Month: March 2021

Life get back to normalcy? LOL

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seeing as how my wife shared the news on social media, I figure now is as good as time as any to finally break my own silence on this monumental news.

Originally written on December 1, 2020

We were watching 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way when mythical wife dropped the suspecting revelation on me.  The queasiness she was feeling over the day might not necessarily been from the ramen the night before.  The last time she felt this kind of nausea… and then there was the admission that a particular monthly event had not happened in a minute.

The next thing I know, I’m driving to Walgreens at 11pm on a Monday night, because we both felt the need to know what we already suspected was going to be the case with the circumstances that were already in play.  The last time we had this conversation like this, it was already a foregone conclusion and the test was merely a formality for visual confirmation of the obvious.

A second child was always something that my wife and I were open to.  She being an only child, knew the general loneliness that comes with growing up with no live-in sibling, and me, I grew up with a big sister, and there’s a pattern within my generation of cousins is that everyone has two kids, so it seemed like something that was bound to happen.  Fortunately, becoming a father and parent has been something I’ve taken to pretty well if I say so myself, and the idea of a second child never really seemed intimidating beyond the notion that my time will be stretched even thinner in the coming years and to have to go through teething with another baby gives me anxiety, but the idea itself was never off the table.

One thing I’ve learned about myself throughout the year is that I have a tremendous amount of love to give, and I have no doubt in my mind that I won’t have any shortage for another kid.

We just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly and so soon, as we’re just days away from our first child’s ninth month since birth.

Continue reading “Life get back to normalcy? LOL” →

Women’s Tag Team Championships: WWE vs. NXT

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite mechanics in the WWE is the idea of floating champions.  Champions who aren’t limited to just RAW or Smackdown, and can really go anywhere within the company.  Throughout the years, the company has dabbled in floating championships, like when they consolidated all belts down to one world championship, women’s and tag team champions, and only those who held the belts could float between RAW and Smackdown.

When business was good rosters got big, old blets were re-established, and championships gained exclusivity to a particular brand.  Eventually, when creativity began stagnating, champions began jumping onto other shows for shock value purposes, and to randomly fulfill intriguing champion vs. champion scenarios, or when feuds between-show talents emerged and needed to be fulfilled.

Ultimately, it brings us to today where we’re kind of back to an age of all shows having exclusive titles, but there is one floating championship (that isn’t the farce of the 24/7 championship): the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.  It was decreed that the Women’s Tag Team champions could not only hop around from RAW to Smackdown, but it was heavily implied that they could also appear and be defended, on NXT.  That concept alone, whet my whistle, because I’m a huge mark for NXT, and I love the creative idea of an NXT team capturing some main roster gold, and the creative possibilities that could emerge from that.

To date, Creative actually came through with this mechanism, and on three occasions, the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles have been defended on NXT: Dakota Kai & Tegan Nox vs. Asuka & Kairi Sane, Tegan Nox & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Bayley & Sasha Banks, and most recently, Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez vs. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax.  Despite the fact that NXT has taken the L in all three instances, it has created intriguing television that main roster superstars have appeared in NXT, and had some fun matchups.

However recently, in storyline, there was a controversial finish to the latter matchup between Kai/Gonzalez vs. Baszler/Jax, where main roster stooge Adam Pierce interjected a main roster referee to call the match when the NXT ref was knocked out.  This prompted NXT general manager William Regal, to get upset and make a monumental decision, which ultimately ended up being the introduction of the brand new, NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship, and awarded them to Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez, for winning the first edition of the Dusty Rhodes Women’s Tag Team Cup.

And just like that, the WWE Women’s Tag Team championship has most likely ceased its ability to float on down to NXT from here on out, with the exception maybe being Survivor Series, if they ever try to add NXT to the cross-brand competition.

Continue reading “Women’s Tag Team Championships: WWE vs. NXT” →

“COVID” must be like, Italian, for “sucking”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The only thing that sucks about both Duke and Kentucky missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1976 is that both of their blowhard coaches are going to be using coronavirus as their excuse for the fact that they just plain sucked; and because it has been such a devastating thing throughout the last year, or the fact that most people with brains know that sports probably shouldn’t be happening in the first place right now, that they’re both going to have an act of god-like rationale to justify it and chalk the 2020-21 season as some sort of asterisked aberration that shouldn’t count.

However, make no mistake – coronavirus or no coronavirus, both Duke and Kentucky played like shit all year, and they are exactly where they belong right now as a result of it.  There’s little reason to believe that either would have done any better if the world weren’t currently in a pandemic, and if anything at all, there should probably be some suspicion to why they just suddenly sucked when there’s no crowds, no extra noise or any other external factors that being in a non-pandemic scenario would have differentiated from.

