I’ve done some stupid things in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But I’m about to do one of the more dumber things that I probably don’t really need to be doing.  Especially when I’m already starting every single day at like an eight out of ten on the stress level as it is.  But who knows, maybe this is something that can serve to be a distraction to how discontent I am with certain aspects of my life, and such would be tremendously welcome to help take my mind off how much my job makes me completely miserable.  But on the flipside, as a result of this little experiment, I might be hangry all the time, and serve to make not just my own life, but those of my wife and child miserable if I’m a torrent of anger all the time.

For the next month, or rather 28 days, I’m going to be embarking on the Dr. Nowzaradan diet plan, of 1,200 calories a day, high protein-low carb.  Or, for however long it takes for me to tap out and give in to the hunger, to which I really don’t want to fail because I don’t like failing in anything that I set out to accomplish.

Why the fuck am I going to be putting myself through this kind of hell?  I don’t weigh 600 lbs. I’m not trying to get weight loss surgery.  But after years of watching My 600 Lb. Life on TLC the greatest network in the history of humankind, I’ve been clowning on the people who appear on the show for ages now.  They’re fascinating specimens of human beings, and it’s not so much of the train wreck of watching another human being that has somehow managed to balloon up to 600+ lbs. as much as it’s always interesting to learn about their history and their mental conditions that led to such horrific downward spirals.

But the fact is that I have been clowning on the vast majority of the people, especially the ones who are quick to say yes, that they can cold turkey embark on the Dr. Now diet of 1,200 calories a day, but then fall so tremendously short of their initial weight loss goals, which has fluctuated between 50 in a month, 60 in two, or for those who really break the scales at first weigh-in, 100 in two.  So, as mythical wife and I were watching the latest episode (S9 E12), and Tammy bungled her way through her first period of time and naturally missed the mark completely, and I asked her, I wonder if I could do the Dr. Now diet?

And just like that, the ball began rolling, and here I am, on the cusp of putting my life into dietary hell, for literally no reason at all other than to see if I can do it.  I spent what little time I had today to do some cursory research on what kind of meals I could be eating, along with what foods I should be avoiding, and I’m more or less prepared to dive right in starting tomorrow, and only time will tell how miserable I’ll be, or how it’s not that hard after all, and perhaps I’ll lose some weight in the process.

Naturally, my goal isn’t just to do the diet, but also to brog about it each and every day, as if I didn’t already have enough things going on in my life to also take a slice of time to throw down some words about the experience.  But who knows, much like the beer testing in December, maybe it’ll encourage me to write more, and maybe I’ll actually spit up some quality words in the process.

So the parameters are quite simple:

  • 1,200 calories a day; most likely spread across three meals, and maybe some compliant snacks, but the end goal is as close to 1,200 calories at the end of the day as possible
  • I will continue doing my usual exercises, which has really been reduced to 100 push-ups a day, and running three miles, typically three times a week
  • I will try my best to document the food that I am eating for each meal, photos if I’m feeling ambitious
  • In the event that I tap out, it will be announced that I have tremendously failed and admit that I’m an asshole who doesn’t actually understand just how hard it is for the people on My 600 Lb. Life to do their thing

But if I do succeed, hopefully I’ll have lost some weight, and maybe have broken some bad habits in the process.  All the same, I’m already thinking of the things that I’ll probably go apeshit on once the diet is off, and the primary reason why I’ve chosen 28 days is that any longer collides with my birthday, and I think the chances are higher that I’d want to indulge in some capacity around then.  Who knows though, either indulging will wreck me, since I’d been eating clean for 28 days, or I’ll have gotten so used to eating clean that I won’t want to break the streak of cleanliness, even for my birthday.

Re: The Atlanta Asian Spa Murders

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have a lot of thoughts on this topic.  Very few of them coherent.  Every day since the news broke of a white guy too heavily armed, killing eight people in the Metro Atlanta region, way too close to where my family and I live, it’s been a shit show all over social media and the internet with all the news, opinions and just, overwhelming chatter going on.

There’s so much noise, that I can’t really find the capacity to formulate rational thoughts on the topic.  There’s nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said by someone else, from all ends of the spectrum.  I don’t know whether to be upset, mad, frustrated or annoyed, by all the perceived rhetoric, white privilege, seemingly fake and topical social activism, and all the sudden allies in arms for Asian communities.

Frankly, I just don’t have the time to think much about it, and I honestly would rather not, not because I don’t care, quite the contrary, but because I just have way too much going on in my life at home, that it’s really hard to find the capacity to think about much else that happens outside of it.

But because the internet doesn’t know how to ever shut the fuck up, it’s impossible to avoid and it’s impossible to not be exposed and revealed to fresh information as it’s constantly coming out, in spite of the embarrassingly high amount of empathy and consideration given to a mass murderer simply because of the lack of color in his skin.  So here we are, where I feel like I have to say something in spite of how much I really wish I didn’t, but I feel like if anything at all, I’ll look back at this post when the On This Day plug-in brings it back up in a future year(s) and go oh yeah, that shit DID happen, and America didn’t change one fucking iota as a result of it and all the non-Asian allies went back to their regularly scheduled lives the following Monday when Falcon & The Winter Soldier dropped on Disney+ and everyone moved onto the next shiny topic.

