Month: July 2024

MJF and the new AEW American Championship

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A week ago, I tuned into AEW Dynamite #250, because I bit the bait at the idea of MJF vs. Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland vs. Kazuchika Okada.  Now the Swerve and Okada match was a stinker and a schmozz, giving credence to Arn Anderson’s adage that two talented workers don’t mean they’ll have any chemistry.

But the MJF and Will Ospreay match was definitely an instant classic, and if Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer had any credibility anymore, I’m sure the match probably got like some convoluted number of like 6.69 stars in his meaningless rating rubric, but the fact of the matter was that it was a great match, resulting in a surprising title change of Ospreay dropping the AEW Intercontinental International Championship to MJF, which I kind of wasn’t expecting.

I intended on watching this week’s Dynamite, I mean BLOOD AND GUTS, because it was something I could do while I ate my dinner, but the TBS app appears to have been developed by RealPlayer and I ended up missing the first 15 minutes of the show because it simply would not stop spinning and ultimately required me to restart the app and re-login in order for it to get working again.

It turns out that I missed the only good thing about the show, which was the opening segment where MJF tossed the International Championship blet into the trash, and unveiled a ridiculous, gaudy new championship blet, aptly called the AEW American Championship, hilariously with no AEW logo on it anywhere.

The man truly continuously grasps at low-hanging fruit storylines and plot devices, but repeatedly knocks them out of the park with his above-average mic, promo and character work, and it’s hilarious that he’s always opening, because you know he’s bouncing from the arena as soon as his work is done for the night.

The strap has the stars and stripes of the United States flag, and the side plates read Better Than You (And the UK) And You Know It on one side and Only Country That Matters on the other side.

It’s an abomination of a championship blet.

So naturally I want it.

Regardless of what it’s called officially, it’s still basically another United States championship, and I don’t know why, call it patriotism or whatever, I’ve always been drawn to US Championships, and I have one from most promotions where there’s been one; WCW’s, WWE’s and even New Japan’s.  I also have the NXT North American blet, and it seems appropriate that MJF’s American Championship blet would be a good addition to the collection.

However, AEW’s replicas, at the low end is $599, and I’m sure a replica would be of high quality, but that price point is just a real bitter pill to swallow.  The most I’ve ever gone on a blet is $550, and even that came from pool of house money when I was doing internet surveys obsessively for two years.

It’s not even available yet, so we’ll see what happens in the future to whether or not I’ll manage to get my hands on one of these things, but despite my self-anointed status as a premiere blet collector, I still don’t have any AEW replicas, mostly on account of their egregious pricing, but if I were ever to start with any, the MJF American Championship seems like the most likely to be my first.

Take that, job hoppers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yahoo Finance: wage growth for job hoppers slowing down as labor markets cool

One of the many things that I’ve had to accept as a changing of the times kind of the thing is has been the growing acceptance of job hopping in the working world.  I was more or less raised on the mindset of getting myself into a company, staying for my entire career, earning pension, retirement and all the benefits that come with longevity, and then work my entire career for a single company.

Obviously the world does change, and I don’t disagree that there’s little point in staying somewhere if you become miserable or the game of finances doesn’t seem to be keeping competitive to the market, but mostly if you’re just not plain happy, or you get laid off of released for any litany of reasons.  It’s naïve to think that anyone is going to stay with a singular place of employment for 30+ years anymore.

But as the years have gone by, the working world has gotten to the point where employees spend less and less time at employers before deciding to bounce, and it no longer seems like it’s people having lower thresholds for bullshit as much as it is that people today are just bigger flakes and indecisive and easily swayed by the shiny thing on the other side of the fence instead of remotely trying to have a stable career somewhere.

I used to tell myself that no matter what, to give every place at least a year before exploring a change.  A year seemed like an adequate amount of time to really learn about the highs and lows of a company, learn about the commutes, the types of people you work with, how they operate holidays and busy seasons, etc.

