Month: September 2017

Requiem for Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Four years late to the party, but I’ve finally finished watching all of the Dexter television series.  Back around the start of season 7, I made an off-hand remark to a friend that I hadn’t even seen season 6 at all, and was promptly recommended to skip it.  Before I could get the statement “still, I should watch it” out of my mouth, this friend blurted out the big reveal of the season, and said that he was saving me trouble and doing me a favor, allowing me to skip ahead to 7.

Naturally, my reaction was to just stop watching it outright, and a year later, the final season came and went, and I’d been none the wiser to the television happenings of everyone’s favorite forensic expert/serial killer.

With a lot of house shit done, and life somewhat kind of settling back down, I’ve had lot of time on my hands to watch television, and I’d been doing just that.  And in the span of the last two weeks, I’ve basically gone through all three of the last seasons of Dexter that I had never watched before, and one good thing about having such a gap, was that I even forgot about the big reveal that my friend had spoiled for me years prior.

And it’s good thing too, because it’s pretty much the reason why I don’t really trust anyone’s opinions about any show or movie except my own.  When the day is over, I’ll come to my own judgments, and there are plenty of times in which I feel completely different than what the hive mind of the internet tends to think.

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In memoriam of the greatest: Bobby “The Brain” Heenan

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I’ve written a lot of eulogy-like posts about wrestling personalities who have left us, but this one in particular really hurts.  I don’t think I’ve pulled any punches about those whom I’ve admit to not being the biggest fans of, like when Roddy Piper passed, or Dusty Rhodes or even Chyna, but I’ve always had things to say about all of them.  That being said, when I say that this one really hurts, it’s because it is amongst the saddest of wrestling deaths in that not only the fans, but the industry as a whole has lost a genuine trailblazer and a man who whether they realized it or not, laid down the groundwork for generations of wrestling personas to this very day.

When I first got into wrestling back in like 1988, I was privy to have started watching in a time when Prime Time Wrestling on the USA Network was one of the flagship programs for the then WWF.  I can remember some of the matches I saw back then, like Ultimate Warrior vs. Haku, Mr. Perfect vs. Tito Santana, and Shawn Michaels vs. the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase.  This was during a time when WWF programming was typically several squash matches featuring stars versus definition jobbers, with a few of the aforementioned matches sprinkled in towards the end of each hour.

However, one of the other things viewers saw back then that stuck with me, was the studio segments featuring none other than Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon.  They would take care of the business aspect of television, such as promoting pay-per-view shows, live events (always at the Capitol Center), as well as doing typical wrestling commentary.  What I always remembered about those segments was that for a while, in front of Heenan’s spot at the desk, he had a “Ravishing” Rick Rude action figure standing over a fallen Ultimate Warrior action figure.  Little did I realize it was at that very time, Rude was feuding with Warrior over the Intercontinental championship, and basically Warrior was systematically going through the “Heenan Family” stable of wrestlers to get back to a point where he could and would eventually challenge and re-gain the belt.  But being a kid, I was just enamored by seeing action figures I wish I had very badly, on television in plain sight.

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Having logo ≠ entitled success

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

People seem to like having logos.  Logos for themselves, logos for their businesses, companies or other identities that they feel necessitate some sort of visual symbolization so that they can hope to one day be easily identifiable by an image and not even need words.

However, for every single Nike, Honda, Target and even Chili’s that have successfully ingrained their visual identities with the people for so long that they don’t even have to use actual words in their branding anymore, there are probably a million failures of logos in the world for people, businesses and other entities that in all likelihood, abandoned their ideas not long after concepting their logos in the first place.

It’s like logo design always seems to come first, and then people think they can build around it, or so it seems, based on the frequency in which this tends to occur.  Coming soon businesses announce their presences with nothing more than a generic press release and a logo often way too abstract to interpret.  Restaurants that haven’t opened yet unveil logos, signs and the visual identities of their menus before they’ve even served a plate of food.  And then there are the thousands of pleebs who think they have a great idea for a project, but before they launch anything, they make themselves a logo, share it on social media to farm likes, but then the drive to actually do anything with their project, it runs out of steam and then they log into Steam and play video games, but not after a poor logo is left and abandoned on the internet for others to witness their fleeting false dedication.

Anyway, I’m sidetracking here which is nothing out of the ordinary since I have a tendency to poorly veil rants about other things in posts that initially are spurred by a slightly relevant topic.

