it discharge and run its course.  The difference is that a six year old can communicate their frustrations, and could explain it if they wanted to, or could even rationalize what’s setting them off, but writing this out, I guess it’s really not that different from a colicky baby episode after all.  Instead, it’s just a whole lot of mostly incoherent rambling about how nobody loves them, nobody wants them to be happy, everyone bosses her around because they’re older and think they’re smarter.

The kicker is that this primarily the case whenever we the parents are forced to take tech away from her, be it her iPad on the weekends when we let the kids stay up and watch a little bit of streaming shows, or when she’s staying up way too late listening to things on her Echo Dot, and we’re forced to physically remove the unit outright from her room.

As if any parent needs to be reminded of the potential risks of too much tech with their children.  After yesterday’s blow up, I think the Dot is permanently removed from the room, and such will remain the case until some more good faith and responsibility comes along.

Seriously though, it’s been real difficult dealing with an insufferable six.  Changing diapers and sleep regressions and teething episodes were tough, but these past few weeks are taking me right back to that state of mind, feeling bewildered, helpless and just not knowing what I can do as a father to work through all these crash outs.  I hate hearing my children upset and crying and wailing, and regardless of how bullshit and self-inflicted the anguish is, it’s still something that as a father, I want to be able to help bring them out of it, without resorting to cheap bribery or enabling patterns that will just fuck me over later down the line.

Sharing services just aren’t meant to last

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let me just say, the recent tidal wave of irate AirBnB hosts over the updates to hosting rules that basically say that hosts can’t demand guests basically be their housekeepers anymore while pocketing egregious cleaning fees has been extremely, unexpectedly satisfying to witness.  Because I’d shown some interest in the topic, The Algorithm has been spoon-feeding me content from both salty hosts as well as other likeminded spectators from the peanut gallery also finding amusement at the comeuppance to all these opportunistic property hoarders, and I haven’t minded it one bit.

We’ve all been in that position before, where we’re searching for some lodging, and thinking the AirBnB route, since they could offer up some unique locations and there used to be the belief that they were more economical.  And then we find some ideal options, and about the pull the trigger, but upon getting to the checkout portion, we’re rudely awakened to some ridiculously high cleaning charges, which is perplexing considering the house rules stated a laundry list of rules and chores expected of guests, and the cost difference between AirBnB versus a hotel where you don’t have to do anything but vacate the premises suddenly doesn’t look as expansive as it did previously.

Personally, I’ve been fortunate to have not stayed at any AirBnBs where the rules were too bonkers; usually the extent of what I’ve ever done staying at someone else’s properties is like bagging up my own trash and putting it in a can outside, and consolidating used towels in a basket.  But I’ve definitely heard of listings where people demand tasks such as wiping down surfaces, sweeping floors, stripping sheets off beds, starting laundry and other things that always beg the question, wtf is the cleaning fee for??

Mythical wife and I have leveraged AirBnB overseas numerous times, having stayed in rentals in places from Paris, Seoul to Budapest, and thankfully they’ve been a little more accommodating and understanding that they’re hospitality-adjacent and not drunk on their own Kool-Aid believing that they’re providing some sort of life-saving service like their American counterparts are, but I doubt that these were the hosts that were in mind when these sweeping policy changes were enacted.

Needless to say, it has been peak entertainment watching across the internet as AirBnB hosts all over are crashing out and raging amongst each other trying to cry victim and come up with other ways to make up for free revenue that cleaning fees were getting for them, and I love the arrogance in that they seem to think that raising their base rate isn’t just going to drive everyone back to hotels.  Flip the hierarchy, to where hotels and actual hospitality businesses are the first option, and AirBnB becomes the second-tier when all the good hotel options aren’t available.

It got me thinking how I think the age of sharing as a service is probably coming to an end, because aside from AirBnB, I think about how ridesharing pricing has gotten to the point where there’s not nearly as much of a difference between taxis anymore, and that the only real benefit to an Uber or Lyft over a cab is the lack of a meter, so you can’t get gauged by a unethical cabbie.

Like, airport logistics have basically gotten back to pre-2010, where take Atlanta for example; going for a weekend jaunt, do you park your car, or take rideshare?  Parking costs have skyrocketed to where “economy” parking is 20-25 a day, up from just 10-12 a few years ago, and all the third-party and offsite options have risen to commensurate, without any reduction in car storage safety.  Alternatively, you opt for ridesharing to the airport, and at least from where I live, the average Uber/Lyft to the airport is usually around $50 not including the tipping that was implemented a decade ago, so now multiply that by two for the round trip, and you’re probably looking at like $120 in rideshare, or around $100 in on-site parking, neither of which is a particularly appealing option when you’re already spending a bunch to travel in the first place.

Leveraging friends or family members for rides is back to being the hopeful first option, but naturally that comes with its own cost of someone else’s fuel and time.

