Tag: white people

If Ohtani ends up on the Braves, I will shave my balls

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the big narratives this baseball offseason is, where will Shohei Ohtani go???  He’s basically the best player in the game right now and an unrestricted free agent, so the sky is the limit to where he’s going to go and for how much.  For months, people have been throwing around price tags of $500M for like 15 years in order to secure him, and ordinarily every time I hear such absurd numbers, I always think, sometimes say, that no human being alive in existence is worth that kind of money, but in the case of Ohtani, if there were ever a place to begin the conversation of the value of a person, his name should probably be up there.

However, one of the more obnoxious things that I’ve been seeing in recent days, is the Atlanta Braves’ name being mentioned in the same breath as Shohei Ohtani, as if they have any modicum of a chance at being able to get their hooks into the guy that is so far above Babe Ruth as Babe Ruth was above all of the rest of us in baseball talent.  Spouting all sorts of bullshit rhetoric that Ohtani wants to play for a winner, and seeing as how the Braves have been doing well for themselves over the last few years, Atlanta should not be discounted as a possible destination.  Bullshit claims from anonymously fake sources that Ohtani is “intrigued” by the Braves.

It also doesn’t help that the Braves are currently cleaning house internally, and they just non-tendered and traded a bunch of players to clear them off the 40-man roster, but from the last reports I heard, they’re really only saving like $14M in doing such, and it’s clear that the end game really were the roster spots, with the salary savings being a minute bonus.  Many of the names were recognizable and not just some minor league fodder, but given the circumstances over the last year or two, none of these should be surprising, or seen as that much of a loss.

But make no mistake, there is no fucking chance in hell that the Braves are going to get Ohtani, and I’d be really appreciative if the conversation of such asinine speculation would just stop, because all it’s doing is making a bunch of Braves homers look like idiots in thinking that there’s any iota chance of hell that he’ll suit up for the Braves. 

This isn’t one of those lame attempts to reverse jinx and tempt the fates at trying to control the universe, and have the Braves miraculously secure him in order to make me be a man of my word and shave my balls, I just so genuinely feel strongly that there’s no chance that the Braves will get him, and I just wish people would stop even making the speculation because it just makes everyone doing so, and everyone who gets hope, look dumb.

I would legitimately feel comfortable in betting my house that it’s not going to happen, because even if Ohtani were interested in Atlanta’s strength at getting into the postseason, there’s no way the Braves would be even close to meeting his financial demands.  Ohtani is likely going to want $500M, and due to the unending escalation of player salaries, will command $500M, and the Braves are going to haggle and be all Braves-ey and ask him to drop down to $295M for 13 years, and try to sell him on the chances of World Series glory at a discount, and then Ohtani is going to be insulted and annoyed that he wasted his time even entertaining the thought of coming to Atlanta.

Then he’ll end up signing with the Dodgers or the Phillies because those are the only two teams anyone seems to want to go to anymore, and worse off, he won’t forget the disrespect from the Braves, and use it as fuel to crush Atlanta whenever they play against each other in the regular season, and then when the Braves inevitably meet up with whatever team Ohtani ends up on in the NLDS, Ohtani will throw a post-season no-hitter against them while clubbing 3 HR and driving in 8 RBI en route to an NLDS MVP* and helping with yet another NLDS exit for the Braves.

*for the record I know that there’s no such thing as an NLDS MVP award but I’m just flexing my baseball humor for the time where some pitcher on the Cardinals had a clause in his contract for a bonus for winning NLDS MVP

Plus the Braves haven’t exactly had a stellar history when it comes to accommodating Asian baseball players.  Jung Bong was basically an ace in Korea, and barely amounted to a fourth starter for the Braves.  Chien-Ming Wang, the greatest Taiwanese pitcher of all time, decided that he’d rather go play indy ball than play for the Gwinnett Braves when he was trying to return from injury.  And then there was fellow Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami, who is probably texting Ohtani telling him to stay the fuck away from Atlanta, if he has his number or any means of getting in contact with him.

Instead, the Braves will bring in some 2 or 3-tier starting pitchers at economical contracts, that will be expected to overperform, bounce back, or be veteran leaders for the next wave of Mike Sorokas, Kyle Wrights, Braden Shewmakes and other promising young starting pitchers that will ultimately be unloaded for relievers later on, and even if they play well during the regular season, they’ll be too old and tired or injured by the time October rolls around.

For real though, can we all just stop with the embarrassment of speculating Ohtani to the Braves?  It’s not going to happen, and everyone who gives into hoping that it will is just setting themselves up for as much disappointment as whenever the Braves make the playoffs and people think they’ll actually get out of the NLDS.  I ain’t having anymore kids, so it’s never going to happen again, and the chances of me having to shave my balls is more than likely even less.

