Month: February 2021

Is giving out of spite better than giving out of goodness?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know it’s a rhetorical question, and when the day is over, giving is giving, and in lots of cases, the end objective is still good and true, but I ask it mostly because I question the royal people, that are doing such.

When Rush Limbaugh died, the very first words that formulated in my brain were simply “who cares?” because I thought he was a piece of shit in the first place, so it’s not skin off my back to hear when a piece of shit like him kicks the bucket.  In fact, good riddance, the world doesn’t need such hate spreading cretins in the world in it anyway.  I had really hoped the day he died would be the last day that I would hear his name, but because the internet is always in pursuit of the next great meme, that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.

Some dude on the internet started a movement where, at the time I’m writing this, has surpassed over $1 million dollars raised for Planned Parenthood; in honor of Rush Limbaugh, the piece of shit who had gone on record countless times bemoaning their existence, and going out of his way to be contrarian in every regard to the idea of it.

When the day is over, it’s really fantastic that Planned Parenthood is getting his massive donation, regardless of the ironic, meme of an impetus that served to provide it.  Surely those who actually liked Rush are probably aggravated that their hero’s name is being besmirched in such a manner, but therein lies the objective of a good troll-y meme, to put the haters in a position where they can really do nothing about it.

But one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was that yes, the donations and the end objective are good and true sure, but why did it have to take a joke to get people to open up their wallets and donate in the first place?  Why does generosity have to have a conditional opponent, or detractor?  Why does it require the expense of someone else, in order to get people to want to do a good thing?  Sure, that someone is already dead, but not that it really would have mattered if this happened when he was alive either, but the point is, this is a prime example of people being eager to give out of spite, as opposed to giving out of goodness.

It kind of reminds me of when Rick & Morty caused such a stir about McDonald’s Szechuan sauce, that McD’s actually brought out the sauce in limited releases, and the ensuing response to them were people showing up to McDonald’s across the nation in droves, trying to be the lucky people to actually acquire some.  There were stories of people flipping individual sauce packets for thousands of dollars, and even one story where a guy traded a car for a sauce packet (too lazy to cross-check).

There was a meme that came from that whole movement, where the “joke” was Rick & Morty’s second favorite sauce was universal healthcare, to see if the apathetic flocks that got up in arms to basically force McDonalds to release Szechuan sauce might actually mobilize and try to get this country to make a difference.  Naturally, nothing but a few sad laughs came from it, but the observation was mostly the same vein: why are people so passionate about spiting others or getting worked up over inconsequential things, when there’s clearly strength in numbers and people in large quantities can make a difference, regardless of the motive?

I digress though, because it was a rhetorical question in which I know there is no right or wrong answer, and I’m frankly running out of gas in regard to this topic because of such.  As I stated already, it’s fantastic that Planned Parenthood is getting such monumental support, because it is an organization that I do personally support.  I just personally wish that people were more willing to regularly donate to and support them out of the kindness of their hearts, and not require a joke at some dead shithead’s expense in order for them to open their wallets.

TFW your BAC is higher than your career BA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year again in spite of the fact that like a year ago, it’s probably still not a very good idea, but because Major League Baseball is a machine that demands its financial tithe, the 2021 season is a-go, and it’s Spring Training all over parts of Florida and Arizona, or wherever each team is actually deciding to try and get their bodies into shape for another unnecessary season of sports while a pandemic is still very much in play.

But the specific time in which I am referring to is that with Spring Training afoot, it’s only a matter of time before a baseball player, personnel, executive or alum, makes the news having gotten a DUI, most likely from a little too much fraternization and/or having a good time with the boys.

In this case, it was an alum, in former All-Star outfielder Johnny Damon, getting pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence in Florida. And naturally, because it’s completely relevant to the conversation, the article makes sure to mention that in his baseball career, he had 2,796 hits, 235 home runs, and a career batting average of .284.

It’s one of my favorite clichés about professional athletes getting in trouble with the law.

