Category: Brog

General posting

The futile pursuit of Steel Armor

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the original Final Fantasy, about 25% through the game, you come across the town of Melmond.  The town has been decimated by the elemental fiend, Lich, and there are tombstones and graves scattered all around the place to denote the carnage that he has brought to this continent.  Otherwise there is nothing really of importance in the town other than what’s available at the armor shop.

Steel Armor, which doesn’t sound like anything that special, but the reality is that it is one of the highest-rated armors in the entire game, quite literally viable until the very end.  Its effectiveness is reflected in its cost, which at 45,000 GP is one of the most expensive items in the entire game. 

Its availability as early as Melmond is kind of laughable, because at this point of the game the ramping up of difficulty at its worst, and 45,000 GP would require a massive amount of grinding and effort in order to afford.  And if you have any sort of meta or any team with mages on it, acquiring their spells is of higher priority, considering the importance of magic to attack enemies, heal allies, and cast Exit, that you’re looking more like needing 60,000 GP if want to mage up and get Steel Armor before you head to the Earth Cave.

By the time you get to the point of the game where 45,000 GP is no big deal, money is flowing like water.  There’s a chest somewhere in the Sky Palace that contains like 68,000 GP, and I remember thinking, wtf is this even needed for at this point in the game, because you already have most of the best equipment in the game at that point, and your white mage can heal more HP than spamming heal potions over and over again outside of battle. 

When you have money, money comes easy.  When you don’t have money, it’s an agonizing struggle, finding that bridge to where you can get to the land where you can have money.

It’s usually not worth the effort to go back and get Steel Armor, even in spite of having the airship to whisk you back to Melmond without much effort, there are comparable pieces of armor available, found in the natural progression of exploration and advancing the story, that usually also have some degree of bonus protection instead of the base armor stats.

Most teams probably aren’t going to have multiple fighters, given the expense of equipping them, and if you don’t actually have a fighter in your team, it’s a moot point because no other class in the game can utilize Steel Armor, so really Steel Armor is kind of obsolete by the time you get to the end of the game.

The point is, Steel Armor becomes this kind of metaphor of being a reward for those who are capable of putting in the hard work, managing money well, and want to enjoy the fruits of labor at an earlier stage of life, rather than waiting until much later when you have the money, to get something that’s kind of not really needed anymore.

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#TRYHARDSZN2025: There’s a bigger world outside of California

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

KGTV: High schooler from Torrey Pines accepted into 63 different colleges, amassing $3M in cumulative scholarships

$3 million bones from 63 acceptances; an average scholarship value of $47,619 isn’t bad, but in the grand spectrum of the #TRYHARD game, is fairly pedestrian in comparison to some of the #TRYHARDs that have already emerged this #SZN. 

Ultimately, I’m liking that either Google and news outlets are either being lazy and not reporting, or the possibility that #TRYHARDING isn’t as wrapped up as it used to be in previous years, and there just aren’t as many insufferable #TRYHARDs this year as in years prior, because that’s less stuff for me to write about, as if I didn’t put myself in this situation wanting to write about all the #TRYHARDs of the year.

After some of the #TRYHARDs that have already been documented, this kid really isn’t that exceptional.  His academic haul is still pretty good, but it’s hard to keep up in the game, when there are some who have doubled his scholarship dollars, and/or number of acceptances, like the one who could boast about having an acceptance from every single one of the 50 United States.

Normally, I’m at the point in the #SZN where I just want to skip writing about all of the #TRYHARDs once the truly exceptional ones have come out, but in this case, it’s the article itself that I want to nitpick about and provide me with some inspiration to blather some words out:

A graduating senior from Torrey Pines High School has accomplished what some might consider impossible — earning over $3 million in scholarships.

Impossible?  $3M?  I know Torrey Pines, California is basically akin to paradise, but these so-called journalists need to look at the world outside of their own, because not only is $3M possible, there’s already been at least one teen who has amassed $6M in scholarships this #SZN alone.

The lack of credentials and failure to name drop any of the acceptances other than the one he selected lends to imply that many of them weren’t very prestigious or impressive, and comes off as one of those #TRYHARDs that actually didn’t #TRYHARD as much as they were just good at filling out online forms and getting what I’m guessing are free applications.

It’s also funny to me that someone in this part of California is even in a position to need to be applying to every school under the sun, because that chunk of land slightly north of San Diego is home to some gorgeous earth, that I also imagine probably costs the arms and legs of several generations’ worth of wealth to be living there.  I have a hard time believing that there are people who actually live out there who are in positions to be needing scholarships, but I suppose while I’ve been thinking about money fervently over the last few weeks, the wealthy don’t stay wealthy by being frivolous, they’re usually wealthy because they’re often times good at finding other people to pick up the check instead of themselves.

