Month: September 2024

Thoughts about the supposed Goonies 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t these days, and what’s declared to be real actually remaining real after a little bit of time, but for better or worse, at the time I’m writing this, it sounds like a 40-years later The Goonies sequel is really going to be happening.

My knee-jerk reaction is basically oh god please no whyyyyyy because I really wish Hollywood could leave things that are dead and resting, dead and resting, but seeing as how it seems like allowing The Goonies to have that privilege is coming off the table, might as well allow the ball to continue to roll and brog about it, since it’s evident that this has been on my mind over the last few days while I’ve been waiting for the smoke to clear on whether it’s legit or not, as well as trying to carve time out to write.

Needless to say, I’m not that thrilled with one of my legitimate all-time favorite stories of my childhood being drug out of the 80s just to capitalize on the low-hanging fruit of nostalgia, but what can I say, money is what makes the world go round.  And as Cobra Kai has proven, not every instance of a nostalgia-driven encore is entirely turrible, and although the likelihood isn’t high, I can only hope for the best as far as it concerns The Goonies.

Frankly, if this was ever going to happen, I feel like they’re 10-15 years too late, especially considering the fact that the intention seemed to always have been to bring back as much of the original cast as possible.  All of the OG cast at this point are all too fucking old to be parents to the next generation of Goonies, and they’re at this weird transitional age where they’re too old to be parents to kids but rather teens that are probably older than the original crew, but also a little too young to convincingly be grandparents to the next generation.

But push comes to shove, I’m going to have to assume that the children’s cast of this supposed sequel are probably all going to be the grandchildren of the original Goonies; Josh Brolin is 56 and Sean Astin is 53, and neither are going to convince anyone that they’re any younger than that, so as much as television and film likes to try to convince us that 30 year olds can portray teenagers with attitude, I think it’s probably best to age them up and make them grandparents instead.

Which would probably help to make more plausible the inevitable casting of minorities in the next generation of Goonies, because in the DEI world we live in now, it goes without saying that the next generation is guaranteed to not be a white boys + Data group, and is definitely going to be a little more colorfully diverse by the time this film comes supposedly drops in 2026 or so.

That being said, let’s hypothesize the next generation of The Goonies, apples to apples, because I think it’s obvious that it’s got to be the descendants of the original crew that will comprise the kids’ cast.

  • Mikey will be represented by his granddaughter to be the leader of The New Goonies™; naïve and adventurous, and willing to believe in the remnants of One Eyed Willy’s treasure in the caves.
  • Brand will have married a black woman after Andi dumps him after high school, and their biracial daughter will then have married a black man, and therefore can cast a black male actor to be the descendant of Brand. He will naturally be the muscle and the big brother of the crew.
  • Chunk’s (despite the fact that Jeff Cohen lost all his chunk and is rather fit these days) grandson will be the most likely original Chunk, as in be a chubby Jewish boy who will somehow end up in a Hawaiian shirt and plaid pants, and act as the primary comic relief because it’s funny because he’s fat.
  • Mouth’s grandson will probably be ambiguously biracial, and I foresee someone looking like the next generation’s Mario Lopez will be playing this role. He will undoubtedly be as snarky and blabbermouthed as his grandfather.
  • Data being pretty traditionally Chinese despite the fact that Ke Huy Quan is from Vietnam, will have a granddaughter representing his role, and although she won’t have the trench coat or the backpack full of gadgets and crowd-control inventions, will still be the techie brains of the crew who will probably be good at MacGuyvering shit for the team when they need it.
  • And because the white quotient is starting to get outnumbered, Andi will have a cute granddaughter that probably will look like Sabrina Carpenter taking her place in the next generation, so that Brand can have a potential romantic interest, as well as giving the next generation of young boys something to be confused about through their own respective adolescences.
  • Which brings us to Stef, whom Martha Plimpton has accepted with grace as being the “last” one, will undoubtedly have had an adopted son/grandson, probably white, so that white people still have a slim majority in representation because that’s how Hollywood be, will resume Stef’s legacy of being the tail end of the team, and to provide as much contribution as his grandmother.