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KOREAN RUDY

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News to me: Notre Dame’s placekicker is a Korean junior, Justin Yoon

Kind of on a lesser degree than Ohio State, I have a tendency to root against Notre Dame.  The Fighting Irish have never offended me or done anything that would warrant my antagonism, but it probably stems from the fact that they’re a nationally recognized brand with a lot of blindly-following fans, which is often times the case why I develop favor against particular organizations.

Needless to say, I was pleased when Georgia marched into South Bend and defeated Notre Dame this past Saturday, and all in all, it was a pretty good game.  But I was happy to see the Irish lose, nonetheless.

However, the most surprising thing I witnessed during the game was when the Irish repeatedly made their way down the field before Georgia’s defense kept them out of the end zone, resulting in settling for field goals, I heard the name “Justin Yoon,” and my Korea-sense tingled at the surprise at seeing a Korean football player taking the field and doing work.  And not just for some scrub, but for a notable, reputable football program like Notre Dame.

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Yet another reason #57

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Should I start arbitrarily numbering these?  At this point, I don’t see why I shouldn’t considering that it really doesn’t feel like more than a day goes by where I don’t pat myself on the back for unloading my old house when I did.

But anyway, my old stomping grounds is now the City of South Fulton, which at first was supposed to be something of an interim name, but considering they just spent $1,500 tax dollars to “design” a new crest for it, it looks like it just might be for reals.  Normally this wouldn’t really be worth mentioning, because it’s not uncommon for towns and cities to want to brand/re-brand themselves, so that they can try to establish some semblance of an identity.  But because I’m mentioning it now, obviously there’s got to be something ironic, cringe-worthy or really stupid to warrant mention.

For reasons completely unknown to the vast majority of South Fulton residents, the city’s new crest features imagery and symbolism of the Egyptian sun god Ra, some ankhs, and for more unknown reasons has some Swahili word around the crest as well.

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THE Ownedhio State – love it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really know why it is, but I always take a tremendous amount of satisfaction whenever Ohio State loses at any collegiate sport, especially football.  On a day in which I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be except watch movies and football, I was certainly pleased to see Virginia Tech beat an unranked Delaware and I even took some enjoyment in watching South Carolina beat Missouri since I kind of root for them now.  Through great pain, I watched Auburn fail to move the ball, at all, against Clemson.  And I took great pleasure in watching the always-overrated Notre Dame fall against, Georgia; whose fans basically dominated South Bend, and should be an embarrassment to the Irish, frankly.

But no other college football game gave me as much pleasure to see the end result than #5 Oklahoma taking down #2 THE Ohio State, in Columbus.  I don’t really know why, but I just love to see whenever Ohio State loses at anything.  I’m pretty sure, it stems from the royal THE that their fans and supporters are adamant to preface Ohio State with, but maybe it’s because they’re legitimately good at sports and they’re the titan that I personally just like to see get taken down from time to time.  Regardless, seeing them choke at home and lose in just the second week of the season is pretty much all I needed to see to feel that this is going to be a fun season.

You know, my general animosity towards TOSU probably stems from the egregious amounts of arrogance displayed by TOSU, whether it’s their legions of obnoxious fans who have to use the THE, or like when TOSU tried to copyright the acronym “TOSU” despite the fact that there are two other NCAA programs whose abbreviated name is also TOSU.  But in the case of their fans, nothing is more satisfying than knowing that every choad, broad, bro and douche that were at College GameDay, obnoxiously being TOSU fans and talking mad smack about Oklahoma is feeling that hangover of arrogantly supporting a loser.

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Fire Emblem Heroes sucks jihadist balls

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I just needed to get this off my chest.

Much like someone in an abusive relationship, I’m still playing Fire Emblem Heroes, much like I’m still playing Pokémon Go.  They’re on my phone, they’re easy to play, and I’m often the type of person who sticks to things for the long hauls, despite my oft-occasional disdain for the games that I’m allowing to suck up my time.

Anyway, as far as FEH goes, I’ve made no secret about how I think the game’s gatchapon system is pretty much utter bullshit, and that it’s neigh impossible to get any of the most heralded characters in the game; Takumi, Azura, Hector, etc, etc.  Above all else, I covet a Hector, so that I can construct my ideal dream team of tanks with an Effie and a Draug, that can counter from anywhere and can slowly, but surely enclose on enemy units and eviscerate them. 

But in order to get there, I need a Hector.  Who’s basically a unicorn that I’m convinced doesn’t actually exist for players, and that anyone who has him is like a Chinese hacker or something who got him through illegal means.

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