Tag: observations

I feel like this was probably one big misinterpretation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

DFP: Bomb threat on a Spirit Airlines flight in Detroit forces evacuation

I just want to start off with, I understand that bomb threats are no laughing matter, and good on all airline, airport, local and county personnel and authorities for doing the right thing and evacuating everyone and ensuring that all was green.

But I just feel like given the combination of circumstances, location, time, and nature of people who are flying Spirit Airlines, there’s probably some critical context missing from this story that probably leads to everything being one gigantic misunderstanding.

First of all, this happened in Detroit, which is one of the saddest and most depressing places in the country that I’d ever been to.  It’s a blue-collar place with a feeling of defiance of defeat in the actual city itself, and much like airports like Atlanta, Dulles, the airport is located way the fuck far away from the actual city proper and are the only things that stretch the city zone maps to retain the name.

Did you also know that Detroit has the highest concentration of Middle Eastern immigrants in the country?  This was news to me when I first was told this factoid, but then when I was on the prowl for as many Tim Horton’s locations as I could find, I found one inside of a Middle Eastern grocery store, and I realized such factoid was probably right.  Somewhere in this paragraph is the unfortunate stereotypical parallel between painting those of Middle Eastern descent or appearance with bomb threats on airplanes, and my mind assumes that this could’ve been one of those Harold and Kumar moments where someone might have seen a brown-skinned person on the plane and lost their shit, leading to this whole debacle.

Second, most everyone knows the jokes, memes and stereotypes that go along with Spirit Airlines.  I’ve flown with them more than I care to admit, because it’s hard to ignore a $97 RT versus a $397 RT on Southwest or Delta for a 90 minute flight, so I’m quite well aware of them myself on a first-hand experience.  Unruly, loud, hostile, and other pejoratives to describe the people who fly on Spirit Airlines, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine the word “bomb” being muttered by any of these folks, regardless of the context, but as the FAA and TSA and whatever government agencies have conditioned us, bomb is bomb, and when the tragic word is whispered, shouted, muttered, uttered or screamed, all systems come to a halt, and the authorities are sent in.

Third, check the time of when the incident was reported – 7 am.  Which means that this flight was boarding at like 6:15 am, which means people have been at the airport since like 5 am or earlier, and I don’t care who you are, when you’re on that crack ass of dawn flight, there’s a way higher chance than normal that you’re not going to be in a good mood.  Now multiply that being in Detroit, and flying with Spirit Airlines, and you’ve got an entire aircraft full of extra ornery motherfuckers who are well past beyond edge, and somewhere along all these circumstances the word bomb popped out, and then all shit hit the fan.

Again, kudos to all those involved in security and operations for following protocol and ensuring the safety of everyone on the flight and in the airport.  But given all the moving parts and variables in this situation, I can’t help but feel like there probably is a whole lot of things that were taken out of context and lead to a wholly excessively unnecessary scenario.

Matthew Stafford’s wife put him into a no-win situation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

US Weekly: LA Rams QB Matthew Stafford judged by the internet for sitting in first class while his wife and four daughters sat in coach; unbeknownst to the many, it was arranged by his wife

Talk about a true no-win situation to be put in here, and the wonder if his wife set him up or not.  NFL quarterback sits in first class, while his wife and four daughters sit in coach; at first blush, it sounds like a chauvinistic asshole flexing his status as a man, a breadwinner, and a professional athlete against his wife and kids, plopping himself into the comfort and luxury of first class, while they all get to sit in the pleeb class.

Naturally, as the internet goes, first blushes and knee-jerk reactions are all any targets get, and Matthew Stafford is now branded an asshole, a douche, a selfish pig who has no respect for his wife, his kids, all women, etc, but then we come to find out that this whole thing was set up entirely by his own wife, who seems to like to tout that they have a no-nonsense travel policy:

I told Matthew, ‘Listen, point A to point B. There’s a flight. Let’s just get on it. It’s fine,’”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about marriage, a wife, or women in general, when a woman says to you “It’s fine,” the shit is already Chernobyl and there’s nothing you can do about it, except begin damage control.  The more I re-read this story, the more I feel like Kelly Stafford probably had some existing beef or receipt to give poor Matthew, and found this flight as an excellent opportunity to exorcise it.  And the most diabolical part about it was the fact that she didn’t tell him about it at all, until it was boarding time.

