Author: dannyhong

Sasha & Naomi: if this isn’t a work, then Sasha’s kind of screwed

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I wanted to just yell my two cents into the void and call it a day, the wrestling community has been incapable of letting go of the story of Sasha Banks and Naomi, the then-current WWE women’s tag team champions, turning in their belts to management, citing a lack of respect for them, the championships they held, other grievances, and then walking out of the company, during the middle of an episode of RAW in which they were already booked and advertised for.

My knee-jerk reaction to this whole story was it’s a work (wrestling lingo for scripted), primarily because it was acknowledged on television, and has been repeatedly acknowledged on television since it occurred.  Although professional wrestling is an always moving, always evolving entity that has shown great ability to adapt, typically throughout history if something has been genuinely legitimate along this kind of nature, it’s usually not acknowledged on television, to such in-depth detail.

Usually if something genuinely controversial happens, then suddenly it’s an injury angle, or the offender was assaulted off-camera, leading to them having been rushed to the local hospital, or some kind of hokey excuse to justify why someone isn’t showing.  The WWE acknowledging and naming Sasha Banks and Naomi and the specific things they did, doesn’t exactly sound the alarm of legitimate controversy, but more like an elaborate storyline is being executed instead.

Furthermore, it sets up some future storytelling opportunities, like Naomi having an excuse to break away from the tag team scene to where she can ultimately join the Samoan Bloodline group, since she’s the real-life wife to Jimmy Uso, and would make an excellent addition to the team and give them a designated female member to start collecting women’s titles.  But instead of a vanilla breakup storyline with Sasha Banks, she can instead vanish from television outright, before being unveiled at a later date, when people might actually have begun to believe she was indefinitely removed from the company.

For Sasha Banks however, I’m not really sure how this benefits her, other than the fact that it gets her out of tag team purgatory and capable of vying for a women’s championship sooner rather than later, without having to eat a loss in order to drop the tag titles.

And frankly, it’s only because Sasha Banks is involved in this at all, is the only think that clouds up the waters that it might not be a work, even though I maintain that it is, solely because of the fact that Sasha Banks has already walked out on the company before, and if the reported reasons for this one are true, then it’s basically history repeating itself, and she probably just needs a minute to chill and come back to earth before ultimately coming back from yet another self-centered hiatus.

The thing is though, if this isn’t a work, then I have to think that Sasha Banks is kind of screwed.  Her wrestling career won’t be over, because she can always jump to AEW, and there’s no doubt the WWE would bring her back, because I’ve always said that Vince McMahon would hire the murderer of his wife if he thought there was money to be made with them, and Sasha Banks would be no exception.

The difference would more likely be the reception she gets from her peers in the industry, because if legitimate, this would be the second time that Sasha has walked out on the company because more or less, she didn’t want to eat a shit sandwich of not being in a prominent, championship-caliber program for a few minutes.  The problem is, there is nobody in the entire history of the industry where a shit sandwich or fifty were not on their menu at varying points in their careers, and I’d guess that her peers would be less than enthused with her sense of entitlement and unwillingness to go through the grind as everyone has to in their careers. 

In wrestling speak, if this is a legitimate situation, then there’s bound to be a lot of the mythical, heat, on both of them, but more on Sasha Banks.  It might not sound like such a big deal, but heat has been known to have derailed even the most promising of careers throughout the history of the business.

By now, I’ve heard all sorts of arguments from the endless rabbling scuttlebutt of the internet community, as well as random discussions with my circle of bros that I like to bullshit about wrestling with.  Real or not, it’s good that the perception is that both Sasha and Naomi both know their worth, which makes flexing on the company remotely possible, but when the day is over, if this really isn’t a work, then Naomi is probably more critical to retain than Sasha is. 

Being an Anoa’I by law as well as a good worker means she has influential backing within the company as well as a role in a storyline that will eventually require her.  But as for Sasha, as much of a fan of the worker I am, if this is legitimate, then I kind of lose some respect for her, because I’m feeling like she thinks she’s a little too good for the business to not solely be in championship storylines. 