As for the actual plot of this film, who really knows what it’s going to be about.  If Chris Columbus and Richard Donner couldn’t figure something out throughout the last 30 years of Donner’s life, I don’t have much faith that anyone else is going to have any better ideas, but it really doesn’t matter. 

If this is going to work, it’s going to have to take place in Astoria, it’s going to have to involve the remains of One Eyed Willy’s treasure, because everyone knows at the end of the OG, the Inferno sails away into the Pacific Northwest, so I’m going to guess that there’s still caches of treasures in the remains of the caves, or perhaps additional ships that The New Goonies can go search for, but as long as the spirit of the film doesn’t stray too far from the original, it stands to believe that this might be able to be as popular with the next generation of kids as the original was to my own childhood.

What kind of irks me though is that I legitimately had plans on saying fuck it, and going to Astoria for my next birthday, by myself, because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do in my life, and I’m no longer going to expect or even attempt to bring anyone along for the ride, because of people I know, nobody really wants to do this except for me.  Hopefully news of moar Goonies in the future doesn’t re-ignite other OG fans to want to make the same pilgrimage, and ruin my original fandom spurred on by news of a supposed sequel in the works.  Or worse off, by the time I get there, filming has started and I get monstrously cockblocked at seeing all of the original stuff that I had always wanted to see and walk in my own nostalgic life.

Only time will tell, and if any of this shit impacts my future travels, it’s only a question of just how pissed and disappointed it’ll make me.

Who would have guessed a business geared almost entirely to white guys would struggle?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: Topgolf to be spun off, out of Callaway’s portfolio, owned

I don’t really know why, but hearing about the general suffering and decline of Topgolf makes me happy.  I don’t really like or care for golf, and I’ve been to a Topgolf like twice; primarily because they were work team outings, and the pressure for the optics of being present outweighed my general ambivalence for golf, plus there was free food and drink, and it was on company time, so it beat being at work, working, but for the most part, I wasn’t impressed at all, and was just as happy to leave (early) as I was getting to imbibe on company-paid comestibles.

But really, I have no stake in Topgolf, and yet it still makes me feel smug satisfaction at hearing about their company’s struggles, bad enough to where Callaway the golf company, has expressed their intent to effectively boot them out of their portfolio, and leave them hanging as a standalone company, as opposed to being part of their family.  Frankly, I didn’t know Callaway was big enough of a company to have a portfolio beyond golf clubs and apparel, but seeing as how 60% of the United States is white, I guess it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.

I guess it’s because at the very root of things, I see Topgolf as a wholly unnecessary thing that the world doesn’t need, as well as tremendous wastes of space.  I mean seriously, in the space of any Topgolf could be an entire subdivision of single-family homes.  A moderately aesthetically pleasing condominium along with some small businesses and restaurants.  Pretty much anything is more societally efficient than some gaudy monuments to the whitest activity in history than a giant ass field, with some 250 ft. poles and nets for people to whack golf balls around on.

Seeing a Topgolf anywhere tells me everything I need to know about a specific region, and typically wherever there’s a Topgolf, I generally know that the surrounding area is going to be a really kind of douchey, overly-white people vibe, and I probably wouldn’t enjoy myself at any surrounding restaurants or businesses within a few mile radius.

Needless to say, it brings me smug satisfaction to hear that they’re not doing as financially well as their investors hope they would be doing, because what a surprise, a business that primarily caters to a really niche, predominantly white community, would inevitably begin to decline once people realized how stupid it was to whack golf balls all day long, and there being little room for business evolution or diversity in services, other than overpriced food and booze.

I’m hoping for the day in which I’ll drive through the City of Atlanta again, and the Topgolf that’s in Upper West Midtown is closed down, and probably replaced with a CubeSmart.  I don’t like CubeSmarts either, but frankly in a tale of two evils, they can at least be serviceable and useful to people of all walks of life, and not be just some niche douchey white guy thing like Topgolfs are.