Poor Matthew even knew what was going to happen when once the jig was up and he learned that he’d be separated from his family in first class versus everyone else:

He was like, ‘I’m gonna look like the biggest a**hole,’”

Of course, the wife had to have known this as well, but at this point they were already past no-return, and she instead tried to play it off like it would be the fault of those who would choose, and undoubtedly would choose, to judge:

Listen, if people have time to consider you to be an a**hole because your 6’3” self is not gonna sit in the back with everyone in your family who is 5’3” and under, then they’ve got bigger issues.”

In the end, predictably, regardless of the facts and context behind the whole thing, Matthew Stafford looks like an asshole for sitting in first class, and Kelly Stafford and their four Stepford Children of the Corn daughters all look like martyrs, farming up pity and sympathy, sitting in pleeb class.  Probably not saying much to defend her husband to those throwing shade in person, as much as she’s getting to be quoted for a written piece.

Whew, piece of work that Kelly Stafford is.  Ain’t nobody going to convince me that this wasn’t wholly orchestrated as a result of some marital beef or microaggression that she felt that required retribution in a manner that was a no-win for Matthew, and a complete win for her.

No wonder Matthew Stafford was able to keep such a cool head for all those years he played for the Lions, because going home some days was probably way worse than playing in Detroit.

Life as The Janitor class

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Like many topics that swirl around in my head that I think about writing a post about, there are times in which I feel like I have to be in the right mood and/or headspace to optimally write about a particular one.

Considering #1 peed all over her bed because we’re still in the process of night potty training her, and #2 decided to obliterate her night-time diaper, probably because I’ve let the kids eat some fairly rich foods over the holiday weekend, which meant I had to clean everything up in the tiny window of time in which is usually spent ushering the girls downstairs for breakfast, I think I’m in the right frame of mind to write about this one finally.

A long time ago, my friends and I played this one board game; I think it was Nemesis Lockdown, because it’s the only board game that I can Google that sounds like what I’m trying to recollect.  Among the playable classes was The Janitor, and that stands out because I’d never heard of a game that took such realism into consideration to where they’d force a player(s) to take on the role of an actual custodian.

And it wasn’t a case of where it was a class in name, and that The Janitor was more a metaphor in that they CLEANED UP THE OPPOSITION or anything remotely more audibly interesting than what actual janitors do.  No, The Janitor class was an actual janitor, where their primary action is to, eliminate waste, that other players and the monster classes leave behind in their wake.  Like, the typical turn for The Janitor was, movement phase towards a tile where waste was, and action phase, the act of cleaning up said waste.  No cool special talent, no hidden bonus to where they could one-shot a baddie, their sole existence in the game was to shuffle around the board, cleaning up after everyone else.

Here’s the twist to the game – if The Janitor were ever to be eliminated, the clock in which the game comes to an end would accelerate to an insurmountable speed.  The game was set up to where there was no way for The Janitor to ever stay on top of the amount of waste that other players and enemies generate, and required tactical management and prioritization of waste disposal.  Smart, cerebral players learn and know how to manage waste disposal to where it doesn’t hinder the survival cause too much.

But if The Janitor were killed, there is no more player who can eliminate any waste, and after every player phase, more and more waste accumulates in the base, and eventually the map becomes immovable.  Either players trap themselves in a prison of waste, or they’re forced to evacuate the base to where monsters would more than likely overwhelm and kill them, but either way, the game ends much faster after the elimination of The Janitor than if they live.

That’s basically what swirls through my head on a daily basis when I spend an absurdly inordinate amount of time of my life cleaning up after other people.  I try not to think about it too much, but the reality is that so many people in my life are basically slobs.  Family, friends, my own household, it’s like everyone I know has way more shit than they know what to do with, and as a result, it’s just piles of said shit all over the place.  And it’s like I’m not only a player who has my own set of tasks and duties to do, but I’m also The Janitor on top of it all, and having to do all of the tasks and duties of The Janitor, except I still only have the number of movement and action moves of one player.