My first job after I moved to Atlanta, I stuck it out a year.  At first, it was great, but then the commute became murderous and the superiors in my company weaned off the honeymoon period and became really toxic to everyone.  I was the third or fourth resignation in a rapid exodus, because I found a job that was way closer to home, and paid a little bit more money, but honestly I do chalk it up as a mistake because I realized that I hated the work and the line of business I was in.

I didn’t quite make it a year at this place, but that was because they laid off my entire team, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I got with a place where I stayed for nearly four years, before my entire team was laid off there as well, which put me into a tumultuous life of freelance for many years, before I got my foot in the door with the state.  I stayed there for three years before a lack of growth, wages and just general boredom led to a messy divorce, and then I made another career mistake by bouncing to a place that was again closer and paid better, but the nature of the work and the dynamics of the company were hell.

This was actually the first time in my career I bounced before a year, because I was miserable and wanted out.  It was a move I don’t regret, and where I really had to self-reflect a lot on my choice to deviate from my original mindset, but it was for the best, because I ended up somewhere where I spent the largest tenure in my career.

But when coronavirus and the age of COVID-19 came upon the world, it transformed the world to closer where we are now.  My shortest tenure at a place was six months, but I was now beginning to witness people barely staying at a company for six weeks before deciding to bounce.  I remember assessing and trying to sniff out flight risk when combing through resumes and interviews at my old job, because my company and department in particular had a tendency to attract a lot of people who were looking for means to get their foot in the door, and as soon as their probationary period ended, would capitalize on the favoritism of internal associates to swap to a different team.

However, it wasn’t just internal bouncing, people just weren’t sticking around the company, or any other company, anywhere.  People would come, and just when it seemed like things would settle down on the team or company, suddenly there’d be news of them having turned in their notice, and the company and/or team was back to square one.

I get that when the day is over, everyone does have to take care of number #1, but the reality is that when they take a job that they’re not gung-ho over, and keep their options open and get a bite somewhere shinier, they really are fucking over the employer, which nobody is going to lose any sleep over, but a whole bunch of colleagues who might not all be soul sucking shitheads that deserve such disrespectful dismissal, are typically going to get shortchanged in that they’re losing a co-worker who was hired to be depended upon for what is usually hoped to be a for a semi-permanent amount of time.

The positions that are suddenly vacated all have to start over from square one, and there’s no guarantee that all other possible candidates are on the board anymore.  Most places have to go through the whole process from the beginning, meaning they have to vet and bot resumes all over again, interview a set number of candidates, and for anyone whom they’re crawling back to, lose leverage and face towards someone that wanted the job previously, and are now looking at the employer with their own set of resentment and likely notion to flake on them increases.

Before I left my last job, we too were no stranger to the COVID-prompted mass migration of employment, and lots of people, those I knew or knew of, were bouncing out of the company left and right.  Meanwhile, the power vacuum as a result of such departures led to a lot of shitty unqualified fucks to get some high up positions, and by the time I threw in the towel and left, I was in a position where my cunt of a boss was actively trying to get me out the door.

Sure, I did migrate during COVID, and got a sweet 26% pay bump in the process, but honestly if my work-life wasn’t as toxic as it had become, I probably would’ve stayed and not even entertained the thought of looking somewhere else.  I really didn’t want to leave, but my boss forced my hand.

But at my current place of employment, I’m in but just year three now, but I’ve already witnessed an inordinate amount of people who have started working for the company, and within as little as two months, seen them bounce, leading to myself and everyone else to throw their hands up and basically say what the fuck?

And of course they’re taking care of themselves, but several of these people really did fuck over my team with their general flakiness, and this is why I’m starting to relish in the notion that job hopping’s notion of getting better money or better positions is starting to diminish, because I do feel some salt and some want for retribution towards this entitled and lazy, flaky workforce that has gotten the working world to this sorry state we’re in currently.

Maybe if more people are “forced” to stick with their jobs that they’re fortunate to have in the first place, perhaps companies can actually get some teams that gel and become competent through experience and tenure, and become you know, better companies, that produce better products and services, and suddenly miraculously become more successful based on performances from their workforces.