Happy Trails, Walt that doesn’t suck up all my money

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Walt Ehmer, CEO of Waffle House, dies at the age of 58

I don’t know anything about this man, Walt Ehmer, but I can say that I am a fan of the company that he ran for the last 22 years, and for that reason alone he has my respects and condolences to hear about his passing.  And like the title of this post says, he’s a Walt that hasn’t been hoovering up my money for the last decade, and has in fact, been saving me money conversely with Waffle House’s reasonable prices for unhealthily satisfying garbage food, to which I give the man even more respect for bringing me pound-for-pound happiness that’s hard to match.

It might seem like this is leaning towards being satirical in nature, but the passing of Waffle House’s CEO really is sad news to hear, not just from the standpoint that all loss of life is usually sad, but because I really am a fan of Waffle House, the brand, the company and the product, so it is sad to hear that they lost their commander-in-chief, at such a relatively young age, at just 58 years.

For many years, Jen and I had a Christmas tradition of going to Waffle House on Christmas Day, because I didn’t really want to go home, and we were as close to as family as we had for each other.  I would get a grand slam and a waffle, and for several of those years, I didn’t yet know that I had an intolerance to eggs, and would suffer the consequences of my breakfast choices later, chalking it up solely to being greasy Waffle House, but it never deterred me nor tarnished my opinions of the food in general, and I really enjoyed all those relaxing Christmas mornings of getting Waffle House with one of my closest friends among the other vagabonds who opted to have chill Christmases too.

Waffle House trips were always on the table after drunken Halloween parties, New Years parties or any other social event that ended in later hours where my friends and I would be buzzed, didn’t want the night to end yet, and greasy hashbrowns and waffles sounded like an incredible idea.  No matter how many other people shared the same sentiment and as crowded as they always were, we were never in a position where we had to get turned away or look for somewhere else to go, because we would always be seated, always be served, and no matter how inebriated I might’ve been in any of those visits, I always treated the staff politely and with respect, because there’s more merit to being a happy drunk than an asshole who starts fights.

Which brings us to the obvious cult classic of Waffle House, the knock-down, drag-em-out, World Star battle royales that have occurred at the restaurants since the inception of the company, and long under the guidance of Walt Ehmer as well.  There’s pretty much no such thing as a Waffle House fight that wasn’t viral, wasn’t entertaining in their own ironic way, and wasn’t memorable in some way, shape or fashion.  The fact that a Waffle House Fight™ occurred pretty much every single week somewhere in the vast network of 1,900+ stores across the east coast, and the company just keeps chugging along goes to show the gritty resilience of the brand and company, that I’m not going to just credit Ehmer for, but he had to have known that they were going on, but frankly if he’s as southern educated as a Georgia Tech Trustee chairman would be, knew that if it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it.

I digress, this isn’t supposed to be waxing poetic about how great Waffle House is, but to pay my respects and bid happy trails to the guy that’s been holding the ship steady for a company that has provided such greatness, so that effect, happy trails, Walt, and let’s hope that whomever succeeds you is as successful at not rocking the boat and keeping things status quo as well as you did.

Columbus Clingstones: what, you were expecting something better from a Braves affiliate?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

MiLB: Atlanta Braves’ AA-affiliates formerly known as the Mississippi Braves, formally change their name to the Columbus Clingstones, with their move to Columbus, Georgia

Originally, I was excited at the notion that along with the move out of racist-ass bumfuck Pearl, Mississippi, the Double-A Braves would be getting a brand-new team name and identity, steering them away from the homogenized and stuffy Also-Braves of Mississippi.  The AA Braves could have the opportunity to be an actual, fun, minor league team instead of being a minor league squad beholden to the stuffy and constricting brand standards of the Atlanta Braves Corporation, as they had been over the last, well since the existence of Braves Minor League Baseball.

But at the same time, I knew that I had to temper my expectations, because baseball in general doesn’t like to rock the boat too much, and for every Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, Rocket City Trash Pandas, Hub City Spartanburgers or any chintzy and creative minor league squad that appears out of nowhere, there are four other boring teams out there, like the Salem Red Sox, St. Lucie Mets, Fredericksburg Nats, and other squads that put the bare minimum of effort into their existences, and hope that by solely being present and loosely affiliated with their parent clubs, they will draw attendance.  And if I had to wager what side of the spectrum that an Atlanta Braves affiliate was going to lean towards, it definitely wasn’t going to be on the side where “fun” was, because fun doesn’t always necessarily equate to cashmoney.

