Tag: coronavirus

Grasping at the low-hanging fruit obvious joke

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A Maruchan plant in Chesterfield, Virginia reported seven employees testing positive for coronavirus.

If they were forced to destroy all product manufactured in the presence of these infected employees, Maruchan stands to lose $7.82.

Don’t get me wrong, few things are as guilty pleasure than instant ramen and their 9 billion grams of sodium per pack, and as a proponent of limiting waste, I don’t like to hear stories of so much food having to go to waste.  But the joke is so obvious, it has to be made.

Oh, Atlanta #669

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny, when Bubba decided to reopen the state of Georgia, starting with a very auspicious cherry-picked selection of businesses, my first thought was that “hey, this seems like it could be kind of racist, opening up all these businesses that tend to lean towards having mostly black workers and patrons.”  I asked around several people if they thought my opinion possibly held any weight, and the majority of the responses were mostly not really, and that I was more likely the racist for thinking such thoughts.

However since then, the black community has been pretty up in arms about how racist coronavirus is, how it’s a global conspiracy, and other claims, some more outlandish than the others.  But as it pertains to Georgia, when the black community starts echoing the thoughts that I had about how Bubba’s choices of business to reopen the state with, then I feel a little bit validated.

Unfortunately, in spite of the claims of Bubba’s racism, there are plenty of people who are content to do their best to be statistics and perpetuate stereotypes, even if there’s monumental scientific evidence out there that we should all probably still be staying indoors. 

But when Nike releases some new Air Jordans, it’s apparent that even a global pandemic isn’t enough to prevent people from staying indoors, instead choosing to gather in tight crowds and really put each other in the line of fire, all for the sake of trying to get some fucking shoes.

Now before anyone else decides that I’m being racist for thinking that surely not every single person at this Air Jordan release day is black, read the article: Greenbriar Mall.  Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Atlanta knows that Greenbriar Mall is basically 100% black, save for the few other minorities that have the gumption to open up businesses in a predominantly black mall, but as far as patrons go, it’s basically 100% black.  For context, this is a mall that used to house a Magic Johnson Theater, which were basically only in Los Angeles and a few other sparsely selected jurassic ghettos outside of California.

Either way, this is what we’d ironically classify as “a very Atlanta story” as even in the middle of a pandemic, people still can’t seem to stay away from gathering, as long as Air Jordans are on the line.  Naturally, the internet has had a field day with it, claiming all sorts of racist unflattering remarks, and pointing out why so many people are going out in public when, at the time of this going live was, the shoes were still readily available to purchase online; which then opened up a whole other can of racist remarks and memes.

To some degree, I hold Nike responsible for recklessly (or cerebrally) maintaining the course and releasing these shoes.  Surely they know the pandemonium the releases of Air Jordans tend to do to the sneakerhead community, much less urban, and it’s pretty poor optics that even when people are getting sick and dying out there, they’re content to give people reasons to leave their homes and gather, but that’s just me.

I guess Bubba will be very happy if the black voter base starts taking some more losses on account of them pursuing fucking shoes, but frankly that was probably the intent the entire time when he decided to reopen Georgia.

New Father Brogging, #006

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the most important things that I’ve learned as a first-time dad is that whenever you feel like you’re getting a grasp of raising a baby, behaviors will inevitably change and then you’re back into a position of knowing nothing all over again, and feeling helpless when your baby is reduced to crying and finding great difficulty at what may be causing your child distress.

When my baby is crying, it could be a variety of things that could be causing it; might be hunger, even if it might be improbably because she ate a full feed just 80 minutes ago, but a growth spurt could be in play, meaning she’ll want to eat pretty much every single hour.  Maybe it’s indigestion, to which there are only a few things that can actually bring her relief, like pressing her up against the warm body of a parent, or medicinally with gripe water or newborn anti-gas drops.  Maybe she needs to be burped more.  Maybe she’s cranky because she needs to take a nap.  Lately, she’s become cognizant to the discomfort of having a soiled diaper, something that hadn’t been the case in the first five weeks.  And sometimes, she just wants to be held by mom or dad.

The point is, there have been numerous times where I feel like I’ve identified a behavioral pattern, only to rely upon the knowledge of yesterday for today’s problems, and find out that everything has changed all over again, and then I’m left feeling dumbfounded and useless that I can’t figure out how to bring comfort to my own child.

