Month: April 2024

#TRYHARDSZN2024: I wonder what question he got wrong on his SATs?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Four countries: Vietnamese student has been admitted to numerous schools spanning four different countries, including “several in the U.S.”

Instead of flexing a large number of acceptances like American #TRYHARDs do, this Vietnamese #TRYHARD has gotten into the habit of flexing the number of countries in which he’s gotten acceptances from; I have to say that that’s kind of the level of overachieving that can only be done by an Asian person.

The article cites that he’s gotten acceptances from schools in the U.S., Canada, England, as well as his residence in Singapore; off the top of my head, I’m inclined to think that this cream of his crop is probably the acceptance into Cambridge, because the article doesn’t mention that he got into any of the Ivy Leagues, which is typically the dream goal of any Asian #TRYHARD.

In fact, the only American school that was mentioned in this particular article was none other than Georgia Tech, to which I know I clown on because of ACC sport rivalry, is still a great school in general, but especially for computer science, which this particular #TRYHARD seems to have an endless hard-on for.

But the thing is, if Georgia Tech is the only American school that was mentioned here, I’m inclined to believe that the rest of the “several” U.S. schools in which he gained admittance into probably aren’t going to be any higher tier than GT.

I get that computer science appears to be his jam, passion and at the core of whatever he does with his career, but when it comes to college, perception is still reality, and when he finishes school and gets out into the real world, I feel like recruiters and employers are going to be more likely to stop and hesitate to take a glance at a candidate with Cambridge on his resume over a fairly niche school like Georgia Tech.

Either way, I have to say that I was quite tickled at the fact that this one kid got a 1590/1600 on his SATs; which means he missed one question on the entire exam, that prevented him from getting that perfect score that would definitely have gotten him noticed by pretty much every school he applied to.  His dad probably is full of disappointment, and at this point, he probably feels like it’s worse to get 1590 and fall just short of perfection, than to have gotten like a 1310 like I did, and just be slightly above average in terms of scoring.

To think, it’s probably that one question that separated his one kid from the Ivy Leagues and Georgia Tech.

One of those my age is catching up with me moments

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I participated in this hot chicken tenders eating contest, because it was hosted by Willy’s, basically my favorite eatery in the entire city of Atlanta metropolitan area.  This is the same company in which I became the self-proclaimed Burrito King™ of Atlanta when I won a promotion they had where I had to visit and make a transaction at all 28 Willy’s locations within a 30-day span which I accomplished in four.

Well, the Willy who created my favorite burrito joint got into hot chicken, and has been slowly expanding his restaurant portfolio into the hot chicken game, opening a location of one of his new ventures not terribly far from where I am.  And then I saw that there would be a hot chicken tender eating contest, and I thought to myself, no better way to flex on the small world of Willy’s than to go and win another contest.

After all, being Korean gives me a natural +10 in spicy food tolerance, and what the fuck do white people know about spicy food anyway, so I figured it would be a layup to roll in, crush three hot chicken tenders in the span of six minutes and walk away with a little bit of swag.  Honestly, the photo on their wall of winners was probably the most important prize of all, because when it comes to fat guy accolades, showing my superiority at spice tolerance is something that I wouldn’t mind flexing on all the pleebs who can’t handle heat.

Anyway, I came, went and saw, and much like I knew I could, crushed the three hot chicken tenders in six minutes and walked away a winner.  This wasn’t a contest where there was a last man standing, but basically series of waves, where 10 people take the challenge on at a time.  Six people bounced in the first wave, and I was a part of the second wave where another five people dropped out from the heat.  I didn’t stick around for the third wave, because I had already proven my point.

Howlin’ Willy’s hot chicken was definitely among the higher tiers of spicy I’ve ever had in my life, but I will maintain that it was still not the spiciest thing I’d ever eaten either; that distinction goes to some nuclear pork I had in Seoul, where mythical then-gf and I had to tap and waste the food, and the retribution was fairly immediate.  But as for Willy’s, I definitely felt the heat through the challenge, but I was able to make it through without much difficulty.  The heat was slow acting, but after it burns, it burns off quickly, and before I left the shopping center, I was already back to feeling fine.

