Month: June 2024

Dad Brog (#135): Frustrating realities of my life sometimes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to going on vacation, I saw a deal for some HexClad cookware while I was at Costco.  As the person who does the vast majority of the cooking in my household, HC stuff has been interesting to me, and I admit that there’s a bit of bait that I bit as far as its immense target marketing that they tend to do, but all the same, I am interested in the product, but the ridiculous price points on their products always kept me away.

But Costco was selling something like a seven-piece set, which would have allowed me to replace my existing pan set, as well as give me a wok, something that I’ve felt might make some of my cooking life easy at times, and it was for a fairly reasonable $379 or around that.  I found the price to be appealing, but seeing as how I was about to go on a vacation with the family, I felt that I should hold off and see how much damage we would do before dropping $400 bones on something that I didn’t technically need.

After the trip, sure, we did some damage and naturally spent more than I would have hoped to have spent, but I still wanted the pans.  If they worked as advertised, I felt that there was a lot of potential to be had, and might make me more enthusiastic about cooking in the future.  I knew that the promotion was going to go until 6/23, so I figured I had a little bit of time to pull the trigger, and the reality is that the biggest challenge about ending a vacation for kids, is the adaptation back to the daily routine, which proved to be a little challenging, seeing as how the kids spent five straight nights in five different beds, watched a ton of television on the iPad on the long car hauls, and were a little bit rowdy once they were expected to fall back to the normal daily routine.

I finally was able to get to Costco, on June 23rd, and lo and behold, the HexClad endcap was gone without a trace, and it turns out that when they said until 6/23, it really meant that 6/22 was the final day in which the deal was live.

I had missed out on something that I had wanted, because I’d put something for me at the back of the line in order to be a parent first, and a member of the team, and prioritize vacation expenses over something for myself.

Another thing that has held my interest for a while now, in light of me always looking for ways to optimize my physical status, is a MaxiClimber cardio machine.  Yes, like the HexClad pans, they do seem a little bit gimmicky, but I like the science behind it.  I’m not swayed by LeBron James, Lady Gaga or any Kardashians that back it, but the science behind the machine is interesting, and it’s definitely I’d love to try before committing to it, but I don’t know of any gyms that have these not to mention I barely like working out among people at my tiny work gym much less seeking one of these out.

I got some targeted ad about how they’re on overstock from the company themselves, and that they’re selling for $149.  I’ve definitely dropped $149+ on things less productive than a piece of exercise equipment, and frankly $149 is probably cheaper than some of the family meals I had to cover while on vacation.  Needless to say, I was very interested in pulling the trigger, but then there was one question that stood in the way: where would I put this thing?

The sunroom, where my treadmill is, is too full of all of my wife’s things to be able to support another piece of equipement, despite it being the most logical place for it to go.  There’s no room in the family room because it’s been completely taken over by the kids’ toys, books and other belongings.  The dining room we don’t use is also overflowing with tons of shit that I wish we could make disappear, and the only place where something like a MaxiClimber could possibly finagle its way into is the garage, except for the fact that it’s the middle of a Georgia summer and every single day is 95F+.

So that means no-go on the MaxiClimber too, because there’s simply no space in my house to support it.

And this is where a lot of my general daily frustrations lie, in the fact that I have basically sacrificed everything, to the point where I can’t seemingly ever get anything for myself, regardless of if it’s attainable or not.

There’s no space in my own fucking house for anything I’d want, I’ve given up my office so that we can have our live-in au pair, but it comes at the expense of having nowhere in my own home for me to shut a door and be completely alone, and all of my personal belongings that bring me happiness are all stored in boxes and crates in the garage or a closet.

I barely have my own car, since it’s the most optimal for child taxi-ing, and much like my house, I’m paying a monthly note on something where I’m apparently the lowest user, and am typically using the third car of the household which is fine in its own right, but it’s still not my car.

