Tag: comparison

WTF is AEW doing #466

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know that I’m pretty critical of a lot of the things that AEW does, but I’ll be the first to admit that I kind of like the Continental Classic tournament they’ve been doing on an annual basis.  You have a lot of main event talent, intermixed with some talented guys from the mid card, and you have them wrestling in a bunch of matches that don’t really have any storyline behind them, and most importantly, have results that aren’t just the main eventers running roughshod over the mid card guys.

Speedball Mike Bailey picked up an impressive win over Kyle Fletcher, Jungle Boy Jack Perry got a win against Pac, and the most shocking outcome was when Kevin Knight picked up a clean win against Kazuchika Okada.  They really did a good job of selling that anyone could beat anyone, regardless of their standing in the company, and it led to a lot of pretty pure wrestling.

However, it wasn’t until the tournament concluded did I realize that there was an actual prize at the end of the whole thing; in previous years, AEW had a, surprise, title blet for the winner of the Continental Classic, which was the [don’t call me Intercontinental] Continental championship, which was originally won by of all people, Eddie Kingston.  He would then lose it to Okada, who would successfully defend the title by winning the 2025 Continental Classic, and continue to hold the title until it was merged in July 2025 with the International Championship in a completely nerfed version of Okada vs. Omega.

But for all intents and purposes, the Continental championship was deactivated, along with the International championship, and Okada began carting around a, surprise, new blet, christened the AEW Unified Championship, which they tried like hell to sell it as a World title equivalent, since Okada is very much a World title caliber performer, but unsurprisingly, it didn’t catch.

Getting back to the present, without any real explanation, going into the conclusion of the 2026 Continental Classic, the Unified Championship was already scrapped, and it was decided that the winner of the tournament would become the new Continental champion.  Conveniently, Okada would also advance to the finals, hoping to defend the title in the finals regardless of the fact that the title is up for grabs at any other point in the year, storylines notwithstanding.

Spoiler-alert, Jon Moxley won the tournament by defeating Kazuchika Okada, thus becoming the new Continental champion.

However, conveniently, Okada would still have a blet to cart around, because when they scrapped the Unified Championship after six historic months, they reactivated the International Championship, which was by default, Kazuchika Okada.

It should also be pointed out that when the Continental and International were merged into the Unified, it took one blet off the table, but AEW responded quickly by creating a, surprise, new blet, in the AEW National Championship, which was won by, and is currently held by Ricochet (which I’m actually okay with).

But for a promotion that has taken a lot of flack for its Oprah-like EVERYONE GETS A BLET number of titles, it’s just hilarious that they tried to pare down, couldn’t, and when they retconned one of their attempts to pare down, ultimately they end up with more blets in which they started with.  So to recap, AEW currently has:

  • AEW World Championship
  • AEW Women’s Championship
  • AEW Tag Team Championship
  • AEW Women’s Tag Team Championship
  • AEW TNT Championship
  • AEW TBS Championship
  • AEW Trios Championship
  • AEW Continental Championship
  • AEW International Championship
  • AEW National Championship

For those keeping count, that’s a total of 14 physical blets with the AEW name on them.  This doesn’t account for the revolving door of Ring of Honor, CMLL, RevPro, or any of the backyard promotions’ blets that Mercedes Moné is carting around.  Like, there have been literal shows where every single segment has had someone walking around carrying a blet.

There’s clearly no such thing as permanence in AEW.  Titles get merged, deactivated, retconned and then reactivated at a moment’s notice, without any genuine or logical explanations.  This isn’t even the first time that this has happened too, because it maybe hasn’t even been an entire calendar year since AEW merged their Trios with the ROH Six-Man titles, which resulted in at one point the Bang Bang Gang of Jay White, Austin and Colton Gunn carrying nine straps collectively, but then a few months later, Ring of Honor decided to just break off and crown new Six-Man champions without any real explanation.

Either way, the point remains, AEW still operates in head-scratching manners on the regular, and as much as I want to like them more than I do, I’m more often too busy scratching my head trying to piece together all of their weird operational decisions to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Dad Brog (#160): overstimulated is another way to say burnt [the fuck] out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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George Carlin once did a routine where he talked about how society has a tendency to try to rename harsh things to sound less severe and more generally acceptable to society.  His primary example was how the term shell shock was renamed to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Shell shock was at some point deemed to be too shocking for sensitive people to hear, and therefore PTSD came into vernacular, and yes it probably helped at making it slightly less scary to talk about, I get this impression that PTSD itself is climbing to that stature where shell shock was, and soon we’ll probably get another, softer, replacement term to replace it but I’m straying off topic here.

