Month: April 2014

The end of the Steak

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

 

I can say pretty confidently that Wrestlemania had redeemed itself from the lackadaisical crapfest it was last year, and that when the show was over, I definitely felt like I was entertained. I’m definitely happy to see that Daniel Bryan has gotten his long-awaited triumph, I’m happy that AJ Lee retained her title, and if anyone were to ask me, the high point of the show was most definitely, when Cesaro bodyslammed the Big Show over the top rope to win the Andre the Giant Memorial Let’s Get Everyone Else Onto The Card So They Can Get a Slice of the Payout Battle Royale.

But obviously, the biggest thing that happened in the night was the Undertaker losing to Brock Lesnar, thus putting an end to the supposedly immortal 21-year undefeated streak (AKA “the Steak”). Nobody saw this coming, nobody thought for a second that a cameo, gimmicky, part-time, more-name-than-talent guy like Lesnar had any chance at being given the honor of putting an end to the Steak. Even in spite of the build up, and that Lesnar is a legitimate physical force, it was hard to imagine that he had much chance of walking away in victory against the man whom for the better part of the last three decades, has always been viewed as the unofficial godfather of the WWE roster.

Continue reading “The end of the Steak” →

Would you like to take a survey???

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember a lot of weird things.  This really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to anyone much less my six readers.

But anyway, I was thinking about old email surveys.  You know, the ones that circulated between circles and groups of friends, more frequently, when everyone was loosely associated and nobody was really tight.  The ones meant to look comprehensive and broad, and give people an opportunity to share too little or too much personal information; but were really a giant smokescreen for one or two intimate questions present to weed out the relationship status/promiscuity of an individual.

Continue reading “Would you like to take a survey???” →

The extinction of Evolution

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Mitsubishi is killing off the Lancer Evolution this year.

Knee-jerk reaction: Nooooooo QQ

Ultimately, this has absolutely zero impact on my life, but it’s simply one of those situations where it’s change, and there is a facet of my personality that tends to become sentimental about inconsequential things and always second guess the concept of change.

For what it’s worth, there was a pretty notable period of my life where I was gung-ho about import cars, and among them was the fanaticism over the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution line of cars. All-wheel drive, turbo-charged, and at the time, completely unavailable in North America, it was one of those fantasy vehicles that we here in America could only dream about ever getting to drive. It was a monster of a performance vehicle that was both sickeningly fast as well as nimbly agile, and in the days before YouTube, there were numerous video clips from other countries where Evos would obliterate all sorts of notable sports cars on both the strip and the track. And then Evos begun showing up in Eastern media, like movies like Jackie Chan’s Thunderbolt, Ekin Cheng’s Legend of Speed, as well as the second season of one of my favorite animes, Initial D.

Continue reading “The extinction of Evolution” →

Real Men Don’t Wear Small update: Grapefruit League

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the second year in a row, Real Men Don’t Wear Small gets updates prior to the start of the regular season!

I made my first-ever trip to Spring Training, down to Florida to partake in some Grapefruit League action, as well as see some Spring Training complexes.  The first park visited was who else?  The Braves’ spring training facilities on the Disney complex in Orlando, and a game at Champion Stadium (They lost, of course).  And then I headed south for a day to visit Port St. Lucie, where a visit to Tradition Field, the spring home of the New York Mets awaited.

Spring Training baseball was surprisingly more crowded than I thought it would be, especially considering my choice time of visit was within the final weeks.  I naively expected it might not be as crowded, but contrarily it was packed for both games; at least until the starters began getting pulled.  It was fun nonetheless, and I’m certainly more open-minded in the future for future Spring Training trips.

Photos: Port St. Lucie, Florida – Tradition Field

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The second leg of my Spring Training baseball travels took me from busy touristy Orlando, down to the sleepy, seemingly retirement community of Port St. Lucie, Florida.  It was a pleasant reprieve from the traffic and endless gauntlet of toll roads in Orlando.

Despite the fact that Tradition Field is the home to the stinking Mets, I actually really liked the place, even over the Braves’ Champion Stadium.  This really isn’t that big of a surprise, considering the exorbitant extravagance that was a ballpark in Orlando, compared to a smallish baseball venue out in Port St. Lucie.

The funniest thing about Tradition Field is that being home to the Mets, the general area around Port St. Lucie appears to be crawling with northern transplants, and lots of tourists from New Jersey and New York.  And despite being in a sleepy old Florida coastal town, we were subjected to some very New York-like mannerisms, like having to actually pay to park in a deserted grass field, and being accosted by ticket scalpers, at a Spring Training exhibition game that doesn’t actually count.  You can take the scumbags out of New York but you can’t take the New York out of the scumbags.

Continue reading “Photos: Port St. Lucie, Florida – Tradition Field” →