And of course, there’s never any time for me to capitalize on things for myself, and I find myself in a position where I always feel like I’m being taken for granted by everyone in my life, and that I’m always last in line.

“But practice self-care,” faceless people on the internet love to preach; let me say something about that, self-care is entitlement, self-care is privilege – self-care if bullshit. People recommending to others to practice self-care probably don’t have young kids, or they simply have more support than I do.

The amount of randomly targeted algorithm content that is spoon fed to me that seem to be made from random burnt-out moms on the internet that I see, I find myself being able to relate to a staggering amount of them.  A lot of frustrations will organically quell as my kids get older, and I don’t have to always worry about them running off, and I’ll feel like I’ll have more freedom to do things with them outside the house, but that involves waiting, and like some random stranger said on the internet, if you’re always waiting for some condition, you’ll just find more future conditions waiting for you when you check off current ones.

I’d like to live more of life now in the present, but as the way things are, such a simple sounding want doesn’t come very easy.  So I guess all I can continue to do is just dream and fantasize of being rich to where I could live out hypothetical realities where I could have things such as time and space for myself every now and then, because those things don’t really exist in my reality, as sad as it sounds.

Zuck may be a tool, but I respect what he’s doing with his physical life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know where or why I was shown it, but I saw a picture of Zuck without a shirt on at some MMA event, and I had a wtf moment at just how jacked the dorky motherfucker now is.  Whenever his name pops up somewhere, my mind automatically fills in the visual of Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of him in The Social Network, but with his doofy looking head with his buggy-looking eyes instead.

But in reality now, we’ve got a pretty athletic looking guy with budding muscle definition and a growing amount of jiu-jitsu training, because from what I understand it’s pretty much the only thing he does when he’s not being a corporate stooge these days.  Zuck is absolutely becoming a problem in that he’s a rich go-zillionaire, but is also developing the physique and the skillset to be able to fight, and that automatically knocks about 85% of the people who hate him for being who is off their pedestals of wishing they could bully him or intimidate him in a real-life fantasy altercation.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly care much for the guy, but I will freely admit that I respect what he’s doing with his body.  Think about all the billionaires and millionaires out there that are fat, soft and doughy, and all shaped like pears.  Because of their wealth, they’ve simply given up on trying at all when it comes to their bodies, because they can just continuously throw money at things until they get a positive result.

But Zuck, it’s like he revolves his day around his working out and BJJ training, and that running theFacebook or Meta or whatever the fuck company is making him infinite money is basically a nuisance of a day job that is interfering with his ability to train.  When he’s not practicing grappling, he’s most definitely got a nutritionist and personal trainers who ensure that his body becomes sculpted and is in optimal shape, and I have to give props that the man is actually investing a little bit of his wealth into his own physical well-being, because there are so many in similar positions to him that absolutely do not.

I mean, it’s exactly what I would do if I were infinitely rich and didn’t have to work anymore.  I’d have both a personal chef as well as a personal trainer to make sure I got adequate exercise with physical goals in mind, as well as being fed healthy food that doesn’t suck or get exhausted with.

And then I’d get hardcore into wood working or restoring cars, and building my Nissan Sil-Eighty because that is still something that I really would like to do in my life, and when I hit the points of progress where I can humblebrag about the things I’m working on, I won’t look like a fat fucking slob that people would look at and overshadow the quality of my work because they’re too busy laughing at me.  I guarantee, that the more jacked and competent that Zuck gets with his training, the less fuel the troglodytes of the internet have to clown on him whenever his name pops up in the future.

Dad Brog (#134): Father’s Day 2024

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#3 of forever

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there are few things that I look forward to every year more than this photograph.  I actually almost took it a month early, because the conditions were ideal, having just gotten a haircut, my lawn just been freshly cut, and the weather wasn’t sweltering yet, but mythical wife kind of poo-poo’d on the idea, and so I felt that I should just hold off until the actual month of Father’s Day. 