That is until the remainder of the day progressed, and I started to get hit with what I’m guessing was the mother of heartburn.  I don’t really know, because I really didn’t know what heartburn was supposed to feel like.  It wasn’t like indigestion pain, but just this really dull ache in my stomach that made me want to stop whatever it was I was doing, and just put myself into a position where I could apply pressure to my gut or be in a folded position where the pressure would alleviate.

Effectively, the rest of my day was ruined, because I couldn’t really get comfortable, and it impacted my ability to be present with my kids and physically competent to operate at a normal level.  I crushed a bunch of Tums hoping it would help, and I don’t think it really did.  After the kids were down, I ran to the store to get some Pepto, since the thought of something coating my insides was an appealing one, and by the time I went to bed, I probably downed a quarter of the bottle.

I’d never felt more relieved when the indigestion did hit, because it was finally giving my body the opportunity to purge the hot chicken from my body and not to get too graphic but boy did it feel as hot evacuating the body as it did burning my mouth earlier in the day.

Fortunately, a night’s sleep seemed to cure what ailed me, but before going to bed, I expressed that I felt a lot of regret for participating in a fairly meaningless contest, even if it was held by Willy’s.  The prizes were minimal, but the punishment I put onto my 40+ year old body was pretty vicious.

At first, I was just wondering if this was just my body reacting to ghost pepper, something I don’t really think I’d ever had before.  But the reality is more likely that this was a stark reminder of how I’m not the 25-year old that could eat whatever I wanted and shrug it off within hours.  Lesson learned that this was a situation where I could’ve been smarter and erred on the side of not punishing my body for a pretty useless reason.  Even for Willy’s, no matter how much of a fan I am of the brand.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Tryharding out of boredom

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: St. Louis #TRYHARD accepted into 40 different schools

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is probably one of the weaker #TRYHARDs of the season, since of all this one’s 40 acceptances, there are no notables named, and from the cherry-picked humblebrag screen shots of her holding acceptances, none of the schools that I can see are particularly anything to ring home about.

Plus, no academic merits were listed anywhere in the article, which means that this kid didn’t have a brag-worthy SAT score, ACT score, GPA, AP class regimen or already begun amassing college credits.  But hey, she can wrestle and is a part of the step team!

Naturally the weakness of a #TRYHARD usually resorts to the cumulative amount of scholarship dollars they’ve been offered, and in this case, this #TRYHARD has amassed over $1M in offers but lest we forget that it doesn’t work that way and $1M does not go to the school of choice.

What really sets me off about this particular #TRYHARD is the seemingly flippant attitude demonstrated when it came to the college application process, to which anyone who’s ever done one knows, is a colossal pain in the ass where you might excited and optimistic when you start, but by the time you’re getting to the end, you’re over it and glad to just be done with it.  And to repeat that process more than 3-4 times, to the magnitude of 40+?  Yeah fuck that.

But for this #TRYHARD, applying to colleges is something that she seemingly did, out of boredom:

I would just be sitting in my room applying, just as I am with scholarships right now. When I’m bored, I’m just applying. When I’m not bored, I’m just applying,” the 18-year-old said.

For starters, I’m guessing there’s some amended process available to them, otherwise I don’t think they’re filling out 40+ college applications.  Either that, or they’re copy/pasting their personal essays, if they’re required to write one, and I’m sure colleges are as thrilled to be reading someone’s copy/paste as much as the kids are thrilled to have to write them in the first place.

