This has got to be a first, right?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Back when mythical wife was pregnant for the first time, she didn’t deal with a lot of the stereotypical things that are associated with pregnant women.  No crazy cravings for shit like pickles and ice cream, no rampant morning sickness that had her running to the bathroom sporadically.  However, if there was one thing that could be construed something of a craving, it was that she wanted to have some ice to chew on occasionally.

However, the refrigerator at my home doesn’t have a water/ice function.  At that time, I was still content with buying and drinking bottled water, so we never really had need for ice, beyond occasional recipes or the want for a mixed drink, in which we did have the old tech ice cube trays in the freezer for such things.

Long story short, mythical wife ended up purchasing a countertop ice machine to be able to make fresh ice in six minutes, and satiate her want for ice cubes.  Our household would eventually get used to having the ice machine, and after enough guilting about the environment, we purchased a water cooler and stopped purchasing bottles, and since my water was now coming in cups and bottles, I started getting used to being able to load up a bunch of ice to keep my drinks colder longer.

The thing is, either they’re not supposed to be left up and running 24/7 like we did, or much like lots of machines of today, they’re designed to eventually fail and die, which is exactly what happened to ours.  After getting used to it, it really sucked to suddenly not be able to have fresh ice whenever we wanted to, which is about as big of a first-world problem there could be, but bear with me here.

Fast forward, over the last few years, my household has gone through three ice machines.  As noted above, either they’re not supposed to be running 24/7, or they really are just kind of shittily made and aren’t meant to last beyond 18 months, which seems to have been the general lifespan for all of them.

Needless to say, when I bought ice maker #4, I actually had the wherewithal to pay the $12 to Target and get the 2-year replacement plan.  By now, I had enough empirical evidence to take the gamble that #4 would not make it 24 months, and that if I played my cards right, should theoretically be able to get a free replacement in the future, for the low-cost of $12.

Otherwise, like the other 98% of electronics I’ve ever purchased in my life, I would’ve declined the protection plan without a second thought.  In all those cases, knock on wood, either nothing has happened within two years, or there’s some funny business that leads to my shit being invalid for coverage, and it resulting in a sunk money cost and feeling of remorse for wasting the cash in the first place.

Either way, ice maker #4 died, as anticipated it would eventually do, but this time, the moment of dread and first-world problem anguish at having to go procure ice machine #5, I had a moment of excited curiosity, at being able to explore the protection plan I had the wise wherewithal to invest in back in May 2024.

Because I’m a digital packrat that saves every single e-receipt and document pertaining to anything I’ve ever purchased online, I was fairly easily able to track down all needed documentation to file a claim, and the process was pretty painless and simple, and within maybe 90 minutes, I had a submission, an approval and a resolution completed.  Target has apparently given up on peddling ice machines, so the insurance company resolved to just reimburse me the cost of ice maker #4, effectively having paid just $12 for it, less the minute aggravation of having to go track down #5.

But as the title of this post said, this has got to be like the first time in history, at least for me, where a protection plan actually worked and paid out, right?  Usually PPs are the consumer’s version of sucker bets, like insurance in blackjack, but after years of evidence of how short-lived ice makers are, I made an educated decision, and it paid off, without any real complications.

It brings me great joy, and softens the first-world gripe of not having fresh ice until I can get #5.  The question is if, the retailer I get it from, if they’ll offer a protection plan on it as well, because it seems to be a wise investment on these little machines.  But if they do, I think I’mma take it again, and hope it works out in 18 months from now

It’s always going to be Springfield Mall

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NBC Washington: non-fatal shooting incident occurs at Springfield Town Center between teenagers arguing about something reportedly nothing and inconsequential

It’s not that often that I think much about my old stomping grounds, and it’s been over a decade since the topic of Springfield Town Center Mall has been in the brog, but here we are, thanks to an eerily accurate feeding from the algorithm to me, letting me know about a shooting incident in the shopping mall that I’d wasted endless amounts of hours of my life at.