Of course, aside from coronavirus, both programs will probably cite some key prospects opting out of the season, and I don’t have enough shits to give to try and find out, but these are two of the most notorious hoops programs in the nation; at any given time, they’ll have numerous 4-5 star recruits waiting in the wings, and for every one that opts out, there’s probably another talented prep salivating in the wings to get on the court.

Either way, as a detractor for both overrated programs, it’s good that neither are in the NCAA tournament, as reckless as it might be to hold in the first place.  Both would have undoubtedly gotten bounced in the second round if not the first, by like Florida Atlantic, UMBC or Louisiana Tech, so it’s better for the NCAA to have those layup losses be filled by a potential Cinderella team from a non-power five conference.

But on that same note, for those who might actually give a shit and actually tune into any March Madness, we’ll all be denied the smug satisfaction and gambling pool of when Duke and Kentucky get upset much less filling out a bracket in the first place.  As I said, I just don’t give a shit to look closer, but in previous years, I always tried to earmark when Duke would get bounced, based on whom was in their region.  Kentucky, I often times gave a little more leash, but they were almost always bounced by the Elite Eight in any bracket I ever fill out.

Anyway, good on sports for Duke and Kentucky not making it to the dance.  Chalk one point up for supposed parity.  As for the rest of the college hoops season, none of it really counts or matters this year; that is, unless Virginia Tech wins it all, to which then it’s the greatest season of college hoops in history, and they overcame tremendous odds and adversity to climb to the top of the mountain.  But considering their placement in the ACC tournament and still got bounced by the UNC squad that ducked them earlier in the season, I don’t have too many hopes for that.

‘Burned out’ doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On any given day, here are the things that I like to accomplish in my free time:

  • Write
  • Run
  • Watch wrestling
  • Watch tv in general
  • Play Fire Emblem Heroes and/or Pokémon Go
  • Do surveys

Coincidentally, that just so happens to be the list of things that I so rarely get to do anymore, on account of the fact that I’m just so endlessly busy, with a plate so perpetually full, that I’ve been feeling on the cusp of anxiety attacks at just how much stuff I feel that I have to do on a regular basis, with practically no help at all.

The fact that I’m writing now is a miracle in itself, and I mentally would really like to accomplish a whole fuckton of writing that’s been backlogging in my brain as well as on the living document I keep a list of topics and things I’d like to write about but the reality is that as much as I love to write, there’s only a certain amount of it I can do daily before the topics begin to run into each other and I put out a bunch of bullshit that I’m not happy with.

Over the last few weeks, my daily schedule hasn’t really changed so much as it’s just had things added to it, as some of them have finite timelines in which they should be accomplished.  However, it’s these extra things that have nickeled and dimed their way into overfilling my plate on a regular basis, and the’ve all been constantly bleeding into all facets of my time not spent working and/or raising a child, that I’ve hit the point where “burned out” doesn’t come close to describing how I feel so much as I just simply feel like I’m drowning.

Continue reading “‘Burned out’ doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel” →

New Father Brogging, #037

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly?  Maybe it’s because I’m months past the period of infancy where babies do not sleep throughout the night and I’ve long forgotten the rigors of sleepless nights and daytime fatigue.  Or maybe my daughter has been particularly amenable as far as babies go.  But if you were to ask me how difficult raising a baby for the first time has been, and I think I would say that it wasn’t nearly as hard as people made it out to be.

Sure, early on there’s the endless amounts of fear and anxiety at the start as new parents, we don’t know what the heck we’re doing.  And then there’s sleep regressions quarterly that make me want to jump out windows.  And then there’s teething, and the introduction of solid foods, and then more teething that make running with razor blades seem like a mercy.

But once routines are established, reinforced and set in, things actually operate fairly smoothly.  The days become somewhat predictable, and once you know when you might actually have time to manage, things become somewhat more manageable.  So either I’ve been cruising on a nice little routine for a while, or I simply was not prepared for the difficulty jump that comes with the start of being able to say “years” in age, instead of just months.

Needless to say, the photo above has been a frequent view of mine throughout the last weeks since my daughter turned one year old.  It was almost perfect at the rate in which she hit 12 months and it just kind of clicked for her to go from awkward army crawling, to not just full-fledged crawling so much as she often uses her little left leg to thrust her further and faster, and covers ground at an impressive pace.

When I saw that there was a class of Huggies diapers called Little Movers, I just had this feeling that my child was destined to become one of those kids.  And at one point, mythical wife and I had a little concern that she might be falling behind in mobility, and prepared for more time of constantly disclaiming adjusted age since she was premature.  But then came army crawling, and like lightning striking she’s not just crawling at a rapid pace now, she’s been experimenting with getting up onto her legs and standing without assistance periodically now.