But it’s the attitude of someone applying out of boredom that kind of irks me; now I didn’t finish college in the traditional sense, but I still know that there’s a lot of power in the degree, and I know the value of a strong education.  It make me feel annoyed that there are people who apply for schools out of boredom, and I’ve touched on this before, because if and when they are accepted, they’re effectively blocking someone else from getting the spot, and forcing people to be put on waitlists until #TRYHARDSZN winds down, people make their choices, and the scraps of slots are re-opened up to people who have had to wait.

Fortunately in the case of this #TRYHARD, it doesn’t seem like a lot of necessarily prestigious schools are being clogged up by her.  Based on her aspirations and what I can tell are some of her acceptances, there was a fairly mid-tier ceiling to all of her boredom applications.

Considering her top pick is Alabama State, I’m guessing they’re one of the schools that probably offered a full-ride, and there’s nothing wrong with phishing for that because school is an expensive endeavor, but I’m also allowed to opine that as #TRYHARD as applying to 40+ schools is, settling on a school like Alabama State might be reaching for some low-hanging fruit.

Sure would be nice if the Braves had Trevor Bauer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So the Braves’ best pitcher, Spencer Strider is probably toast for the year, and some of next year; UCL damage is usually the precursor to Tommy John surgery, and even if there’s no actual tear that all but necessitates it, it’s almost worse to be on the lookout, because in so many cases, they burn time trying to rest and rehab it, and then when they try and pitch with it months later and then get the tear, prompting the TJS, they’ve burned an extra few months in which the surgery and rehab process might already have begun.

Furthermore, the Braves’ second-best pitcher, Max Fried has started the season acting like he’s not in his contract year, with his piddly five innings pitched in two starts, allowing 11 runs and with an ERA of 18.00.  Surely it will have to get better as the season wears on, but his start isn’t inspiring confidence at the moment, and if not for the two “old guys” in Charlie Morton and Chris Sale, as well as their potent offense, the Braves most definitely wouldn’t be over .500 at this early juncture in the season.

That being said, I’m writing this a day removed from the Braves having gotten absolutely nuked by the Mets, 16-4.  In the absence of Spencer Strider, the Braves have already dipped into the minor leagues, calling up Allan Winans to start, and he did not perform very well, allowing six of the Mets’ aforementioned 16 runs, and was promptly sent back down to the minor leagues afterward.

And that’s just what the Braves do, and will continue to do throughout the season; rely on young, mostly untested talent, like Allan Winans and AJ Smith-Shawver or guys who benefited greatly from the Braves’ offensive output to mask their general mediocrity like Bryce Elder, none of whom I will feel at all at ease when watching at this state of their respective careers.

All, while Trevor Bauer still is hanging out somewhere in Arizona striking out Eric Sim 58 times a day for YouTube content, or jet-setting down to Mexico to pitch for the Locos Diablos Rojos Tacos or whatever the fuck they’re called, because MLB is colluding to blacklist him from the league because of alleged crimes that multiple active players in the game right now have had an actual history with themselves.

Yes, this is a hill that I’m willing to die on, because I firmly believe that there is no team in league that Trevor Bauer doesn’t make better immediately, and as much as it guaranteed will not happen, I really fucking wish it could be the Braves, who very obviously actually need him, yesterday.

Bauer’s arsenal actually comps very closely to Spencer Strider’s, starting with a big fastball that can hit the upper-90’s, a reliable slider, but also a curveball as well as a cutter.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful that as soon as Strider went down, quite literally pick up a wandering free agent who has almost the exact same arsenal and have him start in his place?  Yeah, that’s what I think too, but Braves gonna Barves, and stay behind the picket lines with their MLB brethren, thinking they’re too high and mighty for Trevor Bauer.

I see arguments on almost a daily basis about Bauer, and I understand there are a lot of fans who are concerned about the rumored other allegations that Bauer has yet to beat, and that they will rear their heads throughout the season, but to those concerns, I say so what?

