Tag: cashmoney

Who knew Dwyane Wade was an old Asian guy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The Atlantic: The Worst Statue in the History of Sports

Usually when I link to a source, I write my own snarky little snippet, but in this particular case, I think The Atlantic’s verbatim headline, although a little heavy-handed, sums up the general sentiment and sets the tone for my own observations about Dwyane Wade’s freshly unveiled statue, outside of the BBC whatever name of the venue in which the Miami Heat play in.

But yes, the Dwyane Wade statue is pretty horrendous for a litany of reasons, and not just the fact that it looks absolutely fucking nothing like him.  Personally, I think he looks like an old Asian man, like Mr. Fuji from the WWF, but I’ve seen comparisons to Morpheus from The Matrix, as well as a laundry list of other NBA players past and present.

I can’t say that I was as big of a hoops fan to understand the significance of him pointing down, but the 14-year old in me automatically assumes that he’s pointing to his testicles, adding to the list of reasons why this statue is so historically bad.

Without (much) argument, Wade is probably the best player to be drafted and succeed with the Miami Heat, having won a championship with him being the 1A guy in like 2006.  If there were any time in his career in which his status should have been inspired by, I would’ve guessed the 2006 Finals, but I don’t really remember much about his performance other than the absolutely bonkers rate in which Wade went to the free throw line, and attempted over 90 free throws during the series against the Mavericks, en route to scoring like 200 points and winning the Finals MVP, so I guess having a statue of him shooting free throws wouldn’t have been that legendary.

Otherwise, as revered as he is in Miami, all I remember him for is being the guy that voluntarily gave up the driver’s seat of the team to LeBron James, which did in fact, net him two more championship rings, but basically tarnished the rest of his career as he basically became Robin for the remainder of it, to the point where he was one of the first really hilariously notable victims to a sports contract opt-out clause, where he opted out of his deal with the Heat, thinking he could negotiate more money, but was very wrong, and ended up having to crawl back to the Heat for the same money, but more years to earn it.

He would then bounce around between Chicago and Cleveland and eventually come back to the Heat where he could at least go out on relatively his own terms, ending where it all began, and actually have a farewell tour in the process.

I have no issue with Dwyane Wade, but in my opinion there’s no mistaking that he’s a guy that got owned quite a few times in his career, and I can’t help but find humor in those scenarios.  The fact that in what should’ve been one of his last few greatest career moments in his career, also ended up being a bomb as well, on account of a hilariously terrible statue that looks absolutely nothing like him seems fitting, as the guy basically finished up the second half of his career getting owned repeatedly; so really what really is the harm in one more instance of getting owned for D-Wade?

I don’t see it anywhere, but let’s just hope that the statue itself at least spelled “Dwyane” correctly; not that it should be surprising if they didn’t considering the asinine phonetically incorrect way he actually legally spells it, but it would be funny if it weren’t.

Oh, South Fulton #47

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: South Fulton taxpayers ‘livid’ because mayors wants to give himself a raise

It was 7:10 am and I was in the kitchen groggily pondering my life while getting ready to start preparing breakfast for the kids, when I saw the headline for this article pop up on my Echo.  My brow furrowed, and my knee-jerk reaction was what, fuck that when I pulled out my phone to look up the story to find out more.

I’ve said it many times that despite the fact that I’ve long bid good riddance to South Fulton county, I still have a casual interest in the goings over there, because I do believe that in spite of all the corruption and ironic bad behavior that will always render the place a swampy swirl, I do feel for those that are good, that still live there and believe in the place, even if I don’t, and want good for those people.  And my knee-jerk reaction was that a mayor giving himself more money for a region that seems incapable of improvement, doesn’t sound like a very good idea for those people.

But then I read the context behind the headline, and my attitude changed fairly quickly.

Turns out the Mayor of the City of South Fulton was making a paltry $47,676 a year.  The caveat to it is that for whatever reason, it was in a part-time capacity, and there are all sorts of easy jokes about how it’s possible or why it’s just part-time explains why South Fulton is such a wasteland, but in terms of numbers, the mayor was making a wage that frankly I don’t think is necessarily livable in the Metro Atlanta area.

It should also be mentioned that one of the former mayors of Atlanta once was discovered in an audit to have spent upwards of $20K doled out to employees as prizes and bonuses for holiday parties, to give a barometer of how much reckless spending there is in this general region.