Sasha might know her worth, but it’s not like she isn’t still ultimately replaceable; Charlotte and Becky Lynch are still the faces of the women’s division.  Bianca Bel Air is the present and future.   Bayley, Asuka and Rhea Ripley are strong workers, Alexa Bliss is still wildly popular, and there’s a ton of women’s talent out there that could be poached or developed, and no one talent will ever be bigger than the industry.

The bottom line is that I still think this is a work, and it’s only a matter of time in which both of them come back, with Naomi joining the Bloodline, and Sasha probably being a masked assailant of Ronda Rousey or something, after she decimates the division because she’ll seemingly always booked to the moon.  But if it isn’t a work, then this’ll probably be the beginning of the end for Sasha Banks, and hopefully Mercedes Varnado has made enough friends or can get hooked up through Snoop Dogg, to transition into a performing career.

Dad Brog #087: Don’t look now, my daughter’s a model

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Available nationwide: Baby Girls’ Peach Dress with Hat by Carters just one you®, at Target

Just like that, #2 has earned her first real paycheck before hitting ten months old.  High expectation Asian dad is satisfied by this development.

For reals though, I’m over the moon by this, as is mythical wife.  Obviously biased, we’re always going to think that our daughters are the most beautiful children on the planet, but it’s nice and validating to know that corporate America also favors them in the eye test to the degree where they can be legitimate models for baby clothes.

It also helps that Carters corporate is based out of Atlanta, so we residents of the metro area have the luxury of basically getting first dibs at any of the calls they make out for model talent.  And mythical wife, ever the eye for opportunities like this, always threw our kids’ names into the hat, and it just so happens that we finally got one of them into a little bit of national spotlight, with a genuine featuring at Target.

#2 was picked for a camera test, then the subsequent fitting, and then actually picked for formal shooting, and we knew it was only a matter of time before we’d eventually see her out in the wild.  The thing is that they don’t tell you when and if they’re going to use what photos, and companies like Carters and Target hoard assets for years sometimes, so the question was just how soon, if at all, were we going to see our daughter in advertising?

Fortunately, it wasn’t that long, which is what mythical wife was suspecting, since she had a better understanding of what outfit to expect to see, since she was there for the shooting.  And just like that, #2 graces the Target brand, representing their own collaboration with Carters, and people all over can actually see my child on a national level.

And lest I overlook my eldest child, #1 was actually a Carters baby as well during her first year.  Picked for a camera test as well as a fitting, unfortunately she decided to have a meltdown during the fitting, and proceeded no further than that, but for all intents and purposes, she too, was a formally selected Carters baby as well.  And most importantly, she still got a paycheck for her troubles too.

I couldn’t be prouder of both my beautiful kids, and hopefully this won’t be the last time they see the spotlight.  But even if it is, I can still have the privilege to say that my kids have done a little bit of modeling in their lives.

Feebly attempting to play catch up

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a minute since I last took some time to write.  Long past the period of time where I begin to get anxious because I haven’t written anything in a while, and to a point where I start to get dangerously apathetic about doing it at all.  The problem, as I’ve alluded to numerous times is that I’m a peculiar personality that really likes to have so many conditions met before I find it possibly adequate time to write, and pretty much all month, they just haven’t been met.

Most obviously, the time factor.  It’s not like this is going to devolve into an angsty dad brog where I make all sorts of poorly veiled remarks about how hard parenting under my circumstances are, because frankly the girls haven’t really been much of an issue other than the fact that one or both of them seem to pick up some rando sickness every single month this year.  But they’re eating well, sleeping is improving, and those are the key things at this stage of life, and I can’t say that I’m having so many ragey emotions at how overworked I am on account of the difficulty of parenting.

No, it’s just that I haven’t have any adequate time to do any writing.  I get up, feed the girls breakfast, go to work; if I’m at the office, I actually get a good amount of shit done, and I get to hit the gym on most of those days which elevates my feeling of well-being.  Or if I’m working from home, my days kind of wrap up sooner, and regardless of which, I go right into the fires of the chaos of a toddler and infant until it’s dinner time, bath time and then bed time for them.