However in this case, it actually does provide a little bit of interesting context, because batting average is a decimal number measured by three digits, much like a breathalyzer test, and in the case of Johnny Damon’s two tests, he allegedly blew both a .300 and a .294, to which I hope most people can do the math, is well past three times the legal limit of .080. I mean, anything over .000 is illegal in the state of Georgia and I’m okay with that frankly because (in a non-pandemic world) ridesharing has made any sort of driving with any booze in the system completely unnecessary.

But back to the topic at hand, not only is .294 a staggeringly high blood alcohol content that literally states that nearly 30% of his body’s blood diluted by booze, it’s higher than his career batting average. Which is ironically impressive, because a career .284 batting average is actually pretty quite good, so the fact that he was able to surpass his batting average on a night out is pretty amazing.

Obviously in the grand spectrum of things this is really pathetic; most baseball fans know Damon as kind of face of the 2004 Red Sox that came back from the 3-0 deficit to the Yankees and ultimately won the World Series, but now he’s this sad sack of retired professional athlete with too much time, privilege and money to do stupid shit, like get trashed three times the legal limit. More than likely Damon won’t do any sort of time or get anything more than a fine and slap on the wrist, whereas any ordinary American would be in pound-me-in-the-ass prison by now, most definitely if it were any sort of person of color. But since there’s little anyone can actually do about it, all we can really do, is make jokes.

New Father Brogging, #035

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last did any sort of post about my plights as a first-time father.  Admittedly, things have been fairly smooth since the last time I really wrote one of these new dad brogs, which might have something to do with the lack of writing about my child, but naturally I know that I’m always another growth spurt or some sort of milestone away from the shit hitting the fan and then the routine that I’ve been living for the better part of the last five months begins to change all over again.

However, for those who might take stock in the fact that my general posting has grown less frequent in more recent times, the thing is that I simply haven’t had the time to write as much as I did, even just a month ago.  And this isn’t the usual, danny is bitching about having so little time because of work and baby, but it’s a little bit more now, because for lack of a better term, I’ve gone back to school.

I’ve been taking a night course over the last month and it will be continuing on until April, so that I can explore the possibility of acquiring new skills.  I don’t think I’ve made much secret of the fact that I’m quite unhappy with where I am at in my life professionally right now, and while casually exploring possibilities elsewhere, the results have not been very positive.  I feel stagnant in my current career path and that I have hit somewhat of a ceiling, and I don’t like my current chances at being able to break through it to ascend higher.

So instead of simply looking for a change of scenery, I’m taking a different approach of acquiring some new and different skills to which I can hope to parlay into something different, and potentially satiate two desires, being a change of scenery, but also to make a career move into a field that is warmer than what I’m doing is, has more potential for the future, and hopefully make more money than I do now, so that I can be a better provider for my family.

Because when the day is over, that’s really all I want to do, is to provide for my family, and hopefully not hate my life in order to do it.  For years, I’ve tossed the idea around in my head to take some sort of class(es) and try to pick up some new skills and make a professional pivot, but I’ve often just been all talk and no action. 

But in an ironic, I have to thank coronavirus, kind of situation, it’s never been a better time to go in this direction, because the school in which I’m taking my course through, is 100% virtual and I can do this from home, because the pandemic has forced them to go entirely virtual.  Otherwise, I’d have had to have gone into downtown Atlanta twice a week to take my course, and I simply have no desire to actually go into the city anymore, regardless of a pandemic or not.

So, I’m getting to take this course entirely online, from the convenience of my own home.  But that also means that for the duration of this class, my already sparse 2-3 hrs of free time a night, two evenings out of the week, I have to forfeit even that in order to take my course, which means that I have even less time to myself, which has occasionally left me feeling a little overwhelmed and overtaxed at times.

But the good thing about having a kid is that it only takes one look at my child to remind me what I’m doing all this for, and to refocus.  And it’s kind of funny how serious I take this course, because despite the fact that I will have the luxury of tuition reimbursement from my current job, I’m still having to front all the costs until then.  And you don’t realize how hard you want to work in school, when you realize your own money is what’s at stake when you’re taking the course.

In addition to the four hours of rare personal time I lose a week to classes, I’ve spent much more than that, on homework assignments and doing my best to really understand the subject matter and actually try and learn, absorb and apply this newfound knowledge, and hope that I’ll someday soon, be able to parlay it into a different career path than where I’m at now.

