One year later (the not-so good one)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was just days after my child was born.  As she was premature, she was immediately admitted to the NICU, and it was heartbreaking to leave the hospital without our daughter coming home with us, but we tried to take comfort in the fact that she was exactly where she needed to be in order to play some physical catchup to where she would be allowed to come home.

Every single day afterward, mythical wife and I would go to the hospital twice a day to spend some time with our child.  Except for those first few days, I didn’t go, because I had come down with a pretty nasty cough, and given the situation that was rapidly spreading across the globe, understandably, there were some major red flags about an Asian guy having a cough, especially not just at a hospital, but at a NICU.

Fortunately, it was most likely just allergy-related, as like a true genius, I had participated in a double 5K event that involved running two 5Ks in an eight hour span; one at 1 am, and then one at 7 am the following (same) morning; it was daylight-savings themed, and the novelty of it alone made me want to try it.  But in doing so, I had inhaled a metric fuckton of early Georgia spring pollen, and my body was revolting as a result.  However, it cleared up fairly quickly, as the pollen coursed through my system, and I would get to go into the NICU later on.

However, it was on one of those days in which I dropped mythical wife off at the NICU, and came back home to log into work, I have a memory of swinging by the nearby Publix on the way home, and knowing we were low on bottled water, I made a point to pick up some more.  There was a display upon entering for a buy 2, get 1 free, so I figured, why not just get three cases?  With this whole pandemic thing starting to gain momentum, I figured three cases of water between two adults should be sufficient for all this shit to blow over, right?

Funny how perceptions are when you’ve never really lived through a global pandemic in your life.

So here we are, one year later; people with brains larger than a pea, are still wearing masks out in public, if they’re even leaving home in the first place, and coronavirus has officially killed over half a million Americans, and countless many more over the rest of the globe, but pretty much nowhere worse than it was in America.  Several vaccines have finally come to light, but the distribution of them leaves a lot to be desired, considering an entire planet’s population all need it in order to hopefully return to some semblance of normalcy, so in spite of the supposed cure existing, it’s still a slow and still dangerous path to the finish line.

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There’s a reason why I call it AEWCW

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
I can’t see how far my career has fallen from here…

Although with each passing week, it stands to believe that it could very well be turning into TNAEWCW, based on the questionable decisions the company keeps making in spite of their bold proclamations that they are going to be the anti-WWE, not compete with WWE, and don’t really concern themselves over what WWE is doing.

So Revolution was over the weekend, and although there’s plenty to criticize about what seemed like a pretty wince-worthy show, there’s one thing that stood out the most to me.  And no, it wasn’t the embarrassingly pathetic “explosion” that was supposed to kill Jon Moxley that was set to the same timer that’s in the background of the battle against Emerald Weapon from Final Fantasy VII because Kenny Omega is huge FFVII fanboy, because as far as the actual match itself went, it wasn’t that terrible, and tried its best to harken back to the days of old Masato Tanaka matches in FMW, it’s just the post-match shenanigans were pretty cringe-worthy bad.

Or the face of the revolution ladder match to which the prize at the top of the ladder wasn’t a sack of money, the managerial services of Terri Runnels or a blet, but a giant golden ring that looked like the one that took you to the bonus stages in Sonic the Hedgehog, that was at least won by a guy with actual legitimate talent in Scorpio Sky, who really is one of the shining beacons of the entire promotion.

Leading up to Revolution, there was all sorts of buzz on the scuttlebutt about how AEW was going to reveal this big massive acquisition, and there were all sorts of predictions thrown about.  Some as grandiose as Brock Lesnar, some as wildly unlikely as CM Punk. My personal take was that since the W in AEW stands for Weebs, I figured it would be a Japanese wrestler that few in America had ever heard of, and since the so-called forbidden door is open between AEWeebs and New Japan, maybe it would be an on-loan Kazuchika Okada to threaten Kenny Omega in North America for a change of scenery.

And then there were the less-fun predictions of hardcore marks who actively scour and look for the contract status of active, or recently-retired-not-retired guys or potential free agents, out there like Kurt Angle, Christian, Marty Scurll or Tessa Blanchard.

All the same, AEW had successfully generated some buzz and hype, and even the most lukewarm of fans like me were remotely curious to who it possibly could be.

When it was revealed to be Christian, I literally laughed out loud.  As loud as a dad to a 1-year old in a nearby room could possibly laugh, but an actual, audible sound came from my mouth when I found out that of all the names that were thrown out there, it was a 47-year old WWE mid-carder who’s biggest success in the big leagues came as a metaphorical substitution to an Edge storyline when Edge himself had to call it quits at the time due to neck injury.  A former TNA world champion at a time when that belt was passed around to other “TNA legends” like Bobby Roode, Bubba Ray Dudley and a pre-renaissance Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley.

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Year One of Forever (New Father Brogging, #036)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If it’s not clear by now, I’m a very nostalgic person.  I get kicks out of internet content that puts the spotlight on things in the past, I take enjoyment in reminiscing, and one of my favorite features of theFacebook and one of the only things that I routinely indulge in is the memories feature that shows you the things you may or may not have posted on that day in previous years. 