But by the time they’re down it’s usually 8 pm-ish, and if mythical wife and I haven’t eaten yet, then it’s a mad dash to get something to eat because we’re probably starving and we don’t want to cook and every food option is close to closing since we’re out in the burbs.

Then comes the nightly reset which somehow I’m the only person who does any of it, which takes about another hour or so of cleaning, straightening, cleaning and filling bottles and just getting everything ready to get used up and torn up the next day.

Sometimes I have work I need to catch up on, and on my work-from-home days, I mandate treadmill runs to compensate for not going to a gym, to which yes, is an activity that would classify as a me-activity, but I treat exercise like a job in itself, so often times I don’t want to run, which is exactly why it is that I have to.

And then the clock is at the point where I don’t feel like I have adequate time to write something before I need to get to bed so that I’m not completely dead the following day.  I get angsty about this, and instead of starting and stopping something in text, I usually just end up playing Fire Emblem Heroes on my phone or doing surveys or waiting for the next day’s Wordle to queue up before going to bed feeling like I’ve accomplished nothing for myself.

But TL;DR, I’m finally at a point where I feel the compulsion to write about something, but also feeling like that because I haven’t written anything in so long that this pile of word vomit needed to be stated first before I can actually get to the gradually growing list of topics and things that I’ve earmarked as having to want to write about, and hope I can mentally get back into the right places to where I can.

Otherwise, kids are good, job is going fine, my health has been a bit wonky since I hit 40, and I’m sure I’ll delve into it more in depth if/when things straighten up, but I’m still able to workout and run.  It’s just the same old song and dance, with probably less angst than when my second kid was younger and still working out her sleep issues.  Went to Savannah for a brief spell, for a wedding of a former co-worker, which was quite pleasant, so that’s where the image above comes from, where I sacrificed sleeping in when I could, because I really wanted to jog along River Street while we were staying right on it.  Priorities.

SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much of a sports fan as I am, it’s not often a topic that I really feel that compelled to write about that often these days.  I’m pretty far removed from following anything beyond a casual level, so it really take some pretty interesting things to pique my interest for me to want to write about it.

However, in the span of a weekend, three things happened and I was just kind of like oh shit, that’s something that’s interesting.  And of course they all happened within basically the same weekend, and I was out of town, so it’s not like they were anything I could take note of and/or write about right away, as if I would’ve had any free time to begin with.  But regardless, I figured I’d just make one big dick swinging sports post and knock all three birds with a single stone.

Mavs 123, Suns 90 – keep in mind that this was a game 7 of an NBA Playoff game.  I feel like I make a post about this topic every year, because it seems like every single year there’s at least one tragically embarrassing blowout game in the playoffs, which often makes me beg the question that how are NBA playoff-caliber teams getting eviscerated so badly?

To my understanding, the Mavs were up by over 40 points at one point in the game, and all I could really think that this is mostly the same Phoenix Suns team that went to the finals last year, but here they are getting trounced in the semis, in a game 7 no less, the epitome of the clutch, pivotal, where you make your money pressure cooker game. 

But instead of being a nail-biter, double overtime thriller where two talented teams refuse to budge, we have this embarrassing display of defeatism and the embodiment of giving up, which is a fair metaphor for today’s NBA itself, and the Mavs move on, while the perpetually overrated Suns begin the golf season at around the time they’re used to.

Throwing a no-hitter but still losing – this year’s Cincinnati Reds is an interesting squad.  The franchise commenced to have a fire sale and trade off just about everyone on the squad who would make over the league minimum save for first baseman Joey Votto (who respectfully became an American citizen but probably regrets it if his occupation requires him to stay on the Cincinnati Reds), and they’ve been absolutely dreadful throughout the first month of the year.