Whenever I get into one of my moods where all I see is red, I’m mad at the world, I hate everything and everyone and want nothing more than to be able to stop time all around me and take a deep breath and relax in complete isolation, like that movie from 20 years ago (Cashback), the only phrase that comes into my mind is: burnt [the fuck] out.  Everything pisses me off, just about nothing is capable of bringing me back, and the only thing that comes close to helping is going to sleep and hoping it’s not still around when I wake up.

Over the last few years, I’ve been spoon-fed a whole lot of content that definitely caters to the fact that I am married with children, and I’ve noticed that in that time, a phrase I’ve seen a lot of, is overstimulated.  Most of the time it pertains to all the mommy content creators who really love to declare themselves or hypothetical stressed out other mommies as being overstimulated, but because I can relate to overstimulated mommies way more than I’d like to admit to, I get it.  However, I also recognize that most of the time, the symptoms of a mom that’s overstimulated it is, seeing red, being mad at the world, hating everything and everyone, and probably wanting nothing more than to be able to stop time all around them and take a deep breath and relax in complete isolation like that movie from 20 years ago (Cashback).

It occurred to me that what’s probably happened over the last few years is that the phrase “burnt [the fuck] out” has been used so much and so hard, and that peoples’ eyes have begun glazing over upon hearing it, is that society has basically invented a replacement term for it, in order for it to get people to listen and be curious and think about it, and that term is obviously, overstimulated.

It sounds less harsh than burnt [the fuck] out, and because there’s no optional profanity to attach to it (inherently), it’s like there’s a ceiling to how piercing it can be used with some venom behind it.  Overstimulated, is a gentler and less severe word on the auditory senses of weak people, but I think I’ve unlocked the bullshit spin behind the word, and refuse to see the phrase for something other than what it really is, a descriptor for people who are feeling burnt [the fuck] out.

But it’s good that I’ve realized the truth behind it the bullshit.  It gives my own personal vernacular a softer and less scary option to use if I feel like I’m speaking with some particularly pussy people, and surmise that telling them that I’m burnt [the fuck] out won’t scare them off entirely.

Hopefully the next time I write a dad brog, it won’t be about some overstimulated subject matter.

Not sure what OP was expecting from Ric Flair

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

People: woman who purchased personalized Cameo video message from Ric Flair for her brother’s wedding disappointed when Flair cuts scathing promo about the perils of marriage

If the circumstances were any ordinary business doing wrong to a customer, I’d say probably 70% of the time I tend to side with customers.  Fuck businesses, most of the time.

But in the context of this story, you have Cameo, in which customers are consensually agreeing to give celebrities an open mic to say whatever they want, regardless of any direction or talking points they’re given, and then you also add fucking Ric Flair into the equation, and as history and culture have shown, nobody tells Ric Flair what to do or say.

I know OP turned to the internet to try and farm sympathy and gain support for her belief that Ric Flair did her and her newlywed brother dirty by cutting a vintage Ric Flair promo, completely against the concept of marriage, contrary to her intentions.  As stated, nobody tells Ric Flair what to say; man has been unscripted for the better part of his entire, legendary wrestling career, and Cameo wasn’t going to be any different than reporting to Vince McMahon, Ted Turner or Jim Crockett.

Her first mistake was not knowing enough about Ric Flair before agreeing to a Cameo arrangement; because in addition to the fact that nobody can tell him what to say, the man is 76 years old and lives in bars these days, daytime drinking and existing in a state of constant inebriation.

Furthermore, to anyone who might want to do some cursory research about Ric Flair before dropping a grand to have him film a video for them, they’d quickly see shit like “16-time world champion” and “Hall of Famer,” but also the fact that the guy has been married like 5-6 times with as many divorces.

Man is doing shit like Cameo and getting drunk off his ass 25-8, because he clearly is over  marriage and probably owes a boatload of money to a number of ex-wives, and if there were any worse of a person to have film a Cameo for you to put marriage over, it’s Ric Flair.

The funny thing is that, and I’m too lazy and not caring enough to follow up, if I’m the brother who received this Ric Flair promo, I’d still probably think it was the greatest thing in the world, even in spite of ol’ Ric telling me I’m making the greatest mistake of my life.  And if the new missus were someone worth keeping around, she probably would too.