Pour one out for my dead treadmill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My treadmill died this weekend.  I feel like I’ve lost a limb.

Ever since the start of the coronavirus pandemic really began, one of the first things to obviously go, was, the gym.  Something that I’d been consistently doing for literally ten straight years, and if I were factoring in the sporadic working out I did intermittently while I was freelance, butted up against the time before that when I was working and had a gym membership, then probably 15 straight years.

It was not an easy pill to swallow, but it was made easier by the fact that it also coincided with the birth of my daughter, so frankly I was too busy to even consider working out in the first place anyway.  But once things starting settling down (for the time being), I began to notice that my shirts were starting to feel a little loose in the arms, and tight in the stomach.  Obviously my body was beginning to revert back to a lesser state because I wasn’t exercising at all, and most definitely not aided by the sleep schedule of a new father.

Eventually, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore, so I dusted off the treadmill that my mother-in-law bequeathed to us, and began running on it.  I remember the first time I really did a lengthy jog on it, I did probably about 40 minutes at a light pace, and I felt absolutely incredible afterward.  I was soaking in sweat but my body felt alive again, and I most definitely felt elation at the endorphins that were popping anew in my system for the first time in a long time.

Needless to say, running, and running on the treadmill has been the only real substantial exercise I’ve been doing since like, April of last year, and it’s been the only real saving grace to my rapidly shrinking and deteriorating physical state, since I haven’t lifted weights in quite literally, almost an entire year.

My angst and rage at the legions of ignorant fucks who couldn’t be bothered to wear masks and eradicate all this bullshit in just a month and that ‘Murica is still in this fucking predicament to where I still can’t work out, knows no end.

Anyway, I eventually settled into a pretty good every-other-day running routine, and I always feel pretty good after running, because as I’ve always stated as one of my personal exercise mantras, is that time is never wasted when exercising.

But a few days ago, I noticed that my treadmill was starting to make a really loud sound.  Typically I wear my AirPods and am often times watching shit on the WWE Network, so I can’t really hear the ambient noise of the treadmill, but when I was winding down, it was noticeably loud.  I chalked it up as an anomaly, and hoped it would be gone the next time I ran.

It wasn’t.  I popped open the mechanical panel, to see if there was anything obvious about why it was making such noise.  Nothing seemed amiss, and I ran it on a low setting, with the panel open to see if there was any loose parts.  If anything at all, it sounded like body noise that was causing things, which I guess with the aging, vibrating, and the fact that I probably run with an elephant’s stride, shit had jarred around throughout its age.

I closed up the panel and decided to just run anyway, and brace occasionally on the console, to see if I could settle the noise down.  It seemed to be okay at first; but then three minutes into my run, everything just kind of clunked to a stop, and I’m surprised I didn’t hurt myself in the process being brought down from 6.5 mph to 0.

I got off the treadmill and watched it abruptly reset and made a noise, reset and make a noise.  Obviously, something was wrong with it, so I pulled the plug.

As far as I can tell, the treadmill was dead.  I haven’t ran since.

Obviously, I’m at a crossroads where I definitely want a new treadmill to replace the dead one, but I’m not sure if I want a fairly inexpensive direct replacement of what just died, which would probably run me around 300-400, but mythical wife is really suggesting that we spring for something way nicer.  But at the same time, I want to believe that maybe 2021 will be a year in which with vaccinations, I might be able to return to a gym, to which in those instances, my running at home will definitely reduce dramatically as I would be working out at gyms again, to which why would I want to have an expensive treadmill collecting dust?

I don’t know, really.  For the time being, I’m going to have to resort to running outdoors again, but I’m at the mercy of the elements, and the fact that there are still occasionally fucks without masks out there, and I definitely don’t want to catch their coronaHIV while I’m just trying to exercise.

But I’m super sad that my treadmill died. 😢

I love Cameron Grimes’ new character

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not that I’m an AEW hater, and want to see them fail, it’s just that I’m critical about how they run their shows, and I’m dubious that they’ll actually amount to anything other than being a distant #2.  I feel as if the power structure of the company AKA Cody/Omega/the Bucks spent year one trying too hard to disprove nepotism and booking themselves to the moon that they basically buried themselves, but with the start of year two, taking the shackles off, pushing themselves like crazy, where Omega and the Bucks are the world and tag champions respectively, and on a completely different island as the rest of the roster.