But that’s just how much I was looking forward to this particular shoot, that I was on the cusp of doing it nearly seven weeks earlier than I would’ve actually done anything with the photo.

Regardless, when the conditions were right to do it in June, there was no stopping me this time.  I got the blets all out of their storage, took time to deliberate on which blet that I wanted to wear myself because I’m a hipster that loves rando-midcard titles over any traditional World championship blets, and got all my camera equipment prepared for, what the girls have declared, “belt picture day.”

When I said it was time for belt picture day, I was so tickled when #1 quickly grabbed her little bejeweled tiara and magic wand, and was 1000% on board with her accessorizing for the photograph.  #2 still isn’t as gung-ho about it as her sister is, but she also didn’t fight at all when I said it was time to go outside.  Fighting boredom is clearly among the most important of duties I have as a parent in the summertime, and I’m fortunate that they still love the idea of belt picture day.

I almost thought this might be the year in which I could actually do it all in a collective photo, seeing as how they both got into their chairs with their blets, and all I had to do was jump in, but getting them to actually look at the camera, and not at a bird, a squirrel, or the dog taking a dump in front of them was too much to ask for, and despite some funny candids, I did have to resort to shooting them individually and then myself, and putting this together in Photoshop, in post.

But all the same, mission accomplished.  I’m so stoked with how it turned out this year, and much like how I happy I was last year, the following year just gets better, and I’m thrilled to time-lapse these, and see just how big these kids are getting with each successive year.

So until belt picture day in 2025, fare thee well.

Dad Brog (#133): Separation anxiety

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was unloading my car after our trip, I noticed that my Baby On Board placard had fallen off.  Presumably in part due to the nuclear heat wave Georgia is going through because global warming is fake news, but there it was, no longer stuck to the windshield, letting other motorists to get off my tits because my kids are more important than your bullshit aggressive driving.

During the trip, the thought actually crossed my mind that I still had it on the window, and how that 4 and 2, my kids aren’t really babies anymore, regardless of the fact that I’m always going to see them as my little babies no matter what their age is in life. 

For two years, during the rise of #2, we didn’t encounter a whole lot of the impending separation anxiety with #1’s belongings, because we knew that just about everything we ever bought for #1 would get a second life with a younger sibling that was for all intents and purposes pretty close in age.  So instead of getting sad, mopey and melancholy that a material object was nearing the end of the line, just about everything got to be used again, and really get its money’s worth.

But now though, is a different story, as #2 continues to outgrow and retire clothes, shoes and other things here and there, comes the reality of having to say goodbye to things, which I’m normally pretty good about tossing things, or donating or getting them out of our home by whatever means, but when it comes to the things that belonged to my children, that’s a different story.

Which is why we still have tubs full of infant clothing, a disassembled crib that we have no use for, car seats, strollers and boxes of shoes, toys and other crap we want gone, but are still struggling to actually remove from the premises.  Like, I want the space back in my dining room, garage and sunroom something fierce, but at the same time, it’s sad to say goodbye to all these random crap and clothing that basically had notable contributions in raising my children.

As for the window placard, I thought about keeping it off the window because my kids aren’t technically babies anymore, but then I was like fuck that, and slapped it back up on the window.  Even if my kids aren’t crawling around in diapers, I would still appreciate if shitty aggressive drivers would have a little bit of understanding maybe at why I might not drive like an asshole when I don’t have to.

This is what we statistic enthusiasts like to call, a small sample size

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Athletic conducted an anonymous MLB player poll, and among the topics was a query of where would you like to play if . . .

if money, rosters were not a factor

That’s a pretty big fucking if, if you ask me, because when the day is over, the only thing that matters to baseball players, much less 98% of professional athletes, is money.