With that latter thing, I was pleased to see that I could integrate such a function into my brog when I got it back up and running again, and even if I don’t have the time to write, I try to make a few seconds each day to refresh my main page and glance at the kinds of slop that I’ve posted in prior years, most of which is poorly-aged trash, but occasionally there are some things that I’ve churned out that even I look back at positively.

Naturally, March 5th will forever be immortalized as an important date in my history through the end of time, but before we get into the sappy meat of this post that I’ll likely have a hard time remaining dry-eyed while writing, I like to glance back at my own history, to see what trash I’d written in the past that I could make the lame joke about how that was the focal point of historical Marth 5ths of yesterday instead of the obvious.

It’s funny to think about how in prior March 5ths the most important things in my life were getting Garen in an ARAM game of League of Legends, or how I appeared to have been triggered by an SNL skit where they took a cheap shot at Waffle House, or when I found out that of all the Marvel properties in existence, fucking Morbius is the one that is slated to get a film, starring none other than the gross-looking STD-riddled magic troll, Jared Leto.

Obviously, everything changed in the March 5th of 2020, when one of the most important milestones in my entire occurred, and has permanently elevated the date to a point where anything else in the past has become inconsequential and white-noise, and only exists to be ironic, and where in the future I won’t even bother planning on posting anything on the date, and try to manage any non-birthday posts to occur before or after the date alternatively.

Regardless, it’s been approximately one year since the birth of my daughter, my first child, and pretty much the largest event that has occurred in my life.  Sure, getting homes and getting married are massive deals in their own rights, but neither involve the manifestation of another human being coming into the world, so I think I have to give the torch of priority to this specific birthday, the first of forever, as far as the rest of my life is concerned.

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Something I’ve started doing at work now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I generally try to avoid writing about work as much as possible, it’s gotten pretty bad, to the point where it unfortunately permeates into my time off the clock, and poisons my thoughts and emotions on a regular basis.  And because nobody actually reads my bullshit in the first place, this is probably about as safe as a place to vomit all my thoughts and emotions without needing to burden my wife, friends, famiry or anyone else I give a shit about with talking about work.

But lately, I’ve decided to stare directly into the camera during certain meetings, like I were Robert De Niro in Heat.  The scene where he’s doing some recon for Val Kilmer when they’re on a heist, and he just so happens to be looking directly at a night vision camera being actively monitored by Al Pacino.  It looks like De Niro and Pacino are having a fierce stare down when in reality, they’re two guys in different locations who have no earthly idea that they’re looking right at one another.

Just like the virtual world of professional meetings, that we’re living a reality of these days.

It’s one of my favorite scenes in cinema, and captures the feeling of tension like few really can, and it’s what I think about whenever I stare directly into the green light of my computer, so that everyone else on these particular calls can feel like I’m staring directly at them, mostly when leadership is feeding me all sorts of bullshit lectures, attempting to emasculate me, tell me I suck at my job, or any other verbal act of trying to tear me down, which has become something of a sport to them, it really seems.

But I feel like staring at the camera which in turn makes it look like I’m staring directly at them, makes me feel a little empowered and I hope that I’m making them uncomfortable by looking like I’m staring directly at them.  The irony of it all is that while I’m staring at the camera, I’m not looking at anything that’s actually particularly important, like whatever subject matter we might or might not be discussing if it’s instead how much I suck at my job, but I can also type without looking at the keyboard unlike some of my peers, so if I ever need to be typing something, I can maintain my steely stare directly at the camera.

Metaphorically, it’s my way of standing up to all the bullshit that’s constantly flung in my direction, and I will do my very best to not let it get to me and ruin my confidence as a worker.  But really, I just hope it makes people uncomfortable being stared at so directly.

A catch-up post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve felt the inner need to do one of these, but at the same time, it’s been a while since I last posted too.  Not a day goes by when I don’t notice when I post, but between my job entering our busy season, the general busy-ness of raising an infant daughter, night classes, and I do mean night classes seeing as how they’re 9-11 pm, taking up two nights a week with often other nights of the week doing homework for said night classes, as I’ve stated a gabillion times at this point, I simply just don’t have any time.

And with what free time I do have, I’m either usually too gassed and fried in the brain to want to sit down and try and gather my thoughts and write about things especially when feeling unmotivated in the first place, and so I usually end up fast-forwarding through the week’s wrestling programs and when I have them available, catching up on TLC programming like My 600 lb. Life and 90 Day Fiancé.  And as much as I hate to constantly lean on wrestling and TLC to find things to about write about, I can’t remember the last time I had leisurely time to just casually surf the internet for local happenings to rap on, and often times general news around the rest of the world is usually sad and infuriating in the first place and I don’t want to feed into negativity that I can simply avoid.

One day, maybe, I’ll have more free time to write again in the future.  For the sake of my own sanity and gratification, I certainly hope so.

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Is giving out of spite better than giving out of goodness?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know it’s a rhetorical question, and when the day is over, giving is giving, and in lots of cases, the end objective is still good and true, but I ask it mostly because I question the royal people, that are doing such.

