Tag: observations

Life is boring lately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but as it pertains to my want to write every now and then, it sure doesn’t help when there’s nothing to really talk about outside of sports.  Like really, I comb through news sites, and I try to watch a little bit of news here and there, but on a regular basis, it’s the same old shit that’s being driven further into the ground every single time it comes up, so there’s really nothing particularly interesting to me that gives me any inspiration to really write.

On the local level, the AJC further reinforces the notion that they’re a clown outlet, since the front page of the site has basically turned into the SEC football daily, providing links and news for not just Georgia, but just about every single SEC school’s football programs.  Granted, I guess it sure beats the alternative to the daily shootings, robberies and killings in Southwest Atlanta, but surely, surely, there has to be stuff worth reporting on aside from college football.

National and global news are more of the same crap involving sexual harassment dogpiling, talk of building a wall, and the perpetually constantly rising tensions between the United States and other countries.

Same shit, different day.

It’s no wonder why I always fall back onto sports and wrestling to talk about, because there’s not much else worth writing about that doesn’t just trigger, bother, infuriate or simply annoy.

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HBO’s The Leftovers: wtf did I just watch?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: I will talk about plots and mention potential spoilers, so you’re being warned.

So I just finished watching all of The Leftovers over the last three weeks.  Knee-jerk reactions:

  • What the fuck did I just watch?
  • Way more was unanswered than was answered
  • If any show required a pallet cleanser afterwards, this is it

The thing is, I’m left in this weird position where I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the series as a whole.  Initially, the show starts off pretty compelling and intriguing, an in spite of the cynical and droll nature of the subject matter, I was curious enough to continue watching the show, to see how it transpired.  However, as the series progresses, the show jumps the shark when the cast uproots and moves to Texas, and then DJ Tanner wrestlings when the obvious HBO-mandated key players all go to fucking Australia of all places.

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I’m already sold on Bianca Belair

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So I’m watching The Mae Young Classic on the WWE Network for $9.95 a month, and it’s pretty much everything I figured it would be; pretty obviously scripted, easily predictable in who’s going to win what matches, and although I haven’t caught up to the very most recent episode, it’s a pretty forgone conclusion to whom will probably be in the final four, as well as who’s probably going to win the whole shebang outright.

And although she was someone who lost in the second round of the tournament, I have to say that the biggest takeaway for me so far, has been Bianca Belair.  Watching the first round matches, it was painfully evident the people that were there for fodder, but it was also as apparent to quickly identify the women that actually had some talent.  Belair caught my immediately, mostly because she didn’t just have a six-pack, but more like a Pepsi Cube of chiseled abdominal muscles; whether she could wrestle or not was irrelevant, this girl was a physical specimen.

I’m far removed from wrestling fandom to know who a lot of these women are, and I can’t be one of the cool hip smarks who know what their names in a previous federation or country were, but I was pretty immediately impressed by Bianca Belair in her opening round victory, because sure she was a little green in wrestling talent, but the athleticism was off the chart, and she had a very natural ring presence when it came to acting to her persona.

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Thoughts on a weekend of wrestling

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yeah pretty much I spent the entire weekend on my ass watching television.  Not only did I watch all of The Defenders with great relish, I also enjoyed the fact that it was a weekend featuring both NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III as well as the 30th anniversary of SummerSlam, with a brief interruption by Game of Thrones.  Since I don’t really get the chance to watch WWE television since I no longer have cable, I have kind of fallen out current storylines for the most part, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to enjoy either show.

To cut to the chase, it should be of no surprise that I would say that Takeover was easily the superior show, since there’s very little denying that they’re a vastly superior wrestling product versus the overboard storytelling on the main roster.  The subtle invasion of the next wave of Ring of Honor expats blew away the smark-hip Brooklyn crowd which is always a hot market for live shows, and it sets up NXT for a few months of above-average talent to mix things up with.

As a whole, I would say SummerSlam was pretty mediocre for what the WWE constantly bills as their #2 major show of the year.  It’s also way too god damn long, since it started at 7 p.m. EST and went all the way to 11; adding in the hour I paused to watch Game of Thrones, I actually had to stop prior to the main event and pick it up later, because I didn’t want to be up until like 1-2 a.m. watching wrestling on a night where I’d have to go to work the following morning.

