Tag: observations

Imagine being so insecure of your masculinity that you need to get a MANLY BAND

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know what it says about my browsing habits and the conversations that big brother is listening to, but I got this ad for some company called MANLY BANDS and it’s apparent that they’re in the business of making MANLY rings for the MANLIEST of MEN to wear to physically indicate their marital status.

They appear to be available in names like THE COWBOY, and based on the one photo they have, they appear to have wood as one of the materials in which they’re made, looking like a squashed barrel that Donkey Kong sat on instead of throwing at Mario.  Apparently instead of some pussy jeweler’s ring box, they’re packaged in TACTICAL BOXES, because nothing is MANLIER than presenting shit inside of a tactical box instead of something made of lesser, more pussier material.

I love how their logo is crisscrossed fire axes, a campfire and a tree, to hit that this is what a MANLY BAND is made out of, and of course their choice of font is IMPACT, because this whole thing is just so absurdly ridiculous, it may as well be a meme.

Oh, and I’m definitely not going to ignore the very obvious MANLY BAND customer looking like how he’s got his bride in a chokehold in order to kiss her, because he probably sees her as property after saying ‘I do’ and is wasting no time at imposing his will and possession over her.

And come on, bro can’t even take off his fucking Apple watch for his wedding?  I like the convenience of being able to check the time at any given moment, but even I took my fitness tracker off when I got married.

I remember when I was looking for a wedding band before I got married.  I initially thought I wanted something different than a traditional sterling or gold or white gold band, and I imagined myself getting something like a carbon fiber band or something different, not necessarily to be MANLY, but just for a change of things.

I tried on some carbon fiber rings and things that weren’t so traditional, but frankly they all looked too dark and ridiculous for my taste.  Ultimately, I went with a tantalum band that definitely leaned more traditional, but at the same time was slightly darker than a shiny band, and I like the general indestructible nature of it in order to get a degree of uniqueness that I’m satisfied with.

But never did it once cross my mind that there would be the possibility of giving off the perception of becoming less MANLY if I picked a questionable wedding band.  So going back to the title of this post, imagine being so insecure with your masculinity that you feel the need to acquire a MANLY BAND as a wedding ring.  Maybe the aesthetics are more these bros’ style, but for me, anything with wood is a no-go.  Last thing I’d want from my ring is for it to get beat up like mine sometimes does, and then it starts to rot because that’s what wood tends to do.

Either way, chalk MANLY BANDS as one of the dumber things to have come into existence in recent years.  I think I’d put them up with drinking cups made out of baseball bats, but unlike those, I wouldn’t wager a sacrificial bet in order to get the Braves to win a World Series for a MANLY BAND.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: it has begun!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Douglasville teen accepted into 58 college, amassing around $1M in cumulative scholarships

It’s that time of the year again, where overachieving teenagers across the globe start playing the game of applying to as many schools as they possibly can so that they can brag about how many they got into, and how much cumulative scholarship dollars they can earn despite the fact that combined value is not actually a viable thing, but it sounds good for social and media purposes.

And naturally, the first instance of #TRYHARDSZN for 2025 starts in the Metro Atlanta area, where a notably substantial number of #TRYHARDS seems to emerge from every year.  But we have a kid out of Douglasville for a change, to have been reportedly accepted into 58 different colleges, with a combined scholarship amount already around $1M.

Seeing as how the vast majority of the low-end schools are never mentioned in these stories, it’s apparent that the most notable school this guy was accepted into was Alabama.  No Ivies, no Stanford, no UVA, Georgia Tech or any other prestigious schools were listed on this kid’s academic rap sheet.  So although the initial numbers sounded impressive, a little bit of digging reveals that it might not be as impressive as the numbers might lead to believe.

I digress though, this is only the first #TRYHARD of the season, and will undoubtedly not be the last.  Can’t really come out of the box firing napalm here, and I’m sure as the #SZN progresses, we’ll start to hear about some truly insufferable #TRYHARDS clearing 70-80 schools, all the Ivies and amassing over $10M.

All things considered though, I like this kid as far as his extracurriculars are concerned.  His GPA isn’t mentioned anywhere because it’s probably not 4.0 or above, but boy is very active in extracurriculars, and one noteworthy thing I’ve never seen from a prior #TRYHARD is that he’s basically a part of the school’s cheer team among other groups and organizations he’s a part of.

And Douglasville is becoming almost as bad as the shitty South Fulton area that a lot of the #TRYHARDs of previous year have emerged from, so good on this kid from taking some big steps to get the fuck away out of that cesspool.