But fuck me right, everyone’s got to take care of themselves, and it’s okay to bounce every six months?

Let’s talk about Cobra Kai S6.1

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: I make no promises that I won’t write anything that could be construed as a spoiler.  Heck, even the photo above could be considered a spoiler to some with defined opinions, but I don’t really think it is, given the development brought on in S5.

But unsurprisingly, as rare as it is for me to do in my life, I was on top of, and I’ve already finished watching the first installment of Cobra Kai S6.  I knew it was going to be multi-part, because Netflix is diabolical like that, and American media is incapable of finishing any story in a singular, logical, digestible experience, and either makes it abysmally short and rushed like Game of Thrones, or in the case of Cobra Kai, Infinity War, Fast X, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games to name a few, requiring multiple installments.

However, I was mortified to find out that the final season of Cobra Kai wasn’t going to be just two installments, but three motherfucking installments, culminating probably around this time next year.  I don’t know definitively, but I want to say that it’s already been all filmed and wrapped up, and this is just Netflix further creeping towards becoming cable television #2, by making viewers wait instead of the binging everyone prefers to do.

And I really hope that it’s true that they’re done, because the cast of this show is starting to really show their age in embarrassing ways.  Kenny looks like he’s gone through puberty twice, and is basically bigger than all of the kids’ cast.  Demitri is now like 6’10, and it’s hilarious to hear a character talk about his advantageous size in a fight, when he was literally the worst kid to ever become a regular karate student in the beginning.  Daniel’s ridiculously hot wife Amanda is now showing the wrinkles above her lips that come with age.  Even Kyler, went from looking like a 22-year old high school underclassman in early seasons to looking like a 36-year old college freshmen trying to pledge for a fraternity.

Needless to say, if they haven’t wrapped up filming and plan on doing it all the way into next year, Kenny might be a divorced father of three by then, Chozen will have turned into Master Roshi, and William Zabka might start looking like old Vin Diesel by then.

As for the story and execution of the first installment of S6, absolutely nothing about it was any surprise.  The groups are all going to be preparing for the Sekai Taikai tournament, and of course there’s continued repeated spats between Daniel and Johnny.  The kids have seemingly all squashed their prior beefs, and it’s almost as insufferably peaceful like the Power Rangers the way everyone is so indoctrinated by Miyagi-Do.

Frankly it’s only the hints of chaos that seem remotely interesting, like the Mr. Miyagi’s mystery box of his past, and the family issues that befall Tory and the resulting actions, but other than that, the five episodes flew by in a relatively uneventful manner.

The series’ signature of dipping into the past and dredging up old characters wasn’t really that prevalent in these first five episodes, and I still believe that within the final ten episodes over two installments, it’s inevitable that Hilary Swank will show up, with the off-chance that Jackie Chan, Iron Monkey, Jaden Smith or any of the kids from the Kung Fu Kid makes appearances, so that literally every gamut of the previous Karate Kid films can be referenced at some point.

But the one thing that I really wanted to talk about and what spawned the urgency to make this post, was what was shown at the very end of the fifth episode.  Okay, **[spoiler alert]**

It took me a few seconds after the big reveal that Cobra Kai was still alive and well, despite the collapse of their American operations courtesy of Terry Silver, that the new and most fucking definitely improved logo, was in Korean.  Like when Kwon and two unnamed Cobras came walking out in slow motion in the traditional black gi with the giant cobra on it, I was kind of just like ohhhh shit, but then my eyes did a double take, and I could see that the Cobra Kai wordmark was in Korean, and then I was like OHHHH SHIT

Despite my general fandom of the Karate Kid franchise throughout my life, and general appreciation and admiration for the fire branding of Cobra Kai itself, I never did ever get any shirts or hoodies with the OG logo.  The hipster in me defied the all the other hipsters who all swooped up and bought shirts and hoodies, and I kind of didn’t want to just be another one of them.

But a Cobra Kai logo, written in KOREAN, I’m just like, there has never been something in existence more tailor made to well, me, ever in existence of humanity. 