The point is, it feels like sharing as a service is kind of dying.  It’s like when things are new/newish, there are a lot of early pioneers who get on the wagons early, go gangbusters in earning, and prove that it’s a viable way to live.  But then other people see it, hop aboard the train, and as the playing field dilutes more and more, the viability comes down, and any gaps and holes in the infrastructure of the services start to open up, more oversight and maintenance is implemented, and we end up exactly where we are right now, with all these alternate options watered down to complete mediocrity.

It was fun few years when services like AirBnB, Uber and Lyft, Doordash and Postmates were fresh new ideas and were viable economic alternatives to the standards they were challenging, but I think the rides are crawling to their ends.  The more policies and rules change, the cost of service increases, the more people are going to start crawling back to staying in hotels and pre-arranging cabs and shuttles over relying on sharing as a service once again.

WWE Crown Jewel might be interesting for once

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So despite the fact that the US Department of State has raised the travel advisory to Saudi Arabia to basically, don’t fucking go unless you absolutely have to and if you are there, get the fuck out as soon as possible, the WWE appears to still be planning on soldering forward and will proceed to have the Crown Jewel show in Riyadh on November 7th.

Among chats with my bros as well as seeing the chatter on the internet about this unfortunately ongoing situation, it’s very alarming that WWE and their parent company TKO seem to think they’re above danger, and that they should proceed to have a show in a region of the world that has had two airport bombings within the last month alone.  The shade and the memes and the shady memes have all been entertaining sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that as the date gets closer and closer, the reality remains that all WWE superstars and personnel hopping on airplanes and flying to Saudi Arabia, their mortality rates probably begin dipping below the average risk of death anywhere else in the world.

At this point, even an outright cancellation doesn’t change the fact that it’s been really unfortunate optics, and a very obvious prioritization of money over human lives, and it’s one of those situations where it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and judge rich people who always want more money, that what could would $90M do if-and-or-when everyone who stands to benefit from it is dead, bombed to oblivion?

Like, I see both sides to the story; reportedly, there is somewhere within the vicinity of $90M for having this show, and cancelling it forfeits all of it.  To a lot of the workers that aren’t at that Roman/Cody/Becky tier and really wants and needs to have the purported seven-figure payout for participating in it, that’s a lot of cheese to not get.  Furthermore, there are some storylines that seem obvious, but require Crown Jewel to happen in order for them to happen, primarily the two Money in the Bank briefcases, held by Penta and Tiffany Stratton, and despite the biz being one that requires adaptability and flexibility, these seem like circumstances that they don’t want to have to work around unless absolutely forced to, by cancellation.

But in the other hand, fucking death is on the table for showing up to Riyadh next weekend, and all the money in the world becomes worthless if they’re killed in a bomb strike, which I’ve read/imbibed in enough war thrillers to understand that it’s the bomber’s dream to hit a venue filled with thousands of people, when they’re trying to send a global message, and that’s precisely what Crown Jewel is if it happens.

I upped for a month of ESPN Unlimited this month, because I wanted to watch Money in the Bank.  After the show, I remarked to mythical wife that what the fuck am I going to do with the rest of this subscription, because the next PLE is strategically placed at the end of November, and I’d have to pay again if I wanted to watch Survivor Series.  But I was pleased to see that I’ll be able to utilize it again in order to catch the NXT Halloween Havoc show this coming weekend, and technically it’s still valid next week, when Crown Jewel is supposed to air.

Now I don’t want to see any attacks during the show, but I’d be lying that there isn’t some degree of curiosity to tune in during the show, because 10-30 second tape delay notwithstanding, if something were to occur, like a sudden dropping of broadcast or worse off, actual footage of an explosion taking place, it’s like there’s a crazy curiosity to know if I’d be able to catch it live.

Considering the WWE used to kind of do this in the past with their Tribute to the Troops shows while under the McMahon regime, I get the feeling that unless the US government forces TKO to not go, there’s little reason to believe that the show won’t still go on.  The shows in the past all happened without incident, but there’s no denying that all hands on deck had to have been on high alert throughout their stays in the Middle East, and as for the talent and personnel all being out there, it probably was never a comfortable time, knowing just how much civil unrest there was.

All the same, I remarked to my bros as well as a few communities, that I’m assuming that the guys at the top of the WWE/TKO org chart, Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, probably aren’t planning on making the trip out east, and if they were required to do so, then this is probably a non-issue.  But if we start seeing odds on potential incidents or superstar deaths on like Kalshi or Polymarket, then shit needs to be ceased immediately, full stop, because I don’t want to hear of Sami Zayn or Tiffany Stratton getting killed, and someone actually getting rewarded monetarily because of it.

Welp, hopefully the pyro at Crown Jewel are not going to be lit, and if it were up to me, then there wouldn’t be any at all, because there just wouldn’t be a goddamn show in the first place.  But money talks, and TKO likes money, and who gives a shit about human life if there’s money to be made. 

Reason #1,509 why I ask myself why I continue to like professional wrestling. :\

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.