Month: February 2017

It’s like the ending to a very special episode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Kind of quiet and without applause or music.  The screen just fades to black and then the credits roll.  Silence.

That’s what it kind of feels like every time I close the door to the garage of my house after setting the alarm, lately.  I sit down in my car, close the garage door, watching is in my rearview mirror as it comes down, always making sure it always goes all the way down and stays there, as if I’m concerned by tech-savvy thieves trying to pilfer the open/close signal and then rob me after I’m gone.  And then I back out of the driveway and I pull away, continuing to look at my house in the rearview mirror.  Often times, I verbalize the words “alarm set, garage closed,” so I can have some degree of self-confirmation that I’ve secured the place, before I often times get hit with a wave of paranoia 500 feet later that I forgot to do one or both.

With each time I do this in recent days, I’m ask myself if this is the last time I’ll be doing it.  The answer has always been “no,” because there’s always been more chores to finish, more walls to paint, more cleaning to do, and more things to haul away, whether it’s to trash, storage, or my new home.

However, today marks the day in which there might not be a “no” at the end of the day’s query.  If everything goes according to plan and schedule, my house for the past 13 years will be empty of all personal effects, and I will have effectively moved out entirely.  When I pull away from the house tonight, and ask if this will be the last time, the answer won’t quite be “yes,” but it’s also not necessarily going to be “no,” either.

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It’s funnier when it’s not applicable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I make a lot of references to the Jessie Spano caffeine pill freakout from Saved by the Bell.  A lot of people make references to the Jessie Spano caffeine pill freakout from Saved by the Bell. It’s a great pop-cultural reference for when one is super excited about something, almost almost to the point of it being scary, or maybe it actually is scary.  Or maybe the part where she breaks down and talks about being scared is omitted, and it’s just a reference to the part where she sings I’m So Excited, all drugged out and addled that we all laugh at.

But how many people remember the context of the rest of the episode?  Why Jessie Spano was on “caffeine” pills in the first place?  I doubt nearly as many as the people who make references to the signing part actually do.

Jessie was taking speed because she felt that there weren’t enough hours in the day to study and cram for her lofty academic aspirations, and used the extra time not sleeping to hit the books.  Sure, it created a mild addiction and an eventual crash that led to the iconic exciting moment, but the context of it revolved around the perceived feeling that there is not enough time.

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This is the best thing I’ve seen in a while

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Greg Maddux isn’t one of my all-time favorites because he was on the Braves and helped them win their only World Series.  He’s not one of my all-time favorites because he’s arguably one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game.  I’ve always been a fan of the guy, because he’s always been a guy that that outsmarted rather than overpowered and I always favor intelligence over sheer brawn all day long.  But aside of his qualities as a baseball player, I’ve always loved the guy because he’s always seemed like one of those people that just simply, got life.

This video that broke recently, where Greg Maddux pranks reigning NL MVP Kris Bryant, by pretending to be a sound guy for a fake commercial Bryant is believed to be filming, that fills in at throwing batting practice, before hurling a litany of unhittable breaking balls and perfectly located pitches, nearly had me in tears laughing.  Maddux is classic Maddux in the video being all passive-aggressive and deadpan while pretending to be the critical sound guy, judging the swing of a guy that just came off a season where he hit 39 home runs. But it’s when the ruse is on where this video really takes off.

Kris Bryant’s disrespect for ordinary men, when fake sound guy-Greg claims he can fill in for the coach that had to leave is kind of the perfect setup for an ownage session from the 4-time Cy Young Award winning Hall of Famer.  And then Maddux gets behind the screen and suddenly starts hurling curveballs, with Bryant flabbergasted and trying to laugh away his rising shame, is simply the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.  And for god-knows how long, Maddux continued an onslaught of perfect pitches designed to catch guys looking, or get guys to tap the ball harmlessly into outs, while Bryant is futilely swinging himself into looking like a little leaguer.

There’s no doubt when Red Bull approached Maddux with this idea, the Professor probably dialed up some old MLB contacts or something and got a scouting video on Kris Bryant and studied his swing and tendencies for a few hours.  And that when he showed up to the ballfield in Vegas, he had more than an adequate game plan and pitch sequences specifically designed to undress Kris Bryant.

Nearly eight years post-retirement, Greg Maddux still manages to make one of the best hitters in today’s game swing like Mario Mendoza. 