When Rush Limbaugh died, the very first words that formulated in my brain were simply “who cares?” because I thought he was a piece of shit in the first place, so it’s not skin off my back to hear when a piece of shit like him kicks the bucket.  In fact, good riddance, the world doesn’t need such hate spreading cretins in the world in it anyway.  I had really hoped the day he died would be the last day that I would hear his name, but because the internet is always in pursuit of the next great meme, that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.

Some dude on the internet started a movement where, at the time I’m writing this, has surpassed over $1 million dollars raised for Planned Parenthood; in honor of Rush Limbaugh, the piece of shit who had gone on record countless times bemoaning their existence, and going out of his way to be contrarian in every regard to the idea of it.

When the day is over, it’s really fantastic that Planned Parenthood is getting his massive donation, regardless of the ironic, meme of an impetus that served to provide it.  Surely those who actually liked Rush are probably aggravated that their hero’s name is being besmirched in such a manner, but therein lies the objective of a good troll-y meme, to put the haters in a position where they can really do nothing about it.

But one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was that yes, the donations and the end objective are good and true sure, but why did it have to take a joke to get people to open up their wallets and donate in the first place?  Why does generosity have to have a conditional opponent, or detractor?  Why does it require the expense of someone else, in order to get people to want to do a good thing?  Sure, that someone is already dead, but not that it really would have mattered if this happened when he was alive either, but the point is, this is a prime example of people being eager to give out of spite, as opposed to giving out of goodness.

It kind of reminds me of when Rick & Morty caused such a stir about McDonald’s Szechuan sauce, that McD’s actually brought out the sauce in limited releases, and the ensuing response to them were people showing up to McDonald’s across the nation in droves, trying to be the lucky people to actually acquire some.  There were stories of people flipping individual sauce packets for thousands of dollars, and even one story where a guy traded a car for a sauce packet (too lazy to cross-check).

There was a meme that came from that whole movement, where the “joke” was Rick & Morty’s second favorite sauce was universal healthcare, to see if the apathetic flocks that got up in arms to basically force McDonalds to release Szechuan sauce might actually mobilize and try to get this country to make a difference.  Naturally, nothing but a few sad laughs came from it, but the observation was mostly the same vein: why are people so passionate about spiting others or getting worked up over inconsequential things, when there’s clearly strength in numbers and people in large quantities can make a difference, regardless of the motive?

I digress though, because it was a rhetorical question in which I know there is no right or wrong answer, and I’m frankly running out of gas in regard to this topic because of such.  As I stated already, it’s fantastic that Planned Parenthood is getting such monumental support, because it is an organization that I do personally support.  I just personally wish that people were more willing to regularly donate to and support them out of the kindness of their hearts, and not require a joke at some dead shithead’s expense in order for them to open their wallets.

TFW your BAC is higher than your career BA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year again in spite of the fact that like a year ago, it’s probably still not a very good idea, but because Major League Baseball is a machine that demands its financial tithe, the 2021 season is a-go, and it’s Spring Training all over parts of Florida and Arizona, or wherever each team is actually deciding to try and get their bodies into shape for another unnecessary season of sports while a pandemic is still very much in play.

But the specific time in which I am referring to is that with Spring Training afoot, it’s only a matter of time before a baseball player, personnel, executive or alum, makes the news having gotten a DUI, most likely from a little too much fraternization and/or having a good time with the boys.

In this case, it was an alum, in former All-Star outfielder Johnny Damon, getting pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence in Florida. And naturally, because it’s completely relevant to the conversation, the article makes sure to mention that in his baseball career, he had 2,796 hits, 235 home runs, and a career batting average of .284.

It’s one of my favorite clichés about professional athletes getting in trouble with the law.

However in this case, it actually does provide a little bit of interesting context, because batting average is a decimal number measured by three digits, much like a breathalyzer test, and in the case of Johnny Damon’s two tests, he allegedly blew both a .300 and a .294, to which I hope most people can do the math, is well past three times the legal limit of .080. I mean, anything over .000 is illegal in the state of Georgia and I’m okay with that frankly because (in a non-pandemic world) ridesharing has made any sort of driving with any booze in the system completely unnecessary.

But back to the topic at hand, not only is .294 a staggeringly high blood alcohol content that literally states that nearly 30% of his body’s blood diluted by booze, it’s higher than his career batting average. Which is ironically impressive, because a career .284 batting average is actually pretty quite good, so the fact that he was able to surpass his batting average on a night out is pretty amazing.

Obviously in the grand spectrum of things this is really pathetic; most baseball fans know Damon as kind of face of the 2004 Red Sox that came back from the 3-0 deficit to the Yankees and ultimately won the World Series, but now he’s this sad sack of retired professional athlete with too much time, privilege and money to do stupid shit, like get trashed three times the legal limit. More than likely Damon won’t do any sort of time or get anything more than a fine and slap on the wrist, whereas any ordinary American would be in pound-me-in-the-ass prison by now, most definitely if it were any sort of person of color. But since there’s little anyone can actually do about it, all we can really do, is make jokes.