And as for the rest of said roster, they’re basically this strange island of misfit toys where you have Chris Jericho’s Inner Circle, you have the Dark Order, you have Death Triangle, you have Matt Hardy building a stable, and then there’s the obviously protected-like-religion Hangman Adam Page.  And because there’s no real intriguing storylines for the women’s roster, they’re just doing this TNA-like random tournament of nationalities, between the US and Japan, where the US side has several Japanese women anyway.

But the storylines and characters are all weak and predictable, and I’m having great difficulty in getting too interested in any one storyline.

And then I switch over to NXT, and I’m seeing a Lamborghini pulling up to the CWC.  Okay, classic who’s this moment, where it’s got to be some smarmy new heel character or something.  Camera pans up, and it’s none other than Cameron Grimes, the obnoxious, loud mouthed redneck, but why’s he pulling up in a Lambo, and more importantly, why and how is he suddenly rich and handing out real-looking Benjamins to all sorts of random people?

Okay, I’m curious.  I stay on the channel.  And then he cuts a promo, talking about how decided to start playing video games in his spare time, and then when he wanted more video games, he went to GameStop, and decided to invest in GameStop at the right place and right time?  Now I’m amused.  One DogeCoin reference later, and now I’m thoroughly entertained.  This new iteration of Cameron Grimes, a redneck Million Dollar Man, who got rich by capitalizing on the GameStop stock boon, this is entertaining.

And just like that, one character on NXT has proven to be more entertaining than a litany of loosely written and poorly developed personas in AEW.  And the difference is that anyone who knows the history of Cameron Grimes, or Trevor Lee, knows that the guy can really go, but now he’s got a character that can really play to his non-wrestling strengths, like being a loud-mouth and obnoxious, but now he’s got the cash to back it all up.

If there was ever a time for him to strike singles gold, I imagine when Johnny Gargano drops the North American title to some face, Million Dollar Grimes will probably be a good heel to step into that spotlight and finally try to buy himself to his first singles championship.  But belt or no belt, I can easily say that this is the first character in a while that I’ve been immediately interested in, and I look forward to see how this plays out.  Hopefully they run with it for a bit and don’t kill it immediately in a topical allegory to how it can end in the blink of an eye.

Not sure if sad or Oh, Atlanta

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pretty sure this wouldn’t be news if it weren’t tied to Shaquille O’Neal: Atlanta Krispy Kreme owned by Shaq basically burned down

Not entirely sure how I feel reading this.  The fact that I’m writing about it speaks to the fact that it clearly triggered some sort of response in my brain.  I maintain the fact that this wouldn’t have made national news if there were no ties to Shaq, but it is somewhat of a deal for those Atlantans who all hate change, are attached to their city’s things, and come out in droves when something they haven’t thought about in years changes or is harmed.

Frankly, moving out to the burbs and being at peace with the fact that I don’t really miss the city at all, and I’ve long passed the days of where I used to feel like I should have some finger or limb still associated to something in the city, so I could feel like I could always have a stake in all-things City of Atlanta.  And unlike the people who probably never went there because doughnuts are inherently bad for your health, but are pretending like they care about this Krispy Kreme getting severely damaged, I do have many memories of this particular place.

Ponce de Leon Ave. is one of the major thoroughfares in the actual City of Atlanta, and just about everything on it people tend to get attached to, like Murder Kroger, Paris on Ponce, the Plaza Theatre and the Majestic, the old Kodak building, among other things.  The Fellini’s on Ponce was a place where I’ve had lots of meals with friends and in the very rarest of times a few dates.  The Plaza Theatre was one of the go-places to watch indy flicks, and although I never was interested, where Rocky Horror allegedly took place.

But the Krispy Kreme on Ponce, this was the place to get late night donuts after a Braves game, get donuts after eating at somewhere like Cameli’s or Willy’s, or in more than one instance, an excuse to duck out of traffic and circumvent a red light by cutting onto North, but then actually stopping for two donuts and coffee instead and then passing through.

