Month: April 2016

A wince-worthy double standard

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been out of touch.  To no surprise.  Heck, even at the time I’m writing this, my brog is still down, en route to its new home, and I’ve been dealing with varying degrees of separation anxiety with my greatest and longest-tenured hobby, but the point remains, I’ve been out of touch with day-to-day current events, and struggling to find time or want to continue writing, without my platform.  And this is the first of many topics that I’m trying to use to jumpstart my writing muscles, and hope for the best.

Anyway, I was going into work one day, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were a few notable buildings that I see on the drive, that had their flags at half-mast.  Clearly, something had happened, and I grew curious to what major event could have happened to have made the decision to go flags at half-mast was.

I got into the office, and I took a few minutes to look on CNN, to see if there was anything major that happened somewhere in the world; nothing.  Perhaps it was at a more local magnitude, something that happened in the state, that is making just Georgians fly Old Glory at half-mast?  So in spite of my endless criticism towards the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I still went on AJC, because criticism aside, they’re fairly up-to-date on things.

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Even Chyna deserves better

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every year, around my birthday, I kind of hold my breath for a five-day span going two days before and two days after the actual day.  As I’ve pointed out countless times in my life, a lot of bad things tend to happen near, on or around my birthday, and I really wish that such weren’t so often the case.  I think somewhere along the line of tragic events and deaths that tend to happen in April, along with my generally self-deprecating nature leads to the sort of stigma I have when it comes to my birthday.

Unfortunately, 2016 is no exception to the rule, and two days after my birthday, the world was tragically informed that Prince had died, due to god knows what, as to no surprise, the details are still kind of murky and nothing seems to be confirmed yet.  I’m not going to pretend like I was the world’s greatest Prince fan by any stretch of the imagination (lord knows we have social media where people can do that), and I would be one of many who would struggle to name a song other than Purple Rain, but I do admire the guy for the musical savant that he was, and was always in awe whenever I heard stories or accounts of him picking up any instrument and going to town like a pro, because that kind of talent is truly incredible.

But I’m not writing this post for Prince, because as I said, as much as I admired his talents, he really wasn’t that big of a part of my fandoms nor did I have any sort of meaningful connection to his existence.  Not to mention the whole rest of the internet has Prince eulogies and tributes covered.

I’m writing this post for the other person who had the unfortunate fate to call April 21st their last day alive, the person who will always be overlooked if not outright forgotten on this date in history.  Much like Farrah Fawcett passing on the same day Michael Jackson passed, or any other notable instance where one notable person died on the same day as someone who was on a whole other level of notoriety.

Joanie Laurer, better known as Chyna to wrestling fans, passed on April 21st.  The news of her passing was quickly swept under the carpet due to the passing of Prince, that was announced nearly 4-6 hours after hers made it to mainstream outlets.  There’s no denying that Prince was certainly a bigger star than a professional wrestler, but this is where people like me come in, to reminisce and share some words about a lesser-known human being in a lesser-respected genre, who deserves to be remembered for their good as well as their bad, as having existed.

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A little bit of basketball talk

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In a perfect world, the NBA schedule would have had the final regular season Lakers game on Tuesday, and the final regular season Warriors game on Wednesday.  Instead, both games are on at the same time, in the same time zone, in the same state no less, as in Oakland, the Warriors are knocking on history’s door, as they go for record-setting win #73, while in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant suits up for his last-ever NBA game.

Now I’ve made no secret of my general ambivalence towards today’s NBA, often waxing philosophy that it’s putrid shit compared to the golden age of NBA I was a huge fan of throughout the 90’s.  But I’d be the first among many to admit that on April 13, was a one-in-a-million kind of magical night that, even for one night, a curmudgeon like me can even sit back, look at the night as a whole, and go god damn.

The Warriors broke the record that I’ve said time and time and time again would probably never be broken in my lifetime, and Kobe Bryant hangs 60 points on the Jazz on his way out the door.  I had and still kind of have a difficult time in thinking about which was more impressive, because sure the Warriors winning 73 games is now going to be the new record we’ll probably never see get broken in our lifetimes, but a talent like Kobe Bryant is a guy that we’re probably not going to see in equally a long time.

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Put me in the 2%*

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*unsubstantiated figure

Impetus: THE Ohio State third-string quarterback, Cardale Jones, decides to take some potshots at the NCAA on his way out, entering the upcoming NFL draft, reinforcing the notion that student athletes deserve to be paid.

I’m having a hard time deciding on what my favorite part of this article is; it’s either the irony of Cardale Jones’ tweet where even after three years of college he still can’t correctly use their/there/they’re:

Why shouldn’t a collegiate athlete be able to use their OWN likeness/brand to benefit themselves but yet the ‪@NCAA can sell there jerseys

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Overthinking Fiction: Guile’s Stage

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really remember the circumstances, but I remember staring at a screen capture of Street Fighter II, of Ryu fighting Guile in Guile’s stage.  And I began to think, how did Ryu manage to get onto a United States Air Force base in the first place?

Not to mention that his declared business on base would have to have been something like “I’m here to have a street fight Colonel/Commander/whatever Guile.”  Yeah, I’m sure the soldiers at the gate would hear something like that, and then immediately lift the gate and allow entry and passage, with no questions asked.  Sure, come on in, welcome to base, and go enjoy your street fight.

Also, not to mention the fact that Ryu isn’t an American citizen in the first place, a Japanese guy with zero documentation because he’s homeless to begin with, trying to get onto a US Air Force base seems all sorts of ludicrous.

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The leg drop really is a dumb move

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few days, I’ve been watching a lot of Hulk Hogan leg drops, in honor of his recent victory over Gawker.  Now, I’m still excited and happy over his victory over that shitty network of sites, but eventually I got to a point where I’d begun moving on, and watching all these montages of Hulk Hogan leg drops got me thinking about ultimately, the leg drop is kind of a dumb move.

Basically, a wrestler leaps up in the air and drapes their popliteal over their opponent’s head.  It’s basically like clotheslining someone, with your leg, and probably with less momentum, since they’re already flat on mat, and gravity probably can’t provide the same force as person(s) running at each other.

Sure, Hulk Hogan made the move famous, but there’s no denying that when you take the Hulkster factor out of the equation, it’s still a pretty mundane and lackluster maneuver.

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Overthinking Fiction: Cody Lambert

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My friend and I were talking about old television sitcoms like Blossom and Family Matters, and at some point, we got on Step by Step, and how pretty much the only reasons to really watch the show was the progression of Al’s hotness (Christine Lakin), and how distant cousin Cody Lambert was pretty much the best character of the show.

Naturally, my mind goes off on tangents, and it doesn’t take long for me to take something that I liked, like Cody, and overthink and dissect it to a point where it pretty much kind of ruins them.

But anyway, to those not familiar with Step by Step, Cody is the nephew of Patrick Duffy’s dad character, and the older cousin to the Lambert kids.  He’s older than all of the family kids, but not quite old enough to be considered a full-fledged adult, and he was basically the character that could relay to the children, their parents’ advice, when the kids would be obtuse about it.  And since Cody was the cool older brother figure to everyone, everyone listened to him.  Along the way, Cody found the meaning of life by deliberately depriving himself of sleep, and got into a massive bar-room brawl, all while spouting Valley speak and sounding like a bro before the term bro was even coined.

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