Tag: nostalgia

Hi praise for Hi Score Girl

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I really wanted to say that it was surreal to be binging on an anime again, as if it were the year 2000, but that wouldn’t be that accurate.  Within the last year alone, I watched stuff like the last two seasons of Initial D, and I watched through Kakegurui on Netflix, so I have in fact watched some anime beyond 2000.  Regardless, over the last week, I binged through an anime series, and as if I were 16 years old again, I’m looking forward to when Netflix gets the reigns to the rest of it.

I’m going to assume it’s either Castlevania (which I guess would have classified as anime) or all the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes I’d been watching over the last few months that prompted Hi Score Girl to populate in my recommendations on Netflix, but I guess I have to admit that Netflix does kind of know me, because the preview got my attention enough to where I’d fast track and actually watch it, as opposed to putting it into my list and then never actually watching it until like a year later.

And I absolutely loved it.  Without question, Hi Score Girl is a love letter to old school video games and video game culture, and all too often, I felt rushed back to my own childhood watching the daily gaming mania and obsession with video games of Haruo Yaguchi.  I was super into Street Fighter II, and I poured hours upon hours into the game, and at differing points of my life, thought I was the best player in the world, until I went to the arcade and occasionally got my ass handed to me by players better than I was.  I can’t say I was as maniacal about improvement and wanting to be the best, but I’m still attuned enough to gaming culture to completely understand and relate to some degree.

Intertwined through all the gaming nostalgia is a sweet and fairly innocent love story between children growing up, and the trials and tribulations that come with different classes in school and society, the expectations of a family name, and the innate need and want to simply live our own lives.

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The prodigal Heap has returned

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Brave Old World: Brian McCann returns to the Atlanta Braves after leaving the team five years ago

This news, brought a smile to my face.  Now I don’t expect ol’ Heap (a very insider hipster nickname for McCann stemming from the minor leagues) to inexplicably return to the form of the 22-year old All-Star that hit .333 and 24 homers all because he’s back in a Braves uniform, especially since he’s now 35 and very much on the declining phase of his career.  But it still makes me happy to know that Heap is coming home, because maybe it’s just the fanboy in me, but it just never seemed right to see a guy like Brian McCann suiting up for anyone other than the Braves.

Don’t get me wrong, I always rooted for him after he left, even when he was on the Yankees, and especially when he was on the Team of Destiny™ Astros, and I was very happy to see McCann, along with other Braves expats like Evan Gattis and Charlie Morton win a World Series.  But it often makes me happy when a guy who was a once popular member of the team, like a Jeff Francoeur, Jonny Venters or a Brian McCann, comes back to the fold.

It doesn’t really matter that when the day is over, he’s probably not going to be an All-Star again, much less even be reliably starting on a regular basis.  The traditionalist in me sees his value in that he’s a steady veteran leader that brings a lot of familiarity with the organization, and a now championship pedigree to a locker room that might be able to benefit from his experience.

But most importantly, he’s a local guy that was always beloved by the city of Atlanta, and him coming home, to try and help nurture and contribute this young and talented roster into more legitimate contenders, can only be welcome.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Josh Donaldson also signed with the team too.

Now if only the Braves could upgrade their pitching, 2019 could actually be a very interesting season.

Waynesboro, Virginia, the land where professional wrestling stood still

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I recently went to an indy wrestling show out in the sticks of Virginia.  Waynesboro, to be exact.  This was actually the impetus for a trip I made in order to spend some time with my family, since I frankly don’t really spend nearly enough time with them.

The decision to go to this show was really quite an easy one, because when it first came onto my radar, Juventud Guerrera was listed to be on the card, among a pretty star-studded guest list, especially for an indy show as this one was; guys like Sting, Lex Luger, Vader, Ron Simmons, and the Rock ’n Roll Express were also slated to be at this show.

But as legendary as some of those guys are, I have this ironic love for the weird, and the jobbers, and the guys that don’t get nearly the credit they deserve, like Juventud Guerrera.  Plus, I really wanted a Juvi mask to essentially complete my collection of luchador masks on my shelf, since the Juice is somehow considered “too old” in Mexico itself, to have his masks for sale on the streets of la Playa del Carmen. Without question, Juvi was really the only reason that I wanted to go to this show at all.

So plans were made, flights were purchased, tickets were acquired, and I was on my way back to Virginia for a long weekend of family, friends and Juvi Juice.  I was looking forward to it greatly.

And then as the show neared, I went to the promotion’s website to refresh my memory of what else was in store; and noticed that Juventud’s profile was no longer a part of the promotional banner.  To make matters worse, all mention of Juvi was gone from the site.  My friend messaged them on Facebook, but because they’re a yokel backwater promotion, they never responded, but all signs were pointing to the idea that Juventud was no longer going to be a part of it.

“Card subject to change” is one of the bigger tropes of the business, and because professional wrestling is full of flakes and bums, it’s the thing said to easily Mentos out of just about any sort of card changing, like Juventud Guerrera not being a part of it.  Unfortunately for those of us outside of the business, the real world doesn’t work as conveniently as the scripted one inside of it.  I still had plane tickets and vacation time punched out at work.  Juvi or no Juvi, I was still going to be going to this show, disappointed as hell that I wouldn’t get to meet the Juice and pick up la maskara for the colleccíon.

Oh yeah and Vader died, so that was another blow to the card that was going to be hard to cover up.

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The retro gaming fad is stupid

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let me clarify: I don’t have a problem with playing old video games on old consoles.  I do however, have a problem with video game companies throwing in the towel on creativity and effort, and simply repackaging old hardware and software, calling it retro and then selling them at prices that don’t exactly match the end product, all in the name of preying on the nostalgia of nerds like me and around a similar age.