But yeah, the mayor of the City of South Fulton is currently making $47K and wants to bump himself up to $85K; the article states that it’s a 78% increase presumably to increase outrage, but it’s really 55%, and frankly, for doing the thankless job in a wasteland, even if it’s at a part-time capacity whatever that entails, I don’t think is an unreasonable amount to propose.  It’s not like he’s asking for six figures to do the seemingly nothing that all the politicians in the Metro area do, and frankly it’s not like he hasn’t earned some money for all the efforts he’s tried to put into his jurisdiction.

For context, after being elected, he deliberately moved himself into one of the sketchiest apartment complexes in one of the most sketchiest parts of town, to try and prove to his constituents that he was one of them and was a man of the people.  He eventually had to bail because unsurprisingly a place like that had tremendous mold problems and it was threatening to the lives of him and everyone who lived there (the complex has since mostly burned down, “accidentally”), but this is the kind of guy that he tried to be, as a politician.

Regardless, there are many in South Fulton who are deemed as livid because he wants a little bit more money to part-time reside over them, and after seeing the numbers, I’m not opposed to it anymore as much as I think a lot of it should be past-services due. 

It’s like that scene in Ocean’s 13 where the dice factory goes on strike, and Andy Garcia as Terry Benedict hears the number $30,000, and is all like $30K for every employee?  And then is informed that it’s just $30k is what they’re demanding in total, and everyone’s just basically like.. that’s it?

That’s how I feel about this guy asking for a little bit more money.  It’s not an egregious amount, and it’s frankly too modest in my opinion.  I know it’s easy for me to say not being my tax dollars and my money, but if anyone were to offer me a 55% raise to go live back in South Fulton County, I’m not doing it.  Not even for a 100% raise, because there’s no way I could afford to live in a secluded fortress away from all the bullshit, not to mention the agony commute I’d be putting myself into again.

Man is just asking for a modest raise to continue living in a part of town that mostly everyone has given up on and doesn’t believe in, and even if he is one of the many Metro Atlanta politicians blowing smoke, $85K a year seems like a rounding error in comparison to some of the flagrantly irresponsible spending going on around the rest of the Metro area.

I wish I could be CEO of my company for just a year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that I want to make yet another post talking about work, it’s just that this is something that’s been sitting on my mind a lot lately and falls into the category of if I don’t write it out now, it’ll never getting written out and I think this has legs enough to be worth a post.

But “culture” has been the overarching thing going on with the company I work for, and I do feel that we’re at a little bit of a rough patch as far as everyday operations are going.  Things aren’t the worst that I’ve ever had to deal with in my career, but they’re far away from being a place that doesn’t feel more than a means to an end type of job.

This year, my workplace has gotten a little caught up and fixated on their “scores,” which is how the company is perceived by its own employees, taken by a third-party company.  Apparently, the scores this year have been some of the worst ever, to the degree where many people above or not adjacent to my paygrade are seemingly constantly in the works to figure out ways to improve morale, employee satisfaction and potentially improve their scores the next time survey time rolls around.

Obviously, one of the first things that comes to mind is, where the fuck are all these people getting time to fixate on stuff like this, when there are business objectives and tasks that could be done alternatively?  But I digress, all this score analysis has resulted in a whole lot of aggravating outcomes, which feels like when a couple is having issues, and where one party is trying too hard to make things better that they actually are making things worse.  That’s pretty accurate to how it feels like at my workplace currently.

Recently, we had an event pop up called “Stress Break at the Park” which ordinarily would make me roll my eyes at the forced fraternization, but the park selected was actually near my home, and would’ve been a welcome interruption to daily Office Space to be able to have a much shorter trip home.  However, just the other day, an amendment went out, and suddenly Stress Break was no longer four hours long, but one, and it was no longer at the park near my house, but instead the atrium of the office.

The ironic laughter was copious among the jaded of my team.

Anyway, I could write a NaNoWriMo about some of the more inane bullshit that occurs at work, like most people probably could about their respective jobs, but I’ll try my best to cut to the chase and get back to the title of this post.