It’s often overwhelming and always frustrating, and I try on a daily basis to keep my head above water over the endlessly growing piles of waste that accumulate and clog up my board in an endless cycle.  More often than not, I don’t get to do any of the actions of my primary class, because I’m using all of my actions being The Janitor, cleaning up the endless shit that keeps materializing around me, while having to be tactical and cerebral on what has to go versus what I can push off onto a later player phase.

And if I were to ever be killed or eliminate from the game?  There’s absolutely no doubt that the same thing would happen to my home as what would happen in the game when The Janitor is removed from play.  Shit would start to accumulate and accumulate, and with nobody to give a shit about actually cleaning up and eliminating some of it on a regular basis, the home would eventually become overwhelmed, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen if that were the case.

In the past, I used to be critical of Marie Kondo and her whole spiel of get the fuck rid of everything.  I criticized her Netflix show but watched more episodes than I care to admit, and then laughed when she had kids and admitted to being just like all of us other parents who get overwhelmed and start accumulating more shit than she knew what to do with.

But as my life has progressed through the 2020’s, the more I wish my life were closer to being able to pulling a KonMari than not.  I’d probably need an entire dumpster to purge my home of all the shit that I know we don’t need, and pretty much only then, would The Janitor be able to take a backseat to whatever class I’m really meant to be, I don’t know fucking know anymore, because I’ve been The Janitor for so long now that I guess I don’t really have another player class anymore.

lol, I love to see the Dodgers lose

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In case you missed it because I did too: the Disney Anaheim Angels of Southern Orange County Los Angeles sweep the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend

Unsurprising, this is what happens when a team gets good, succeeds, spends boatloads of money, signs all the notable free agents and becomes the internal darlings of the league they’re in – they mostly become reviled by fanbases that are not supporters of them in the first place.

I mean, I wasn’t really ever a Dodgers fan at any point of my life with the closest thing to support being when Chan Ho Park was there, but for the most part, I just never really cared about them.  They were a fringe team that played in a weak division and never seemed like they were any threat to actually succeed, especially when the Phillies bounced them every time they ran into each other in the playoffs.

But then they eventually got their shit together, started making the playoffs every single year, basically bounced the Braves from them every time they encountered each other except for 2021, and had been enjoying a renaissance of sorts.  I started to dislike them.

Then, they poached Freddie Freeman from the Braves, which wasn’t entirely their fault as much as the Braves being the Braves, meaning the cheapskate fucks that absolutely will not spend money on a free agent that isn’t at their peak, but for all intents and purposes, the Dodgers took the heart out of Atlanta, and I really disliked them.

And then their organization deployed a pelican strike on the league by exploiting deferred money deals to avoid luxury tax penalties while at the same time securing massive money deals on just about every notable free agent on the market, most notably getting Shohei Ohtani for $700 million dollars, en route to committing over a billion dollars on free agents.

By this point, if baseball fans that weren’t Dodger fans already didn’t dislike the Dodgers, this is where they really began to.

It’s not that they’re cheating or doing anything at all that’s not legal, it’s just that they’re really driving home the reality of the importance of spending money, and there’s a lot of misguided frustration and hatred for their own teams, being directed at the Dodgers, but the bottom line is that the Dodgers have basically become the most hated team in the league, even more than the Yankees depending on whom you ask.

So that’s why it’s so satisfying to see when the Dodgers perform like anything other than the team that outspent the rest of the league to construct an uber-roster, and not just get swept at home, but get swept at home to their in-city archnemeses, in the Angels.  And not just the Angels, but the lowly Angels who have 2/3 the payroll of the Dodgers, as well as have a living leech on the squad in Anthony Rendon who is getting paid $38M to not play at all. 

And to top it off, the Angels were without superstar Mike Trout, who is also on the disabled list, and they still took the Dodgers behind the toolshed to shellack them, in their own house no less.

