Month: August 2023

Toyota is determined to call everything a Corolla, it seems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Supposedly in 2027, Toyota will be making an attempt to enter what is new to me, a mini-truck market.  I guess it’s something that’s not even a Tacoma which is already their mid-size truck, and definitely not the full-size Tundra which is their answer to compete with the Ford F-series and Dodge’s lineup of Insurrection-mobiles.  Like I said, I didn’t even know such a market was even in need or demand, but then again the automotive industry is just one giant game of keeping up with the Joneses, so if one maker does it, others will feel the need to get in the game.

Regardless, it appears that Toyota might be calling this to-be-determined mini-truck, a Corolla; the same name as the entry-level econobox that has existed for centuries at this point, as well as the crossover vehicle they just launched a few years ago that they slapped the Corolla name onto as well.  So regardless of the constant name regurgitation, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to stop Toyota from making a Corolla Mini-truck or whatever these, basically El Caminos of the future will be classified as.

All shade aside, I understand Toyota’s rationale for wanting to swindle customers by calling everything they have under the sun a Corolla; historically the Corolla is a solid, safe, reliable and reputable car that there’s a reason has lasted since the dawn of time.  The Hachi-Rokus popularized by Initial D, were basically Corollas, most every kid in my generation and the generation after mine’s first cars were usually Corollas because they were safe, fuel-economical and didn’t quite yet look like the car you get when you’re ready to give up on the rest of your life.

There’s a reason why Lotus borrowed the Corolla engine for their North American Elise models, and there’s a reason why when Toyota got into the crossover game, they immediately slapped the Corolla name tag onto it.

But at the same time, it’s gotten redundant, convoluting, and it’s frankly watering down the Corolla name to basically call everything in the lineup a variant of a Corolla.  Eventually, the name Corolla will be made into a level of trim, or a spin-off brand, like their attempt with Scion, and if Toyota ever gets any bad PR, they’ll probably just rename the whole fuckin company Corolla, since it’s such a name associated with vanilla safety.

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what shakes out of the trees as far as Toyota’s foray into mini-truck production and marketing.  Frankly, if I had the means, I’d rather get a Japanese kei-car, if I wanted the compact utility of what the Corolla Truck looks like it’ll provide.  It would probably be cheaper even with VAT and import fees, come with less of the fluff and bullshit, and actually serve a purpose, but most importantly, because it wouldn’t be called a Corolla, it would imply that I have yet to give up on my life just yet.

Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about an absolutely brutal week as far as fandoms, nostalgia and symbols of millennial childhood go.  Wrestling fans had to endure the passing of a legend, and a sudden departure of a star that wasn’t anywhere near the heights he was destined for, but then fans of the same television I grew up watching had to bear witness as a legend passed, and an icon that defined basically an entire television series.

I don’t particularly have a ton to say about Bob Barker or Arleen Sorkin, at least nothing new from one of the many countless tributes on the internet there are for either of them, but it hit me enough in the feels when both of them left us to where I still feel like at the very least, documenting it in my own brog to try and emphasize at the very least, my appreciation for them and what they did.

Obviously, at 99 years of age, it’s easy to say that Bob Barker did not leave us to soon, and he most definitely lived a full and successful life and career.  Cue the bittersweet jokes about how if anyone was going to ace the big wheel game of getting as close to 100 without going over, it’s Bob Barker.

But like many, the OG Price Is Right was the show that we all watched when we were home sick from school, or over summer vacations, because at least where I grew up, it was always on at 11 am, obviously not a time in which we could watch it at school.  But Bob Barker’s talent was so effortlessly immense that it didn’t matter if you were nine years old, 29 years old, 59 years old or 79 years old, his delivery, his smooth on-screen charisma and charm made him watchable, made him entertaining and made the show the legendary program it was, all because of him.

I always enjoyed watching the show, playing along with the showcase, screaming at the television when contestants didn’t ever seem to realize that the items on the show were always marked up 5000% and undershot their estimates, and of course loved Plinko.

Drew Carey’s variant of the show is garbage in comparison, and as far as I’m concerned, the show ended when Bob Barker retired.  There was once an incident where a contestant hit the nail on the head in the final showdown at the end of the show, and Drew Carey immediately deadpanned him and killed the episode, because he thought that the guy must have been cheating; most everyone was quick to point out that if that had happened under Bob Barker’s watch, he would have sold it like the greatest achievement of mankind, and made it into a memorable event. 

