Thoughts on Europe,* overall

November 16, 2015July 17, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

*“Popstar” Tristana (*which doesn’t actually exist), smoking it up at WORLDS

*based on vacation, not unfortunate recent events.

I’ve been back in the states for a while now, but it’s admittedly taken a little bit of time to really get back into the swing of my usual routines. Between shitty weather, workload, and just plain lazy ambivalence, it’s more recently that I’ve been able to get the mental gears going to where I can try and pretend like I know what I’m going to write about when I sit down to write things.

Ultimately, it’s kind of a surreal feeling now that this European trip is now a thing in the past. For the longest time, it was the thing that the mythical girlfriend and I talked about as the thing to look forward to, the thing that was upcoming, and the thing to get excited about. Sure, I’m not really that excitable of a person to begin with, but I was certainly feeling the anticipation with the days leading up to my eventual first time trip overseas.

And in the end, it’s a no-brainer to say that I had a great time, and I did a lot of the things I wanted to do, which is mostly eat and drink, and then eat and drink some more, while seeing a bunch of things in between consuming consumables. However, I did spend a good bit of time thinking here and there, about in what ways Europe is really cool, and what things I was beginning to miss from America.

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It’s about time Kane got an interesting story

October 13, 2015July 17, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, I realized that I was actually stopping the fast forwarding of RAW whenever Kane showed up on screen. Since his return from injury at Night of Champions, and the start of his current split-personality storyline, I’ve found Kane to be entertaining and fun to watch.

When the inevitable commercial break faded to black, I said to myself “this is the best Kane storyline since . . . since . . .”

And I couldn’t think of a single other Kane storyline that wasn’t just disturbing, wasn’t cliched, or wasn’t completely fucking bad.

Since Kane debuted in like 1998, he’s pretty much put into bad storyline after bad storyline when he wasn’t simply jobbing to the stars (usually while simultaneously portraying a bad storyline). Whether it’s one of the several times he’s stalked “his brother” the Undertaker, knocking up Lita and then having her miscarry when feuding with foot-fetishist Gene Snitzky, and of course one of the worst wrestling storylines in the history of the industry, the necrophiliac storyline involving Triple H unearthing Kane’s past, and his dead girlfriend, Katie Vick.

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Naked and Afraid XL subjective power rankings*

October 2, 2015July 17, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I just finished watching Naked and Afraid XL recently, which is basically the Naked and Afraid formula, but super-sized in all ways. Multiple teams, lots of past challengers, and nearly twice the duration, going for 40 days instead of 21. I found the special season to be very entertaining, and it did a good job of making me buy in emotionally to particular people, and I was actively rooting for the successes of some challengers, while wishing hell and failure onto others. After all, putting two people together is vastly different than putting a larger number together; predictably, the show devolves into a lot of personal drama between challengers, and conflicting ideologies and survival strategies, and we as the viewers end up taking sides, because that’s what we do whether we want to admit it or not.

That being said, upon the final episode of the challenge (the reunion show has yet to air at the time I’m writing this, although it too will undoubtedly be a train wreck of a guilty pleasure), I felt compelled to write something of a power ranking of the challengers of the XL challenge. Some of them were no-brainers, but ultimately, it’s really a reason for me to blast the people on the show that I liked the least, as if they’re going ever read this.

From best to worst:

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Over Alert: The New Day

September 28, 2015July 17, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned numerous times that I pretty much glaze over wrestling these days. I still enjoy it, and I’m still a fan of it, but the fact of the matter is that I really loathe how RAW is presented. Full of commercial breaks, always in the middle of matches, far too many matches that are always pushing storylines and not showcasing much actual wrestling, and then more commercials when they aren’t plugging the next pay-per-view or the WWE Network in general.

I’ve gotten watching RAW on DVR to a science; for the most part, I can knock out the three-hour long program in probably 90 minutes or less, seeing as how an hour alone is pretty much lost to commercials. But really, I’ve learned that pushing the 30-seconds ahead button to the equivalent of 4:30-5:30 minutes pretty much nails every commercial break, and that any Sheamus or Randy Orton match is usually around eight total minutes, and a Bray Wyatt diatribe is usually about 6-8 minutes.

Needless to say, I fast forward a lot of matches, and the biggest rub from me as a viewer, is if I stop and watch a particular wrestler’s segment.

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Dragon*Con 2015: Thoughts and Closing

September 18, 2015July 16, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Better late than never, right? Life’s been a little bit hectic since the conclusion of the convention, and between balancing life, family and work, on top of trying to edit and process down 500+ photographs, finding the time to write, much less catch up on all of the thoughts and words I had in mind in regards to Dragon*Con seemed like somewhat of a daunting task. But I’m in a good place with photos currently, and with what feels like a window of opportunity to do some writing, away we go.

“Clarity” is the one word I repeatedly answered with, whenever anyone asked me how the convention was.

I’ve made no secret that I wasn’t really looking forward to the convention as Labor Day approached. A combination of some life moves, a little bit of financial struggling, some ambivalence, and just the general feeling that it just might be the same song and dance as it’s been for the 13 straight previous Dragon*Cons that I’ve been to made me feel a little, un-excited about this year’s.

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Oh, Atlanta #456

August 25, 2015July 16, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when I feel like I have nothing to motivate me to write things, all I have to do is open up the virtual newspapers, and the city will provide. Typically, I look for one thing that gets the synapses in the head firing for words, but sometimes, there are days like this where there’s so much bullshit and rhetoric to want to call out that I end up with more than one.

Firstly: laughably inaccurate map of “racially diverse” areas throughout the Metropolitan Atlanta area. (Bizjournals)

I won’t specify which, but I live in one of these blue-shaded areas. According to the article, the blue-shaded areas signify that “no one race or ethnicity comprises more than 50% of the population.” All I have to do is drive down my street, and drive past the nearby* school and go to the nearby* grocery store to know that this is irrevocably false.

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