As I opined in a comment on social media, they can change the name of the joint, and they can change all the stores inside the place, but Springfield Mall will always be Springfield Mall, a place cursed and destined to be a place of underlying danger and the uneasy feeling shoppers will always have that no matter what things appear around them, they’re not entirely safe.  MS-13 beheadings and 9/11 hijacker presence have a tendency to leave their bad juju on a place, kind of like the premise of The Grudge.

Thinking back to this assessment, it’s almost a miracle that I’m alive, considering the massive amounts of danger commensurate to how much time I spent there probably having increased my mortality rate throughout my teenage years.

It’s the least surprising thing in the world to hear news of spontaneous violence erupting within the walls of Springfield Town Center considering the bones and likely jerry-rigged graves in which the place was built onto, and watching the video of the incident, it doesn’t look like much has changed over the last 10+ years of Springfield Mall’s final days and Town Center’s day-to-day operations.

Shithead teenagers loitering around the place, manifesting beefs out of absolutely nothing, and ultimately erupting into gun violence, what I saw in the video looked like it could’ve been straight out of 1999, minus the taste in fashion, and the presence of bystanders all brandishing smart phones trying to video the incident instead of you know, calling 9-1-1.

Then again, it’s no secret that among the things that carried over from the old days into the current is the physical Fairfax County Police precinct in the mall itself, because nothing says ‘we’re [not] a safe place’ than having to have local cops ready at the helm, within ear shot at any given time.

The point remains, as unfortunate it is to ever hear of gun violence in any way shape or form, it’s good that nobody was killed and the offending parties were apprehended.  But I still admit to being amused at the ironic reality that no matter how much time has passed, no matter that the name of the joint has changed, and no matter how much the insides of the shopping center has changed, nothing will ever, ever change the fact that 6500 Springfield will always be, Springfield Mall.

Let’s talk about selling out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Too many sources to count: many people are big mad about US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu choosing to represent China instead of the United States during the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, and even more so upon finding out that she was paid around $6.6M from China to do so

There was probably a time in my life in which I would have looked at these circumstances, and immediately went Eileen Gu is a turncoat sellout, fuck her, and I hope she fails epically on everything she does!!!

But these days, that’s not even the first thought that comes to my mind when hearing about the saga of Eileen Gu.  I’ve had numerous conversations with friends over the years on the topic of ‘selling out,’ which is something that people love to frivolously fling around whenever they hear of anyone who decides to make money at the expense of exchanging some sort of commodity, be it talent, goods or some other thing that they have that others are willing to pay real money for.

Music bands, professional athletes, content creators of various forms; whenever anyone exchanges their commodities for large sums of money, people all over the internet tend to immediately go hostile and brand them as sellouts, and basically declare them pieces of shit that they immediately want to see fail and immediately not succeed for no other reason than that they’re getting a lot of money and those who react are not.

I should know, because I’ve definitely declared many groups and individuals sellouts in my lifetime because their success turned me into a jealous fatty who didn’t like that they were becoming rich and I remained an schmuck with a brog that nobody reads.

But my mindset has kind of changed throughout the years, and yeah, I can’t say that I’m really at all that keen when an entity might sell out, especially if it means the cease or possibility of reduction of the creation of content that I like, but at the same time I’ve developed a more pragmatic understanding that people are trying their best in order to survive in the world, and for lots of us, that requires money, a great deal of it, and the more that some people can amass, the greater quality of life that can be had, if utilized properly.

More importantly, I’ve been open about the notion that if I were ever to have some sort of talent, creation, service or some sort of commodity that people were willing to pay me egregious amounts of money for, I would probably do it in two fucking seconds.  I’d sell the absolute fuck out, if it meant that I could secure wealth and financial freedom for my family, even quicker if said wealth were generational, and I could ensure that my girls’ future families would be wealthy and comfortable.

I’d be more than willing to endure being called a sellout and have people rooting against my success, if it meant the aforementioned lifestyle could be attained, and frankly I don’t have to like it when those I favor sell out, because I’m sure that when the day is over, they probably feel similarly too.