Whatever though, good on this #TRYHARD and I use that term lightly on account of comparing him to others in the game, for getting accepted into a buttload of schools, and of course picking a fairly mid one to actually go to, in Howard University.  I’m sure it’ll be an interesting culture shock to go from the vast picturesque paradise of Torrey Pines to going to school in the dump of Washington DC.

Clever move, Adobe

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

HRD: Adobe says we’re done with DEI

I put in a conceited effort to pay attention to as little mainstream news as I possibly can, but I’m always going to find out about some things here and there, simply by existing.  Among them, I know that DEI is a hot button topic, with the orange clown show in Washington having declared war on DEI, and all sorts of schools, businesses and corporate entities all taking highly-scrutinized stances on it.

Like I know that Target has been accused of turning heel on the liberal-minded by declaring they are not going to continue supporting DEI, and Costco has benefited from it because they have taken the opposite stance, and will continue to do such.  Colleges and companies across the country have scrapped their DEI initiatives because Washington has basically put a gun to the heads of everyone who is too craven to stand against such bullying, and as usual, the world is a worse place than the day before it, like every single day now.

It might be right-wing of me to say this, but I do have mixed feelings about DEI.  In principle, it sounds good, because I’m all for diversity, equity and inclusion.  Everyone should get a fair shake in this world, no matter their circumstances and lifestyles.  It’s just that throughout the rise and existence of DEI, it’s been politicized and implemented completely with the wrong intent and motivation, and when such is the case, it kind of is the detriment that the bozos in Washington accuse it to be. 

I’m not saying that I support it being forcibly removed all over the place, I do believe that the world is a slightly better place with DEI as a concept than not, it’s just that I would like for it to be a thing that comes from a genuine place of wanting inclusion, and not becoming an obnoxious company quota system, like it sometimes feels like it has been throughout the country.

But back to the point of this post and what spurned this diatribe, Adobe joins the camp of companies and entities out there that has publicly declared their discontinuation of DEI practices.  And it’s easy for them to do such, because they’ve hard monopolized the graphics industry, and their existing users will have a real hard time to find alternatives to all the things that they need to do in order to do their jobs.

However, there’s an extremely easy joke in all this, because any graphics or video person in the world who has ever used any Adobe software at all, might remember the days when the splash screens for initializing any piece of Adobe software at all would remember that they used to have credits and acknowledgments in them, and basically every single name listed were people who clearly were not the Ryan Joneses or Jacqueline Kennedys or any names that indicate that a company really needs to hire some more minorities.

And as the joke goes, DEI for a company like Adobe really means that they really actually need to hire more white people.  But now that they’re scrapping their DEI initiatives, that requirement is now dead and out the window, and as much as I jadedly clown on Adobe for their shitty rushed products, I think it’s hilarious the strategy in which they employed with this announcement, that they frankly don’t have to worry about hiring white people in order to meet their quotas.

Frankly, if I ruled the world, I’d institute hiring practices that eliminated candidate names and photos and any other physical indicators out of the equation, until later in the candidacy process.  Let candidates’ qualifications, competencies and perceived ability to do jobs be the determining factor at what gets people in the door of places.  Get rid of Affirmative Action, DEI and any other concepts that have come to fruition solely in order to diversify pictures for the sake of diversification. 

Obviously, such would never happen, but I’m just spitballing here.

Either way, good on Adobe for cleverly stepping away from DEI initiatives when they did, because they’re definitely a company that could probably use some more white folks, but now that they’ve said what they’ve said, they’re not at all legally obligated to hire whites in order to meet any quotas.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: This, is going to be my favorite story this #SZN

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Trent Crimm, the Independent: braggadocious teen mogul goes viral after being rejected by nearly all applied colleges, in spite of monumental qualifications

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that I don’t think any story for the rest of the #SZN is going to top this one.  Sure, the #TRYHARD only applied to 18 schools, but he was rejected by 15 of them, despite having incredible qualifications as far as grades, accomplishments and frankly, life experiences went.

What we have here, is probably one of the greatest examples in history of how the wrong attitude and approach can absolutely shitcan your chances of acceptance in the real world, because if you were to take the time to read this article and read his college essay, that he thinks he’s so important as to call his personal statement, it becomes absolutely crystal clear to why this he was rejected by nearly every school he applied to, despite having excellent grades, tests well, and the intelligence and savvy to become a young entrepreneur of a successful and profitable app.

Many have already pointed out and dissected all of the numerous reasons to why this #TRYHARD was shot down in such embarrassingly overwhelming fashion, but it really boils down to the fact that his college essay absolutely turned off just about every single recruiter with any pull or power to accept.