I didn’t catch a single game, much less even know about it after the fact, but I just fucking love it all the same, and it does bring me great joy to see the Dodgers fuck up in such a monumental manner.  It’s just so hilarious because the TL;DR of the whole thing is that the Angels suck and the Dodgers don’t, but the Angels still swept them. 

It’s as big of an upset as the Pistons beating the Lakers in 2003, whenever Tom Brady had a brainfart and lost to the Dolphins, or when the Honda Civic beat the Ferrari in a drag race in that one video clip that was ever only available on fucking RealPlayer.

When the season is over, the Dodgers will still most likely be in World Series contention, while the Angels probably won’t even be close to even the play-in series, but for one weekend in May, the Dodger-hating contingent of baseball fans can all collectively point and laugh at the Dodgers and all their shitty soft-ass fairweather fans.

Nobody feels bad for the Dodgers when they don’t succeed, and it is always joyous to see them lose, but getting swept at home by the rival Angels, is probably going to be the lowest point for the squad this season.  And I love to see it.

Shitty game alert for parents: Donut Dash by Goliath Games

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My kid begged and whined for us to get this game.  And seeing as how it was on deep discount at the death row of JoAnn’s, we acquiesced, because nowadays, anything that can occupy and entertain my children for more than two seconds is considered a win, and which is why my house feels like a future episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive, is because it’s so full of shit like this.

Mythical wife has this funny habit, where she’ll buy things for the kids, but then just kind of hand them off or leave them for me or the au pair to give to the kids, or in some cases, just kind of give the things to the kids and let them tear into the boxes and packages because they love to do that kind of shit.  But in most cases, that’s not always the best idea, because games aren’t made to be immediately played right out of the box, now more than ever, and this fucking game, Donut Dash, is among the worst I’ve ever experienced.

The above image I made pretty much gets right to the point on why this game blows, because there are no batteries included, and worse off, there are a ton of stickers in the box that need to be affixed to very specific things, like the little car, as well as decorating each and every single one of the 22 donuts included in the game.  And my kids love fucking stickers, and it took less than 10 seconds for them to start peeling them up and affixing them to absolutely anything but their intended objects, and I spent an inordinate amount of time, obviously annoyed, trying to carefully peel and correct sticker placement onto the bullshit donuts that couldn’t possibly have been bothered to have that kind of shit printed on, on perhaps cardboard instead of shitty plastic.

And when I read how the game actually played, I could already see in my head upon reading that the car shot the discs out in random directions, that this game wouldn’t last five minutes before we lost one or more of these stupid donuts.

That is, if the dumb car didn’t jam immediately, because of the donuts that my kids put stickers on themselves poorly stuck to the inside of the well, clogging immediately, once again requiring parental intervention to fix it.

I actually didn’t stick around for the actual play of the game, but when I came back home later in the afternoon, I found at least three donuts randomly on the ground, and I imagine that there’s probably others underneath the refrigerator, under the area rugs, and undoubtedly underneath the couch.  And the kids were completely uninterested in it any further, and I opted to just box it back up, and put it away, because as far as I’m concerned, Donut Dash is a colossal piece of shit and a waste of money, even if it was down to just $8.

The point is, this is an awful fucking game, not just for the kids who will lose interest in a fifth of the time it takes to properly set it up, but the parents who not only will pay for it, but are also the ones who will be responsible for said proper set up, lest the kids like my own fuck it all up from the on set, which I would highly recommend not allowing to be the case, if one was still so inclined to want to give this turd a try.

Dad Brog (#150): Next stop, kindergarten

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I blinked a few times, and now my eldest daughter has graduated pre-K, and is en route to starting kindergarten the next school year.  I still have a hard time digesting that, considering that the last five years have soared by, where my kids were born the generation of COVID babies, and the world has gone through a whole lot of hoopla to get to where we are today.

Like, it didn’t feel that surreal when #1 began 2K and went onto 3K while #2 started a year later, but more recently, it dawned on me when I went to the last Friday sing-along of the year, that this was also the final Friday sing-along for #1 outright.  Very soon, the school year was going to come to a close, and all the classmates she’s mostly had over the last three years, almost all of them are going their separate ways, since being a private pre-K, kids are from all over the place, and despite the fact that this school is zoned for a specific elementary school, almost none of them will actually be going there.