So all I’ll really say is that only in America can people get so misdirected by fighting over what the intent of murders were, that the actual murders themselves are basically rendered secondary in importance.  As if there’s any difference in a sexual motivation or racial one, when eight people are fucking dead, not to mention that it’s very fucking possible for it to have been both at the same time.

To once again say that America Sucks is among the grossest understatements there could possibly be, and this is one of those times where I just want everyone to shut the fuck up.  About their rage, about their convenient recency bias support of Asian communities, and just stop fucking talking and recognize that a bunch of people were gunned down by an angry white guy who was having a really bad day.

I fucking hate this place, sometimes.

Life get back to normalcy? LOL

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seeing as how my wife shared the news on social media, I figure now is as good as time as any to finally break my own silence on this monumental news.

Originally written on December 1, 2020

We were watching 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way when mythical wife dropped the suspecting revelation on me.  The queasiness she was feeling over the day might not necessarily been from the ramen the night before.  The last time she felt this kind of nausea… and then there was the admission that a particular monthly event had not happened in a minute.

The next thing I know, I’m driving to Walgreens at 11pm on a Monday night, because we both felt the need to know what we already suspected was going to be the case with the circumstances that were already in play.  The last time we had this conversation like this, it was already a foregone conclusion and the test was merely a formality for visual confirmation of the obvious.

A second child was always something that my wife and I were open to.  She being an only child, knew the general loneliness that comes with growing up with no live-in sibling, and me, I grew up with a big sister, and there’s a pattern within my generation of cousins is that everyone has two kids, so it seemed like something that was bound to happen.  Fortunately, becoming a father and parent has been something I’ve taken to pretty well if I say so myself, and the idea of a second child never really seemed intimidating beyond the notion that my time will be stretched even thinner in the coming years and to have to go through teething with another baby gives me anxiety, but the idea itself was never off the table.

One thing I’ve learned about myself throughout the year is that I have a tremendous amount of love to give, and I have no doubt in my mind that I won’t have any shortage for another kid.

We just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly and so soon, as we’re just days away from our first child’s ninth month since birth.

Continue reading “Life get back to normalcy? LOL” →

Women’s Tag Team Championships: WWE vs. NXT

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite mechanics in the WWE is the idea of floating champions.  Champions who aren’t limited to just RAW or Smackdown, and can really go anywhere within the company.  Throughout the years, the company has dabbled in floating championships, like when they consolidated all belts down to one world championship, women’s and tag team champions, and only those who held the belts could float between RAW and Smackdown.

When business was good rosters got big, old blets were re-established, and championships gained exclusivity to a particular brand.  Eventually, when creativity began stagnating, champions began jumping onto other shows for shock value purposes, and to randomly fulfill intriguing champion vs. champion scenarios, or when feuds between-show talents emerged and needed to be fulfilled.

Ultimately, it brings us to today where we’re kind of back to an age of all shows having exclusive titles, but there is one floating championship (that isn’t the farce of the 24/7 championship): the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.  It was decreed that the Women’s Tag Team champions could not only hop around from RAW to Smackdown, but it was heavily implied that they could also appear and be defended, on NXT.  That concept alone, whet my whistle, because I’m a huge mark for NXT, and I love the creative idea of an NXT team capturing some main roster gold, and the creative possibilities that could emerge from that.

To date, Creative actually came through with this mechanism, and on three occasions, the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles have been defended on NXT: Dakota Kai & Tegan Nox vs. Asuka & Kairi Sane, Tegan Nox & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Bayley & Sasha Banks, and most recently, Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez vs. Shayna Baszler & Nia Jax.  Despite the fact that NXT has taken the L in all three instances, it has created intriguing television that main roster superstars have appeared in NXT, and had some fun matchups.

However recently, in storyline, there was a controversial finish to the latter matchup between Kai/Gonzalez vs. Baszler/Jax, where main roster stooge Adam Pierce interjected a main roster referee to call the match when the NXT ref was knocked out.  This prompted NXT general manager William Regal, to get upset and make a monumental decision, which ultimately ended up being the introduction of the brand new, NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship, and awarded them to Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez, for winning the first edition of the Dusty Rhodes Women’s Tag Team Cup.

And just like that, the WWE Women’s Tag Team championship has most likely ceased its ability to float on down to NXT from here on out, with the exception maybe being Survivor Series, if they ever try to add NXT to the cross-brand competition.

Continue reading “Women’s Tag Team Championships: WWE vs. NXT” →

“COVID” must be like, Italian, for “sucking”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The only thing that sucks about both Duke and Kentucky missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1976 is that both of their blowhard coaches are going to be using coronavirus as their excuse for the fact that they just plain sucked; and because it has been such a devastating thing throughout the last year, or the fact that most people with brains know that sports probably shouldn’t be happening in the first place right now, that they’re both going to have an act of god-like rationale to justify it and chalk the 2020-21 season as some sort of asterisked aberration that shouldn’t count.