Jimbo Fisher: The Bobby Bonilla of College Football

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first heard the rumblings that Texas A&M was planning to axe Jimbo Fisher, I didn’t think much of it.  Just that it must really suck to be Jimbo Fisher and having to hear through the grapevine that your termination was basically coming, and that you just have to sit there waiting for the shoe to drop.  Even more so than the fact that at the time, Texas A&M, while not having a great season, were still 6-4, bowl eligible and in the grand spectrum of the sport, at least more than likely going to have yet another winning season.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Texas A&M is doing such, because Jimbo, in spite of not having won a National Championship for the school, is still a rare breed of good coach, who has been to the top of the mountain before, when he won a natty with Florida State, and for all intents and purposes knows what he’s doing.  The interesting thing is that ATM* hasn’t exactly been a cellar dweller under Jimbo Fisher, which is usually one of the first pre-requisites for firing a coach; under Jimbo, ATM has gone 45-25, and won 9, 8, 9, 8 games before a five-win season a year ago, and as it stands right now, the Aggies probably will finish with seven this year.  But two unsatisfactory years is basically bad luck, injuries, a miss on a recruit or two, but really nothing a fairly successful football program like ATM should worry about.

*what I like to call Texas A&M because their logo’s letter order is literally, “ATM” and it’s also a metaphor to the cash cow that college football is

What it really boils down to is the fact that ATM has higher expectations than much of the rest of CFB, and are tired of hanging out in the middle of the pack and want to make a change for the sake of making change.  The thing is, there’s a vastly higher chance that ATM is going to go through some really dismal years over the next few, possibly miss some bowls (and the payouts that come with participation), and probably would have been better off in terms of wins and losses if they stuck with Jimbo.

But the bigger story is the fact that in firing Jimbo Fisher, ATM is still on the hook for around $77 million dollars of contracted salary, and despite the fact that he won’t be driving the reigns for the program, are very much responsible for paying every single cent.  Unsurprisingly, this is the highest payout in CFB history, and if there’s one thing that never seems to change with my interests, is stories about sports having too much fucking money and doing a whole lot of dumb shit with it.

Long story short, from what I’ve seen, it appears that ATM is taking a page out of MLB and going on an installment plan in order to help spread out the money they owe Jimbo, instead of just plunking down $77M, slapping him on the ass and bidding him adieu.  So until 2031, it looks like ATM will be paying $7.27M every single year to not be coaching ATM.  He gets a lump sum of $19.4 immediately for some reason, I don’t care to know the granular details, but basically starting in 2024 and over the next eight years, he’ll be getting a cool $7.27M for doing absolutely nothing,

This is of course, a similar situation to Bobby Bonilla, the baseball player whose agent somehow transformed $5.9M into nearly $30M, spread out over 25 years, except the fact that it doesn’t appear that Jimbo’s agent negotiated any variables for inflation or interest.  But who’s to say that within the next eight years, ATM gets sick of how much cash they’re literally throwing away, and renegotiate something that does encroach more similarly to Bobby Bo territory, but that’ll be another post for if it ever occurs.

But given the sheer dollar amount and the breakdown of daily intake, Jimbo Fisher is not only the Bobby Bonilla of CFB, he’s actually making out way bigger than Bobby Bonilla ever did.  $77M is greater than $30M, and whereas Bobby Bo is basically making $3k a day for existing, Jimbo Fisher will be making roughly $28k every single day until the end of 2031, merely for existing.

Chalk this up as another reason why sports are so (ironically) great, and just how much needless money is dumped into these industries to where programs can literally set millions and millions of dollars on fire and suffer absolutely no consequences in the process.  Whereas I couldn’t have given any lesser number of shits about Texas A&M in the past, just due to this failure of a scenario, I kind of feel like I need to root against them, and whomever is Jimbo’s successor, just so I can imagine a guy I gave no turds about in the past, laughing in front of a television while the Aggies get rolled around in the basement of the SEC for years to come.

The joys of running on the Silver Comet Trail not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The above image encapsulates exactly what it’s like to run on the Silver Comet trail, which is a super awesome run/bike trail here in the Metro Atlanta area that basically stretches from the outskirts of the city and supposedly connects all the way west, to almost the Alabama state line.  It’s a great trail for people of all skill and experience levels, because it has so many points of access, people can use it for leisurely walks, lengthy excursions or just to train or casually exercise on.