So I was about as surprised as learning that global warming isn’t fake news when the news finally broke, of what the new Columbus Baseball Club was going to call themselves, and it was the Columbus Clingstones.

As I imagine most people’s reactions probably were, mine was first and foremost, what the fuck is a clingstone?

According to Google AIoverlord:

A clingstone is a type of stone fruit with flesh that sticks firmly to the pit, making it more difficult to remove than other fruits. Clingstone peaches are a common example of this type of fruit. 

And my first reaction was, oh, so there’s a difference between the peaches I like, where the pit falls right off, and the peaches that I always regret buying, where the flesh sticks to the pit and I always feel like I’m wasting delectable peach flesh when I have to cut around it to enjoy my fucking fruit, and it turns out that I’m not a fan of actual clingstones, and I’m most definitely not a fan of the name, Columbus Clingstones.

So, it figures that the Braves dropped the ball when it came to having a minor league affiliate with a name that is of below-average excitement.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the Emperors of Rome, and I like the clusterfuck that ended up with the Gwinnett Stripers, but the team had an opportunity to rise into the upper echelon of memorable and noteworthy minor league squads, but to no surprise, much like the organization’s entire modus operandi, stick to something vanilla, safe, boring and mostly forgettable in the vast pool of minor league baseball teams.

I will say though, as not mad just disappointed I am in the lame as name of Clingstones, I do have to give credit to the merch team, for running with the lameduck ball they were handed.  Although I’m not a fan of actual clingstone peaches, I still love peaches the fruit, and they are easily in my top-3 favorite fruits.  And I have a soft spot for mascots that are basically just inanimate objects given eyes and limbs, so that being said, I do appreciate the branding that the Clingstones have done, even if I think the name is booty.

That being said, I do want a shirt of the peach mascot, and I would consider getting a 59fifty cap if there’s a variant where it’s just the peach mascot, but I wouldn’t want anything that actually said Clingstones on it, because that’s how much I loathe the name.

So overall, the name is trash, but the execution of the branding has been done pretty well.  Unfortunately, the name is still set in stone at this point, and there’s no part of me that doesn’t connote the prefix “cling” as a negative, from clingy people to turds that cling to the tips of your dog’s fur after they take a crap that they end up wiping on your floor, so the general consensus to the whole unveiling of the Braves’ AA affiliate is a net-negative.  But then again, expecting anything dynamic and exciting out of the Atlanta Braves organization, even if they’re not officially owned by them anymore, is still like expecting to win a lottery, and this all frankly comes as no surprise.

Things White People Like: the new Ford Broncos

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The funny thing about Things White People Like is that it’s rarely like a gradual thing.  It’s always, you wake up one morning, and then suddenly white people all over the place are doing/having/partaking in the exact same thing.  Building black and white homes, falling head over heels in love with Major League Soccer, embracing Korean food, etc, etc.

It’s almost like there’s a gigantic group chat for nothing but white people, and they come to consensuses on what things they decide to declare “theirs” and the following day, every single one of them embarks on claiming it, before any other dirty non-white demographic can get their grubby hands on it.

But let’s talk about the new Ford Bronco; and this isn’t the first time I’ve written about the Ford Bronco and in this identical context, but it’s just because it seems like White People have hit another gear in Liking this Thing that it warrants another posting.

Also, I know the car has been out for a while, so it’s not really new anymore per say, but the thing is I call it such out of a lack of wanting to refer to it by its chassis or model year because that would require looking things up and I don’t care about white people enough to want to exert such effort.  But also because by calling it the new Ford Bronco also implies that the old Ford Bronco is a leper of a vehicle and all of them are undoubtedly OJ Simpson cars, and not the Jesus Jeep-replacement that seems to be exclusive to white people only.