If anything at all, Ric Flair, deliberate or most likely not, made this whole thing one of the most memorable and legendary wedding gift stories her brother would ever have.  If Ric cut a white meat babyface promo about how he’s so lucky and marriage is beautiful and wonderful, and how gives his blessings, ain’t nobody going to remember it in a month, a year, or at their 10th or 20th anniversaries. 

But Ric cutting a scathing heel promo, that’s something everyone would remember until the end of time.  It’s what the bride and groom will talk about for years.  OP, in spite of her current disapproval and dissatisfaction with it, will remember it all the same.  Any friends, family, guests or anyone who’s ever seen it, they’ll remember it and make references to it.

In fact, it’s a scenario where all parties win in the end, because it’s also probably going to do wonders for Ric’s Cameo demand, with people with loose pockets and too much money will be more inclined to take a chance on Space Mountain and hire Ric to do some personalized messages for them.

But even if takes some time before OP realizes that she will get a W out of this whole scenario, as far as tryna farm sympathy and support because she regretted acquiring the services of Ric Flair, ain’t going to happen.  This is her turd, and until she starts to understand the resounding success of her efforts, she’s got to accept that it’s an L until she does.

Owned. WOOOOOOOO

So, like maybe 350 lobsters stolen?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

FOX local: an estimated $400k worth of live lobsters headed for Costco locations in the Midwest hijacked

A few years ago, I made a joke when there was a story about how a truck full of ramen noodles was heisted, how all in all, maybe $4.79 wholesale cost worth of product was actually lost.  That the physical truck must have been the size of the Venezuelan land train that was transporting gasoline in the fourth Fast & Furious installment in order for it to amount to the reported cost of theft.  That the thieves could probably make way more money on the scrap cost of the truck as opposed to black marketing ramen noodles.

Well, this is kind of the polar opposite of that joke, with a reported $400k worth of live lobsters getting stolen on the way to Costco stores.  Where given the cost of inflation and white man greed, there were maybe like 350 live lobsters actually stolen, even factoring in the fact that they were headed to bulk bargain land Costco.  I also like how they say locations, as in plural, in Illinois and Minnesota as if they’re trying to convince people that $400k worth of lobsters is more than perhaps two whole stores’ worth of inventory.

I also like how the article uses the word hijacked, because when I hear the term, I think of the scenes from Fast & Furious where a team of Vin Diesel’s street racers in slammed Honda Civics corner semis and use grappling hooks and daredevil jumps to subdue, incapacitate and eject truck drivers before making off with their cargo.

Because instead of a land train getting hijacked, the more likely reality is it was probably like a singular Ford F-350 that was just boosted from a roadside motel’s parking lot, where the thieves had no idea that they booty they were plundering were even lobsters.  The driver was probably safely sleeping in a shitty bed with cigarette burns in the comforter.  And in this case, the inventory is definitely more expensive than the vessel, and I can’t make the remark about how the truck would yield more in scrap than the cargo.

I don’t imagine live crustaceans having a very high black market value, considering the pain in the ass it is to prepare them, well, but in the grand spectrum of things, it’ll suck for those two stores in the Midwest for those rich assholes who want Costco-priced lobsters and won’t be able to get any for a month until the next shipment can arrive, and even then, the cost will inevitably go up for all stores, since Costco is the type of company that probably wouldn’t want a single region to shoulder the brunt of the increase when all can instead.

Even with the FBI purportedly being on the case, I would wager that this is one of those news stories where nothing is going to be resolved, nobody is going to get caught and it’s just going to be forgotten except in the annals of a personal brog that nobody knows exists.  I doubt that this is really so much a high-stakes organization arranging these kinds of heists as much as it’s some petty crooks with some theft skills playing burglary roulette and just hitting a mini jackpot in hitting up a ride with 350 lobsters in it.

But we got lobsters, highway hijinks, and the opportunity to make repeated Fast & Furious references, so it’s the perfect story for me to brog about. 

Dad Brog (#159): PSA to parents of students

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is probably a little bit of a stretch as far as classifying this as a dad brog, but my kids are students and have teachers, and obviously mythical wife is a teacher and deals with kids and whatever, this is a dad brog, fucking deal with it

But back to the subject of this post, this is a PSA to all parents of students, specifically those who wish to get holiday gifts for their children’s teachers:

Stop buying mugs and candles.

Unless your children’s teacher is celebrating their very first holiday season as a teacher, it’s safe to assume that they already have no less than four holiday mugs and three scented candles, most likely from Yankee Candle or Bath & Body Works.  Otherwise, multiply these numbers by the number of years in which said teacher has been teaching, and that’s how many fucking mugs and candles exist in their homes.