I’ve always used it as a place to train up for long runs, as well as my preferred location to do any of the longer, numerous virtual runs that I always sign up for in order to add to my running medal collection, and it really is a wonderful trail because it’s fairly flat, completely shaded by trees which helps in even the hottest of summers, and there are multiple break points for people to rest, get water and take bathroom breaks if needed.

However, my only real criticism of the Silver Comet trail, isn’t something that can really be controlled, and is actually something that I’ve gripe-brogged about in the past, which is all the fucking bicyclists on the trail who think they own the entire thing, and go around flying down the path at 30+ mph, screaming ON YOUR LEFT all the time as if they were getting paid a quarter every time they had to wail it out.

Seriously, thanks to the Silver Comet, I fucking hate bicyclists, more than the times when I used to have to traverse around the city and had to share the roads with all the hipsters on their fixed gears clogging up lanes.  And to be more specific it’s not all bicyclists, and it’s not even the mega-tryhards that act like they’re participating in the Tour de France with their matching uniforms and barely existent thin-ass aluminum bicycles.

It’s the weekender bicyclists who think they’re on Lance Armstrong’s level when he was roided up to the gills, who are usually by themselves or with 1-2 other douchebag weekenders, who get on the trail and act like the whole thing belongs to them.  They’re the ones who are incessantly screaming ON YOUR LEFT to everyone as if they’re taxicabs in F-Zero, strategically placed just to ruin their day when they’re the ones in fact ruining everyone else’s day by being entitled assholes, hogging the entire trail for themselves and screaming at everyone.

Like, real pro-tryhard bicyclists for one, travel in large packs, but also have been doing what they do long enough to understand that all other travelers on the trail are not stupid, blind or deaf, all at the same time, and don’t hardly ever spam ON YOUR LEFT, unless they have a reason, like some dumbass who’s swerving along the trail.  The weekenders scream at everyone as if it’s their problem that they haven’t noticed that the people in front of them 100 yards away have maintained their lines and paces, and need to be reminded to watch out for them, while they travel at speeds, which in a car would definitely kill a pedestrian, but on a bicycle could be pretty lethal too.

For real though, weekender bicyclists are the god damn worst.  Nothing pockmarks a good run session than any time some bicycle douche screams ON YOUR LEFT and whizzes past me way too close to comfort when I’m already running on the edge of the trail, because it’s slightly flatter than the slight slope which is meant to control water on the surface from pooling aboard.  It’s like these cocksuckers all think I actually can pull over to the right any more than I already am at to convenience them, and they’re really lucky I just don’t stick my arm out and start clotheslining from hell every shithead who thinks they’re going to win the Tour de Douchebag.

I’d say as much as I loved being able to get back out onto the Silver Comet for the first time in nearly three years over the Labor Day weekend, that the weekend bicycle douchefucks were the worst thing about my run, it actually turns out that my 10K time crept over the 60-minute mark that I so fervently try to stay underneath.  At 61:14, I’m glad I was able to complete a 10K without any difficult laboring, but I’m pretty dissatisfied that it took me over an hour to accomplish.  I can’t use a lack of training as an excuse this time, considering I’ve been fairly consistent with my maintenance running over the last year, so I guess this is just a sign of age starting to catch up with me, and that I have to make some actual changes if I want to get my speed back up.

God Bless Rednecks, Sometimes part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Nope, the following picture is not a photoshop or a sports meme gone awry.  General Booty’s legal name is actually, General Booty.  There is a man living in the United States who’s birth certificate is legitimately General Booty.  General Axel Booty, and not an actual military rank.

I really hope this becomes more of a thing in coming years, because fewer things are more smugly amusing than hearing about rednecks from Texas who have ridiculous names like General Booty or Bumper Pool, whom to their credit of overcoming the criticism that silly names tend to degrade at, manage to get good enough at football to where they can actually try to make a future out of it.

Because I was quite tickled pink six years ago when I found out about Bumper Pool, and I’m quite amused to find out that there’s an actual possible starting quarterback for fucking Oklahoma, named General Booty.  I mean we’re talking about possibly being a successor to guys like Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts and Spencer Rattler.  General Booty has the opportunity to get his name into the annals of Oklahoma football, and not just because his name is General Booty, although I think he’s already on his way there, regardless of if he ends up as QB1, 2 or even 3.

Regardless of his chances, let’s just do a little mini-dive into this guy named General Booty, and how the hell he came to fruition:

To no surprise, his father is a former player himself, having played at LSU as a wide receiver.  I say no surprise, because it’s the meathead jock type like a guy who played at LSU whom would be so fixated on the military rank of General to where he vowed to name his son by a rank should he have one, and by god did he ever, and therefore we have a legitimate person named General Booty.