And that’s exactly what the new Ford Bronco appears to have become for White People – a Jeep replacement, because Jeeps have become attainable and acceptable to people of all other races and colors, to the point where White People feel the need to flee the Jeep brand and go find something else to claim for themselves.

I went to go visit my brother not long ago, and we’re parking in a parking lot and in front of us is a Korean guy monkeying with the soft-top of his Jeep, clearly getting it lowered so that he can indulge in the beautiful beach town weather that we were at.  I said to my brother, that this guy was an example of why exactly the Ford Bronco has become a de facto White People car, because minorities are progressively getting more and more of their hands on Jeeps, and they can’t stand it.

Fewer things make it more obvious that new Ford Broncos are Jeep replacements than the fact that they’re basically designed to be Jeep clones, but with Ford badges and the little bucking bronco emblem on them.  From color selection, aesthetic trims, and just the overall silhouette of them, they’re basically the Temu version of a Jeep, since Fords in general short of a hand-built GT500 or Shelby Mustang are all cheap adult-sized Tonka toys made out of plastic, zip-ties and minority labor.

One of the kickers though, was this time I saw a new Ford Bronco with a rubber ducky in the windshield, which is a major thing that the Jeep communities does with their whips.  The funny thing is that I saw a photo of a similar vehicle on theFacebook on some Jeep community that I don’t know why I was shown a post from, but the general consensus of that post was that of internet rage, animosity and disdain for a new Ford Bronco owner for ape-ing a very Jeep-ism for their own shitty ride.

Seriously though, I haven’t yet once, seen a single new Ford Bronco, where the driver wasn’t a white person.  Mostly females too, but every single new Ford Bronco driver I’ve seen has been white.  I’ll probably do a double take if the day ever comes that I see a driver that isn’t Ben Affleck.  The funny thing is that there’s actually a home in my community that was completely repainted to be white with black trim and accents; guess what the lady who lives there drives?

Interestingly enough, Ford being Ford, their name does hold enough weight to where despite the fact that they’re a Jeep clone, Hummer appears to be trying to now clone them, with their new Hummer models that are supposedly launching in 2025.  Considering the fact that they look very similar to new Ford Broncos, I feel like these are going to be a strong candidate of White People cars to flood towards if a few minorities manage to get their hands on the keys.  And when it inevitably happens, I guess it’ll be time to add a new entry to the list of Things White People Like.

Eviction Notice: the excessively multi-generation household

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the most part, I enjoy the neighborhood that I live in.  The vast majority of the people who live here are friendly and/or mind their own business.  This one Karen in the neighborhood whom I had some heat with actually died a few years ago, and her surviving family is a big sausage party that seems to mind their own business.  We do have an HOA, but it is run by the community and not outsourced to some bullshit company, and our annual dues aren’t egregious and we do actually get a few parties throughout the year to kind of justify the money we dump into the HOA.

But let’s just be real here, there are always going to be households in everyone’s communities that ruffles a few feathers, and obviously I am no exception.  Some behaviors are less savory than others, and depending on whom one might ask, might be perceived as anything as total assholes to first-world problems.  Instead of trying to ignore the problem or the neighbors, we just fantasize about waving a magic wand and straight up just evicting from the existing in the neighborhood; nobody wants to see anyone hurt, you just want them out of your neighborhood, and hopefully replaced with someone else who doesn’t suck.

The difference is, most people keep these general grievances to themselves or within their own households, but for people like me, they become brogging content.

The first household that comes to mind as one that I’d like to magically evict from the community is what I like to refer to as, the excessively multi-generation household.  This is a home where the actual homeowners are probably right at or adjacent to full-blown senior citizen status and are most likely original owners of their home.  In fact, they themselves are rather nice and polite people, and I’ve never had a negative interaction with them before.

It’s just the circumstances in which their household exists that causes me some annoyance, and probably to others in the neighborhood if they were to stop and think about it.

