Tag: white people

I miss Dan Uggla

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I heard about this story about how the Braves ended a spring training game in a tie, because a player got the game-ending third strike on account of not being in the batter’s box in time, because 2023 marks the start of the pitch clock era, where every single pitch now has a timer attached to it in an effort to speed up the pace of games because society’s ever-growing ADD has declared that baseball games are too long and nobody likes them anymore as a result.

No sport gets fucked with structurally as much as baseball does.  Aside from some rule changes to discourage defense because offense is sexy, basketball is by and large the same game as it now as it was back in the 1950’s.  Football’s primarily changed in order to try and reduce concussions and protect quarterbacks, but pretty much everything else goes as it did in back in 1920. 

But baseball?  Any strategy that seems too effective is neutered or outright banned (the shift), pitching mounds are raised, lowered, the physical baseballs themselves are altered, bats are regulated and banned, and there are rule changes practically every year.  One of the lasting anecdotes about baseball was that it was the game with no clock, and as a result, every single pitcher-batter matchup was potentially important, and that there was no strategic milking of the clock, and that every out had to be recorded in order for a team to be declared a victor.

Now, there is an actual clock, which effectively puts the romanticism of baseball having no clock and that every out must be earned to rest, because now baseball has embarked on a path where games really can have a finite time limit now.  With rules in place that prevent managers from spamming pitching changes in order to play matchups, and rules in place that prohibit excessive checking base runners by pitchers, MLB has basically closed the walls around old school baseball strategy and effectively put a hard time limit on every game, flexible solely by the need for extra innings or managers milking pitching changes to the most of their limited new abilities.

The Pedro Astacios who took practically an entire minute in between every pitch, and the Bruce Chens who once trolled an entire stadium by checking a runner at first like 14 times will all be phased out and rendered extinct, regardless of how capable they are throwing a baseball, and future Moneyball will probably be cultivating pitching staffs with wildly different pitch preparation speeds, with the intention of throwing off batter timing throughout games.

With all these changes to the game, I just think about the times in the past where I think about having loved baseball the most and lately, the name that pops up the most as someone I really miss, is Dan Uggla.

He was kind of like the anti-stat geek player that the rise of the stat geeks baseball culture absolutely abhorred, but teams themselves still coveted because of his sheer ability to hit home runs when he actually made contact with the ball.  His defense was below-average, he wasn’t a threat to steal bases, and being a second baseman it’s not like he had much of an arm.  But again, the guy hit home runs, and that’s a talent that every team wants, whether they wanted him as a starter, or a designated pinch-hitter, or an actual designated hitter.

There was once a season where he hit .179 on the year which is abysmal, but he still clobbered 22 home runs, which is still noteworthy.  My friend and I made the joke that all he hit were home runs, and with just 80 total hits on the year, he really did hit home runs over 25% of the time.

I take it back about not having much of an arm though, the guy had more physical arms than just about anyone else in the history of Major League Baseball, because pound-for-pound, Dan Uggla had to have been the most jacked player in history.  The guy was 5’11 which isn’t that tall as far as professional athletes go, but the guy had massive, massive arms, with most people making the comparison that his arms looked like Popeye.

Additionally, Dan Uggla also wore the tightest, most form-fitting uniforms as he could, throughout his whole career.  I’m not sure if it were deliberate, or if across the board there were some sizing issues for a man of his stature combined with his musculature, but my friends and I declared that his uniform size was “smedium” and made the comparison for any time anyone was seen wearing a tight-fitting shirt in order to attempt to make their musculature look impressive deliberately.

All in all, Dan Uggla was kind of the perfect poster boy for ironic baseball player fandom.  He was hated by nerds, but still loved by teams, and basically always had a job as long as he kept hitting home runs, all while wearing his ridiculous smedium uniforms and looking like he had professional wrestling as a post-career option.  But more importantly, he was kind of like this totem of simpler times, where there weren’t so many oppressive rules, fans bitching about game duration weren’t heard, and players had to deal with the shift.  No matter his numbers, relievers and closers in his time, still had to face Dan Uggla with the game on the line and although the numbers may have favored them most of the time any mistake they let loose was probably going to end up in the seats.

Man, I miss Dan Uggla.  Even more now, with the game itself undergoing so many dramatic changes.  It’s going to be weird when I eventually actually watch a baseball game again, and seeing shit like pitching clocks on the HUD, and I imagine they’ll feel noticeably faster in speed, which in some cases might feel pretty convenient, but at the same time, very much not like the baseball that was what I grew to love and enjoy.

I’ve never been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, we sent the kids to grandma’s house so that we could get some major organization done at home.  Frankly even with the help of our au pair, there would’ve been a lot of going in and out of the girls’ rooms well into the evenings that made it optimal to just have them not be present in order to maximize productivity.  That being said, it also afforded all of us in the house, to be adults for two days, and on the second evening, we collectively decided to get out of the house.