So getting back to Eileen Gu, yeah, it doesn’t make me feel particularly positive that she’s repping China ahead of the United States, but in all fairness, her mom is Chinese; Eileen has every right to rep China, and it’s very much allowed in the rules of most international competition, that people are allowed to represent their parents’ and in some cases, grandparents’ heritages, and for some lower-tier class athletes, it’s the only way they can get into the Olympics in the first place.

Furthermore, she’s already won medals for the United States, two golds and a silver back in 2022, which by the way was in fucking Beijing, so the people of China had to see an American with a Chinese last name, dunking on them in their own homeland.  She owes America nothing, as far as I’m concerned, and aside from the $6M simoleons, she’s getting to rep her mother’s heritage, which nobody is at all entitled to criticize.

I get that China isn’t popular with Americans these days, and a lot of news that I’m reading these days love to cite the human rights violations and atrocities that are going on in that country, but all these American finger pointers also need to look at our own fucking country.  America isn’t much better, and we got ICE murdering civilians on the streets, and the Epstein Files are unearthing all sorts of major figures, including the guy voted to the highest office in the country and everyone who has the power to do something about it are are turning blind eyes left and right, so it’s not like America has any moral high ground over fucking China to where Eileen Gu should be getting any criticism in regards to representing the more righteous nation.

Of course, the money is a flag that many are proclaiming to be the devil in this arrangement, but the way I see it, whether or not it was the driving factor in Gu’s choice to go with China, girl knows her worth, and has found a way to monetize her talents in order to make actual, life-changing money.  Not all Olympians have to be in the trades and Home Depot employees in their day jobs, and if someone is willing to pay them big money, they have every right to accept it as long as it’s not illegal.

Honest question here, what kind of career does a skier even have, past the Olympics?  Coaching?  It’s not like there’s an MLB/NBA/NHL/NFL of skiing, and I don’t even know if participating in the X-Games even makes money.  Skiers might get some endorsements here and there, but by and large, I have to assume that once the Olympics are off the table, there’s not a whole lot of earning capabilities for a world-class skier, no disrespect to the sport.

That being said, I don’t blame or fault Eileen Gu at all for taking a massive payday and repping her mother’s birth country instead of her own.  She’s already done it for America before, and now she gets to do it for her mom’s country, and get paid handsomely for it.

And the best part is that people have shorter attention spans than ever before these days.  Once the Olympics are over, people will more likely than not, forget about the existence of Eileen Gu, and she can get back to enjoying out the rest of her life, six million dollars richer.

No judgment for taking the bag, even if it means a bunch of shithead Americans are salty over it.  They’ll get over it, if they even remember that this even happened, in two weeks.

I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently watched All Her Fault, and to cut to the chase, I thought it was pretty good; but I could have one massive major fucking gripe about the show, it had nothing to do with the story, the acting, or any plot critiques, but the fact that the show was filmed and presented with a low-contrast filter that basically made the show nigh impossible at times, or at least, actually impossible to see what the fuck was going on at times.

The above image might be slightly exaggerated, but it illustrates what many scenes throughout the show felt like when watching them.  The contrast was so busted up that there are countless scenes where you’re seeing moving silhouettes of people, and completely missing out on all sorts of bodily acting, facial expressions or reactions, and more than once, I found myself trying to tinker with my hardware’s settings, to see if it was something wrong with my configuration, only to find out that it wasn’t.

A cursory Google search revealed that I was not the only person who came to this revelation, and it’s comforting to see that many others endured and felt the same things I did.  As good as I thought the series was, I think it would’ve been better had viewers been able to fucking see shit, especially when there’s a lot of emotionally charged scenarios where it would’ve been helpful to see expressions and reactions to dialogue.

But other than the visual flaws, the story, plot and acting were all high quality, and I thought the series was solid from a storytelling standpoint.  It was almost laughable at just how lily white the cast and the scenarios were, and there’s something to be said about how fast affluent white people are capable of unraveling, and the types of demons that they all must be hiding in their closets, based on just how fast shit hit the fan with most of the characters in the series.

The point remains, you have a whole bunch of rich white people dealing with problems that stem with miscommunications with their nannies* and how fast they turn on each other when heat starts escalating, and everyone is driving around in Teslas, Rivians, Audis and BMWs throughout the Northside Chicago suburbs, and there are times where it truly feels really peak white people.