Continue reading “New Father Brogging, #037” →

One year later (the not-so good one)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was just days after my child was born.  As she was premature, she was immediately admitted to the NICU, and it was heartbreaking to leave the hospital without our daughter coming home with us, but we tried to take comfort in the fact that she was exactly where she needed to be in order to play some physical catchup to where she would be allowed to come home.

Every single day afterward, mythical wife and I would go to the hospital twice a day to spend some time with our child.  Except for those first few days, I didn’t go, because I had come down with a pretty nasty cough, and given the situation that was rapidly spreading across the globe, understandably, there were some major red flags about an Asian guy having a cough, especially not just at a hospital, but at a NICU.

Fortunately, it was most likely just allergy-related, as like a true genius, I had participated in a double 5K event that involved running two 5Ks in an eight hour span; one at 1 am, and then one at 7 am the following (same) morning; it was daylight-savings themed, and the novelty of it alone made me want to try it.  But in doing so, I had inhaled a metric fuckton of early Georgia spring pollen, and my body was revolting as a result.  However, it cleared up fairly quickly, as the pollen coursed through my system, and I would get to go into the NICU later on.

However, it was on one of those days in which I dropped mythical wife off at the NICU, and came back home to log into work, I have a memory of swinging by the nearby Publix on the way home, and knowing we were low on bottled water, I made a point to pick up some more.  There was a display upon entering for a buy 2, get 1 free, so I figured, why not just get three cases?  With this whole pandemic thing starting to gain momentum, I figured three cases of water between two adults should be sufficient for all this shit to blow over, right?

Funny how perceptions are when you’ve never really lived through a global pandemic in your life.

So here we are, one year later; people with brains larger than a pea, are still wearing masks out in public, if they’re even leaving home in the first place, and coronavirus has officially killed over half a million Americans, and countless many more over the rest of the globe, but pretty much nowhere worse than it was in America.  Several vaccines have finally come to light, but the distribution of them leaves a lot to be desired, considering an entire planet’s population all need it in order to hopefully return to some semblance of normalcy, so in spite of the supposed cure existing, it’s still a slow and still dangerous path to the finish line.

Continue reading “One year later (the not-so good one)” →

There’s a reason why I call it AEWCW

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
I can’t see how far my career has fallen from here…

Although with each passing week, it stands to believe that it could very well be turning into TNAEWCW, based on the questionable decisions the company keeps making in spite of their bold proclamations that they are going to be the anti-WWE, not compete with WWE, and don’t really concern themselves over what WWE is doing.

So Revolution was over the weekend, and although there’s plenty to criticize about what seemed like a pretty wince-worthy show, there’s one thing that stood out the most to me.  And no, it wasn’t the embarrassingly pathetic “explosion” that was supposed to kill Jon Moxley that was set to the same timer that’s in the background of the battle against Emerald Weapon from Final Fantasy VII because Kenny Omega is huge FFVII fanboy, because as far as the actual match itself went, it wasn’t that terrible, and tried its best to harken back to the days of old Masato Tanaka matches in FMW, it’s just the post-match shenanigans were pretty cringe-worthy bad.

Or the face of the revolution ladder match to which the prize at the top of the ladder wasn’t a sack of money, the managerial services of Terri Runnels or a blet, but a giant golden ring that looked like the one that took you to the bonus stages in Sonic the Hedgehog, that was at least won by a guy with actual legitimate talent in Scorpio Sky, who really is one of the shining beacons of the entire promotion.

Leading up to Revolution, there was all sorts of buzz on the scuttlebutt about how AEW was going to reveal this big massive acquisition, and there were all sorts of predictions thrown about.  Some as grandiose as Brock Lesnar, some as wildly unlikely as CM Punk. My personal take was that since the W in AEW stands for Weebs, I figured it would be a Japanese wrestler that few in America had ever heard of, and since the so-called forbidden door is open between AEWeebs and New Japan, maybe it would be an on-loan Kazuchika Okada to threaten Kenny Omega in North America for a change of scenery.

And then there were the less-fun predictions of hardcore marks who actively scour and look for the contract status of active, or recently-retired-not-retired guys or potential free agents, out there like Kurt Angle, Christian, Marty Scurll or Tessa Blanchard.

All the same, AEW had successfully generated some buzz and hype, and even the most lukewarm of fans like me were remotely curious to who it possibly could be.

When it was revealed to be Christian, I literally laughed out loud.  As loud as a dad to a 1-year old in a nearby room could possibly laugh, but an actual, audible sound came from my mouth when I found out that of all the names that were thrown out there, it was a 47-year old WWE mid-carder who’s biggest success in the big leagues came as a metaphorical substitution to an Edge storyline when Edge himself had to call it quits at the time due to neck injury.  A former TNA world champion at a time when that belt was passed around to other “TNA legends” like Bobby Roode, Bubba Ray Dudley and a pre-renaissance Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley.

Continue reading “There’s a reason why I call it AEWCW” →