This is something that belongs to me, and other Korean people who are fans of the franchise and the brand.  This does not belong to any of the Koreebs, the white people, the black people, or anyone else who also are Cobra Kai fans who already have their OG black, yellow and red Cobra Kai stuff.

I was like, I have never needed this logo on a piece of apparel more than anything in my entire life.  And at first, I had a tremendous amount of dread that this would not be produced, much like the absolute nuclear gold mine the show and Champion athletics sat on but never did anything with, but upon doing a cursory Google search after watching S6E5, I found some immediate results.

I had concerns that these were probably like some cheap bootleg shit from Temu or Alibaba or some shit, but then I found a link to this Hot Topic shirt, and as easy as it is to dunk on Hot Topic, they still carry some semblance of legitimacy in my opinion, and despite the fact that I typically have choice paralysis and can never pull the trigger on anything, I didn’t hesitate (beyond making sure I made the transaction on my laptop so I could get 2% Rakuten cashback) to purchase it, and eagerly await it’s arrival in the mail.

If for anything at all, the introduction of the Korean Cobra Kai logo, completely sets the season on fire for me, and I wait impatiently for the next installments of the show.  I still resent that they’re releasing it like this, but there’s no shortage of shit on my list that I can watch over the next few months to fill the time.

God damn I can’t wait to get my shirt.

Oh, Decatur, #35

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure this will have no negative effects: City of Decatur launches “pace car” program to try to slow down motorists and reduce accidents

Let my start off by saying that I’m a fan of Decatur.  Decatur is the small town in the big city that has lots of character, good bars and restaurants.  The Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market.

More importantly, Decatur will always have a permanent impact on my life, as it is where I got married, at our courthouse wedding.

Needless to say, the City of Decatur will always hold a special place in my heart, regardless of the words that are going to come flying out of my fingertips in the ensuing paragraphs.

Although good intentioned, I can’t imagine any reality where Decatur’s pace car program isn’t going to be met with massive resistance, ridicule, and a general sentiment of resentment.  Cars being driven by people who are declaring their intention of doing one of the few things every motorist on the planet doesn’t like, in slowing them down, there’s no way that this goes in the direction that the city really hopes it will go in.

As much as I do love Decatur, the reality remains that the whole place really is a nightmare region to drive around in.  Whether it’s on Ponce, Candler, Dekalb, Scott Blvd., or any of the other main thoroughfares through the city, the roads and lanes are narrow, there’s large swaths of street with crumbled, dirt or just plain no sidewalks, and the quality of said roads and sidewalks are often as deteriorated as if the taxes were drained from their funds in Sim City, so they just start falling apart.

Combine perilous infrastructure with the general aggressive nature of Atlanta drivers, and you have the recipe that makes driving around in Decatur as generally risky to the point where they’re always looking for ways to improve safety around the roads of the city, whether from the city itself, or citizens who are trying to take matters into their own hands.

I mean, it’s really kind of their own sword that they’re falling on; as much as I like Decatur, the people within the city are this eclectic mass that takes a tremendous amount of pride in their small town feel, but want to enjoy all the luxuries and benefits that come with living close to a massive market like Atlanta, and there’s a large sense of resentment and us versus everyone from those who live there.

Getting back to the original point of this post, I can’t imagine that people who are taking it upon themselves to be the enforcers of the road; going exactly the speed limit, stopping at yellow lights, coming to complete stops and looking all directions at stop signs, aren’t going to regret it in time.  As much as Decatur-ites might not like day-traders and tourists, their little hamlet goes broke in ten seconds without their money.  Drivers from Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, Tucker, Stone Mountain and Conyers are going to be going to or through Decatur, and there’s little anyone there can do about it.

I imagine that aggro driver A will be aggro-ing down Ponce, and they see the car in front of them with a pace car sticker on their windshield; they now have visual confirmation of a car that must be passed, and has pledged to go the speed limit or less to the griefing of others, and they are undoubtedly going to exorcise their ability to do so.