*yes, I am aware of the irony of taking shots at rich white people with in-home child care considering I have an au pair, but y’all need to understand just how fucking broke I am

However, what really made me feel like writing about the series, other than to trash their shitty visual execution, was the one thing that I never expected this show to have, that I will considerately hide behind the jump seeing as how it’s just a giant fucking spoiler:

Continue reading “I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it” →

I love how the Nick Castellanos saga has given more exposure to Presidente beer since it was on Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A drive into deep left field by Castellanos: Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos on the chopping block, attempts to get in front of a story of how his fallout in Philadelphia began, including specifying an incident where after being benched, he brought a Presidente (beer) into the dugout while criticizing the manager

Despite the fact that he landed on the Phillies and always seemed to drink the Kool-Aid and be one of those dudes that absolutely murdered the Braves, I’ve always kind of liked Nick Castellanos.  For all the silly reasons to like a player, like for many, it started with the whole meme of Castellanos blasting a home run in the middle of an announcer apologizing on air for making a homophobic remark, causing him to seamlessly segue out of his apology to report on the homer before easing right back into the apology. 

But then it became apparent that there seemed to be this hilariously coincidental tendency for Nick Castellanos to crank home runs out at awkward moments of announcing, leading to the whole meme of Bad Timing Nick Castellanos, and that’s really all I needed for him to land in my general good graces.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 2025, Nick Castellanos was pulled out of a game for lackadaisical effort, and he took so much offense to it, that, in his own admission, he had grabbed a beer out of the clubhouse and brought it back to the dugout where he was prepared to drink it in the middle of an active game while criticizing manager Rob Thomson’s leadership of the team.

This apparently fractured his position with the team, and with some dwindling performance, has made it really easy for the Phillies to want to cut him, despite the fact that they still owe him $20 million for the 2026 season, which they are responsible for, regardless of if he’s playing for the Phillies or not.

I’d love it if the Braves picked him up when the Phillies inevitably do release him, because he’d only cost the team $780K, with the Phils being on the hook for the remaining $19.25M, because he would provide some good depth for when inevitably Ronald Acuña, Jr. gets hurt again, and Castellanos could supply some power off the bench, but I wouldn’t bet money on the Braves getting him.

Regardless, anticipating some fallout for why the Phillies want to cut him so badly, Nick Castellanos took some time to hand write out a summary of the incident in Miami that seemed to be the beginning of the end for his time in Philadelphia, and as admirable it is that he wants to take accountability for his actions and control the narrative by admitting it first, one of the things that stuck out for me, was the oddly specific clarification that it wasn’t just any old beer he brought into the dugout to start criticizing Rob Thomson with, it was very specifically identified as a Presidente.              

I’ve had Presidente beer before, several times in fact.  There was one season of Dexter where just about every character was drinking it whenever there were any characters drinking beer, and the subliminal saturation of it did its job, and I grew curious about the brand, and when I happened to come across it, I didn’t hesitate to grab a sixer to see what all the fuss was about in Dexter.

It’s really not that great of a beer, but the connection to Dexter still made me like it.  And also being the baseball nerd I really used to be, the fact that it was a Dominican beer made me feel some connection to all the Latin players that populated the majority of the MLB.

Needless to say, the mention and inadvertent plugging of Presidente by Castellanos opened up that curiosity from the past, and I’m tickled that he clearly must be a fan of the brew to the point where he had to be very specific at mentioning that it was a Presidente that he brought to the dugout.

The Presidente brand must also be pretty amused, or a little mortified that they got such a generous free plug, because the reality is that they probably haven’t gotten this much advertising since that season of Dexter.  And because it’s coming from a player that I think positively of, it’s bringing that similar curiosity I had over ten years ago that if I were to come across a sixer or a forty of Presidente, I might have to pull the trigger.

Mina Kimes destroyed Dan Orlovsky like Sting vs. The Demon

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This would have been a little bit better had Drake Maye not shit the bed so badly, and the New England Patriots actually won the Super Bowl, but I don’t really want this to go unmentioned, because it was truly a masterclass in pwning a noob.