He basically shits on the whole notion of going to college, proclaims he had no intention of going to college, and sees college as simply ‘a rite of passage’ for teenagers growing up.  Absolutely no college in America would want to admit some kid who has no real aspirations once they’re in the door, and comes off as a massive flight-risk of dropping out, because he already has success and earning potential in his life right now.

It feels like he’s watched too many rite of passage movies, where plots of claimed that in order to stand out in the college application process, one has to be bold, take chances, and tell an incredible story.  As insufferably braggadocious his essay is, it’s extremely well written, reads well and tells a story, but the fact of the matter is that real life isn’t a movie, and there’s a level of vanilla, boring decorum that is expected, and frankly required, when doing things like applying to colleges or jobs. 

Proclaiming your disinterest for college and then bragging about all the reasons why you feel that way before saying “but oh wait, college is a rite of passage so I guess I should do it” wasn’t the right choice, and I’m honestly more flabbergasted at the fact that this #TRYHARD didn’t have anyone in his life to give him the guidance or advice that, yo, maybe this essay isn’t the right approach. 

I got the vibe that this kid has probably been raised with little emperor syndrome, which is pretty common in lots of Chinese and Middle Eastern cultures, where the first born son is basically invincible from criticism and coddled and sheltered from real world scenarios, and if he even sought any guidance about his essay, was probably told it was great and to run with it.  Oops.

What’s funnier is the fact that this #TRYHARD took his beef to the internet, with the implication being that he genuinely thought the collective internet would really be on his side once he made his story public.  As tone-deaf and clearly blind to understanding how the college application process works, he’s clearly as clueless to how the internet works, and in no time flat, he’s been dismantled, dissected and picked apart by the internet, with as much success finding people who sympathize with him as he was accepted into schools.

On a side note, yeah the #TRYHARD biffed on all of the Ivies he tried to get into, but kind of a low-blow by the Independent to throw shade at the schools he did get into, calling Georgia Tech, the U and Texas “less prestigious” schools.  I mean, they are less prestigious schools as far as not being Ivy League, but they’re all solid educational institutions, with excellent specific programs, and all flush with cash on account of robust athletic programs.  And they all clearly were capable of looking past his shit attitude and see the potential, and gave him the green light, when better or equally qualified applicants probably didn’t.

I know I take shots at Georgia Tech all the time, but there’s no denying the school is among the top engineering schools in the country, and it might have the name value of MIT, but it’s no slouch as far as its educational credentials are concerned.

Frankly, #TRYHARD here has two options – forego college like he believed he was destined to do, focus on his app and ecommerce acumen, and follow the path of Zuck and become wealth and something without a college degree.  Or, attend Georgia Tech and get an excellent education, go to Texas and soak in the college sport and immersive college atmosphere, or go to the U, where he’d be living in Miami and lean into Miami living.

As owned as he might have been in the college applications game, and on the internet, he’s still in a very enviable position overall.  He has acceptances to some “less prestigious” but reputable schools, basically his own business, and he’s still just 18 years old.  There’s a tremendous time for him to learn and grow and grow the fuck up, and this would be a critical year and good basis for him to punt on 2025, take a gap year and try again the next year, and find some humility and perhaps use this experience as a means to write an essay that’s not quite so insufferable as much as demonstrating the experience of being humbled and growing from it.

Either way, who doesn’t love a good story of some dumbass getting owned?  And even better that it falls within the realm of #TRYHARDSZN, and ultimately is an opposite-story of instead of some #TRYHARD getting into 155 schools and amassing millions in cumulative scholarship offers, it’s someone who got rejected by a bunch of schools, and entirely because of his own stupidity.

Life on hold

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am very unhappy with the state of my life and how endlessly difficult everything is right now, and I can’t see any lights at the ends of any tunnels to give me any sense of hope. 

And I don’t feel like there’s anyone I can talk to about it. 

The irony and benefit to having a brog that nobody but me reads is that I can basically say whatever I like and know that nobody’s going to see it.  Therapy might help, but that costs money and I’m short on that too, and it perpetuates this endless cycle of shit that sucks because of something, but that something is also caused by another thing, and so on and so on.

And like I said, I don’t see it getting any better any time soon, and that just feeds into the angst over and over again.  I’ve sacrificed so much, and there’s hardly anything left, and there are some days where I’m just out of everything.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: this one will contribute to our demise, Black Mirror style

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WWNYTV7onmyside: Massachusetts teen accepted into 88 colleges, amassing over $6M in scholarship dollars

As far as acceptance numbers, I think it’s going to be a hard task for any potential #TRYHARDs to surpass the one chica who cleared like 155 and one in every state.  But what piqued my interest with this #TRYHARD wasn’t the acceptance numbers, but the amount of scholarship dollars he amassed in his 88 acceptances.