But anyway, a whopping overwhelming majority of responders to the survey, said that they would want to join the Atlanta Braves, in a hypothetical world where money and rosters were not a factor.  Obviously, I say such with dripping sarcasm in case it’s hard to pick it out in soulless text, because only 86 total players responded to the survey and just 12.7% of players said that they would want to play for the Braves, which in doing the math, is just but 10.922 players who said that they would want to play for the Braves in a magical hypothetical world where money (and rosters) were not a factor.

All the same, that 12.7% was higher than all other teams in the league, so obviously the Braves who aren’t getting many wins on the field these days, is taking any W’s they can get anywhere else in the stratosphere, including a meaningless survey talking about fantasy realities.  Even if it is basically the mother of small sample sizes, which is a phrase that is often thrown around in the sports analytical community, like when a pitcher goes 5-0 to start the season and people start anointing them the Cy Young Award winner for the season.

That being said, I don’t buy it for two seconds that if the entire league were to be mandatorily surveyed, that the Braves would come out on top.  There’s a reason in reality why the lion’s share of marquee talents have gone to the Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, Mets and anyone else who’s been shown to have a willingness to back up a Brinks truck to coveted free agents over the last few years, because when the day is over, money is a factor, often times the only factor, that determines where players in any sport, usually go.

The Braves are a notoriously cheap organization that is allergic to free agents, and the only ones who typically get the big bucks are homegrown talents that are often times seduced into signing early-big money deals that are often times well below the market value if they were to hang tight until free agency, preying on their youth, inexperience and promises of be rich now, instead of be fuck-you-rich later.

They’re an organization that has been historically funny with the money since Ted Turner ceded ownership to Liberty Media which reorganized to their very own Atlanta Braves corporation which clearly makes it way easier to hide their finances from prying eyes, and since this has been the case, the entire organization has prioritized fiscal goals over sport ones, ignoring the fact that nothing rakes in the big bucks than winning championships.

It’s a team that’s so drunk on their own Kool-Aid of tradition, lineage and history, that they’re handcuffed by their own doing to making any sort of change, or steps towards forward progress and trying new things.  It’s what makes them the mother of risk-averse, and they’re always convinced that the answer lies somewhere within the organization, as opposed to the idea that there just might be, some really talented players out there who exist in other organizations.

In the rare instances where players do consider variables like location, the City of Atlanta isn’t really the most appealing place to make a home of, unless you’re already born and bred country, and/or are guys at a stage of their lives where they want to actually think about things important to raising families, then maybe Atlanta, more importantly the bevy of suburbs north of the city like Alpharetta, Johns Creek and Milton where rich athletes tend to scurry up to, would be a positive.

But if I’m a younger cat like Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Mike Clevenger or Adley Rutschman, wanting a little bit of life in the city, I don’t think Atlanta would be really that appealing.

And the reality is that the Braves are a team that are so caught up in money and roster, that there’s no way any upper-tier talents that are on the edge of possibly making a move, would realistically consider the Braves, over organizations that are committed to winning and willing to open wallets, doors and opportunities, because lord knows we’ve seen in reality, just how many players have squeezed their way onto the Dodgers and Phillies over the last few years, like an Indian or Japanese subway car, and teams like that, always make things work, versus throwing in the towel at the 7th hour and saying we can’t compete.

Either way, this was a cute little sample size scenario that clearly triggered me into vomiting out a bunch of words of the disdain that can only come from a fan of the team, about how the Braves realistically couldn’t be the organization that randomly anonymous players in the aether would actually want to play for, on a grander scale.

Not a fuckin’ chance.

Those who are quick to judge the shopping cart mom probably aren’t parents

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came across this story about this California mom who apparently enraged The Internet because she proclaimed to rarely return shopping carts when she went shopping. 

My knee-jerk reaction was like, what a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but when I actually read a little bit about the context to the whole story, my stance softened, and I began to empathize a little bit of where she was coming from, because it’s come from the place of her being a parent, and if there’s one thing I’m observing in the world this day and age, is that at a glance, it feels like fewer people are having kids these days, therefore there are fewer parents as the generations move on, and therefore there are fewer people who can relate and understand to where this California mom is coming from.