Bauer has stated that aside from being willing to play for the league minimum, he would accept being cut without argument.  Let him join your roster, win 5-6 games, and if a court date or legal matter emerges in June, then cut him.  Then, dip into the minor leagues or B-squad and cross the bridge when you get there, but let Trevor Bauer be the bridge to get you to that point and let him win baseball games for you.

I don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept for MLB squads to accept, but collusion is collusion because everyone is on board with the idea of blacklisting a currently innocent man, no matter the value and talent he’s capable of providing.  I like to imagine that behind the picket lines, there are numerous general managers sweating over wanting to pick up Trevor Bauer for their squads, but out of fear of breaking solidarity with the collusion, their hands are tied.

I retract what I said about how I believe someone will definitively pick him up, because it really is looking like Colin Kaepernick out there in baseball land, and no matter how clearly needed guys like Kaepernick and Bauer would be needed by many professional sporting clubs, the collusion is for real, and teams would rather suffer and take losses than risk crossing the pickets.

The city’s most baller taco parties for the less fortunate

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s what I’d want to do if I had the manpower, time, cooking acumen, multitasking ability and most importantly, didn’t have to sweat the whole needing to work for a living thing.

I volunteered for a charity event at work, because sometimes I just want to get the fuck out of the office, and honestly I do like doing charity work, so it’s a win-win getting to do something that makes my soul feel a little less droll, but at the same time doing it under the banner of work, so I get out of the office and it makes me look good all the same.

It was for the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s pantry center out in Bumfuck Stone Mountain, South Carolina; admittedly, I didn’t really look much at the details of the event, so firstly I failed to see that it was in Stone Mountain instead of their main offices in West Midtown next to the Fulton County jail, but also since I’d done volunteer work for ACFB before in the past, I also assumed it would’ve been more manual labor of packing boxes or unloading pallets or something of a similar nature.

No, the pantry center is kind of cool, in the sense that it’s set up to look like a tiny grocery store, where needy families can make appointments to come and “shop” for donated food, in the name of preserving their dignity and giving them the opportunity to feel like they’re shopping instead of being handed handouts.  My task during my shift was to keep watch over the freezer area, to make sure people weren’t taking more than they were allowed to, as well as making sure the shelves were well stocked.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to be a hardass on people who needed this kind of service, so if there was the occasional person who grabbed a second package of frozen meat or pouch of lunch meat, I wasn’t going to say anything, and at the end of the shift, we had serve 75 families and donated about 6,000 lbs. of food, so as far as I’m concerned, I like the idea that we’re helping impoverished people as well as preventing a tremendous amount of food waste.

However, while on my shift, I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the food stuffs we had on the shelves on this particular day, man, could we have thrown such a banging taco party if we were to just cook up all of the available food and distribute it to the homeless or give it out to low-income areas where people might be hungry.

Tons of chicken and beef products were in the freezers; at or past their marked expiration dates, but if they were thawed and cooked that day, it wouldn’t be a problem.  There were pallets of taco kits, so all the meat could be seasoned and doled out in crispy corn shells.  Cans of beans, pinto and refried were in massive quantities, and some Whole Foods somewhere donated an endless amount of bags of blue corn tortilla chips.

Needless to say, plenty of ingredients for a baller taco party were on hand, and I was thinking during my shift that if I were like a more ambitious type or something, what I’d want to do is just take all of the meat and taco kids and tortilla chips in the pantry that day, cook up a ridiculous amount of tacos, and be that guy that goes around the city giving away taco meals to homeless people, or title-1 school kids or anyone in the city that is hungry, needs a little food assistance or just wants to get together to share tacos for a greater cause.

It’s definitely one of those ideas that only those with time, manpower and not needing to sweat the need to work for wages could accomplish, but hey, there are worse ideas to ponder about when you’re trying to do something good in the world.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Not Exclusive to America

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Reach for the stars, boy: 12th grader in Hanoi accepted into multiple schools in America, including two of Ivy Leagues

One of the primary differences I noticed about an Asian news outlet reporting a #TRYHARD versus an American one is that they don’t hide the fact that these kids might not be batting 1.000 when it comes to acceptance rates:

received acceptance letters from 11 out of 17 U.S. universities he applied to this admissions season.