I think at one point there were like 4-17, and all I could think about was how two of those paltry four wins, came against the Braves, who aren’t exactly doing a particularly good job of defending their World Series championship in life after Freddie which I’m not still salty about not.

But then they suffer one of the harshest ways to lose a game, in which their starting pitcher literally throws a no-hitter, and they still somehow manage to lose the game.  It’s funny because I remembered the last time this happened, which was a game between the Dodgers and Angels, where the Angels no-hit the Dodgers but still lost the game.  It’s a rare occurrence and the very embodiment of failure, and I don’t think there’s going to be a more futile moment in the season for the Reds than this particular game.

Albert Pujols… pitching – Speaking of the Angels, when they released Albert Pujols in 2021, to me it was a foregone conclusion that he was headed back to the Cardinals.  Sure, it didn’t happen as immediately as I figured it would, but with the DH becoming the norm in 2022, there was absolutely no reason why the Cardinals and Pujols couldn’t reunite for the sad but melancholy but feel-good story of legend returning to where it started to finish out the career, but in the case of Pujols, not on a one-day contract, but as an actual active player.

But as is the case with lots of guys at the twilights of their careers, Pujols is definitely in it to have fun above all else.  And what better way to unwind and have some fun in a game where the Cardinals were already up by nearly 20 runs, than to take the mound himself and let everyone enjoy the fun of position player pitching?

And of course, it was as entertaining as the joy of position player pitching typically is.  Pujols was all smiles and laughter, and even the San Francisco Giants became tolerable as they took enjoyment of the situation.  The funny thing is that if this were 10-14 years earlier, I would’ve expected Pujols to pitch like Pedro because why wouldn’t the greatest player of a generation know how to pitch as well?  But instead, we have old Pujols, lobbing 55 mph lollipops, and just trying to get hitters to get themselves out; and naturally he gives up four runs in the process, but at this point who really cares?

The once demi-god was clearly having a great time, humbly getting knocked around, and the Cardinals still won the game, so no skin off anyone’s backs there.  And for a single half-inning, I think everyone could agree that baseball was never more fun than watching Albert Pujols pitching.

Getting a Peach Pass was one of the best choices I’ve ever made

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve noticed that the more I get older, the more monetary value I put on my time. 

I still reminisce about a story quite some time ago when mythical then-girlfriend and I were at Epcot and in typical Florida fashion, it started pouring.  As we were leaving the park, unsurprisingly there was a massive line of people waiting for the complimentary shuttle back to the hotel.  I said fuck that, and immediately hailed an Uber, and it turned out that an Uber was right there and picked up the fare as they had just dropped someone off.  Ten minutes and ten dollars later, we were back at the hotel where we could dry off, clean up and settle in for a relaxing evening, instead of the likely hour we’d have had to have waited just to not have to pay for transport.

That shit happened maybe seven years ago, and I still look back fondly at that memory as a good example of how much I value my time over money.

Anyway, I recently got a PeachPass, which is Georgia’s equivalent of a FastPass, SunPass, or whatever Pass exists in your states that basically allows the driver to hop into lanes of lesser traffic for a flexible fee, effectively having monetized the ability to buy your way into lesser traffic.

I used to abhor the idea of the PeachPass or any sort of FastPass in general, because it’s a flagrant cash grab by whatever region it’s implemented in, and a poor excuse to avoid having to build mass transit or any other superior infrastructure.  Clearly though, the judgment of myself and anyone else who might’ve felt similarly isn’t ever going to change things, and as I said, as I’ve gotten older, the more I’m willing to pay in order to save myself some time.

So I got a PeachPass, primarily because there was the possibility that mythical wife and I were going to go to drive down to Florida for a Disney trip, and as it is compatible with Florida’s SunPass system, and we could’ve avoided the obnoxious tolls in the Orlando area.  But also because Gwinnett County exists, and I hoped having a PeachPass would help give us the option to nope the fuck out of the perpetual traffic going north or south, whenever we visit the family in South Carolina.