Anyway, with this #TRYHARD now in the books, #TRYHARDSZN2025 has officially begun.  Hopefully there won’t be such an avalanche of #TRYHARDs that I begin to feel exasperated and burned out on making all these posts, like last #SZN started to get to towards the end, but instead a nice steady pace of #TRYHARDs that works optimally with my writing schedule and availability.

Hey, we all can wish

Welp, absolutely no more reason to favor Southwest over anyone else

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Southwest Airlines ditching bags fly free, eliminating their last real differentiator to competitors

And with the elimination of open seating as of the start of the 2025 season, Southwest Airlines has fully committed to blending into the landscape entirely, leaving them with no more real differentiators from their competition.  Honestly, bags fly free, as small as it seemed in comparison to what they once were as one of the true alternatives in the airline playing field, was still something to consider for airline passengers planning a trip.

Sure, they kind of baked it into their general fares once you did some price shopping against other airlines plus bag fees, but if you played your cards right, Southwest was still a place where you could snag a bargain, if you had the flexibility or willingness to nudge your schedule around.

But with the elimination of bags fly free, it’s apparent that Southwest no longer gives any shits about industry disruption and shaping their brand around being a friendlier alternative to the Deltas, Uniteds and Americans out there that are otherwise crowding the playing field, and prefers to be among the big dogs, raking in profits through a smorgasbord of industry collusion, fare hikes, fees, and general practice of cornering and exasperating consumers into feeling like they have no choice but to shell out in order to accomplish their travel objectives.

It’s funny, because regulation ended in the late 70s, partially so that airline companies could exercise some freedom to be creative, shake up the industry and ultimately strive towards some innovation and likely profit.  But it was done because regulation was choking the industry out with standardized practices, policies, fares and routes, and everyone was basically the same despite operating under different banners.

In the grand spectrum of the airline industry today, regulation might have officially been deregulated in 1978 but make no mistake, regulation really isn’t gone as far as practice goes.  Between all the big dog airlines out there that have a stranglehold on most of the premier routes throughout the country and internationally, they’re all basically the same despite having different names.

They’re all ass-expensive nowadays, have as many taxes and fees as a Ticketmaster transaction, bags don’t fly free and cost an arm, changes at their behest fuck your schedule up, and changes at your behest costs a leg.  They all have shitty customer service, and when the day is over, coordinating airline travel isn’t really that different than coordinating a trip to the movies.  Sometimes we’ll pay the extra and settle on having to deal with a shitty 3-D version of the film solely because the schedule is optimal, and it’s not that different with flying the skies, we’ll go with the airline that fucks us the least and isn’t that terrible for our desired schedules.

In the end, the airline industry really has turned into absolutely nothing more than a game of hubs.  Where smaller airlines squabble and compete over every single customer, the bigger dogs are all trying to gain footholds in regions, because the more regions they can hold higher market share in, the more they’re simply going to win the wars of attrition solely based on routes.

Everyone knows that Atlanta is Delta country, Chicago is where United and American have giant presences, and all of them have smaller hubs across the country.  Southwest seems content to keep their footings in places like Dallas, Baltimore and Phoenix, and instead of trying to keep customers happy or working to be the refreshing alternative to the rest of the market, they’ll probably focus on gaining footing in other markets instead.

Either way, at this point, one change Southwest really should consider is allowing their flights to be searchable on aggregate comparison sites and scrapers like Kayak, Expedia and Travelocity.  I have to imagine it was probably fucking them in the past, voluntarily not being searchable on third-party sites, trying to really push consumers to search directly and save some money, but since they’re no longer trying to compete anymore, they may as well try to bail on this methodology and allow themselves to be searchable on aggregate sites; just like all their competitors do.

The bottom line is that I don’t travel as much as I once did, but I always did like Southwest in that they flew directly from Atlanta to two places I like to be able to get to.  I’m not going to outright blacklist them because that would only hurt myself, but I don’t really have any reason to give them any preferable consideration over any competitors.

And as I’ve said hundreds of times in my life, I miss AirTran, and I still hold a little salt at Southwest for Borg’ing them just to get access to their routes, but then jacking up the fares on said routes to where it’s difficult to consider them more often.

