I’m sure a college team wouldn’t have gotten blown out by 61

March 23, 2018August 5, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As if I ever needed any more reason to harp on the fact that the NBA today is utter crap, along came this game the other night where the Memphis Grizzlies lost to the Charlotte Hornets – by 61 points. I had to stop and do the math in my head when I saw the final 140-79 score to verify that it really was a 61-point blowout, and yep sure enough, the Hornets blew out the Grizzlies by 61 points.

It’s no surprise to me the frequency in which I see 30-point blowouts with regularity in today’s NBA scores, but to see it somehow doubled up, now that takes a tragic amount of effort in futility to attain. Seriously, I was an NBA fan in an era where 20 points was considered a blowout, and they really didn’t happen that often. The most lopsided wins I’d ever seen in my life in the NBA up until the turn of the century was this extreme abomination clunker of a game where the Knicks beat the Jordan-led Bulls by 32 points during the 96 season in which the Bulls still won 70 games, and this stinker of a game by the Jazz in the NBA Finals, where they got blown out by 42 points by the Jordan-led Bulls.

But those were just two games in nearly a decade of watching basketball in which I saw such gargantuan blowouts. The Grizzlies somehow managed to lose by a bigger margin (61) than the total score the Jazz put up in that 1998 game (54). 61 points was typically the average score of any team that lost to the defense-heavy, hard hitting Pat Riley-coached New York Knicks teams of the 90s.

To put it in perspective, the only time that I, and probably most people my age, have ever seen a 60+ blowout was in 1992, when the United States Dream Team featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and other superstars blow out a star-struck squad from Angola by 68 points. The 2018 Charlotte Hornets might be owned by Michael Jordan, but there sure as shit aren’t players remotely close to his level of greatness, that still managed to blow out the Grizz by 61.

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I guess kids will have no choice but to grow up now

March 18, 2018August 5, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I guess it’s getting to the point where it’s inevitable that the things of our youths ultimately end up dying slow and undignified deaths. I kind of wonder if this is one of those generational things that happens to every generation, but given the fact that some of these iconic companies are often times nearly 30, 40, or 50+ years old, I’m going to have to lean towards that such might not be the case for every generation.

Now I’ve gotten nostalgic and poetic waxy about franchises of my own youth, like K-Marts, Old Country Buffets and Sears, but the impending death of Toys ‘R Us is a pretty hefty blow in its own right. Whereas the deaths of most of the other aforementioned businesses tended to hit grownups the hardest, there’s almost something cruel about a business that primarily made their bread on butter on the wants of children getting the axe now.

I mean, business is most certainly an unforgiving, indiscriminate venue, but taking it out on the children seems especially harsh. It’s no secret that lots of people hate Walmart, and Target and Amazon are pretty universally loved, but when it really comes down to it, all of them, as well as all other businesses that could be considered competition were all involved in twisting the knife that eventually succeeded in bringing death towards the most iconic toy retailer, at least of my entire lifetime.

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The year in writing post, circa 2017

December 28, 2017August 9, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often times the case when it comes to life, 2017 had its ups and 2017 had its downs. As much as people bemoaned just how tragic and shitty 2016 was, I honestly cannot say that I personally felt that 2017 was tremendously better. As I said, the year had its up and there were some most certainly good things that occurred during the last calendar year, but 2017 had no shortage of bad things that happened to people in general, people close to me, and people directly in my own life.

There may not have been as many notable celebrity deaths that have sent the internet abuzz with fake sympathy, bogus empathy and all the hollow fuck thoughts and prayers on the planet that were often the root of the angst towards 2016, but there was still no doubt that a lot of crappy things occurred regardless. At least with death, it’s definitive and final, and the repercussions are only as impactful to mostly immediate families and occasional organizational legacies. But take for example shit like the white supremacist uprising that plagued Charlottesville earlier in the year; this is very real, scary shit that’s easily hidden behind the façades of normal society, and can rise and hide on a moment’s notice.

Psychos who open fire on open-air concerts doesn’t change the frightfully abundant amounts of assault weaponry in the United States, and people still can’t stop arguing over conduct during the National Anthem and whether we have rights, or the rights to practice rights and other redundant arguments that just feed into the flames of people being miserable.

Frankly, given the direction that the world is headed, I couldn’t imagine death sounds like a terrible thing to more nihilistic types, dreading what the world is turning into as time passes. I don’t imagine I’m the only one who thinks that society is most certainly not going in the right direction and that things probably are not going to be any better in five years, in line with that old Jimmy Carter speech.

But that’s a shitty thing for me to say, because death is most certainly no laughing matter, and the world has seen its share of it this year, as it does every single year. Whether it’s numerous lives decimated by natural disasters like the hurricanes that ravaged Texas and Puerto Rico to the massacres by the hands of terrorists, domestic and foreign alike. Or the casualties of the unfortunate hands that life deals out to unlucky people who are taken from the world by cancer or other indiscriminate ailments.