And like in the photo above, when friends would come in for past Dragon*Cons, and actually wanted to leave the con-space and see shit outside of the then-three hotels, where we’d go to stop and get donuts spontaneously, because we saw the red hot-and-ready light on.

The reality is that I’m sad that a place of business is going to be put on indefinite hiatus until it comes back, and make no mistake, it will come back because Shaq is rich as fuck and is real business smart, and not likely to let his investment of a Krispy Kreme on prime central real estate go to pot.  But I’m not really that sad that this happened, because like me, there are lots of people reminiscing about a simple doughnut shop and thinking about happier memories, and I know that when this place comes back, it’ll ultimately be business as usual, but for at least a week or so, I’m sure they’ll have a blowout of a return which will once again put this place in the news and most likely be an appearance by Shaq, and Shaq is always amusing to me.

An unprecedented season of My 600 Lb. Life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If this post sucks beyond the reason than you just don’t happen to like my style of writing, it’s because Windows sucks, and locked up trying to go into fucking screen saver mode, and my only option was to hard reset, and I lost my original post and trains of thought.  Whenever something like that happens, I write with salt, because I’m determined to get my point across, but at the same time too exasperated to try and remember all the things that I wrote prior.

Anyway, what we have here is that lost amidst the oceans of television content out there, is an unprecedented season 9 of My 600 Lb. Life, where we have literally had a season where six episodes in, not a single patient has successfully made it onto the surgery table and had weight loss surgery.

Obviously it’s not much of a show about weight loss if every single patient in the season is failing, but the reality is that My 600 Lb. Life really isn’t so much about the weight loss itself as much as it is putting the spotlight on trainwrecks of human beings, making bad choices, dealing with mental issues, and because humanity seems to have a strange fascination with watching people eat, watching morbidly obese people eat terrible, horrible choices. 

I like to think people like to watch, because they can try to vicariously live through them in eating all of the delicious guilty pleasures in the world, without doing it themselves and then ballooning up to 600 lbs.

Anyway, it’s still amazing that we’ve had a season where nobody has succeeded.  One patient succeeded in losing the initial weight, but there were some overlying medical conditions that made the surgery inadvisable despite the fact that he met Dr. Now’s milestones, but the episode still ends with them not getting surgery, and likely to be followed up on My 600 Lb. Life – Where Are They Now?

Obviously, coronavirus has a lot to do with some of this, as I’m sure it’s been real difficult for TLC to scrape together a roster to film for season 9, because if there are any people who are the very definition of at-risk patients, it’s the morbidly obese.  But as those in the biz often say, the show must go on, and by hell or high water, My 600 Lb. Life has continued, and not only have we viewers seen a tremendous amount of failure throughout the season, we’ve seen some other anomalous things, like Dr. Now making a house call for the very first time (that I’m aware of), and I’m pretty sure one of the patients actually never made it to Houston and did their entire episode from wherever the fuck, America they were.

Honestly though, the failure doesn’t even matter.  It’s hardly a show about the weight loss anymore, as I previously said.  I think that viewers are more intrigued by the characters on the show, but none more than Dr. Now himself, who has either by directive of showrunners, to turn the heat up and deliver some more biting and meme-able lines, or just by virtue of dealing with so much bullshit, so many false promises, and seeing so much failure first-hand, that his resolve for his patients has deteriorated to where he’s snippy and claps back with some truly great remarks.  I can’t really speak for anyone but my wife and I, but we most definitely take a lot of enjoyment at the ironically entertaining things he says to his patients after he gives them three munt to lose 75 pounds and then they come back having lost anywhere from 8-14.

By now though, I’m actively rooting for a season in which we have a 100% failure rate.  I doubt it’s going to happen, but it would be truly epic on the lines of a 72-win Bulls season if we were to actually have a single season where nobody makes it onto the table.  And the best part of the show is that even if and likely when I get debunked and proven wrong, it’s always a delight to see the people who do get their shit together and drop weight, get surgery and then drop even more weight, because when things are going right, it’s really easy to root for these guys.