And if the teachers are anything like mythical wife, they have no earthly idea on how to remove them from their domiciles, so they end up accumulating and taking up space, and I, as a teacher’s spouse, end up creeping closer and closer to a breakdown from our house slowly descending into becoming an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive, covered in so much cliché crap that is pawned off onto my wife under the guise of being in the spirit of the holidays.

This goes quadruple for my wife, who has the olfactory abilities of Wolverine, so she’s extremely sensitive to scents and therefore doesn’t like 80% of the candles given to her because they’re wonky and smell weird or bad, and they never get used, and currently just exist in a giant stack behind our Keurig.  And she doesn’t drink or even like coffee, so any mugs that comes with a coffee mix or a Starbucks gift card is pretty much lost on her, even though I like it when she bequeaths any Starbucks gift cards to me, the accumulation of yet another mug makes it not worth it.

Yes, I understand that any form of gifts to teachers are voluntary and are given with the best of intentions, and I’m not trying to put a kibosh on my wife from getting free shit with thoughtful intentions.  It’s just I’m challenging all other parents to be better and be aware that the teachers of their kids more than likely have a ton of fucking mugs and candles, and they are probably long past no longer welcome, even if they’re not allowed to say it.

Gift cards are always welcome, even if weirdos like mythical wife don’t drink coffee, thus making Starbucks ones pretty useless, but places like Target, whatever grocery chains are nearby, or even the American Express ones that nobody likes to buy because they’re usually an activation fee included on those.  Chick Fil-A, or whatever chain joints are around the area are welcome, and of course, Amazon.

Baked goods, be it completely homemade, or shit purchased from the local grocer or commercial bakeries are always welcome.  Snacks or treats in general are pretty welcome, but always a risk, not knowing what dietary restrictions the teacher may or may not have.

Failing all else, holiday cards, with just nice messages or greetings are welcome and superior to moar mugs or candles.

The point is, please please please stop buying teachers mugs and candles for Christmas.  It makes me think that these are cruel re-gifts, or were add-ons from larger purchases, that these parents are cleverly disguising as unique gifts for the educators of their children, with passive hopes that getting in their favor will prove beneficial to their children in the future.  Obviously I’m not the teacher in my house, but if I were, and I sniffed out a potential re-gift, yeah, it might influence my attitude towards their kid; but not in the way that they had hoped for.

Just like my attitude towards gift giving over the recent years, if you can’t give a thoughtful gift with genuine intention, don’t feel obligated to get one.  It’s better to give no gift, than a shitty thoughtless one, and I’d personally rather receive nothing, than receive something that contributes to the existing clutter in my home.

Score a point for staggered episodic television

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

An interesting thing happened to me recently – I caught up with a bunch of television and I had nothing to watch.

I was on the treadmill doing some incline walking, and I had reached the end of episode S0504 of Stranger Things.  But as the credits began rolling, there was no rapidly scrolling next episode button ready to shotgun me into the ensuing episode.  I had reached the end of what was released, because Netflix has strayed from what made them who they are and like many of the bigger titles they’ve dropped over the last few years, they’re deliberately staggering the release of them, presumably to maximize how long they can milk content to their viewers, but more likely to ensure that those pleebs sharing passwords have a little more difficult as far as trying to bilk trials and get all the content for free in a concentrated amount of time.

Later on in the evening, mythical wife and I were watching S0203 of Culinary Class Wars, and Korean television is notorious and deliberate in how they break episodes apart.  So when the episode ended, at an obvious cliffhanger as far as delivering results of cooking challenges go, the same thing occurred; credits begin, no next episode button.  Returning to the landing page of the show, is the becoming all-too familiar sight of “New episodes releasing on X date” prompt on the following episode, and suddenly we no longer have anything to watch.

Combined with shows that already operate in weekly episodic releases like Pluribus, and Disney+ and even HBO Max are known to stagger their content with shows like Daredevil: Born Again and even silly crap like The Chair Company, and it’s apparent that the pendulum of television consumption has already passed the precipice where all shows were required to drop entire seasons at a time, lest they would be doomed to fail, to kind of swinging back in the direction of olden times, where such is no longer a requirement in order for a show to succeed.

The funny thing is, I don’t really hate it.  Anymore, at least.  Sure, there are times where I get lost how into a show I start becoming, and it’s a definite do not want moment when you realize that there is no next episode available to watch, and you have to wait for it, but at the same time, for people like me, who always feel strapped for time, the forced break from spending more time watching television isn’t necessarily always a bad thing.