But in typical WWE fashion, they have potentially good matches like The New Day vs. the Usos on the undercard, and have garbage like Big Show vs. Big Cass with Enzo Amore in a suspended cage in more premiere spots on the card.  Matches like AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens with the completely ‘roided up and humorously over-sweaty Shane McMahon as referee were reliably good, and I was moderately pleased by the main event despite my skepticism of any match featuring more than two singles competitors.

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Would love to cross-reference this with demographic data

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Kars 4 Kids conducts survey to determine grades of courtesy of all 50 United States

I came across this article that declared Georgia amongst the rudest drivers in America, so I was curious to what the criteria actually entailed.  Ultimately, the sample size was way, way, way too small at 2,500 correspondents considering the fact that the United States has a population of nearly 320 million, so I don’t think this is nearly that accurate of a survey.

Especially the ranking of Maryland, which somehow scrapes into the top-half of the spectrum as “friendlier” drivers, because the reality is that Maryland has some of the worst drivers on the planet who would rather let entire third-world nations die of genocide before letting you merge in front of them.

However, it’s still not entirely inaccurate either, and despite the strokes being very wide and broad, it’s still entertaining to see the obvious correspondence with stuff like population densities and demographics in relation to how certain places graded.

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Bums and ballparks are like peas and carrots

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my general disdain for it, I have the unfortunate circumstance to have to drive by Racist ScumTrust Park every now and then.  It’s inevitable, because of where I used to live, highway access or the need to pass becomes somewhat of a necessity from time to time.

Over several of my last few times passing by the ballpark, I noticed something that I had never really noticed in Smyrna/Vinings before: homeless people.  Homeless people wandering the sidewalks near, but not directly on the premises of the hallowed BATtery ATLanta grounds, but doing the usual homeless things; digging through trash cans, camping on park benches, and overall creating the uncomfortable stigmas that their presence tends to do.

Again, this is something that I can’t really say I’ve seen before in the area prior to the arrival of the ballpark.  Sure, it would be likely ignorant to say that no place in America has any homeless people, but prior to the arrival of Racist Park, I honestly can’t say that I’ve ever seen any in this area before.

That being said, it’s hilarious to me to make the asinine assumption that the homeless people came with the ballpark, because if there’s one thing that I’ve noticed about ballparks throughout all of my ballpark travels is that there’s often times homeless people around them.  Sometimes it has to do with the fact that ballparks are often located in the hearts of cities, and homeless people dwell in the hearts of cities, and sometimes it’s because cities are named Detroit or Oakland or Miami, and the lines that separate bums from citizens is a really blurry one and it’s easy to make that mistake.

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NXT’s current best talent

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I’ve started watching NXT with some regularity, I feel like I jumped aboard during a pretty stale period.  Guys like Shinsuke Nakamura, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe have all left at pretty much the same time, and in their place has been a main-event pool of guys that I’m not remotely interested in, such as Bobby Roode, Roderick Strong and Hideo Itami; aside from Roode’s arrogance, there’s literally no intrigue, personality or narrative that anybody brings to the table, creating stories that are hard to get vested in.

As much as I disliked the name “#DIY,” the talent of Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa shined through, but now they’ve been broken up and taken off television for the time being, and taking their place in the tag team division are a bunch of mammoth hosses like the Authors of Pain and Heavy Machinery, who will undoubtedly have a stinker of a program when they inevitably collide for the belts.

But if there’s been one thing worth tuning into recently, it’s NXT’s women’s champion, Asuka.  Week in and week out, she’s the brightest star in all of NXT, and it’s going to be a dark time for the brand’s women’s division once she gets the demotion to the main roster.  She’s undefeated, and WWE’s even gone as far as to declare that she’s surpassed Bill Goldberg’s old WCW record of 163 wins before first defeat, and given NXT’s women’s talent pool it doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to end that soon, especially with her most recent victory over Nikki Cross in a Last Woman Standing match.

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