RIP four years late, Bradley Allan

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While scrolling through my phone instead of doing absolutely anything more constructively satisfying, I came across a clip of the 1998 Jackie Chan film, Gorgeous, notable for its incredible fight sequences, namely two fights between “CN” and this foreign fighter brought to HK to humble CN, introduced only as “Alan,” played by Jackie Chan stunt team member, Bradley Allan.

While the video brought back a lot of nostalgia of watching endless hours of kung-fu and martial arts films, I happened to notice a comment in the video that said, RIP Brad Allan.  Naturally, my brow furrowed and my mind went wtf??  Allan was a young guy in 1998, no reason he wouldn’t be alive and thriving just 27 years later, so I looked him up, and sure enough, Bradley Allan passed away in 2021 due to a heart attack, at the not-old age of 48.

This learned knowledge immediately made me very sad.  The fact that I’m even posting about it goes to show just how much I care about this information upon learning about it.

The above scene and quote from Gorgeous is a line that I still use on a fairly regular basis, when I want to no-sell any sort of pain or anxiety that the world tries to inflict on us, because much like Alan does to Jackie in the film, he’s dropped by a haymaker, acknowledges that it was a good hit… but not enough power.  He then proceeds to get back up and whoop Jackie’s ass in front of his adult star love interest, sending his character into a downward spiral of realizing that he works too much and sucks at fighting, and inspiring him to get better.

Metaphorically, and perhaps a little literally, this is what that quote means to me, and when shit is constantly hitting the fan, and I conclude that I don’t want to be defeated, by anything, I simply remind the opposition in my life, not enough power, and do my best to get back up and keep on fighting forward.

But aside from a single line from a single film, the loss of Bradley Allan really is palpable.  A lot of people don’t know who he even was, but aside from a few parts in a handful of films, his work as an action, fight and stunt choreographer was vastly more immense, having been involved in the productions of big name films and series like Avatar, Scott Pilgrim, Wonder Woman, Shang-Chi, and pretty much the entire Kingsman series.

I remember watching Argylle on the last cruise I was on, while mythical wife and I were just lounging in the room relaxing.  I had no idea that he was even involved in it, as the stunt coordinator, and I didn’t even catch in the credits that he is given a dedication, as it was the final film he ever worked on, released long after he had actually passed.

But Father Time is undefeated, and despite living by his quote from Gorgeous, eventually everyone gets hit with something that finally does have enough power.  Happy trails, Bradley Allan, I’m sad to have learned of your passing years late, but I hope you’ve been resting in peace all the same.  

Diamond League is a different game

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Much to the detriment of my linguistic aspirations, I admit to getting sucked up into the competitive XP rat race of Duolingo.  My general learning and absorption of knowledge took a hit as I wanted to farm XP as fast and as much as I could so that I could dominate my opponents on the weekly league’s leaderboards, and win, basically nothing for succeeding.  And over the last few weeks, I found myself in a position to where I was finishing in the top-3 every single week, if not winning outright.

After cruising to an easy win in the Obsidian League, the penultimate rank before Diamond, I knew that things were going to be different once I were Diamond, and that I shouldn’t assume I’d be able to get a #1 ranking, not without some genuine effort.  But after one week in Diamond, I’ve come to realize that at this stage of my Duolingo journey, it’s probably not worth competing, unless I happen to be placed into a vastly less competitive user pool, because after a week of actually trying to keep up, I just don’t have the time to commit as the users who bettered me.

The shown graph is my last three weeks, and although it’s not up-to-date, my first week of Diamond was actually my new career-high as far as XP accumulation went.  Whereas my prior two weeks, I notched some 1st place finishes with less XP, once in Diamond, I’ve been shown the realization of just how different of a game it is here.

It really is a blessing in disguise though, because I’ve decided to not try to really compete, unless I see an opportunity.  The good thing is that it never takes long to realize when I’m in a real tryhard group, because like the time I’m writing this, I hadn’t even started for the week, and I was already down 3,000 XP to first place; at my very best, spamming boosts and using gems to extend them, I think I’ve at the most cleared 2,400 XP in a single day. 

Furthermore, I’ve noticed how many people who are the mega-tryhards are utilizing multiple courses, and I get the impression that people are doing this in order to farm XP, because I could just as easily start English and cruise through basic curriculum in order to just boost my numbers.  I’d wager that there are more people like that, than some real polyglots tryharding just to beat others in a meaningless contest.