But prior to the actual Super Bowl, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes absolutely unleashed a massive pwning onto fellow analyst, former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky, on the subject of why Drake Maye received her MVP vote over Matthew Stafford.  I admit that I have a lot of reasons why I’m fond of Mina Kimes, from the Korean heritage, that she shares a name with one of my kids, is a pretty girl that likes and knows sports, the fact that mythical wife and I met her before she really broke through covering a League of Legends event, but biases aside, this was truly a demonstration of a person completely dominating another person in a debate.

It was like when the KiSS Demon had a 1v1 against Sting in WCW, one of my friends then whom was watching the event with us, was talking about how this was the night, this was when The Demon was going to break through, he was going to upset the legendary Sting, etc, etc.

They brawled for about a minute outside of the ring, but once they got into the ring, Sting dropped the Demon in like 43 seconds, after some quick Stinger Splashes and a Scorpion Death Drop.

Kimes vs. Orlovsky was kind of similar, but in reverse, where Kimes just buzzsaws the shit out of Orlovsky in about a minute first, and ol’ Dan sputtering and futilely swinging wildly, trying to salvage any sort of face at getting completely wrecked, but basically getting shut down repeatedly.  Honestly, he would’ve looked better and cooler had he just sat there silent after Kimes’ onslaught and just said that he had no rebuttal.

Honestly though, this doesn’t make the brog had it not been for Kimes’ absolutely brutal and personal approach.  People get owned on television and on the internet countless times every day, but seldom is it so surgical, so precise and so targeted as Kimes carved into Orlovsky.  And it was this specific line in which she started her vicious assault that I loved the most:

I’m a voter, and I voted for Drake Maye. And I’m right. And I’m going to explain to Dan Orlovsky why he’s wrong,”

It doesn’t even matter that she rattled off like 17 reasons that validate her claim.  It’s the fact that she anticipated all of Orlovsky’s or any detractor’s possible rebuttal points and preemptively shuts them down with tangible evidence and statistics and puts her opponent into a checkmate position before he can even make his own opening move. 

It’s like when I’m playing Aether Keeps in Fire Emblem Heroes, where the carefully curated enemy team from some player in Taiwan kills five out of seven units before I can even make a first move, but unlike Orlovsky, I just stare at the screen for a second and then just surrender the match without wasting anymore time.

Instead, Orlovsky tries his best to rebut anything, and even adds a little anecdote:

This is my biggest pushback to you, and this is where you lose it.

Except what he says next was something that Kimes had already anticipated, already got in front of it and shut it down, and had to remind him that she had done so, leaving Orlovsky to just sit there looking like he had shit his pants.  It’s very, very, very apparent that Mina Kimes knows what the fuck she’s talking about, especially when it comes to football, but regardless of just how bright she is, she’ll never not have the gender bias from her peers and most ESPN viewers that assume she’s wrong solely because she’s not just a woman, but isn’t a former player or team personnel.

But if those passive slights are what is fueling such surgical brutality from Mina Kimes to all her naysayers, I’ll be waiting with popcorn for the next time she murders someone on the stick.

Ain’t nobody ready, for Mina Kimes.

Dad Brog (#162): Three over three

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m halfway tempted to change the title of my dad brogs to the above, but really the hope is that this is a one-time blow-off kind of rant, and that when the smoke clears dad brogs remain being about my kids and my journey through fatherhood, and not really any further about being a parent to an elderly Korean parent on top of it.

Regardless, three over three is pretty succinct in how I’m feeling these days, because I have three human beings in my care that over the age of three years old, and they’re basically all fucking kids.  Two of them being my actual kids, but the third being my dad, whom, like many Korean parents throughout history, has chosen to go down the path of being as inept as possible, as needlessly dependent as possible, and to require as much care and patience as an actual child needs.

I thought I was right on the money when I came up with the general basis of The Korean Story™ but one thing I was completely blind to was what life was going to be like when the parents actually do hit that feeble senior life, and it’s the responsibility of the children (me) to basically become the parent, all while trying to not inhibit progress when they (in)conveniently want to remain the parent and demand respect and authority without any warning, spontaneously.