There are just some things that can never be replaced, and Bob Barker is most definitely one of them.  The show is better off discontinuing, than to let Drew Carey sink the prestige and equity that Bob built with his legendary run.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Bob and Arleen” →

God Bless Rednecks, Sometimes part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Nope, the following picture is not a photoshop or a sports meme gone awry.  General Booty’s legal name is actually, General Booty.  There is a man living in the United States who’s birth certificate is legitimately General Booty.  General Axel Booty, and not an actual military rank.

I really hope this becomes more of a thing in coming years, because fewer things are more smugly amusing than hearing about rednecks from Texas who have ridiculous names like General Booty or Bumper Pool, whom to their credit of overcoming the criticism that silly names tend to degrade at, manage to get good enough at football to where they can actually try to make a future out of it.

Because I was quite tickled pink six years ago when I found out about Bumper Pool, and I’m quite amused to find out that there’s an actual possible starting quarterback for fucking Oklahoma, named General Booty.  I mean we’re talking about possibly being a successor to guys like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Spencer Rattler.  General Booty has the opportunity to get his name into the annals of Oklahoma football, and not just because his name is General Booty, although I think he’s already on his way there, regardless of if he ends up as QB1, 2 or even 3.

Regardless of his chances, let’s just do a little mini-dive into this guy named General Booty, and how the hell he came to fruition:

To no surprise, his father is a former player himself, having played at LSU as a wide receiver.  I say no surprise, because it’s the meathead jock type like a guy who played at LSU whom would be so fixated on the military rank of General to where he vowed to name his son by a rank should he have one, and by god did he ever, and therefore we have a legitimate person named General Booty.

Aside from his dumbass dad, it turns out that General Booty is actually related to former USC quarterback John David Booty, who actually made it to the NFL, even if he didn’t last that long in the show, but it goes to show that there’s clearly football in the genetics of the ol’ Booty lineage.

If I’m a betting man, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be QB1 for the Sooners, seeing as how fifth-year senior Dillon Gabriel seems to be the more likely candidate to start, but stranger things have happened in sport.  I imagine that with the awareness of General Booty spreads, he’ll have a Brian Scalabrine-like cult following in the world of sports fandom, and any time he steps onto the field, people will be snickering and chuckling over his name, and by proxy, probably cheer everything he does, just so that they can talk about and spread the word about a guy named General Booty.

A e-tale of two extremes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I got two emails today; one from New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s shop, and then not long afterward, one from the WWEShop, since I’m a big wrestling mark nerd who has shopped with both companies to where regardless of the checkbox I decline to receive emails, they send me shit anyway.  Normally, I delete them all with light prejudice since I never asked to receive them in the first place, but today I opened both of them, because they smartly put in the subject line, shit about my favorite thing in the world: blets.

In one corner, we have NJPW’s shop advertising the pre-sale of the undisputed NJPW World championship that I’ve made no secret to not being a fan of the design of.  But at an insignificant, paltry $3,500 (three thousand, five hundred dollars), you could be one of probably 1,000 extreme marks to get your hands on an extremely rare, official NJPW replica championship blet.

In all fairness, it is typical impeccable Japanese craftsmanship, and unlike lots of wrestling replica blets that are made from brass or some other cheap shit metal, official NJPW blets are (allegedly) made from actual 24-karat gold, to justify the drink-spitting price tag on them, so in theory, they literally could be purchased as a legitimate investment, should the cost of gold ever spike to Gamestop-like proportions, and an actual owner of one of these bad boys could flip them for some actual profit.

But yeah no, $3,500, I can think of a hundred more constructive or better things to spend that money on, mostly going towards my actual house, a real architectural structure where human beings reside in, instead of a championship blet replica, regardless of how much I love collecting them.  Alternatively, I could get like 7-8 WWE replica blets (at full retail) for that cost, or every single AEW replica blet in one fell swoop, instead of a blet that I don’t like the design of in the first place.

But speaking of WWE replica blets, it brings us to email #2, from the WWEShop.  Because the WWE has caught up to having released almost every single blet in WWF, WWE, WCW and ECW history at some point, as well as having made a legion of bullshit “commemorative” blets for cherry picked former wrestlers, and a confusing array of MLB and SEC athletics tribute blets, it should come as no surprise that the WWE has finally gotten in bed with the NFL, seeing as how there’s a considerable amount of overlap between fans of both companies.

For what will probably be a low-cost (in comparison to NJPW) of $499 per blet, NFL fans can get official WWE replica blets of their favorite team, regardless of if they’re the Kansas City Chiefs or not, seeing as how they’re probably going to embark on a dynasty and win every Super Bowl as long as Patrick Mahomes stays on the squad, but you can get a blet anyway, because if you’re a Redskins Commanders, Lions, Cardinals, Texans or fan of some other hopeless shitty NFL squad, you can get a blet anyway and feel like for two seconds what it feels like to have something that scripted winners get to hold.