For context, Ms. Queen #TRYHARD and her 155 acceptances notched $6M in cumulative offers.  But this kid out of Chicopee, Massachusetts also amassed $6M in scholarships from nearly half of the acceptances.  That’s an average of $68K per scholarship, versus the $38K/per from the Queen of Westlake High.  He doesn’t get to brag about having acceptances from random schools out in Idaho, Wyoming or North Dakota, but it’s evident that schools see more value in this kid over Queen Spray and Pray.

Additionally, aside from Chicopee kid’s ridiculous 4.39 GPA (like I still don’t understand just how much extra work one has to do to blow past a 4.00 GPA so hard) is the fact that this egghead is all into AI and robotics, and is pursuing a future where he can work on AI systems and/or robots.  Considering he’s from the New England area, and among his offers is Boston University, it seems like a very good possibility that he goes to BU, and then gets a job with Boston Dynamics, the company that is making robot dogs and robots that can run, do moonsaults and basically complete Ninja Warrior courses, and then contributes towards the rise of our eventual robot overlords.

Anyway, I got nothing else.  Among his other notable acceptances were UConn, Florida, and Purdue.  No mention of any Ivies, and as impressive as his GPA and his current acceptance haul is, the seeming lack of mention of any other extracurriculars lends to believe that he probably doesn’t have any.

Thus, he is not #TRYHARDing enough, and probably won’t be worth mentioning again the rest of this #SZN.

White Lotus S3 probably fucking with #TRYHARDSZN2025

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Here’s the thing, this article came up in my routine searches for #TRYHARDs to write about, about how Duke’s acceptance rate has hit an all-time low, where only 3.67% of applicants get accepted.  I mean, sports bias and perception bias on account of sports, aside, Duke is a fine educational institution, and the name holds a tremendous amount of weight in the world for those who have gone there, and graduated from the university.

But even outside of the world of sport, the Duke brand holds an abysmal reputation and is generally reviled by pretty much everyone except those people who have gone to Duke, graduated from Duke, or financially supported by someone who went to Duke.  There’s a general reputation that Duke is snooty, white-bred, arrogant, insufferable and all sorts of pejoratives meant to demean Duke, but it never really mattered, because all the people who are pro-Duke exist on some sort of weird island where nobody else seems to matter.

Which is why it seems so appropriate and fitting that Duke has seemingly decided to gatekeep to a new career high, accepting fewer students than they’ve ever done, and I have to feel that such is probably surprising to absolutely nobody at all, considering their general reputation and the political climate that’s emboldened racists to let their bigot flags fly high and proudly.

Why I decided to start a post about it is completely beyond me considering I don’t really have much else to say about the topic, but in all honesty the reason I wanted to, was so I could post a screen grab of White Lotus S3, where the character Timothy Ratliff, played by Jason Isaacs is basically losing his marbles, but every time he goes into one of his suicidal fantasies, he’s always wearing a t-shirt with a huge-ass DUKE wordmark on it.

After the last episode, I remarked to mythical wife that I’m sure Duke is (facetiously) thrilled to see their school’s name on the shirt of a criminal embezzler who is becoming suicidal, and as someone who enjoys seeing Duke fail in any capacity, it brings me great amusement to see it happening in the show.

And the funniest thing is that my hypothesis was proven correct when searching for an adequate screen grab to pair with this post, and Googling “Tim Ratliff White Lo-“ auto fills in the rest of “tim ratliff white lotus duke shirt” and all sorts of articles and spot-on screen caps of Tim Ratliff with a gun to his head with his DUKE shirt on are immediately returned, and there are numerous articles detailing the university’s general displeasure at the show that a Duke man is both a criminal and suicidal.

But yeah, I’m not surprised that Duke’s not happy about it, because the Ratliff family is proudly North Carolinian, and boasts how dad is Duke, mom is UNC, eldest son is Duke, I don’t remember which Piper went to, but how Lochte is still deciding between the two, but it’s clear that those who were Dookies are clearly vapid unhinged white people, with one of them becoming suicidal.  And I love the validation of my off-remark hypothesis.

So at this point, I have no choice but to continue on with making this post, because it succeeds at taking shots at Duke, as well as put over White Lotus as a show, because season 3 has been entertaining and has demonstrated HBO’s ability to get something that isn’t Game of Thrones or Games of Thrones-adjacent in order to anchor down that Sunday at 9 pm time slot.