We had a meeting, where all hands on deck were tasked with spitballing ideas to improving business, profits, engagement and other metrics that big companies tend to want to see heading in an upward trajectory.  I remember making some suggestions that I thought were good and viable, but when the day is over, I’m so far removed from the plateau to where actual decisions could be made that when the meeting ended, everything seemed for naught.  However, I believe in a lot of the ideas that I have, and this is where I wished that I could just be the CEO of the company for just a year, so I could push through some of my ideas and put them really to the test to see if they would shake out for a company like ours.

Primarily, most of my ideas revolve around dropping prices across the board, and giving shit away.  There’s been so much evidence in the world of commerce that lowering costs to consumers typically equate to consumers spending more, and big bad Target just this past year recorded considerable sales growth on account of lowering prices to consumers.

When you look at some of the most successful apps out there, they thrive on microtransactions, because most everyone can afford to part with a few bucks here and there, as opposed to targeting the most financially privileged and expect nothing but home runs from every transaction.

One of my favorite stories in business is Sega, when they created Sonic the Hedgehog, instead of charging consumers for their answer to Super Mario, they basically gave the game away.  It helped usher in an entire generation into purchasing Sega Geneses, and lightning struck twice when they released Sonic 2, and had it be the pack-in for later consoles.

That’s the kind of general mentality I’d love for my company to do, is not be afraid to give shit away for free, to the right recipients.  Partner up with other Atlanta-based companies or organizations and get their name out there and collaborate.  Donate product to be used for their offices or places of business, in exchange for content and sponsorship.

Partner up with charitable organizations and donate products to build relationships, create positive PR and press, and get the company’s name out there to be associated with charity, good will and doing well for others.

Sure, there would be a big up-front cost to give away product and labor, but I just believe that there’s enough evidence out in the world of business that proves that those companies who have been unafraid to give shit away, have managed to prosper and flourish in the long game.

Frankly, in the sterile, copy what everyone else is doing world of business, I would just love to take the reigns of a company like the one I work for, and love to try and shake shit up and see if I could rock the boat and succeed and thrive using ideas of my own that I don’t have to push through and climb the ladder with.

One can dream.  I have little desire to actually be in the role of a CEO, I’m someone who needs to work, and being a figurehead and a fall guy doesn’t seem like much of a job to me, but one can still dream about wanting to make change.

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.

Ted Lasso S4 announcement? Not sure how to feel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Ted Lasso season 4 appears to be imminent as options on several key actors appear to be picked up

I’m not sure how to feel about the escalating possibility that there might be more Ted Lasso.  In one hand, the show was the best show that I’d seen in a very long time, and I hold it up in similar regards to Parks & Rec as an all-time personal favorite.  I remember watching the first episode and thinking not long into it that I just knew I was going to love the series, and in the blink of an eye, I was wrapping up the third and final season, feeling sad that such a quality series was coming to an end, but also feeling happy at the general positivity of the series as a whole, and the neat and clean way they seemed to wrap everything up in the end.

To me, season 3 ended with the show seemingly knowing and at complete peace with itself at the conclusion of the series.  Sure, there were some open-ended doors opened for all of the characters, but that’s also a metaphor of life in that just because a singular arc ends doesn’t mean it’s the end of life itself.  But nothing to indicate that there would really be any possibility of there being any future seasons of the show once it all wrapped up.

Obviously, money is the ultimate equalizer and reason for any closed books to be opened back up and retconned in the name of producing moar, so in that regard, I’m also a little sad and apprehensive to hear about the possibility of more Ted Lasso because at this point, I can’t help but wonder if it can possibly be as good as the original three seasons were.

I’m trying not to give anything away, but the way the series wrapped up in S3 kind of makes it hard for the original series to continue on.  Perhaps all of this activity regarding performer options being picked up is going to culminate in a spinoff series of some sort which I’d find more palatable than trying to re-started Ted Lasso itself, but the way the internet is abuzz, they’re almost certain that it’s going to be a S4 of Ted Lasso instead.

And like I said, I’m not sure whether to be happy and excited for it, because I loved the show so much, but in the other hand I’m skeptical and don’t think there’s any way they can recapture the magic once again, especially when they will have to undo a lot of the finale to S3 in the process.

Either way, I guess that’s really the all I have to opine about the topic; I had marked this as something that I wanted to brog about, but it turns out that there’s not really that much for me to say without repeating myself three times over, but whatever show comes out of all of this, whether it’s Ted Lasso S4 or something Ted Lasso-adjacent, I’m going to be watching it anyway, because as a fan of the OG, it really goes without saying that I’ll give anything related to the show a chance to hopefully bring me back to television viewing enjoyment bliss.