Basically, her defense of her decisions to not always return carts to a designated area stems from the fact that when she’s out and about with her kids on her own, she doesn’t want to leave her kids unattended, even for 20-30 seconds, while she takes the cart back to a designated spot.  And as a parent, who definitely understands the abject horror of the reality that the world is full of a bunch of sick fucks out there whom you never know are ready to strike at any given point, I wholeheartedly understand where this mom is coming from.

Even with modern cars that auto-lock when the RFID chips in the keys or phone signals stray, there’s still a few second delay, and in this day and age all it takes is a few seconds for some twisted psycho to try to kidnap a kid, inflict harm or just be a plain sick fuck, and it’s my duty as a parent to protect my children from that kind of stuff, no matter how unlikely or one-in-a-million chances it might be.

Now personally, I’ve done both things, where I have not returned a cart to a designated spot, as well as returned my cart, while my kid(s) were in the car unattended.  When I didn’t return it, it’s not like I left it in the middle of the parking lot or have it cockblocking an entire parking space, I’ve typically moved it onto a curb or onto an island, out of the way as best as possible, and perhaps I’ve had been having a bad day or the weather is ass for why I didn’t return it, on top of the fact that my kids were secured in their seats and I didn’t want to leave them unattended.

And when I did return my cart while the kids were unattended, I would always be looking back ever two seconds keeping my eyes peeled for any prowling psychos, and I would only take my cart back as far as to where I could then heave it forward and make it into the galley before walking briskly back to my car to be with my kids again.

But the reality is that whether I’m at Costco, Publix, Target, or anywhere where I might need a shopping cart, I deliberately park away from other people, as well as often times, as close to a cart return as possible, so that I can return my cart conveniently close to my vehicle to where I don’t have to deal with the fear of leaving my kids unattended while I do something honorable.

Back to the point though, I have this feeling that all the white knights of the internet who are in defense of retailers and attacking this mom for her choice to not always return her cart, probably aren’t parents, specifically to kids of very young ages, like car seats and diapers or younger.

I can’t imagine that it’s not just Korea and Japan that are having falling birthrates, when I look at my own circles of people, and seeing people getting older, passing traditionally prime child-bearing ages, and making the choice to live on the rest of their lives without experiencing the journey of raising another generation of human beings.  I don’t fault anyone for making that choice, and I would appreciate the same courtesy for my own choice to have children.

But let’s face it, it’s people who don’t have kids who probably have more time than people who do have kids, to be on the internet and judging a mom who admits to committing the worst offense of history 1B, not returning shopping carts, because she’s afraid of the psycho world we live in, and doesn’t want to be the rare exception statistic where her kids get snatched because she’s trying to make some store employee’s life a little bit easier.

Her life could become a little bit easier by deciding to be more like me, and doing what I do, but sometimes that’s not always going to be the case.  Especially in a high-density region like California, and depending on when she goes to cart-utilizing stores, such parking options might not always be available.  But I for one am never going to judge a parent for doing something that might offend others, but stems from a place of being protective parent.

Now if she were to continue this behavior on excursions where she’s alone, then she’s being a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but as long as her mom hat is on, I’m not going to blow her up for it; I’d suggest she be more like me, but wanting to protect her kids isn’t something I will get up in arms over.

There are poor teams, teams that spend, and The Braves Way™

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was thinking one morning before I started making breakfast for the kids, about how the Braves had lost yet another game to the lowly Nationals, while the Phillies had won another game, adding one more game in the standings over Atlanta.  There’s no shortage of shady remarks I could spout, that only come from the type of fan who loves a team to where they have absolutely nothing but snarky vitriol for them, but instead, I actually had what I thought was a great visual representation of how I felt the Braves operated in the MLB landscape.