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Netflix’s Castlevania: the teasers of teasers

December 18, 2017August 4, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Blink, and you just might miss it; that’s how I felt after the fourth episode of Netflix’s animated Castlevania’s credits started rolling, and instead of the next episode in 3..2..1.. prompt, it was a preview for something else, signifying the end of the series. Right there, it became abundantly clear that just four episodes were ordered with the intent to gauge interest and test the waters before a more comprehensive commitment would be made. Which is kind of ironic in itself, since Netflix and online streaming services are typically the platforms in which longform series tend to get their chance to let viewers, and now they’re pulling the network-like process of short test runs to see if something is worth it.

But for what it’s worth, I liked it, and I was pleased to discover that more episodes have already been ordered. Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse was always one of my favorites in the series, and based on the fact that Netflix’s series revolve around Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades and introduce Alucard, it’s pretty clear where the source material is coming from, which lit my fanboy’s enthusiasm upon realization.

It is interesting to see something based on a storyline from my childhood, but fleshed out and explained to me as an adult; the Castlevania canon tends to get a little convoluted, and I admit that I stopped playing the series outright in the midst of Symphony of the Night, because when I realized that I had to basically play the entire game over again in an upside-down castle I was like naw, fuck that, and haven’t really looked back at the games since. But Castlevania III is a property that I was all too familiar with, so it was really easy to get into the Netflix show.

Back when I was a kid, there wasn’t much thought to the plot: Dracula is ruining shit, and Trevor Belmont shows up to fight against it. The Netflix Castlevania fills in the gaps in the plot that an old NES cartridge either fails to deliver and/or nine-year olds simply can’t comprehend, and it’s way more compelling than when I was sitting on my ass plotting on how to avoid hits and whether or not I was going to take Grant on this journey or try to finish the game with Sypha (never took Alucard, because he sucked). But I never thought to why Dracula is waging war on humanity in the first place, and why Trevor Belmont was needed to come save the day in the first place.

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Is trick-or-treating dead?

November 1, 2017August 4, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I moved into my house, I often noticed the sheer volume of children in my subdivision. Riding around on bicycles, and dragging their feet shuffling home after getting off of the school bus that clogs the road at 4:30 every day. I thought to myself that, all i-hate-kids nihilism aside, that it was still a pleasing atmosphere to see, especially in contrast to the warzone that my previous home’s subdivision was devolving to.

All this said, I would have wagered money that come Halloween, my neighborhood would be a veritable hotbed for trick-or-treaters, since there were already a lot of children in the neighborhood, and that my subdivision seemed kind of tailor-made for trick-or-treating since it was relatively flat, homes moderately spaced out and looked affluent enough to attract children into thinking good candy were abundantly available. With such in mind, my home was very well stocked for the freeloaders, with the hopes that maybe a fistful of the stuff would be left for us afterwards.

Which brings us to this morning, where I’ve got a bowl still practically overflowing with candy, and Halloween saw less than like, 30 kids coming to my door. And we had jack-o-lanterns, fake tombstones and a decorated door with blinking lights to indicate that my home was game for the kids.

So I have to ask now, is trick-or-treating pretty much dead these days?

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The death of an era

October 6, 2017August 4, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pour one out soon: AOL Instant Messenger announces it will shut down permanently in December after 20 years of being the penultimate forefront of instant messaging over the internet

Honestly, I don’t think anyone is really ever going to fully understand the importance of AIM in my life, or that I am going to be legitimately sad when it logs off for good on December 15^th. And this isn’t so much of just another “something from Danny’s childhood is vanishing for good” kind of emo as much as it is a genuinely true passing on of something that was very integral to my daily living for nearly two full decades.

I still have my original screen name for when I was even still an AOL subscriber for $19.99 a month, and I logged on through their software on a 2400 baud then eventually a 33.6 kbps modem, and have been using it as recently as 2015. Back when I originally made it, I didn’t even grasp what an ISP was, and didn’t realize internet access even existed outside of AOL. I also remember knowing it tied up phone lines and made accessing my house over the phone nearly impossible for whenever my sister and I weren’t fighting over computer time and someone was parked at it, chatting away on the world wide web.

Through AOL did I come and go through my tremendous anime weeb phase of my life, but along the way I made lots of internet friends whom I’d shared countless hours and nights chatting away with and role-playing Ranma 1/2 characters in cleverly-named Members chat rooms. I had like two different internet girlfriends at various points, one of whom I’d actually met in person once at an Anime Expo which was a completely different rabbit hole, but the point is, I learned it was entirely possible to meet, make and maintain real human relationships over the internet in spite of all the endless skepticisms that it was full of creepy terrible predators.

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