I never once discounted the difficulty of parenting, for the first time much less, but as I expected it would be, parenting is not easy.  This does not deter me in the least bit, but I am just confirming that it’s about as difficult, and occasionally frustrating as I imagined it would be.  There’s nothing like changing a diaper, only for the kid to rip a wet fart and soil it seconds after being put on, only for an after shock to hit two minutes later, and make me throw my hands up at the frustrating of changing three diapers in the span of 120 seconds.

Ultimately I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’ll change a trillion diapers if I have to in order to raise my little girl right, but damn can I at least say there are times when I just have to say, what the fuck man?

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This is what is called “poor optics”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Since really March, when coronavirus really began taking off and running wild across the globe, a lot of massive events have been cancelled, understandably.  The 2020 Olympics postponed until next year, the NBA and MLB have suspended their seasons indefinitely and it doesn’t look like either is going to resume at all this calendar year.  The city of Las Vegas pretty much shut down, as did both Disney World and Disneyland.

Basically, anything that encouraged any sort of mass gathering of human beings has been cancelled, with great justification.  Major events such as SXSW and recently San Diego Comic-Con have cancelled.  Hell, even non major events, but still capable of drawing people out of their homes have shuttered up, as they don’t want to have the blood of anyone dying from contracting coronavirus at their events from happening.  Momo-con in Atlanta, a massive Memorial Day convention has cancelled, among all sorts of fun runs, shows and concerts.

As disappointed as I’d be, the Peachtree Road Race is probably going to be cancelled at some point soon, because it’s the world’s largest 10K run, that draws 65,000 runners to Atlanta every July 4th.

One of the biggest questions among some people in my little world was “what about Dragon*Con?”  Seeing as how it falls on Labor Day every year, there stood to be some hope that it might still happen, since we were still several months away from it at that point.  But at the same time, America has literally been the worst country on the planet at handling coronavirus, with idiots who not only don’t adhere to social distancing and staying home, but proudly defy the one scientifically proven way to combat the pandemic, and go outside and amass in groups to protest, being suggested of what to do.

Even if we’re still several months away from Dragon*Con, the world as a whole is even further away from any sort of vaccine or drug that can help suppress the spread or effects of coronavirus.  I think it goes without saying that an event that draws nearly 75,000 people in the tightest possible quarters, should probably be cancelled.

Nope, as of right now, Dragon*Con is still a go.  Four months from now, still anticipating 75,000 attendees crammed like sardines within a three-block radius in Downtown Atlanta with no known vaccine or inoculation in sight.

So much for that whole flattening of the curve thing.  It only took the convention nearly a decade to successfully scrub a known pedophile off of their board, but somewhere within it is basically another Bubba Kemp who insists on keeping the convention on schedule despite the fact that nearly every known other major event and gathering of people have been cancelled or postponed.

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Welp, so much for flattening the curve

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve long since stopped using the phrase “just when I thought people couldn’t possibly get any dumber,” because no matter what flabbergasting things in the world people do, they can always inexplicably find a way to do something dumber.  No. Matter. What.

In spite of the fact that Georgia, much less the rest of America is nowhere close to being on the path to being remotely similar to South Korea or Taiwan in terms of fighting coronavirus, our idiot governor Yosemite Sam, has decided that the stay-at-home ordinance is going to be lifted so that certain types of businesses can open reopen and get back to work; as in people go out of your homes into the world that has a potentially deadly airborne virus floating all over the place and get back to fucking work for the sake of the economy at the risk of your literal lives.

Before we even get to the list of approved businesses, let’s just opine about how recklessly horrible this decision is.

Despite the fact that Georgia ranks in the top-10 states in worst coronavirus numbers, they’re basically scrambling to get to the front of the line in regards to encouraging people to leave their homes, go out amongst other people and put themselves at increased risk; in order to get back to work.

Because the economy needs it. 

So go put yourselves in danger.  Because money

Anyway, let’s take a look at the businesses that will be opening within the next week:

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New Father Brogging, #005

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

We’re now well into the brave new world of pandemic ruining the planet, America “ascending” to #1, as in, being the country that’s most been most devastated by coronavirus and had the highest afflicted/death toll in the world, and pretty much everyone in the world has been advised to stay inside, avoid other people, and generally hunker down and hope for everything to eventually blow over.