DC’s Absolute Universe logos absolutely suck

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t dislike DC Comics, but I’m definitely one of those fans that feels like no matter what they do, no matter what they try, it always seems like it falls flat, and when they’re inevitably compared to Marvel, they’re always this extraordinary distant second place.  I love Batman, and I have no qualms with really any other DC property, but in my opinion, I just feel like DC in particular has fallen a little too victim to the changing of the times and ideals of the world, and have been way too quick to pull the plug on long-term storytelling, and retconned things so rapidly and so frequently that it’s hard to even tell what’s canon versus what’s just some blow-off one-off.

It’s like the comic industry is truly no different than the rest of the working world in that nobody stays put long enough to see through any chances at some good long-term storytelling or even just a year’s worth of comics these days, and the industry as a whole is full of convoluted, clunky crap that I have little interest in reading on the monthly, and prefer to read about it later on Wikipedia synopses, so that I can then go, what the fuck?

Anyway, in yet another reconning of the universe, DC Comics is apparently going in the route called the Absolute universe, which I’m guessing is a lot like when Marvel launched the Ultimate universe, but the fact of the matter is that it’s still a hard reset of all the flagship properties, with hopes of boosting sales, engaging the newer, even more ADD generation, and that it’s easier to start over from scratch versus even attempting to pick up the pieces from the latest wave of employee turnover.

And part of the entire reconning of the company, for some reason, they saw fit to redesign a bunch of logos of notable properties.  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my career as a creative, fewer things (attempt to) mask mediocrity than the changing of logos of a notable brand(s), or making them in the first place, for inconsequential purposes.  I mean, the City of Atlanta probably burns $10M a year on making logos and branding stupid bullshit while half of that is probably skimmed into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats to begin with.

But most noteworthy among the rebrandings were the new logomarks for three of their most flagship properties: Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.  And as the title of this post clearly states, they all absolutely suck.

Batman’s new logo silhouette has been transformed into a multi cutter tool’s blade, seeing as how it’s a very lightly serrated rectangle now.  It seriously looks like if I were to trace this as a stencil onto a piece of sheet metal, cut it out and jerry-rig it into my Ryobi, I could probably use it to fairly efficiently cut through plastics or foams, if I were still at the stage of my life where I would make costumes for Dragon*Con.

Wonder Woman’s logo now isn’t too far from its old iteration, but much like many things that are feminine in nature and display now, it’s been widened, fattened and made to look all thicc, because it’s okay if not all women don’t look like Jim Lee interpretations of females, especially in comics.  But in doing so, it’s almost as if they’ve been successfully bullied out of their own original identity by the growing Whataburger company, who didn’t really do a good job with their own branding to not act like they weren’t completely lifting the original Wonder Woman emblem in the first place.

So let the record show that the regional fast food burger company has successfully bullied the vaunted Wonder Woman out of using her own fucking identity.  Poor form, DC.

Finally, we have Superman’s logo, which at least, manages to at least salvage their traditional five-sided pentagon shape, and is the one logo that seems to retain the closest to its original iteration.  But much like in the world of typography, the original serifs have been lopped off of the S, and for whatever reason, the top left part of the emblem looks really fucking weird to me, because there’s no break in the red from the S and the edge of the emblem and it all bleeds together looking sloppy.  I can interpret that the general thickness of the S probably wouldn’t accommodate for there needing to be any space near the edge of the emblem, but it just looks really off, like Capcom’s shitty logo for not putting any space in the second C and the O of their wordmark that bothers the shit out of me.

And if you were to focus on the yellow parts alone, it looks like a really erect dick about to really overshoot the toilet underneath it, and I hope that any of my zero readers were to read this observation, they would become unable to unsee it, and spread the opinion out to the rest of the world like an obnoxious virus.

So, in conclusion, DC Comics felt the need to reset their shitty universe once again, and for some reason decided to rebrand some of their most iconic properties in the process.  And in changing logos that never needed to be changed in the first place, we’re left with a saw blade, a fat version of the Whataburger logo, and a dick and toilet emblem in the end.

gg dc, wp.