It will be liberating and probably beneficial to my learning aspirations to take my foot off the XP farming gas, and actually focusing on the content and trying my best to learn and comprehend alternatively.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d still love to win Diamond league one of these days, but I’m already strapped for time as it is, and it’s already sometimes more effort and time sacrifice than I want to make in order to get my generally 45 minutes of lessons in, and I’m already making more mistakes than ever, due to how much I’ve rushed through the curriculum in the last three weeks or so.

My day in the Diamond sun will eventually come, but for now, I’m glad to have quickly learned just how overly-competitive things are at this level, and I’ll bide my time more constructively and take a little more time to learn mi español a little more carefully until it’s go-time.

Daredevil is so good it basically kills all other Marvel content

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Like many people, I began to get Marvel fatigue after Avengers: Endgame.  I did my best to stay abreast on the next phase of Marvel content, and I was a fan of how they pivoted into producing television instead of everything having to be all these movies.  I enjoyed WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and even Hawkeye in spite my skepticism that he could be the focal point of his own episodic series.

Ms. Marvel was fun, but by the time Moon Knight released, I was getting to a point where they were just generating so much stuff so quickly, it was beginning to get overwhelming.  Loki was a little reprieve and She-Hulk was light-heartedly refreshing, but it was becoming apparent of what properties were Marvel’s A-tier, and what properties were well, not.

I never saw Shang-Chi, the Marvels, the Eternals or any of the other films that they produced around this time, because the ideas of full-length films and their single-sitting stories seemed antiquated to me, and Black Widow showed just how unnecessary some of the films could be, even with the Marvel production tag slapped on them.

Having kids, life in general and the general evaporation of free time led to me ultimately stop watching Marvel stuff outright, along with a long list of things that would just be added to a queue that I had no idea of when I would ever have the chance to tackle.  However, over the last few months, I’ve made a conceited effort to close the gap a little bit, and have managed to catch back up, having finished Loki, Echo and Agatha All Along.

And it’s a good thing that Echo was a part of this recent catch-up, because events in the show had direct correlation to the one series that I was actually looking tremendously forward to, and the subject of this entire post – Daredevil (:Born Again).

I’ve made it clear that Daredevil is basically the crème of the crop as far as Marvel television goes, and it must chap Disney folks a little bit that Netflix gets to take credit for Daredevil and all adjacent properties that spun from it (Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Punisher, the Defenders), but that’s what they get for not releasing Disney+ sooner.  The writing is strong, the performing, the atmosphere, the grittiness and just sheer execution of all the Netflix shows were all at a bar that no other Disney+ era television shows could touch, and one of the most agonizing periods in time for the company must have been the mandated several year gap in between when Netflix had to forfeit the shows and where Disney+ couldn’t air them, because out of sight, out of mind, and there was always the inherent risk of producing more content, with actors again, growing and conflicting projects.

***[Spoilers Ahead, if you’re somehow less caught up than me]***

However, Disney money runs deep, and the stars seemed to align, one way or the other, and we’ve been blessed with the continuation of the Daredevil-universe.  It was smart of Disney to start making the connection of worlds in Hawkeye, bringing the Kingpin, and sprinkling Charlie Cox into other things to reprise the Daredevil role, in She-Hulk and Spider-Man, and it seemed to time right when they were allowed to drop all the Netflix shows on Disney+ so that anyone who hadn’t gotten to see this brilliant array of shows, while Born Again was being produced.

And now we’re back to the present and Born Again is released, and after the first episode, I’m blown away and taken back to 2016, when I first started watching Daredevil on Netflix.  I had concerns that the show was going to be kind of a reboot from the Netflix series, citing some convoluted continuity issues that writers were too lazy and uncreative to solve, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it more or less picks up from the Netflix age, with some time injected into it, as it should.

Events from Echo have impact on a key character to create immediate tie-in to the greater MCU, but by and large, the show is a continuation of the Netflix series, which is absolutely nothing but a positive in my opinion.  It starts off with a bang, and then it’s basically just kind of picking up from where Netflix left off, but in the same, intense, gritty and strong-written manner.

And all I could think of while watching just the first episode of Born Again, is just how much of a different level this show feels, in comparison to the years of in-comparison mediocre swill that’s been fed to us.  The acting, the writing, the mood and just sheer execution of everything is so good in just a first episode that it basically invalidates just about everything that was been parading around like imposter quality prior to it.  Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio have incredible chemistry, and although Kingpin has been long revived as early as Hawkeye, there’s something about seeing him reunite with Matt Murdock, whom most comic readers know is truly on his Rushmore of opponents.