So in high-expectation Asian dad logic, boy failed six times, full stop.  Disgrace get out of my house

The only consolation to this colossal failure is that among the schools that he did get accepted into, they were some notable places, like Yale and Cornell, two of the Ivy Leagues, as well as well-known schools like Johns Hopkins and Duke. 

But not Harvard, that was probably one of his six failures.  In fact, all six of those failures were probably the Ivies he didn’t get into.  SMH

The funny thing is that as altruistic as his ambitions are, his resume isn’t nearly as impressive as some other ones I’ve seen this #TRYHARDSZN2024.  Failed to get into six schools, didn’t get a perfect SAT score, 1540/1600, scored a 4 or 5 in all his AP courses, and the kicker, does not have a 4+ GPA.  He’s close, with a 3.95, but this SZN alone we’ve seen numerous kids with like 4.5+ which means this boy is clearly dicking around with his life way too much probably playing League of Legends or watching streamers and not studying instead.

For real though, unlike a lot of these #TRYHARDS this one seems to actually be reaching for the stars and going to Yale, and not necessarily phishing for a free ride somewhere, and going to take what’s going to make the most economic sense, not that there’s anything wrong with that either.

Because unlike a lot of other #TRYHARDS, this one admits that he comes from a privileged family, which answers the question of how he might be able to afford Yale’s alleged $64K yearly tuition which probably doesn’t account for books, boarding, food and discretion.

And that’s the one big divide that separates this #TRYHARD from all others, because this one comes from money, and Vietnam is no America in terms of wealth, but they’re also no Nicaragua either; but that doesn’t stop him from being a #TRYHARD and applying to a boatload of schools that people without as much privilege but not too little and get their application fees waived, cannot afford to.

Dad Brog (#131): Con Pollo es mierda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look at this photograph of Jennifer Lopez and Jimmy Fallon.  They’re laughing at all the parents whom they duped into buying their “collaboration” book, Con Pollo.  Frankly, I don’t know how my household ended up with this book, we’ve inherited a lot of books and mythical wife has a lot of books from school, and we’re often given books as gifts for the girls, because it’s known just how much we read to them.  I just know that I didn’t purchase it, because if I saw anything “authored” by Jimmy Fallon or Jennifer Lopez, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, especially if it was by both of them.

But somehow, this book exists in my home, and all I can think of it is just how much bullshit it is.  It’s 48 pages of a basic journey of a young chicken doing things throughout the day, but it’s more like 24, because it’s this format where query is asked two times, with the second time in Español.  I haven’t taken Spanish since the 9th grade in high school, but even I can recollect the basic words being spouted in this book.

In all fairness, it contains more words than MAMA or DADA or BABY like all of Fallon’s previous, and unfortunate New York Times bestsellers, which means that Jennifer Lopez probably used her IQ points to insert some basic words, in two languages at their most basic forms into this.

And then they slap their names on it and call it a day, and of course, because there are lots of parents who impulse buy because they see celebrity names on it instead of actually checking to see what the substance of the books themselves, this too is a New York Times bestseller.  Which further emphasizes the sheer lack of merit or sales numbers actually necessary to earn that seemingly important designation.

Frankly, it’s crap like this that exemplifies the notion that celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to write books, other than autobiographies.  Most of the time, they’re wholly unqualified to produce content that might actually have some influence on the young budding minds of tomorrow, as demonstrated by Fallon, who clearly roped J-Lo into putting her name on a turd to help fling it off shelves so that some rich fucks can get even richer.

I look forward to the future book audit where this fails to meet the cut, and ends up in the donation pile, so it can rot someone else’s shelves and collections, and be the fuck out of mine.