Aside from his dumbass dad, it turns out that General Booty is actually related to former USC quarterback John David Booty, who actually made it to the NFL, even if he didn’t last that long in the show, but it goes to show that there’s clearly football in the genetics of the ol’ Booty lineage.

If I’m a betting man, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s going to be QB1 for the Sooners, seeing as how fifth-year senior Dillon Gabriel seems to be the more likely candidate to start, but stranger things have happened in sport.  I imagine that with the awareness of General Booty spreads, he’ll have a Brian Scalabrine-like cult following in the world of sports fandom, and any time he steps onto the field, people will be snickering and chuckling over his name, and by proxy, probably cheer everything he does, just so that they can talk about and spread the word about a guy named General Booty.

Car Week: Hybrids that camp EV spots are dicks

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The parking garage in my office has six EV spots.  There’s a sign on the zone that states that those who park in them are limited to four hours of charging at a time, but the thing is that there’s no enforcement of it whatsoever, so basically it amounts to rockstar parking for those who are fortunate enough to get to the building early enough to be able to camp one.

The thing is, it’s low-key become assigned parking for the same cars on a daily basis, and it’s become very clear on whom has what days as remote days, because they’re not in, but someone else is.  I’ve only gotten to park in one of them maybe like three times, and on two of those times, I strategically went outside during lunchtime to see if anyone had left and immediately moved my car to get one, but for the most part, it’s the same group of cars that camp them, not because they actually need them, but because they’re close parking spots in the grand spectrum of the property.

On most days, there are three Teslas who appear to arrive early enough to where they always park in the same spots.  Then there’s this one Nissan Leaf who reminds me of when Gilfoyle got that weird electric motor scooter so he could fuck with Dinesh when he got his Tesla, because they always camp the fourth spot.  The fifth spot is usually occupied by an Audi Q4 e-tron on most days, but some other Nissan Leaf on the days when Audi person must be remote.

But it’s the sixth spot that is the impetus to this post, because it’s there just about every single day, but it’s a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid (a minivan).  Obviously meaning it is powered by both electric and petrol, and doesn’t necessarily need to be plugged in order for it to survive the next time the driver hops in.

Honestly, the first time I saw it, I didn’t know that it was a hybrid and I figured it was some idiot driver who didn’t realize the spots were EV spots, but then as I walk past it, I see that the power cable is plugged into it.  But then I see that it’s a hybrid, and I’m like wtf?  That’s how I knew this was a behavior I found unappealing, because it didn’t concern me whatsoever considering how little I actually drive the Tesla into work, but it still annoyed me.

Seriously though, I just feel like this is a dick move for the hybrid car to camp the EV spot, just because it’s capable of using it.  When I got my Tesla, prior to getting the charger installed at my home, I actually needed the spot at work to keep my car charged, and even that wasn’t enough.  I still had to go find superchargers to keep it topped off until we had our home charger installed.

Frankly, ever since getting the home charger installed, I’m seldom in a position where I even need public charging.  I also imagine most of the people who have their own EVs probably have chargers at home, because the chargers at work are like, 2 kW, and even in an eight hour charge session, I’m lucky to get like 30% of battery life from it.

Honestly, it’s not just the hybrid that’s being a dick about using the EV spots, it’s basically everyone else who camps them on a daily basis as personal parking who are all being dicks.  I’m pretty sure the EV spots were really designed to be in-a-pinch charging options for people who actually need to use them to charge, and not peoples’ private assigned parking spots.  This isn’t just applicable to my office’s parking garage, but everywhere where there’s EV parking.  Especially shopping centers where they have a handful EV spots as literally the first spots closest to the business, even ahead of handicapped spaces.

In conclusion, EV drivers are dicks.  Yep, we’re all dicks.  DICKS

Car Week: When did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Living in Georgia, there are plenty of rednecks around my neck of the woods.  That being said, there are a lot of people who drive around in pickup trucks, because rednecks love driving around in pickup trucks.  So when it comes to observational data, I do feel like I’ve taken in sufficient information over the years I’ve been a Georgia resident, at least to the point where I could make a post like this that does some wide-sweeping branding.

But as the subject says, I have to ask the question, when did Dodge Ram trucks become the official vehicle of insurrectionists?  Serious question.  Because I don’t think it’s really that far off-base to throw it out there that pretty much whenever I see someone driving around in a Dodge Ram truck, it’s always slammed to the gills, often times have some sort of aftermarket lifting to its cabin, and is driven by a white guy that not only looks like voted for the baked potato, but was probably circling around on the Capital Beltway on or around January 6th.