Nintendo made ludicrous amounts money selling miniaturized versions of both the NES and the SNES systems that are basically glorified emulators with a safe set of classic games, most of which weren’t really that high in demand.  Sony decided to hop on the same boat and announced the creation of a miniaturized Piss1 console that will basically be the same thing with Playstation’s early library.

More recently, the software companies themselves have decided to produce such retro collections, such as Capcom releasing their Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, which is a bunch of ROMs of some of their unlicensed side-scrolling fighting games.  And just a few days ago, I saw that Konami has decided to re-release arguably the most successful Castlevania game of all time, Symphony of the Night.

Undoubtedly, all of these things have and will continue to make money, because if they were projected to not make money, they would never be happening in the first place.  But the fact of the matter is that I can’t help but think that this is all really stupid, and I can’t help but cringe at the idea of so many people, and plenty that I know personally, who are going to take the bait and spend absurd amounts of money for systems and games that we evolved and moved away from, for a reason.

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Life goals, battle mode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came into a little bit of fuck-you-play-money recently, so I did what any responsible adult would do – I went on a mad witch hunt for a toy from my childhood that I still wanted to this very day.

It only took nearly 23 years from the day I first decided that I wanted one, but I finally got my hands on a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (legacy) Megazord.  I’m serious, when I first saw the show when I was in the fifth grade, I remember thinking “man, this show is sooooo lame,” but then the next thing I knew, I was watching every episode and it wasn’t long afterward did the want to watch the show force me to learn how to program a VCR so I could tape the show because it came on at 2:30 in the afternoon and I didn’t get out of school until closer to 3:30.

When I first saw commercials for MMPR toys, I wouldn’t have imagined that they’d become the literal hardest things in the world to get a hold of that year, but then again to a fifth grader, there aren’t a whole lot of things to imagine other than more MMPR, video games, and trying not to get bad grades so my mom wouldn’t kick my ass.  But I learned really quickly the concept of supply and demand that year, when it became very apparent that every other boy around my age also wanted MMPR toys, and getting a hold of a Megazord or a DragonZord was going to be the equivalent of trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

Suffice to say, as much as my mom tried to spoil her son and acquire one, it didn’t happen.  I literally remember articles in the Washington Post about how they were the hot item, and how no toy store in the country could ever manage to get more than 1-3 of either in at a time, and people were literally waiting for doors to open on a daily basis to get them when they did.

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Photos: Dragon*Con 2018

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[2020 note]: this is unposted content from 2018’s Dragon*Con.  I actually sat on these photos for nearly two full years, because as my post-2018 Dragon*Con post alluded to, I had kind of a forgettable time, and I skipped out in 2019 to zero regrets, and had no plan on going to 2020, even if coronavirus weren’t a thing.

It wasn’t until I began to chronologically catch up to Dragon*Con 2018 did I realize that I never touched the RAW photos, and I broke my posting stride just to make sure that these didn’t slip through the cracks and never get posted.

Looking back at these photos, the sheer fact that there are only 60 photos should be sign enough of just how unenthused my heart was going into this convention.  I used to want to shoot hundreds of pictures, but a combination of my inability to enjoy the con, not really seeing things that make me want to shoot, and I guess being at the wrong places at the wrong time to not see the things I wanted to see, leads to a really small photo count.

But it’s the ones with friends that matter the most, and ultimately I’m okay if there’s more of those photos than of people I don’t necessarily know.

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I didn’t know they lasted this long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Fun fact: my first ever job, as in real W-2 actual paycheck with taxes deducted from it job, was at a Bertucci’s, as a bus boy.  I had just gotten my license, so I was told to get a job immediately, and considering that I wanted money, I was more than willing to comply.  I applied just about everywhere, and Bertucci’s was the place that pretty much hired me first, so it was there did I get my feet wet in the official working world.

I learned about Friday dinner rushes, shitty management, asshole servers who lied about their tip reporting in order to short the tip out to the bussers, that dishwashing paid better than bussing and kept you away from the customers, and that in the food service industry it’s everyone versus management amid the patrons.

It was similar to Waiting… the film, long before the film ever came to fruition.  Despite the fact that I knew how often they lied on their tip declarations, thus screwing me out of my share of tips, I had a decent relationship with several of the servers, one of whom died while I was working there from a hard-living life of alcohol and obesity while not at work (he fell down some stairs to his death).  But we all hated the managers, Larry (the Fairy (he wasn’t gay (I think)), just kind of fruity) and the asshole assistant manager named Enio who blatantly tried to short peoples’ pay, probably stole tips, and was just generally a piece of shit, and it was through this unity that made work not suck all the time.

Either way, I worked there for three months, saving up money for Anime Expo 1998, and then the Sunday before I left for California, I got a frantic phone call from Larry the Fairy, demanding that I come in to work, despite not being on the schedule.  At the time, I was sharing a car with my sister, and she had it and was out, not to mention that I didn’t want to fucking work on a day I wasn’t scheduled for, so I explained that I had no car, and thus could not come in.  Larry the Fairy yelled that I needed to come in regardless and hung up on me, and I shrugged and sat back down at my computer and didn’t go in to work.

Two weeks later, I rolled into Bertucci’s for my Saturday shift, and didn’t see my name on the calendar, or any other future dates.  I asked Larry the Fairy what was up, and he brusquely told me that my no-showing my unscheduled demand to come to work was interpreted as my resignation from employment.  I kind of scrunched my brow, but remembered that working at Bertucci’s absolutely blew and just said “okay,” went into the office to get my last paycheck, and walked out without any shits left to give.

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