Road rager B is having a bad day, and they’re sitting through three cycles of lights at Scott and Claremont, and they inch their way up to find out that some dork with a pace car sticker is the one not taking the right on red, and they go ballistic at seeing someone whom they believe is really just using the pace car designation as a means to troll others on the road.  Words are exchanged, and because Georgia has looser gun rights than abortion rights, ammunition is exchanged next, and we’ve got our top story on My Fox 5 Atlanta for the evening.

Or my favorite hypothetical, Decatur White Knight C pledges to the pace car program, and although they do god’s work while within city proper, once they’re outside of Decatur, they themselves are driving around like a dick, unleashing all the aggression they suppress while cockblocking motorists on their home turf.  Be it through getting into an altercation on their own, or pissed off rager D sees a pace car outside of Decatur and wants to start shit, they get in a massive accident, footage of a demolished car on I-285 is on WSB-TV, but with the City of Decatur pace car sticker still intact and in plain sight.

The point is, Decatur-ites who think it’s their place to be heroes and saviors and enforcers of their fair city’s streets, really are putting their own lives at risk.  It’s pretty bold of the city to be willing to throw their own citizens into the fire by basically allowing anyone to volunteer, and I just don’t see a long game where this turns out to be successful.

The intentions are good, but the program doesn’t seem to have been well thought out thoroughly enough, and I don’t have a lot of high hopes for this program not blowing up their face in some fashion(s).  And for that, I simply say, oh Decatur.

Thoughts on Cruising with Virgin for the first time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently went on an adults-only vacation, probably the first one since well, we had children.  Sure, we’ve had a quick jaunt away here or there, but nothing like a four-night cruise on an adults-only line, where we had no real objective other than the pursuit of relaxation and feeling not just like parents.

So let’s get it out of the way now, yes, which meant that we were Virgin virgins, as we had never cruised with Virgin Cruises before.  We’d both heard lots of good things about them, and it seemed as good of an endeavor to embark on before mythical wife has to start preparing for the next school year.

It was kind of weird preparing and embarking on this trip, seeing as how like I’d said, we’d never really had such time away from the kids under these circumstances.  We got to fly somewhere instead of driving because the cost of two adults is way more feasible than flying five humans, where none of them are lap-rider eligible (read: free) anymore, and we had nothing but carry-ons instead of the maximum baggage allowance allowed to travel with.

I got to enjoy a legit Cuban sandwich and coffee in downtown Miami before we departed which is definitely worth mentioning considering how neither seems to be capable of existing outside of Miami and presumably, Cuba itself, but from the very start, Virgin Cruise Line seemed to be a breath of fresh air compared to other experiences we’ve had cruising in the past.

As all sorts of identification, passports, and documentation are logged in advance of travel, we basically show up to port at a general assigned time, and then we’re through in a jiffy with minimal waiting.  There was little feeling like cattle, slowly moving through the pen before we’re on the ship, and we go straight to our stateroom, where a nifty tablet is waiting that controls everything, and fresh canisters of water, as if they know the process of embarkation can be a pain in the ass and it’s important to replenish the hydration of being in South Florida.

Admittedly, I had some concerns and thought that it would temper my enthusiasm when doing some recon prior to the trip, because there were some things about the branding, the presentation and general vibe I was getting, that Virgin Cruises might be a little on the douchey side; I mean, the ice cream joint on ship is literally called “Lick Me til Ice Cream” which is about as cringey to type out as much as it is to see it on a fucking wall (but it didn’t stop us from going there a few times and enjoying some decent quality gelato), and the cruise line’s general importance placed on drinking and partying.

But a lot of those preconceived notions were put to rest pretty early on, and other than like, the temperature of our stateroom, and the occasional clunkiness of the app, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the entire experience, and I can say without hesitation that we had a fantastic experience, and we would without hesitation do it again in the future, which is all but guaranteed, seeing as how we’ve capitalized on their future voyage bait of a large amount of on-board credit for putting a deposit down for a future cruise.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Cruising with Virgin for the first time” →

Dad Brog (#136): even bad behavior can be lovable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when I come home from an office day, as soon as I come inside the door, my kids go running off mischievously like little shits.  It makes me smile and laugh all the same when they’re playful and being little shits together, and I don’t think anything of it.