But basically my dad has become my third child, much to my dismay, and over the span of the last 12+ months, it’s been my biggest challenge trying to be the adult in the room, and steer him into decisions that are my best attempt to be for his benefit; just like my actual children.

It also doesn’t help that conversing with him, I can understand about as much as I can my actual kids’ excited ramblings about Pokémon or whatever fandoms they fancy at the time, primarily on account of the worsening language barrier, and the rate in which he listens to me when I’m trying to tell him do so something is about as successful as with my kids, that’s leading me to feel this way.

But it’s at its worst when I’m with all three of them at the same time, and my kids want attention, and my dad wants to ramble on about something that’s not important but he’s pretending like the fate of the world rests on it, that I’m asking myself what my life really is right now, and I’m pondering just how bad my blood pressure must look at these specific junctures in time.

However, the difference between my kids and my dad is that they’re heading in opposite directions as far as their attitudes towards independence.  Whereas it’s a routine struggle to negotiate with my kids on what they think they can do versus what I know they’re not capable of, it’s a constant struggle with my dad to try and get him to do things that I know he can do once he learns how to, but he refuses to even fucking try because he’s assuming everything has passed him by and that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.

I got him a television, a smart one, so that he could avoid having more than one remote control, because the presence of anything higher than one results in a system failure, and the television would collect dust, unused.  I set up the wifi, Netflix, and an app specific to Korean television, but trying to explain the concept of apps is like trying to explain quantum physics to an inanimate onion.  I’ve set things up so that turning on the television and going into the Korean television app would require three total key presses, had him write it down with drawings of the buttons, but after two days, I’ve learned that he’s hit system failure and hasn’t turned it on since the one time he tried and failed to get into the app.

I wouldn’t dare say that my dad is lacking in intelligence, but what he really is, has become fucking lazy and defeatist, and is making his unwillingness to learn my problem, and the problem of the scant everyone else in his life who has tried to help.

And let’s not get started with his iPhone, and it just makes me mad at the world for advancing into gradually worsening ageist times that completely ignore the existence of the elderly, who almost have no options other than smart phones, full of all sorts of features and functions that they not only need, but their presence makes the elderly go into system failure, and just give the fuck up on them, which doesn’t help that we’re in a modern age where not having a phone is tantamount to not having lungs.

Today, I went to visit my dad, and brought the girls with me, so we could do an activity that I intend on making a permanent standing monthly event, on top of any other visits that could happen throughout.  And as much as I love knowing that my kids can actually spend some time with their grandfather, and that my dad can actually spend some time with his grandchildren and actual blood relatives, much less human interaction, it was pretty high-stress.

Being the only adult in the room for hours on end gets tiring, and have my kids wanting to run around and touch and climb everything in sight, and then there’s my dad with shit for legs, needing a walker, always a fall risk, and there’s always a deficiency in coverage somewhere when trying to do the even most mundane things like get in the car, go into a restaurant, or any small task.

My dad hardly understands the girls’ speak, the girls don’t understand anything my dad says, we all love each other, but like so many cases in my life these days, I’m smack dab in the middle of being pulled in numerous directions, and I’m fried by the end of the visit.

Naturally, coming home, I get obliterated by two massive highway issues because Georgia is smart and loves to do all their road construction right in the heart of the weekend, and then I come home and my wife is pissed because I’ve been gone too long and even if she understands the circumstances, it’s me that the anger is taken out on, and I’m just like what the fuck, might as well blow my fucking brains out.

Shit like this is why I haven’t been so apt to buy into the concept of thinking or hoping that with a new year comes a fresh start, because I know all the shit going on in my life; it doesn’t matter what number is at the end of the year, because a lot of the things I’m going through are some long fucking games, and ain’t no resolutions or hustles going to change anything quickly short of winning the lottery and just buying off a whole shit load of the problems away.

It’s almost funny how it wasn’t long after getting my vasectomy that my dad decided to transform into the third child I wanted to avoid having by having a surgical procedure, but considering the angst and darkness that swirls through my mind when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and overstimulated, it most certainly is fucking not.