I caught up with Pluribus and thought to myself, welp, with no more episodes to watch, I may as well go do something else, and although what I may or may not have done after watching television might not necessarily have been more productive or satisfying, but the point remains is that I did them 60-90 minutes earlier than I would have, had I watched, just one more.  And being able to tackle those things 60-90 minutes earlier means I wound down my day that much sooner, and I ultimately get more sleep which is always a good thing considering I have to get up at ass o’clock every single day without exception.

Also by not having shows drop entire seasons at a time also helps eliminate that FOMO or rather, fear of not getting spoiled, because inevitably there are people, websites, social channels and/or other internet entities that speed run every new piece of media that comes out, and then spoils the ever-living fuck out of them on social media platforms for people to accidentally see while they’re doomscrolling.  I have to say it’s liberating knowing that within a short amount of time, I’m caught up and at the same stage of Stranger Things as the vast majority of enthusiasts of the show, and that there’s pretty much no chance that I’m going to get spoiled to the inevitable ending, because it hasn’t officially dropped yet.

The point of all this is, that I’ve made jokes about how the money-grubbing direction of the media market is going to inevitably push people back towards the development of what’s basically old school cable television, but in some regards, by passively going back to methods of the past, all these television platforms are inadvertently re-training the olds, and training the kids of today about weekly episodic releases or programs complete with advertisements, and I feel like within 2-3 years, we’ll be back to the resurrection of formal cable television, but people are actually going to like it instead of constantly threatening to cut the cord. 

Maybe it’ll be delete the apps when this age arrives, and everyone will be so arrogantly gleeful about uninstalling Netflix and Disney+ to sign up for cable services.

Cable2 is going to be so lit.

My feet are destroyers of gear

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my least favorite feelings in the world is when you get that tacky feeling on the flat of your food from inside a shoe, and when the opportunity is there, you take the shoe off to check, and yep, there’s a hole forming in your sock.  Inevitably, this last gasp of my sock’s integrity happens when I’m at work, or out of the house and going to be out of the house for a length of time, which means there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it for at least several hours.

No matter the tech or innovation or special manufacturing methods done by today’s sock makers that claim to be more resistant to wear and promise to last longer than the package of boring ass tube socks you can get at your local Ross for 60% the cost of retail, there is pretty much no pair of socks that my feet are incapable of wearing holes through.  Most of the time, it is outer sole of my foot where holes begin because I grew up bowlegged and it’s clear that my weight applies more pressure to the outer parts of my feet, but I’ve had holes form near my heel, of course on the outer part.

Additionally, I have toes where the nails kind of angle upward, not to mention the fact that my second toe is long and sticks out further, which according to podiatry sources, is called a Greek foot, and if I do not be mindful of the length of my toenails, they basically become little blades that gradually saw away at socks, and holes will eventually form in the toes as well.

On that note, I was putting on my treadmill shoes in preparation for a treadmill session, and I noticed that the fabric on the big toe part of my left shoe had a hole in it.  I stuck my hand into the shoe, and apparently over the passage of time, the big toe on my left foot has worn a hole through the padding and now all the way through the fabric itself.  Which is kind of interesting in how the hole is very horizontally straight like it was stabbed through, because that means my big toe nail has managed to slice a hole through the shoe, which is made more interesting in the fact that none of the running socks that I use have sprouted any holes, so I guess this was some really concentrated friction in order to cause this breach.

Where I’m getting at is that it’s clear that I have some pretty fucked up feet that are complete destroyers of foot apparel.  Socks never last long before I eventually bore holes in them, which sucks because I’ve had to toss many socks with designs of patterns that I’ve enjoyed and been unable to find replacements for.  And it’s apparent that my feet are capable of ruining shoes in ways other than simply wearing out the soles.

Seriously, I like to believe that my feet would be some ASMR channel’s dream feet, as far as repairing them.  I need to get my feet out on the internet to entice one of these channels to do their magic to my feet, so that they can make some money on the content, but more importantly so that I don’t have to pay for it at all.

It’s one of those moments where I begin to ponder that my fortune should come from having footwear that is special catered towards people like me with brutal runner’s feet that seem capable of destruction, but if I actually took the time to research on the internet instead of assuming that I’m the first person in existence to ponder this, I’m sure there are hundreds of companies out there that already are doing it, and perhaps I should be looking to them to equip my feet, instead of settling for shitty plebe gear that can’t keep up any further.