Month: June 2023

Oh, to be 39 again

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I had no idea this was even a thing: South Korea to abandon their own age-counting systems and standardize to the rest of the world

In all fairness, it sounds like most of Korea was already in line with the rest of the world, but it’s funny to think that there are segments of the culture that still used the antiquated counting systems of olden times, and are retroactively going back in age 1-2 years. 

I had no idea these alternate ideologies of counting age even existed in Korea or anywhere else, but the whole idea of gaining a year solely for the sake of hitting January 1 for the first time in their life is pretty hilarious.  By that logic, since my sister has a December birthday, she’d have been two years old after like days of existence outside of the womb.

Obviously, it’s very easy to see why the country is abandoning it across the board now, because it really does seem absurd in those select cases.  But it’s still funny to imagine the reality that around the country, there are legitimately people who are being able to proclaim that they’re suddenly up to two years younger.

I imagine most of those people are probably of older generations and higher ages, but it’s funny to imagine that if it were still in play for some of the younger demographics, and the repercussions of being rewound.  Like being 19 and able to drink, to suddenly being corrected back to 17 and you’re now a minor and can’t legally drink anymore.

But the more impactful scenario are the men who are in the 28-29 age range and have been avoiding enlisting for their mandatory two years of military service.  People can now postpone 1-2 more years and maybe dodgers who are 30 and 31 and did some jail time for it, are suddenly back to being 28-29 and eligible to enlist, would they receive any sort of pardon or reparation?

K-Pop stars and athletes and eSports stars are suddenly younger out of the blue, and in great examples of mind over matter, the former prodigies that are now “old” at 17 are suddenly 15 again, and are considered high-ceiling prospects, but unable to recapture the talent of their pre-teen ages, because they’ve already mentally resigned themselves to being old.

And then there’s me, oh how I’d love to be able to proclaim being two years younger, just to be able to say that I’m not in my 40s again.  But then again, I wouldn’t be able to make the same age jokes between mythical wife and myself, and I’d have to go through the torment and turmoil of coming to grips that I’m entering my 40s for the second time now.  I may even cross the line of definition between an elder millennial and a plain regular pleeb one, depending on interpretation.

But at least for a year and change, I could say that I was back in my 30s, and although it wouldn’t change anything really for me, it’d be nice to know that I had successfully and legitimately turned the clock back.  Might make for interesting brog content potentially.

Let’s talk about Black Mirror S6

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve been taking a break from doing deliveries and using the time to completely unwind and watch television in my evenings, catching up on several shows that have been on my endless notepad document list of things I want to watch.  Where with every series that I catch up on, three more are added to the list, and it’ll probably never come close to being finished.

Regardless, I’m of the type that doesn’t really like to bounce around too much, and once I get locked into a specific series, I pretty much spend every available minute watching that series if I can help it.  I’m currently going through Better Call Saul (fantastic show, btw), but when I got wind that Black Mirror was going to be dropping season 6 soon, I knew that they were going to be an exception that got to jump the queue and interrupt my nightly binges of Saul Goodman.

The good part about seasons of Black Mirror is that they’re short, so there’s not a tremendous time commitment that needs to go to them.  It’s easy to finish a season in a week, over a binge-y weekend, or for those who have little else in terms of responsibilities, in a night if you’re ambitious.

The bad part about seasons of Black Mirror is that they’re short, and if you’re really enjoying all of the stories, it’s over in the blink of an eye, and just like that you’re back to the same place you were last week; in a world where there’s no upcoming new season of Black Mirror and wondering when it is until the next one.

At five episodes in total, it’s up to quality to determine how good of a season S6 was going to be, and when it comes to Black Mirror, I typically judge them on a three-part criteria, where the overall grade is mostly determined on the aggregate.  I judge each episode on: technology, writing and artistry, where the best episodes excel at all of them, where other episodes throughout the series have been up and down in some but not all.

So with all that in mind, let’s talk about Black Mirror S6, and there will probably be spoilers in this diatribe so be warned for all zero people who read my shit.

Continue reading “Let’s talk about Black Mirror S6” →

Home Groanership

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Good news/bad news: the bad news is that pretty much my #1 worst nightmare involving my property happened; a tree fell over during a seemingly spontaneous storm with very forceful rain and wind for like an hour.

The good news is that it was not one of the trees in the back of my property that I always fear will fall onto one of my girls’ bedrooms and hurt them.  It was a tree in my front yard, and it fell in a pretty precise manner in which nobody was hurt, it did not hit my home, and it did not hit my neighbor’s home either.