Obviously, #1 doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that she’s not going to be seeing a lot of her classmates again with any regularity very soon, and instead it’s me the parent that feels sentimental for her that she’s not going to be seeing her friends, some of whom she’s grown quite close with over the years, and we as the parents can all tell each other that this doesn’t have to be the end, but much like our own adult relationships, it basically is.

Such is the relentless passage of time and the journey of life, and my first kid has completed one of the first stages of life, being preschool.  She’s a whip-sharp, intelligent and observant kid, that has a beautiful imagination, loves to draw and paint, and I’m often floored at the academic development she’s shown over the last three years of preschool, and it’s going to be all sorts of emo-dad emotions in the future to see what she does next, starting elementary school.

As most parents aside from myself probably opine at similar circumstances, I just can’t believe that time has flown so fast, and I’ve already got a kindergartener on deck.  Aside from the financial alleviation of having one less kid in a private pre-K, it’s going to be exciting to see what lies ahead in the future as #1 takes the step into the next stage of life, entering contemporary education.

Cute, but not accurate

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

OutKick: Tampa Bay Rays have their first rain delay in the franchise’s history, commemorative ponchos handed out to all 17 of their fans in attendance

I haven’t written much about baseball this season, but then again, I don’t really feel like I’ve written that much over the last few weeks but I digress.  But because a hurricane obliterated Tropicana Field, the dump of a venue that housed the Tampa Bay Rays, the team had been forced to play the entirety of their home games in the 2025 season, at of all places, the Yankees’ Spring Training facilities, Steinbrenner Field.

That being said, seeing as how the Trop was an indoor ballpark, and Steinbrenner Field is very much outdoor, it’s actually kind of amazing that it’s taken this long for the weather to come into play in Florida of all places, and the Rays to deal with a rain delay.  But for all intents and purposes, the franchise has declared it as the first rain delay in Rays history, and to commemorate the tongue-in-cheek occasion, all 17 fans in attendance were given commemorative ponchos, which is actually kind of cool and definitely clutch because rain at pretty much any other ballpark in the country is an instant cash-grab for the venues to be able to hawk overpriced trashbags and umbrellas on the bad luck of those not prepared for potential rain.

However, I’m going to piss on this little parade and go all well actually, because not only was this not the first time a Rays game has been delayed on account of the rain, I can actually say that I was there when it had happened.

It was in 2009, when I was still freelancing, and was having kind of a chill summer vacation on account of being in between assignments and coasting off of a giant payday I made from a project I had completed earlier in the year.  I had money, I had time, I had my Delta flight benefits, and I didn’t want to let the entire summer go by without capitalizing on my advantages at being able to tackle some baseball parks on my quest to visit all 30.

I got to Tampa Bay and basically went straight to the Trop since I didn’t have any time to tourist around like I normally like to do on my baseball trips.  I lucked into a paper World Series of a pitching matchup between Roy Halladay, then with the Blue Jays, and David Price, when he was still the man in St. Pete’s.  Long story short, the game went about six innings of a matchup as good as it was on paper, but unbeknownst to me, the skies had opened up and it was absolutely pouring outside the ceiling of the dome above me.

And then suddenly, there was an announcement over the PA system, and security started going onto the field, and players started coming off of it.  Apparently, on account of the weather, there was a power outage somewhere in the Trop, and despite the fact that nobody could tell where it was, the ballpark felt it prudent to stop the game until the technical difficulties could be resolved.

Despite the fact that the baseball game was being played indoors, the rain had affected something mechanically in the venue, and the venue chose to halt the game in order to fix it.  And there we have it, a rain delay – at an indoor park.

I have no idea if this was the first time that such had happened, but I’m going to assume probably not.  But the point remains is that just because rain isn’t pouring all over the players and fans doesn’t mean that a rain delay couldn’t not happen.  Perhaps if the Rays commemorated something not named the first-ever rain delay, it would be more accurate, but as cheeky as this little “celebration” was, it was very much not accurate.

I know this for fact, because I was there when it happened before, almost 15 years ago.  Shit, Jerome.