Anyway, coming back from a trip to Savannah, there was some build up starting to form on the south end of the city.  And fewer things suck than getting hit with traffic on the tail end of a road trip, especially the magnitude of Atlanta’s jurassic traffic.  But lo and behold, at this stretch of I-75 had a set of express lanes, that happened to be headed in my direction, so there was no better time like this present to break in my new PeachPass.  I jumped into the express lanes, and for the next 6-8 miles, watched with the most smug and satisfied glee, as I soared past the congestion going 70 miles an hour.  And it cost me, $2.22, for saving maybe 10 minutes of time and a whole lot more in aggravation and annoyance.

I genuinely felt as if I could chub up from such immense satisfaction, and much to the feined dismay of mythical wife, my reference to Colin Robinson’s euphoric joy at watching the community board meeting devolve, as an accurate analogy to how I felt having just PeachPass’d my way past a logjam, was met with rolling eyes.

Seriously though, I may have had to have paid actual money for this bullshit system, but god as my witness, it was one of the best $2.22 I’ve ever spent.

I look forward to other opportunities in the future, and hope that I’ll again experience the utmost joy and smug satisfaction of PeachPassing the fuck past some stupid bullshit traffic in another time.  One of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.

Dad Brog #086: The perils of private in-home childcare

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Due to the never-ending pandemic that we live in, I’ve had a private nanny since #1 was eight months old.  Frankly, sending my immunocompromised first child to regular daycare among children whose individual household dynamics were mysteries to us was out of the question, so the only option that my household was left with in order to have childcare while mythical wife and I worked our respective jobs, was to hire a nanny.

For the duration of a single-child household, it worked out great; one nanny with one child is pretty easy-peasy as far as the circumstances are considered.  I could focus on my job, which was really helpful as it was deteriorating pretty rapidly throughout the start of the pandemic.

But then #2 came into the picture and things became a little more chaotic, as to no surprise, when the ratio of children balances away from 1:1, anyone’s attention becomes harder to divert between multiple children, and it’s just harder in general.  I often times was away from my keys in order to help out the nanny, and it was always a balancing act to make sure that double duty was as minimal as possible, which is a little ironic considering just how often I am on double duty on a regular basis but I am their biological father so why wouldn’t I be?

Eventually, things ceased to work out with my original nanny, and they did leave us high and dry at a very inconvenient and critical point.  Fortunately, we were able to bounce back fairly quickly and find another nanny to come in and take over, which brings us to current times that are somewhat more stable and if anything at all, I’m just glad that my kids have someone reliable to take care of them while I’m working.

However, to the point of this particular dad brog post, as nice as it is to have in-home care, and the peace of mind at knowing that my kids aren’t picking up every variant of coronavirus while at daycare and bringing it home, it’s not entirely perfect either.  Namely, the part where if a private nanny calls in sick or is ever out for any particular reason, I’m the one who is getting boned and has to eat the time off work in order to cover.  Mythical wife being a teacher and all, and teachers having extremely rigid and inflexible workdays, she can’t exactly turn on a dime and come home to take care of the kids at a moment’s notice, so that responsibility falls onto me.

I’m not going to sugar coat it either, it sucks.  Royally.  Every time that either of my nannies have called in sick, I’ve been the one who has had to take it on the chin and tell my jobs that I have to in turn bone my work, to where I’m either burning PTO, or I’m being a complete flake with my work, and then working in the evening to make up for the not working during the day.

The worst part is that as I’ve alluded to in the past, my kids are getting sick every month this year regardless of the fact that I have in-home care.  I go to the office a few days a week, mythical wife works at a school surrounded by children whom we have no idea if their parents are vaccinated or not, and 2022 seems to be the year where all the colds, flus and other sicknesses that were avoided in 2020-2021 are coming back with a vengeance.

At this point, I’m kind of over the lack of accountability and being the only one punished when my childcare goes down, that I’m leaning towards sending my kids off to daycare.  They’re getting sick all the same now, that I may as well start trying to get my children socialized and used to other human beings so they’re not complete social invalids growing up.  If I’m already paying daycare prices for private care, I might as well be able to not have to destroy myself whenever something comes up.