Going back to the observation of how there’s a clear distinction between Marvel shows that are A-tier and those that aren’t, it really boils down to the point of why a show exists.  If the show is being used to advance some major story points in a grand manner, then it’s probably an A-tier show, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Loki.  However, if the show is being used to introduce a critical concept or character that could potentially be used later, then I would say that they’re not an A-tier show; like how Hawkeye was used to introduce Kate Archer and advance Yelena, Agatha All Along was basically used as a vehicle to bring Billy Maximoff into existence, and Echo was used solely for its plot device on a key Daredevil character.

Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, as much as I did enjoy watching them, I’d say they’re still glorified vehicles to introduce their titular characters into the MCU, so I’d say that they’re like a B+ tier, more purposeful than Hawkeye, Agatha and Echo, but still kind of fluffy and generally expendable if we’re getting down to business.

And then we have shit like Moon Knight which I have no idea how they’re going to tie into the rest of the MCU.  And Secret Invasion kind of just serves as this conveniently placed retcon device if the MCU ever needs it, and doesn’t actually add much to what was already established in the established existence of the MCU Multiverse or TVA or inevitable Dr. Doom fucking around.

But Daredevil, this is entirely a show and series that can stand alone.  Since it started on Netflix, it was established that it was loosely associated to the MCU, but really never needed to ever touch it again.  The show was set in its own little world in Hell’s Kitchen and thrived as a standalone series, generously bringing a few other properties into the fold.  And the magic is still there with Born Again, and as I’ve said, the general vibe and feeling I get while watching it is that it’s just on such a different level from the rest of Marvel, and I fucking love it.

I could have watched both debut episodes upon release, but with Daylight savings approaching, I opted to not, because additionally, I want to savor the show, because just watching the first episode was a reminder of how long it’s been since the Netflix age, and I don’t to just binge and blow through something that I’d been hoping and waiting to see again for a really long time.  I didn’t realize how much I missed Daredevil until Born Again dropped, and I’m stoked that it’s back, and I hope that it continues on the successes of the Netflix era.

My daughters will extend my life by almost three years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Okay: recent study suggests dads with daughters have tendency to live longer, with each daughter adding on average 74 weeks of lifespan

When this story was fed to me, I couldn’t help but smirk as I often do whenever I read anything related to girldads or being a girldad.  The notion that by virtue of them being daughters instead of sons, my two girls will be responsible for keeping my ass alive for 148 weeks longer than my life expectancy should suggest, nearly three entire years, is amusing to me.  Even more so, that it’s pointed out that sons, add no extra life to their dads, comparatively.

The thing is, the story could have ended with that, and kept it vague, yet still sweet, but in this day and age, where everyone is expected to show their work, when they dive a little deeper, it’s mostly attributed to the notion that when said girls become women, they’re way more apt to nag their dads about health and preventative care, which is the primary reason why they tend to live longer.

I mean it makes sense, since harping on their dad to go see doctors and get checkups and critical milestone tests probably is more useful in the long game versus daring dad to see how long they can go without farting, how fast they can go in the rental car, or can they take a spinning power bomb off the top of the couch.  But it does take some of the sticker sentimentality away from the general headline, but not enough to where I can’t make a brog post about it.

What’s interesting to me though, is that I wonder how much truth this will hold in my particular case.  A lot of the longevity is attributed to what seems like a bunch of out-of-shape dads who view their children as a sudden reason to get into better health and pick up better habits, which would naturally be beneficial to their life expectancy.

I’m no Zac Efron, but I’ve always been consistent and routinely with exercise, and mythical wife has already gotten a handle on egging me to go to the doctor at least for annuals, so the things that my daughters would’ve been expected to drive me to do in order to give me 148 weeks more of living, I’m already doing.  Of course, I want to be around when they graduate schools, maybe get married, or any other life’s milestones.  Maybe there’s another level of physical improvement to reach, probably when they’re not little brats who are sometimes shits about their food, and I end up eating a ton of shitty leftovers on account of not wanting to waste food.

Conversely, there’s always the easy joke about how my kids, regardless of their gender, are solely responsible for taking years off of my life on account of the sheer amounts of stress they put me through with their childish insubordination, stubbornness and constant power struggles.  Maybe that’s something that the study doesn’t account for is that daughters might each give me 74 weeks of extra life at the tail end of my life, but they’re sure as fuck siphoning a lot more of it on the front end.

Either way, let’s choose to ignore all the background noise of this study, and choose to believe that my two little girls are going to be the reason why I live three years longer than I really should be, solely by existing. ❤️