There’s a scene in the Game of Thrones television show, where Littlefinger smugly tries to educate Cersei Lannister that knowledge is power, only for her to immediately command her guards to grab him and slit his throat, before calling them off, and retorting that power is power.  Littlefinger is an arrogant smarmy fuck throughout the series, and it’s always a treat to see someone put him in his place, because it unfortunately does not happen that often.

The Braves are Littlefinger.  They operate in this insulated bubble where they think they’re smarter than all the other teams in Major League Baseball, and are quick to congratulate themselves on irrelevant accolades such as profit, revenue and all things that pertain to how much money they make from all the schmucks who throw money at them.  The unspoken part is concurrently how little they re-invest back into the team itself, that ultimately is the product that is meant to generate all that currency in some shape or form.

They are always convinced that the organization has all the parts they need in order to contend for a World Series, despite the fact that they only have the one from 2021 that was the mother of hot streak luck but then again what World Series winning squad isn’t the same?

The Braves are tremendously risk-averse to the point where they basically take no risks at all, mainly in the arena of paying a free agent or trading some prospects for a sure-thing good player, and year after year, their biggest weakness is exposed, and they get bounced from the playoffs in the NLDS.

Meanwhile, all the other contenders in baseball are Cersei and her guards, who represent teams that have their own intelligence in their own rights, but are either less risk averse, or are willing to open up their copiously overflowing wallets because baseball is a massively fucking profitable business venture, or worse off for the Braves, both.

Non-fans of teams like the Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies are quick to criticize how much money that these teams are spending on free agents and contract extensions, but the proof is in the pudding; all of them are at the top of the standings currently, and are leaps and bounds in the best positions to reach the World Series.

Sometimes you have to just stop trying to outsmart everyone, because when everyone is playing chess at the same time, you just have to brute force and fuck everyone else with some money and demonstrate that power is power.

As much as I criticize the Braves, the truth of the matter is that they are a great organization.  General manager Alex Anthopolous is a sharp guy who has lucked into some really fruitful moves that didn’t really sound impressive on paper, but paid out in dividends when they worked out, but it’s obvious that even he’s working with his hands partially tied behind his back, from the stingy purse strings closing the wallet that he’s denied access to.

With the knowledge that the team does have, they’re competent at fielding a team that’s routinely good enough to make the playoffs, especially now that there are two wild cards, but they constantly run out of gas and/or have their weaknesses exposed, and crash out at their routinely low ceiling.

But imagine just how great the Braves could routinely become if they just stopped being so fucking Braves-ey and sobered up from the bullshit The Braves Way™ Koolaid they remain so drunk on.  As soon as Spencer Strider went down for the year, pick up Trevor Bauer for the peanuts he’s asking for just for a chance to pitch in MLB.  As soon as Ronald Acuña went down for the year, pick up the fucking phone and start making some calls, and not assume that an outfield of Jarred Kelenic and Adam Duvall at the corners could cut it.  If the team had Bauer, then Schwellenbach or Waldrep could become a valuable trade chip to get someone useful now.

Fire someone; on any other team in any other sport, a slump like the one the Braves are going through usually results in someone getting fired, regardless of the obvious fact that it’s out of their control that the players aren’t playing well.  If the team doesn’t want to axe Brian Snitker, then fire Kevin Seltzer, the hitting coach.  Strong arm Chipper Jones to be the interim hitting coach that fans have wanted to see the hitting savant become since the second he retired from the game.

Stop being so afraid of fucking rentals.  Stop being so fucking cheap.  Stop believing The Braves Way™ is the only way, because rest assured, it is not.  No matter how much I’d prefer power to be power over knowledge, at the very end of the day, baseball, much less any sport, is a crapshoot, once playoffs begin.  But if I’m a betting man, the teams that employ more power, tend to be the ones primed to be standing once the postseason begins, and with the way things are now, the Braves and all their Littlefinger knowledge sure as fuck don’t seem primed for anything other than an even earlier postseason exit, in the wild card series; if they even make it at all.