However, make no mistake – coronavirus or no coronavirus, both Duke and Kentucky played like shit all year, and they are exactly where they belong right now as a result of it.  There’s little reason to believe that either would have done any better if the world weren’t currently in a pandemic, and if anything at all, there should probably be some suspicion to why they just suddenly sucked when there’s no crowds, no extra noise or any other external factors that being in a non-pandemic scenario would have differentiated from.

Of course, aside from coronavirus, both programs will probably cite some key prospects opting out of the season, and I don’t have enough shits to give to try and find out, but these are two of the most notorious hoops programs in the nation; at any given time, they’ll have numerous 4-5 star recruits waiting in the wings, and for every one that opts out, there’s probably another talented prep salivating in the wings to get on the court.

Either way, as a detractor for both overrated programs, it’s good that neither are in the NCAA tournament, as reckless as it might be to hold in the first place.  Both would have undoubtedly gotten bounced in the second round if not the first, by like Florida Atlantic, UMBC or Louisiana Tech, so it’s better for the NCAA to have those layup losses be filled by a potential Cinderella team from a non-power five conference.

But on that same note, for those who might actually give a shit and actually tune into any March Madness, we’ll all be denied the smug satisfaction and gambling pool of when Duke and Kentucky get upset much less filling out a bracket in the first place.  As I said, I just don’t give a shit to look closer, but in previous years, I always tried to earmark when Duke would get bounced, based on whom was in their region.  Kentucky, I often times gave a little more leash, but they were almost always bounced by the Elite Eight in any bracket I ever fill out.

Anyway, good on sports for Duke and Kentucky not making it to the dance.  Chalk one point up for supposed parity.  As for the rest of the college hoops season, none of it really counts or matters this year; that is, unless Virginia Tech wins it all, to which then it’s the greatest season of college hoops in history, and they overcame tremendous odds and adversity to climb to the top of the mountain.  But considering their placement in the ACC tournament and still got bounced by the UNC squad that ducked them earlier in the season, I don’t have too many hopes for that.

‘Burned out’ doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On any given day, here are the things that I like to accomplish in my free time:

  • Write
  • Run
  • Watch wrestling
  • Watch tv in general
  • Play Fire Emblem Heroes and/or Pokémon Go
  • Do surveys

Coincidentally, that just so happens to be the list of things that I so rarely get to do anymore, on account of the fact that I’m just so endlessly busy, with a plate so perpetually full, that I’ve been feeling on the cusp of anxiety attacks at just how much stuff I feel that I have to do on a regular basis, with practically no help at all.

The fact that I’m writing now is a miracle in itself, and I mentally would really like to accomplish a whole fuckton of writing that’s been backlogging in my brain as well as on the living document I keep a list of topics and things I’d like to write about but the reality is that as much as I love to write, there’s only a certain amount of it I can do daily before the topics begin to run into each other and I put out a bunch of bullshit that I’m not happy with.

Over the last few weeks, my daily schedule hasn’t really changed so much as it’s just had things added to it, as some of them have finite timelines in which they should be accomplished.  However, it’s these extra things that have nickeled and dimed their way into overfilling my plate on a regular basis, and the’ve all been constantly bleeding into all facets of my time not spent working and/or raising a child, that I’ve hit the point where “burned out” doesn’t come close to describing how I feel so much as I just simply feel like I’m drowning.

Continue reading “‘Burned out’ doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel” →

New Father Brogging, #037

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly?  Maybe it’s because I’m months past the period of infancy where babies do not sleep throughout the night and I’ve long forgotten the rigors of sleepless nights and daytime fatigue.  Or maybe my daughter has been particularly amenable as far as babies go.  But if you were to ask me how difficult raising a baby for the first time has been, and I think I would say that it wasn’t nearly as hard as people made it out to be.

Sure, early on there’s the endless amounts of fear and anxiety at the start as new parents, we don’t know what the heck we’re doing.  And then there’s sleep regressions quarterly that make me want to jump out windows.  And then there’s teething, and the introduction of solid foods, and then more teething that make running with razor blades seem like a mercy.

But once routines are established, reinforced and set in, things actually operate fairly smoothly.  The days become somewhat predictable, and once you know when you might actually have time to manage, things become somewhat more manageable.  So either I’ve been cruising on a nice little routine for a while, or I simply was not prepared for the difficulty jump that comes with the start of being able to say “years” in age, instead of just months.

Needless to say, the photo above has been a frequent view of mine throughout the last weeks since my daughter turned one year old.  It was almost perfect at the rate in which she hit 12 months and it just kind of clicked for her to go from awkward army crawling, to not just full-fledged crawling so much as she often uses her little left leg to thrust her further and faster, and covers ground at an impressive pace.

When I saw that there was a class of Huggies diapers called Little Movers, I just had this feeling that my child was destined to become one of those kids.  And at one point, mythical wife and I had a little concern that she might be falling behind in mobility, and prepared for more time of constantly disclaiming adjusted age since she was premature.  But then came army crawling, and like lightning striking she’s not just crawling at a rapid pace now, she’s been experimenting with getting up onto her legs and standing without assistance periodically now.

Continue reading “New Father Brogging, #037” →