The other day, I came home from the office, and as I walked in the door, I saw #2 run down the hallway, clearly following #1 in the day’s edition of hide from dada when he gets home.

And then I turn the corner and I see the marker marks on the wall. Then on the bathroom door, and then on the light switches and various surfaces. My jaw dropped at the incredulousness of them actually having drawn on the walls, as if I figured it was just some trope from a paint ad or something and that my kids wouldn’t actually do it themselves.

Naturally, mythical wife and I were pretty upset with this bad choice, and tried to calmly as possible explain to the girls that what they did was wrong, and why we were making them help clean the marks off of the surfaces they drew on.  Dessert and evening television were both taken off the table for the night, and they seemed to understand that they had made a poor choice.

The thing is, the following day, I was thinking about the whole incident but then I found myself smiling and chuckling about it, because of how the girls were working together and having fun together, and I really couldn’t feel that made about it.  The squeals of fun and laughter when I walked in the door is music to my ears, and even if they had vandalized walls in their own home, they did so in the name of having fun together, and I just couldn’t be upset with them any longer.

I know that there will come a time when such sounds and behaviors won’t be happening any more, and it’ll make me sad to come to the realization that my kids are too old and grown past such playfulness.  So even if it means that they’re making bad choices and doing a little bit of destruction of property, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if they’re doing it together, having fun, and learning afterward that their behavior was not acceptable in a calm and rational response. 

Oh, Atlanta #285

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB-TV: Georgia Department of Transportation wants to hear from the pleebs about something that they’re probably 20% already initiated into the project, adding express (read: pay) lanes to the top half of I-285

Shade aside, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about the way the world works, is that when a big entity, be it a company, agency or local or even national government tries to look democratic and get feedback from the people in regards to a proposed project, it’s all just a formality and done for optics, photo-ops and public appearance.  I’d say probably 80% of the time, the projects are already underway, and the public is being tapped to hopefully identify and shortcomings or oversights, but with the guise of pretending like they care about the opinions of the rest of the poors.

That being said, nobody’s going to convince me that GDOT hasn’t already gotten the ball rolling in regards to adding Peach Pass lanes to the top half of 285, and that they’re tapping into the public at this juncture just to get a feel for public sentiment, with the idea of pivoting or adjusting the direction of the new lanes based on public opinion.

I’m just curious to know where the fuck these magical extra lanes are going to be built, or if they’ll just cannibalize the far-left lanes of existing I-285 and make them Peach Pass only.  It doesn’t take a genius to identify that there’s basically zero space in between the two directions of I-285, so adding extra lanes on the left doesn’t really seem realistic, unless they add them onto the right, and shift everything down, but that would basically necessitate colossal road work to probably 34 miles worth of highway, feeding the narrative that GDOT is completely incapable of leaving well enough alone, and is always working on something at any given time to all but guarantee that Atlanta’s traffic is among the worst in the nation.

Either way, regardless of if the project is or isn’t actually already started, it’s definitely going to happen if it’s already gotten this far, to ask for public opinion, and I think it’s a dumb one all the same.  It’s like city planners or GDOT schmucks have never played an iteration of Sim City at any point in their careers, and never learned that adding moar lanes of roads is never the solution, and only investing in rail or alternative means of infrastructure do cities really grow, flourish and liberate themselves from the rat race of cars and roads.

Besides, even if and when moar Peach Pass lanes are added, it’s not like the city will actually do anything about the inevitable legions of violators that use them without tags.  Last time I heard about the problem with violators is that there were well over six figures worth of violations that were left unpaid, and that was many moons ago, so I would wager that there are probably well over a million dollars by now in Peach Pass violations that will go uncollected.  So that’s kind of like a double fail that will result if and when Peach Pass lanes are added to I-285, but hey, maybe one more lane is what the City of Atlanta really needs in order to unlock the gridlock that many of us suffer on a regular basis.