So the OG owners here, they have like 3-4 grown adult children, whom have all appeared to have gotten married themselves and spawned numerous children.  One of these adult offspring still lives in the OG home with their spouse and children, presumably in the basement, seeing as how they have a finished basement with a separate entrance.  Which brings the resident count to somewhere between 5-7 people, including the OG elderly husband and wife.

The thing is, the other adult kids are always over at the OG parents’ house, along with all of their entire families, so it’s like at any given point the house is overflowing with like 10-15 people, depending on how many of their adult kids are over with their kids.  It doesn’t take a genius to surmise that the adult kids are over as often as they are, because grandma and grandpa are near, and usually willing to be free childcare, while their parents can coast with their lives knowing they have trustworthy hands available to parent in their laziness.

As a result, this is a home that always has a full driveway, and almost always has cars spilling out onto street parking, which is something I always find obnoxious no matter the circumstances, especially in a community like ours where just about every house has a driveway that can accommodate 6+ cars without breaking a sweat.  Plus, their home is situated on both a hill and a curve, which means that all other passing traffic has to exorcise extra caution when passing their home, because they won’t be able to see past whatever truck, minivan or SUV is parked on the street.

It’s not just about the parking malady they often create with their reliance and exploitation of the OG owners.  It’s the fact that all the adult kids and their own offspring take advantage and enjoy all of the benefits that actual homeowners are privy to, just because their parents still live in the home and maybe they once did too many moons ago.

When we have a block party, their household rolls up 15 people deep, when two are actual HOA due paying homeowners and the rest are their freeloading kids and their kids on top of it.  They come an eat a ton of food and their kids play on the bounce house and water slides that our community rents for children of the residents.  It just irks me in an unpleasant manner that no, I don’t want to just, not worry about, because it’s bullshit and it’s not fair to the rest of the community that actually lives here.

One year, we had a pool opening party, and this entire household rolled in 14 people deep.  Again, they’re helping themselves to the food that my dues went towards, but worst of all were all their fucking kids in the pool, splashing and taking up space, and I’m trying to enjoy wading around with my daughters, while these freeloaders are just all over the fucking place inadvertently splashing my kids with their rambunctiousness.

I’m not the only one to have noticed this exploitation of the rules at least as far as the pool is concerned, because when the pool opened up this year, as a gentle reminder when the rules of the pool were distributed for the season, there was an interesting new bullet stating that “only eight people allowed per household,” which I’m fairly certain applies to pretty much just them.  But it’s not like anyone can really enforce it, and I’d wager money that there’ve probably been multiple occasions in which these leeches took over the pool 12+ people deep.

The funny thing is, even though I’m not particularly keen on how much this household takes advantage of the general friendly disposition of the community, I’ve never had any negative interactions with them, personally.  Whenever I’ve spoken with any of the adults at any of our community functions, they’re all nice and cordial, if not aloof and a little negligent when it comes to parenting.  I’m sure they’re decent human beings as individuals.

But when the day is over, I’d rather just evict the entire household.  Just this past weekend, I had to wait an excessive amount of time while OG granddad struggled to back a trailer into the driveway, because there were already four other cars in it and a truck on the side walk, so just being able to pass was impossible until he was finished.

Had the home been occupied by one of the more normal households, with single families, no more than 2-3 vehicles and no freeloading adult offspring, the roads are clearer, safer and less congested with overpopulation bullshit.

So in conclusion, if I had a magic wand that could humanely remove them from my community, evicted!

Dad Brog (#139): the days are getting longer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I realized that it’s been a while since I did a dad brog, and in spite of my insistence that they weren’t intended to be solely sounding boards for the gripes and complaints I have about the challenges of parenting, there’s no denying the fact that the vast majority of the 138 editions of Dad Brog before this one probably were.  Parenting is hard, yo, and anyone who says that it isn’t is either not as hands-on or present of a parent as I am or they’re rich and/or lazy and have others doing the parenting for them.

That being said, let this be a dad brog that isn’t going to be just one gigantic bitch-fest as much as it’s just catching up on the life of being the parent that I am, because as I’ve stated before, this series of posts doesn’t have to be nothing but complaints and gripes, because as hard as parenting is, there’s plenty to love about it as well.