UNLESS you’re a Jacksonville Jaguars fan, because in a humorous turn of events, the WWE overlooked for a few minutes that the Jags are also the owners of AEW, and pulled the option from their site, but not before smartasses on the internet made the astute observations first, and of course, got their archive of screencaps and proof of fucking up, because there’s little else the internet loves to do than call out failure.

Either way, I’m broke as fuck, so there’s no chance in hell I’m getting any of these new blets anyway.  I only like blets that actually exist or have existed, and my general cap for any blets is preferred to stick under $500 a pop.  But all the same, I do think it was amusing that both of these drops happened on the same day, and not without its own malaise by the ol’ E for forgetting that one of the NFL teams also reinforces their number one North American competitor’s bankroll.

Dad Brog (#119): Sometimes I’d rather not know

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For quite some time, I’ve usually been that type of guy that just never goes to the doctor, unless something is actively wrong.  Never did any annual checkups, physicals or anything other than eye exams or going to urgent care for what always seems like prednisone whenever I go.  I often used to say this stemmed from not wanting to miss out on work on account of the long stretch when I was freelancing and contracting, and when I wasn’t working then I wasn’t earning, but the truth is that even when I had landed full-time work with actual benefits, I still didn’t go then either, even if I were paying for it.

Then I got married, and that didn’t really change, except for the fact that I now had a wife that encouraged me to go, but I still made excuses and dragged my feet and resisted going, because I just didn’t really want to.  I felt fine, I exercised regularly, and I didn’t eat like a shithead too much, so I never felt like it was worth going since I felt fine, strong and healthy.

But then I had children, and I crossed into 40, so I finally relented and made the effort to at the very least, have an annual, just to make sure things were copacetic.  And last year, it was about what I had suspected, I was pretty much fine, with no real concerns.  I had little reason to think it was going to be any different this year, but if that were the case then I wouldn’t be writing this post now, would I?

The TL;DR is that it turns out that I’ve put on a not-insubstantial amount of weight, and my blood pressure is kind of high.  The thing is that despite the weight gain, my clothes all fit the same, save for some tightness in the chests of my shirts, but my pants all still fit, I still use the same rung on my belts, and I don’t really feel any different than I did physically a year ago, or longer.

But I don’t want to be the asshole who gets all “uuhhhhhh muscle weighs more than fat brah” and humble brag that I’ve been hitting the weights, and that my weight gain is solely based on the fact that I’ve been going to the gym with consistency over the last two years, versus the nearly two-year stretch in which I dropped a lot of muscle mass because of COVID affecting my ability to hit a gym.  Of course, I did hit my share of lazy stretches where my household eats a bunch of fast food or dines out/takes out more than we really should, but I do like to believe that some of my weight gain really is having put on some muscle mass back on over the last year.

The bigger thing though, is the blood pressure reading, that was high enough to where the tech and my doctor wanted to point it out as being high.  My knee-jerk reaction was to ask just how much correlation there is between BP and stress, to which the answer was a high one, and I feel like I already know why I’m having elevated blood pressure.

Continue reading “Dad Brog (#119): Sometimes I’d rather not know” →

Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Talk about a brutal week for the wrestling business; losing a genuine icon, legend and forefather of the industry on one day, and then losing one of the most captivating and yet to be fully untapped stars of today, very much in the category of having gone way too soon, in Windham Rotunda, whom most people know primarily as Bray Wyatt.

I’m very deliberate in using his real name over Bray Wyatt, because with no disrespect to the the departed, I can’t say that I was really ever that big of a fan of Bray Wyatt.  The whole supernatural character is something that I’m clearly not in the right demographic to really be a fan of.  And as much as I did like the originality and intrigue he brought to the table earlier in his run as Bray Wyatt, I do think his whole character evolution went from weird to progressively weirder and more bizarre, and not in good ways either.

I loved the whole creepy southern gothic cult leader of the original Bray Wyatt persona, but then that it literally killed by Randy Orton in storyline.  The eventual return of the split personality, super-positive and cheerful Bray Wyatt compared to the emergence of the demonic Fiend started off well enough in my opinion, but when he started up with brainwashing Alexa Bliss and being basically unkillable against Seth Rollins but then getting squashed by fucking Goldberg, I was kind of losing my shine to the character as a whole.  Ironically, this too was killed by Randy Orton in storyline.