The point remains however, a tree fell down on my property, and I didn’t really know what the fuck to do.  It’s not exactly something that I ever anticipated would happen, but then again I did have suspicions that this particular tree wasn’t optimally healthy based on the fact that mushrooms were growing out of one side of it.  But it was still sprouting leaves and growing branches, so I didn’t suspect that it was really dying beyond survival through a storm.

I did remain calm and rational and figured out what my next steps would be, but I also went ahead and threw out a query to my community’s Facebook page to see if anyone could recommend a tree removal service that didn’t have a completely booty experience.  One of my neighbors chimed in and stated that because the tree had already fallen, it shouldn’t be difficult for him to break it down, and he volunteered to assist.  And seeing as how raising children stretches my finances into frequent discomfort, this type of assistance was extremely welcome.

My priority was that I wanted to clear as much of the tree off of my neighbor’s property as soon as possible.  I know that legally, even though the tree originated on my property, most states’ laws say that the owner of the property where it lands is still the one liable for it’s removal.  Sure, it would be easy to shirk the responsibility but such truths don’t sit well with me, and the last thing I ever want would be to have beef with my next door neighbor, with whom we have a normal, neighborly, friendly relationship with.

But after putting the girls down for the night, I could already hear that work had already begun on the tree, and by the time I came outside to get to work myself, several of my neighbors were already hard at work, and moving branches and cutting down the trunk, and nearly halfway through with breaking it down.  Needless to say, I was quite floored by the immense generosity of time, labor and camaraderie spared by my neighbors, and it’s hard to put in words just how grateful I am for the help.

I’d say it took maybe another 90 minutes before we wrapped up, with not a single scrap of fallen tree left where it had dropped in sight, with only a smattering of wood chips and a jagged stump to indicate that the tree was even there in the first place.

I really need to make sure to compensate my neighbors with some form of food, treats or drinks, because I can’t even fathom just how incredible they were in assisting getting this tree off the property.  I’ve lived in so many places where everyone is just so insulated and keeps to themselves that I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to have neighbors who care and are willing to help out and it makes me want to be a better neighbor and pay forward the generosity of effort to those whom might need it in the future.

However, as positive as the tree issue is, it’s unfortunately not the only thing to have happened, to warrant the snarky post title of home groanership.

Apparently, I’m having some plumbing issues in my home, to the effect of realizing that there’s a leak in one of the ceilings of my lower level.  It doesn’t take a physics genius to realize the correlation between when the dripping began with the bathroom right above it, and what we’ve got is a scenario of a mystery leak that’s most likely hidden behind the walls and will require some cutting into drywall to identify.

Continue reading “Home Groanership” →

Dad Brog (#115): Father’s Day 2023

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As many should know about me, when I say I’m going to do something, it’s a safe bet that I’m probably going to stick with it.  I’m not bragging about it, it’s just who I am.  I don’t commit to a lot of things in the first place, so when I do commit to something, it should be expected that I will follow through with it.

That being said, last year was year one of my Father’s Day gift to myself, which is truly the only thing that I genuinely want on a year basis, which is a picture with my daughters with their tag team championship blets, with me with one of my numerous blets from my collection 25 blets deep.  I genuinely could keep this going for 23 moar years even if I didn’t get any more blets, which is a fat chance, because all promotions eventually redesign and there will always be title reigns that inspire me to want them, but the fact of the matter is that it is also genuinely my life’s mission to have this photo, every year, with my girls, for the rest of my life.

So here we have it, year two of dada and his daughters with our respective blets.  I’m not sure what really made me pick the IWGP United States championship as my blet of choice this year, but it seemed to work out, because Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay tore the roof off of the arena in Toronto, and I just love how gaudy and red it is, and I was just feeling it for this year.

But more importantly is just how big my girls have gotten over the last 12 months since the last photo was taken, and #2 is rapidly catching up in height to her big sister.

Full disclosure, this was still a composite photograph, cobbled together from three separate photographs, because it’s nigh impossible to expect to get a perfect picture of both my girls posing with their blets and expect to have me in the photo as well, and I wonder how many years it’s going to take before I’m able to do this in one fell swoop where all three of us are in position at the same time.

Regardless, much like last year, and much like all future iterations will probably do, this photo makes me extremely happy.  No matter how hard life gets, parenting gets, and how much emotional turmoil I go through every now and then, these photos calm me and brings me back, and I think about just how happy I will be in the future when I’ll have enough of them to make collages and scrap book them, and maybe become internet famous for five seconds when the Buzzfeed of 2045 gets wind of my timelapse and wants to use me for clickbait.