I love having personalized childcare, but I’m disliking just a little bit more, the repercussions of when said childcare calls out sick.  My work struggles, and as important as my kids are, I still need to have my job in order to support my family, and seeing as how I’m still within my first year, I don’t want to develop a reputation of being the guy that’s unreliable and constantly using his kids as the excuse.

The forced watching of Doctor Strange 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The worst part about big blockbuster and/or Marvel films is the feeling that if you don’t see it immediately, as in opening night immediately, you will inevitably get spoiled in some capacity within the next 24 hours.  Be it some passing graphic on social media, a news feed analyzing a massive spoiling plot point, or some rando internet friend who thinks they’re way more clever than they actually are and giving away something critical, if you don’t watch the film with some sense of urgency, you will without uncertainty, have something ruined for you.

Ironically, I’m not even really that big of a fan of Doctor Strange.  I wasn’t ever a fan of his in the actual comic books, despite knowing he was something of a big deal considering just how many crossovers he ended up in.  The MCU, as it has demonstrated on numerous occasions, made him somewhat cool and digestible, and I think Benedict Cumberbatch has breathed adequate life into the character. 

The first film, I didn’t even see in a theater and instead watched it on an international flight, since I had 8-13 hours to kill in the air, which wasn’t too bad.  The funny thing is that he’s way more interesting in other characters’ films than his own, but obviously for the sake of moving the entire MCU phase plot along, of course he’s going to get his own film(s) from time to time.

Spider-Man: No Way Home was a no-brainer of a film that had to have been seen with urgency and I’m glad that I did.  And Doctor Strange was pretty good in that film as well as an extremely critical player in the grand spectrum of the plot.  But ultimately, it ended up being more obnoxious and feeling like a sense of inconvenience that I had to put forth the same effort in order to see Doctor Strange 2, even if it seemed like this was going to be a critical film in the overarching MCU phase storyline; it’s still Doctor Strange, a character that I’ve always been kind of ambivalent about, in general.

Regardless, mythical wife and I made a point and made some arrangements to where we were actually able to go out for a night and watch Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness.  My general theater experience was tarnished by the shitty quality of service we had and I never got my actual fucking entrée and they had the audacity to try and get me to pay for it, but as far as the film itself went, it wasn’t that bad.

Cumberbatch once again makes Doctor Strange not so much of a square, and injects some actual personality into the character.  And I suppose it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that the film basically ends up becoming the film sequel to WandaVision, seeing as the Scarlet Witch was primarily featured in the post-credit preview of the film after Spider-Man, not to mention Elizabeth Olsen is very predominantly featured on all film advertising.

As predicted, the film does kind of blow open the MCU in general, and between this film, the events from the Loki television series, and a lot of the shit alluded to in No Way Home, it’s almost brain-bending on how Marvel is even going to proceed from here, not to mention they’ve unlocked the ultimate plot devices that effectively allows any and all properties to be retconned and revised at a moment’s notice.

But as a standalone film, I’d say that DS2 is about a 6-7 out of ten.  A lot of crowd-popping cameos and ah-ha moments don’t really mask that the core plot of the film was a little on the weaker side of things, and there’s some pretty big plot holes that are poked open in WandaVision that beg to be asked.  The film effectively acts more like a vehicle to the overarching phase and tends to lose track of the fact that it’s still supposed to be about Doctor Strange, but all in all, I was still entertained and walked out of the theater ready to discuss and try to suppress excessively mansplaining anything that mythical wife might not have been familiar with.

However, back to the original hypothetical, on whether or not Doctor Strange 2 is worthy of being a must-see on an opening day?  I wouldn’t say so.  But solely because of the fact that I didn’t want to be spoiled to any MCU-isms and ah-has, I still felt like I was forced to do so, which makes me feel a little bit resentful of the way social media and the internet has created such a dynamic.  Fuckin’ ruins everything.