Which brings us to his final incarnation and last stint with the company, kind of this strange amalgamation of Bray Wyatt who is kind of good, but kind of dark, with the Field still lurking around, but then the introduction of Uncle Howdy, and I’m just kind of like wtf is all this bullshit now.  At this point, I was no longer a fan of the Bray Wyatt universe, and I likened him to being like, Randy Orton, as in a guy whom with once you get tangled up with in storyline, you’re stuck with it for like 3-5 months of having to play scared patron to a haunted house, and barely a professional wrestler anymore.

It was actually during his feud with LA Knight, that I realized that I was starting to become impressed with LA Knight, seeing as how his whole tenure prior, ol’ Eli Drake wasn’t impressing me at all, but while feuding with Bray Wyatt, I found LA Knight to be a shining beacon of charisma and promo school, and even though he was getting his ass kicked and having creepy shit thrown at his character for three months, he was absolutely killing it on the mic, and even though he lost the feud, he clearly won over a lot of fans, seeing as how over he is with the WWE Universe currently.

I just felt that Bray Wyatt was a character that was clearly not geared for people my old age, and is clearly meant to capture the imaginations of those who are in “the demos” that the professional wrestling industry tries their hardest to cater to, children, and the vaunted 18-35 male range.  Aside from such, I just felt that a supernatural character is among the hardest characters to write and book for, especially when you exist in a universe with MMA converts, European wrestling purists and a Samoan dynasty running roughshod through the rest of the company.

Continue reading “Happy Trails, Windham Rotunda” →

Car Week: Hybrids that camp EV spots are dicks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The parking garage in my office has six EV spots.  There’s a sign on the zone that states that those who park in them are limited to four hours of charging at a time, but the thing is that there’s no enforcement of it whatsoever, so basically it amounts to rockstar parking for those who are fortunate enough to get to the building early enough to be able to camp one.

The thing is, it’s low-key become assigned parking for the same cars on a daily basis, and it’s become very clear on whom has what days as remote days, because they’re not in, but someone else is.  I’ve only gotten to park in one of them maybe like three times, and on two of those times, I strategically went outside during lunchtime to see if anyone had left and immediately moved my car to get one, but for the most part, it’s the same group of cars that camp them, not because they actually need them, but because they’re close parking spots in the grand spectrum of the property.

On most days, there are three Teslas who appear to arrive early enough to where they always park in the same spots.  Then there’s this one Nissan Leaf who reminds me of when Gilfoyle got that weird electric motor scooter so he could fuck with Dinesh when he got his Tesla, because they always camp the fourth spot.  The fifth spot is usually occupied by an Audi Q4 e-tron on most days, but some other Nissan Leaf on the days when Audi person must be remote.

But it’s the sixth spot that is the impetus to this post, because it’s there just about every single day, but it’s a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid (a minivan).  Obviously meaning it is powered by both electric and petrol, and doesn’t necessarily need to be plugged in order for it to survive the next time the driver hops in.

Honestly, the first time I saw it, I didn’t know that it was a hybrid and I figured it was some idiot driver who didn’t realize the spots were EV spots, but then as I walk past it, I see that the power cable is plugged into it.  But then I see that it’s a hybrid, and I’m like wtf?  That’s how I knew this was a behavior I found unappealing, because it didn’t concern me whatsoever considering how little I actually drive the Tesla into work, but it still annoyed me.

Seriously though, I just feel like this is a dick move for the hybrid car to camp the EV spot, just because it’s capable of using it.  When I got my Tesla, prior to getting the charger installed at my home, I actually needed the spot at work to keep my car charged, and even that wasn’t enough.  I still had to go find superchargers to keep it topped off until we had our home charger installed.

Frankly, ever since getting the home charger installed, I’m seldom in a position where I even need public charging.  I also imagine most of the people who have their own EVs probably have chargers at home, because the chargers at work are like, 2 kW, and even in an eight hour charge session, I’m lucky to get like 30% of battery life from it.

Honestly, it’s not just the hybrid that’s being a dick about using the EV spots, it’s basically everyone else who camps them on a daily basis as personal parking who are all being dicks.  I’m pretty sure the EV spots were really designed to be in-a-pinch charging options for people who actually need to use them to charge, and not peoples’ private assigned parking spots.  This isn’t just applicable to my office’s parking garage, but everywhere where there’s EV parking.  Especially shopping centers where they have a handful EV spots as literally the first spots closest to the business, even ahead of handicapped spaces.

In conclusion, EV drivers are dicks.  Yep, we’re all dicks.  DICKS