Sure, there is the suspicion that this video could have been staged a little bit, but I don’t really care.  I’ve been in a dour mood a lot lately, and this was something refreshing and welcome to watch and get a little bit of enjoyment out of.  With Spring Training just around the corner, seeing something like this actually gets me a little bit excited about watching some baseball again this season, hopefully with a lot of current baggage behind me by then.

The occasional heartache of moving

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have vague memories of when I was eight years old, moving from my birth home in (then-) rural Virginia to the bustle and civilization of Northern Virginia.  One of the things that stuck with me was that when my family pulled away from the house for the last time in our old Toyota Celica, was seeing a neighborhood girl that was my age standing in her front yard, and she waved at us.  I remember her name was Evan.  I remember being at an age where moving wasn’t that big of a deal, although my sister was pretty miffed at moving from an area where elementary school was K-5 to a place that was K-6, meaning she had to put up with one more year of elementary school and sharing the bus with a little brother.

When my family moved again when I was in the fifth grade, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal then either.  Sure, it kind of stunk knowing I’d have to start over again at another new school, but my family was doing well financially at that time, and we were moving into a huge baller home, and there was something exciting about switching schools mid-year.  It also helped that my new school was slightly behind in curriculum than my former one, so I literally coasted for a while before actually getting back to learning.

It was during my sophomore year of high school that my family moved again.  This one I remember being a little harder to cope with, mostly on account of the fact that I was a moody, broody 15-year old then, and the fact that the circumstances behind the move weren’t necessarily positive or free will; the restaurant business was going downhill, the family’s finances were following, and it was more like being forced to downsize and move to a smaller home, rather than it being a bright and promising change.  I didn’t particularly care for moving back then, but growing up has made me understand and accept why it was necessary.

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TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a few days since I last allocated some time to write, which is typically something that I’m not a fan of doing.  But things have been busy at work, and even busier at the house, so I haven’t really had a nice chunk of time in which I could throw down some words, much less dick around on the internet to look for things to write about, or even glance at social media.

Being an adult sucks and is depressing, and I very much dislike this feeling of not feeling at home no matter where I am currently.  But like all adverse weather, this storm too shall pass, and eventually things will get back up to a more satisfactory par.  But first, I wish everyone around me at work weren’t sick and carrying the plague into the workplace and I feel like I should propagate Asian stereotypes and start showing up with a surgical mask on, because I actually value my health and have consideration to stay away.

Anyway, when I want to get back into the swing of the written word, I tend to go for low-hanging fruit or easy fluffy things to help jog the mind and the typing into a groove.  And there’s no better things for me to get fascination out of, than trucks full of interesting contents, crashing all over Atlanta highways.

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No ring, no shit

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Owned: owner of the Golden State Warriors Joe Lacob’s feelings are hurt when Michael Jordan is on record saying that the recent record-setting 73-win season by the Warriors doesn’t mean (shit) because they failed to win a championship

Classic MJ here.  Absolutely refuses to give credit to anyone that did something better than he did, and in this case, it’s the 2016 Warriors that trumped his 1996 Bulls, by winning 73 games.  But Jordan has a point here, because although the Warriors broke his Bulls’ 72-win record, they failed to finish the season like the Bulls did – with a championship.

It doesn’t matter if you make it to the NBA Finals with 73 wins or 48.  If you fail to win the Finals, all the wins prior to it are rendered completely meaningless.

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Late to the dance by like, 18 years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but apparently Netflix has announced plans for a Castlevania animated series that will be released later in 2017.

Too bad Simon Belmont has already been immortalized in animated form, since like 1989, on Captain N: The Game Master. 

Okay, I just really wanted a reason to post a picture of Captain N Simon Belmont.

Anyway, I’m a little dubious about this idea, since video game-based animated series are almost always starting on an uphill battle, and the fact that Castlevania hasn’t really been relevant since like… Symphony of the Night, depending on one’s interpretation and dedication to the litany of Pokévania games that were released for various Game Boy platforms.  A part of me thinks that the choice of Castlevania is like television producers wanting to do something, needing reputable source material, and someone in the room thinking “I know, I used to love Castlevania, the games were hard as shit, but I’m sure we could spin it into a story,” and then one or two people recognizing the name and concept and then an idea snowballs before everyone begins to blow each other.

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