Like, I’m barely even kidding when I say it’s all Dodge Ram trucks.  I’d say that at any given time, eight or nine out of every ten Dodge Ram trucks I see on the road fit this exact description.  Always aggressively driving and giving off that aura that they have a lot of strong opinions about people that are not also white males.

Sure, there are the occasional Ford F-150s or Chevy Silverados that shoehorn their way into these descriptions, but for the most part, Ford F-series trucks are typically driven by people who actually use them for heavy-duty truck use, and Chevys are GMs and GMs also have Cadillac and Cadillacs are loved by black people, so you don’t see nearly as many Chevy or Ford trucks as white-powered up as you see Dodge Rams.

Anyway there’s a reason why this topic sat on the bench, because there’s really not much substance to it as much as it is a wide-sweeping accusational observation.  But I would encourage any of my zero readers to try and keep their eyes peeled on the road for Dodge Ram trucks, and see they get the same vibe I do, or if this is just kind of a Georgia thing, or just spectacular bullshit that only I’m capable of making observation of.

It doesn’t happen often

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But what we have here is someone who appears to be more egregiously overpaid than a professional athlete: Georgia Department of Transportation commissioner to receive a $100,000 raise, bringing annual salary up to $550,000

Obviously there’s no shortage of crooked government workers in any state, but GDOT’s flagrant doling out of taxpayer dollars to some stooge who doesn’t know how to use the railroad button in Sim City is pretty noteworthy, at least to make it onto the brog, interrupting the fairly droll legion of baseball, professional wrestling and angsty dad brog posts.  At least it gives me the opportunity to blow the dust off of the ohgeorgia tag and utilize it to throw shade at the state’s poorly veiled attempts to pad the pockets of some glorified crooks.

Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of anyone getting more money for as little justification as possible as this clown of a DOT commissioner.  Even the article itself fails to really come close to justifying why they deserved a 22% raise up to over a half-million dollars cumulatively:

Among achievements Brown cites are McMurry’s management of a series of highway improvement projects, including reconstructions of major interstate junctions in Atlanta, Macon and Savannah.

Reconstruction?  What reconstruction?  I’ve literally driven in all three of these cities within the last six weeks, and there’s been no real construction anywhere.  There have been lots of instances where shoulders are closed, cones are doled out all over the roads, some concrete barriers are erected, and the rando police car with their lights on to try and get the speed demons of Georgia to slow the fuck down, but there sure as shit hasn’t been any construction beyond maybe re-paving of some highways here and there.  Unless we’re awarding raises to people who look like they’re pretending to do work, there’s zero merit to these fake claims that these are actual improvement projects.

Brown also credits McMurry’s leadership for Georgia’s growing transportation budget, and notes praise Georgia has received for its infrastructure during McMurry’s tenure.

Translation: traffic is so epidemically bad once again due to the world seemingly believing the pandemic is completely over and so they’re all hitting the roads again and clogging everything up that Peach Pass registrations and toll payments have gone up, which is where this transportation budget is coming from.  Too bad it’s going directly into the pockets of all these clowns in GDOT and their cronies, because there sure as shit is still no real infrastructure in this entire state to be worthy of any mention.

What’s incredible is that whomever this guy is, he must have incriminating photos of the people who are in charge of giving him raises, because this is far from the first raise he’s gotten for doing absolutely nothing:

McMurry’s pay rose from $250,000 to $350,000 in 2017, then to $450,000 in 2021. The raises, including the latest, will also boost McMurry’s state pension.

Seriously, the guy got his foot in the door of a job where he doesn’t do anything, and banks a quarter mil.  For pretty much no reason other than he was too lazy to look for anything else, he ends up doubling his salary over the span of like 6-7 years, and he has accomplished basically nothing.  2-3 of those years were kind of a wash thanks to Coronavirus and people not really going anywhere, and the bozo still got a $100k raise in 2021.

Here’s the kicker too.

The state paid Gov. [Yosemite Sam] $176,250 in 2022.

The governor of the entire state makes less than half of what the GDOT commissioner makes.  Now I don’t like that cocksucker either, but something seems fishy when he’s getting literally lapped salary-wise.

Either way, it’s pretty incredible that there’s actually someone out there that actually makes as much money as a professional athlete and deserves the money even less.  It’s also pretty incredible that I somehow managed to find the time to bang out a brog post about something out of the usual array of fallback topics, but I wouldn’t anticipate it happening again for another minute, but for what it’s worth, it was a little reprieve.