There are lots of times in my life where I sometimes and just watch my kids being kids, and there’s still a sense of disbelief that one, I have kids, and two that I somehow ended up with two girls.  Some might find it hard to believe considering they’re four and three and therefore I’ve been doing this for a while now, but I don’t know, I’m not going to imagine that I’m the only parent out there that feels this when they look at their kids, no matter how old they are, and it’s during these little moments where I sometimes just smirk and chuckle at the combined absurdity and satisfaction that the existence of my own children bring to my life.

Both kids are in school five days a week now, as opposed to the three-day part-time school schedule they had the year before, mostly on account of the school no longer giving us the option for three-day anymore, so my wallet is definitely feeling the pinch and will continue to feel it for another year, before it gradually starts getting better when #1 begins elementary school and #2 the year afterward.

All the same though, as much as I bemoan the financial burden of private schooling, I feel that the results speak for themselves; my kids are both sharp and intelligent and bright, and I’m often awestruck at some of the things they say or demonstrate that makes me go wtf, at how much they’re developing.  #2 has demonstrated a really great memory, and she has routinely been whooping my ass at the variety of memory card games we play, at her ability to recall the positionings of matching cards.

Just the other day, I was being lazy and was dicking around on my phone a little bit while around my kids; #1 rushed off to the bathroom because she’s fully potty trained now and more often opting to use the actual bathroom instead of the children’s potty we have in the kitchen, while #2 is still working things out.  I started to get up to go help, and she immediately shut me down and told me, “keep looking at your phone, I’ll be okay,” and I was just left there with this flabbergasted look and feeling on my face, where I couldn’t be mad at basically getting shut down by a four-year old, but also low-key called out for being on my phone.

Needless to say, I put the phone away after that.

Staving off boredom is basically the name of the game for me as a parent now, and we’re at the stage where the kids don’t really want to play with toys or read books as much as they want to do physical activities like run around, play tag, hide-and-seek and just burn energy.  It’s frustrating when it’s nuclear summer outside still, and I have to be very mindful of letting my kids play outdoors at the peak parts of the sun and heat, and I’m very much looking forward to the full changing of seasons, to where I might be able to let them go outside and play more, so we can all get a win in that regard.

And inevitable as it is, the kids’ bedtime has begun stretching longer, which means that my window of non-dad downtime has been getting smaller, much to my dissatisfaction.  Whereas we used to have the kids up in the bath by 6:30, in bed by 7:00pm, we’ve been adding 30-40 minutes to the routine now, and by the time the kids are down in bed, it’s nearly 8:00pm if not past it a few minutes now.

Obviously, this was always going to inevitably happen, but it just means that my window of time in which I reset the house, tidy up, clean dishes, pack lunches and anything else, before I can really sit down and relax, is basically becoming non-existent.  I’m lucky to free by 9pm, and if I have any ambitious preparation for the following day, then 10pm more likely.

But it’s really not the end of the world, because I realize these days, I’m so stripped down of everything that used to make me, me, that when I have free time, I don’t know what to do with in the first place anymore.  And with so little time to do anything even if I could, I just don’t; as fatalistic and depressing as it might sound, I’ve gotten to the point where it’s just kind of acceptance and I’m not really mad or depressed about it, it’s just something that I hope that when one day when I inevitably do have more time, I might be able to reclaim some of the things that I’ve had to put on back burners or in storage while I focus on being a dad first and foremost.

My kids are always priority #1, and everything else is a distant second.  The best part is that with their increasing potty control, I’m growing more trust to take them out with me, even if it’s both kids and I, because they’re really not going to learn how to exist in the world if they don’t go out into it, and two-fold, it helps stave off the perils of evil boredom when I can have things planned for them to do with me.

Either way, as I had hoped, in some respects parenting will never be easy, but in many other respects, it really has gotten easier, as my kids have aged.  When I no longer have to worry about any pooping accidents or malicious wetting incidents, I will have even more trust at bringing my kids out more often to see the world around them, and even more will be easier when I don’t have to always be mindful of where the closest bathrooms always are.