And because I’m neurotic, I’m going to make sure to make this post always drop on June 25th of every year, regardless of when Father’s Day actually is, because I started it last year on June 25th, so it’s forever going to be the dada and daughters blet day from here on out.

Dad Brog (#114): Of course she picked the J’s

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Welp, this post didn’t age well: a long time ago, apparently back in 2017, I made a post questioning the existence of Air Jordan shoes, for toddlers.  Like, Air Jordans were developed to be Michael Jordan’s signature line of athletic shoes for when he was in the act of playing basketball, but almost instantly they became anything but athletic shoes to anyone other than MJ or any other basketball players who wanted to be like Mike or were also under contract to Nike.

They became status symbols, reasons why people were killed, eventually becoming acceptable as formal wear and/or a stylish option that could be paired with just about anything at all and be met with an approving nod.  Eventually J’s would be released for women, and much like it was back in like 1988, Jordans were about as popular as they’ve ever been, if not more than they were when they burst onto the scene.

And then I saw a kid that could barely walk, rocking some MJ 12s, and was like wtf, why does a toddler need J’s???

But this was six years ago, and now I have a three-year old enrolled in a hip-hop dance class for the next season of her dance school’s year.  No tap shoes or ballet shoes for this class, it’s about sneakers.  Now I’m probably a little bit more of a sneakerhead than mythical wife is, but she knows that J’s are still the cream of the crop when it comes to stylish sneakers, so naturally she trolls the shit out of my by deliberately steering my daughter into wanting some J’s of her own.

And as much as I didn’t want to plunk down the $60 for a pair of shoes that most likely won’t even be able to fit her by the end of the dance year, the idea of my own kid rocking her own J’s wasn’t entirely undesirable.  Naturally, when Nike opened their Disney vault and basically made every iteration of Air Jordans available and customizable to the Nth degree, the 9-year old in me that loved MJ 1’s got my own pair, and in spite of the price tag, I like the idea of my kid having a pair of her own 1’s, regardless of how absurd it is that there are J’s for toddlers in the first place.

So here we have it, it took some steering from the wife, but the seed was planted in #1’s head, and she picked out the MJ 1’s out of several options that she also picked, and through process of elimination, naturally landed on the J’s as her pick for hip-hop class.

$60 poorer, but at least I’ll have pride of having some matching kicks with my kid, doubly when she outgrows them, and bequeaths them to #2 to where they’ll get a second life.  And if I can take care of them well enough, maybe I’ll sit on them to where I can flip them on like StockX in the future for its original investment in like 15 years.

Straight up Nazis

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, I gave blood.  Little did I realize that the bloodmobile I was giving blood at, was like a block away from where there was a straight up Nazi demonstration in front of a synagogue.

Like, I don’t really have much reason to posted about this at all, other than to condemn and hope that some very internet-ty consequences come to those straight up Nazis who participated in this demonstration.  I guess there’s a proximity thing that makes me feel like I dodged some sort of metaphorical bullet that makes me feel like addressing it.

But really, straight up Nazis.  I firmly believe that there are tons of actual racists and antisemites, but most of these bigots are smart enough to know to keep their bigotry on the downlow, so that they can, exist in modern civilized society, and not be ostracized for their misguided hatred.

However, what we had here, was an actual group of people, who were unapologetically, full disclosure, no attempt to hide their identity, straight up Nazis.  I’m actually a little bit surprised at it, because even the oft-criticized American public school curriculum teaches us that Nazis are some bad people.

And yet, we have a group of people who are completely at peace with their choice to be sympathizers and willing agitators of such extreme hatred, and I’m just kind of like wow.

Also, there’s an easy connection to make with where this happened and the old controversy of Wolfenstein Elementary AKA East Side Elementary and their once, a-little-too-much-like-the-Nazi-eagle logo, but from what I understand this group is like a traveling group of Nazis that just kind of go around to harass synagogues with their surprising Nazism.

Either way, like I said, I don’t really know why I felt the compulsion to write about this.  I guess it was so flagrant and surprisingly shock value, that I just felt like I should share my two cents about the topic.  Obviously there’s something to be said about even acknowledging it at all which isn’t really helping the greater good, but like I said, with all the open identities there, I hope these shitheads are spread out, identified, and get doxed or lose some jobs, because people like this have no business being able to coexist among more civilized people in this country.