Cabin fever, has perpetually been viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for Americans across the country, and it’s no more evident than whenever I do go out (pediatrician appointments, picking up takeout meals), that there are always people out and about, taking walks or jogging, more than ever.  Seriously, a running joke that myself and many people out there have, are that we’re all seeing people in our own neighborhoods that we’d never seen before, because people are mostly recluses to begin with, but forced into situations where they are discouraged from wasting time elsewhere, they feel the itch to waste time at home, even if it means being seen by their neighbors.

It kind of defeats the purpose of social distancing, but Americans have always been shit about following directions in the first place.  Although going on walks and jogging is a pathetic bending of a rule that isn’t going to help, things could be worse, so I guess it’s mostly a “fuck it, let them have that” kind of compromise, although I have heard of more draconian areas in the country that have police willing to write tickets for those not properly practicing social distancing.

Personally, cabin fever hasn’t really hit mythical wife and I, because the vast majority of our days have been overwhelmingly consumed by the whole, now we’re parents thing. I highly recommend popping out a newborn and raising it, if you’re feeling anxious about the way the world is now; I assure anyone that it most definitely is effective at taking their mind off of the inability to go out and do things, and that there’s absolutely no feeling of having too much time on your hands.

As it stands, since I’m working remotely, I actually feel like I work more now that I’m doing it from home, than I do when I’m at the office.  In fact, I feel like a lot of my reports and a lot of my peers in general are doing similarly, mostly on account of the fact that they all feel like they need to prove that they’re working, and subsequently actually become more productive than not.  I’m glued to my work machine for full work days, and by the time I log off, it’s the start of the evening, and we’re on a general cycle of feeding and changing the baby and then suddenly it’s 10 pm, and I need to start thinking about the next work day.

There are people out there who are complaining about how they’ve watched “everything” on Netflix already and are thinking of what streaming service to subscribe to next in order to find more fresh new content to watch; I’ve barely watched any television at all over the last few weeks.  The only things that I’ve really seen are when mythical wife is on pumping/feeding duty and I’m hanging out for support, and she’s been watching stuff like Great British Baking Show or Crash Landing On You.

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Well that was predictably not great

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Unsurprising to me, considering the fact that professional wresting kind of needs fans and atmosphere to really excel at being the spectator event it’s supposed to be, that a Wrestlemania with no fans and no real atmosphere, just was not that great.  It didn’t help that as a result of coronavirus running wild, there were some massive impacts to the card, like Roman Reigns pulling out because as a leukemia survivor, he’s already immunocompromised, and then the Miz pulling out because he had some ailment that scared the shit out of all other roster and personnel and probably gained him a ton of heat, things were becoming a steeper and steeper uphill battle, even before circumstances made the company turn the whole thing into a closed-door private affair.

In spite of their best efforts and making it a two-night event, very little could’ve really been done to have made the event remotely palatable to an old smark like myself.  The importance of crowds and the atmosphere they bring has been completely understated in the last few weeks of both WWE and AEW putting on empty venue shows.  But as much as I don’t like having to praise AEW, I have to give them credit for at least having the wherewithal to put their superstars in the audience so that there’s some sort of crowd noise or interaction to gain.

WWE on the other hand has literally nobody in the stands whatsoever, and it’s almost an eerie silence when matches go on.  I have to imagine as performers, it’s really jarring and awkward to them to have to perform for nobody but the camera, but act like that there’s a crowd at all, and go through with ring entrances and staring out into nothingness like there’s a sold out show.  I imagine those who are WWE grown struggled with it the most, whereas those who worked their ways through independents and alternative federations are probably no stranger to low-attendance or near-empty gates.

Regardless, the show as a whole was pretty weak, and it was entirely too difficult to get into many of the matches.  I fortunately watched each night of the show the day after, so I had the luxury of being able to fast forward and skip the rest holds and extended promos in order to chew up time.  As well as Rob Gronkowski segments, where the only thing I want to see out of him is to team up with Zack Ryder and Matt Riddle and make a douchey white guy bro stable, and have one program with The New Day since they’re a group of black nerds, and then get the fuck out of the WWE forever.

Undertaker vs. AJ Styles was about as bad as I imagined it would be, considering the fact that it was a gimmicky “Boneyard Match” that wasn’t so much of a match as much as it was an episode of WMAC Masters from back in the 90’s.  It hid every bit of the Undertaker’s lack of mobility and stamina, and AJ Styles had to work his ass off to make it look remotely passable.  It wasn’t really entertaining, but more cringeworthy that the WWE went off in this direction, but given the fact that the Undertaker is like 55 and can barely move, they didn’t really have that much of a choice.

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