At one point, we went into a 2nd and Charles to kill a little bit of time; at one point in my life, this place would’ve been my heaven, since I like comic books, video games, books and all sorts of the nerdy crap that they sell and buy there, but at this point in my life, I just want to look and don’t want to actually bring any more shit into my house that I feel is already full of a lot of unneeded crap.

While we were there though, I was looking through comic trade hardcovers, and not far to my left, I could hear some guy doing some serious mansplaining about the differences between the Infinity War in comics versus the MCU.  A smirk emerged on my face at hearing him blather on, because he was perpetuating all sorts of stereotypes of comic book geeks inside the bookstore.

As I passed by him, I couldn’t help but notice that beneath his vest that I have to imagine was put on completely non-ironically, was a holster equipped with what I’m pretty sure was a Glock of minimal size, I’m no expert on the granular details, especially when I could only see the handle.  The point is, the guy was carrying openly, which is completely legal in the state of Georgia.

But as the title of this post states, I don’t think I’ve ever been more unafraid of an armed individual in my life until I saw this guy.  Think about it, the guy is carrying a firearm, presumably loaded, completely in public, at a place of business that probably had upwards of 80-100 people inside of it at the time I saw him.  We live in the age where mass shootings happen at almost a weekly basis in similar conditions, and not only did I feel zero concern for my life, all I could feel were jokes formulating in my brain instead.

Like, this guy got dressed with the express intention of leaving the house, and going to 2nd and Charles of all the places in the Metro Atlanta area, and as he’s mentally inventorying all the things he needs prior to walking out the door, and oh yeah my gun is one of the things on his checklist.

“Honey, we have to get to 2nd and Charles before they close at 8, have you seen my gun?”
“Yeah baby, it’s right next to my Loungefly”

On action television and in film, there are occasionally montages of heroes getting ready to go into battle, and they’re equipping themselves with a gun before they go into the fights of their lives.  And then we have Firearm Fred over here consciously strapping on his holster to go into the nerd store, as if he might have to flex it on someone trying to get the last pack of Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs ahead of him.

Seriously, I was giggling to myself for the rest of the night at the thought of Sidepiece Samuel actually feeling like he had to be carrying a firearm inside of a fucking 2nd and Charles.  I’ve never felt so opposite of concerned or intimidated by another human being’s presence in my entire life.  I felt like even if he were a mass shooter ready to pounce, I could probably take him without there being any loss of life; I know it’s not really a laughing matter, but that’s how seriously felt looking at this guy.

Regardless, my au pair got a kick out of seeing such a sight with her own eyes.  And after we took her to a Hooters for dinner, I told her that she basically had the most American night of her life, having seen an armed individual out in public, followed by the aforementioned Hooters for dinner.  Welcome to America!

Re: the Super Bowl LVII ending

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although I agree that the ending of Super Bowl LVII was less than thrilling, make no mistake, it was still one of the best Super Bowls there’ve been in recent years.  Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts put on one of the most exciting Super Bowl quarterback battles since like Peyton Manning versus Drew Brees in XLIV, with both of them putting up monster numbers and neither of them blinking until the ending of the game.

And as much as I loathe the Philadelphia Eagles and revel in the fact that they’re the third Philadelphia major sports team to lose a championship in the 2022 season, I personally like Jalen Hurts.  He’s an honorable, mature man in a sport full of overgrown man-babies, and even throughout college, he demonstrated honor, class, integrity and has always been respectable in my opinion.  And despite being on the losing end of the Super Bowl, he put up the superior numbers against Patrick Mahomes, soon to be forgotten solely because he didn’t win the game.

But getting back to the point of this post, it’s been really interesting to me to see in the aftermath of the Super Bowl, all of the butt-hurt filthy casuals and not-actually sports fans who are bitching and moaning about the anti-climactic ending to the game.  Yes, the Chiefs downing the ball at the 1-yard line and milking the clock and kicking a go-ahead field goal with just eight seconds left sucked all of the excitement of the Mahomes/Hurts duel, but it was one billion percent the absolutely correct strategy to employ for the objective of winning the goddamn game.

The Kansas City Chiefs give absolutely zero fucks about what anyone thinks about the finish, because they accomplished the only thing that mattered: winning the goddamn game.  If the Eagles had the ball and they were in the same scenario, there is a two billion percent chance that they employ the exact same strategy.  Milk the clock, take the lead, and give the opposition as little time as possible to have any chance at countering.

And to the filthy casuals and not-fans who ask why?  Because throughout history, the NFL sees this scenario happen on a fairly regular basis, it’s just not often that it occurs in the Super Bowl.  Sure, everyone loves touchdowns, but when a field goal is all that is necessary to win, it’s always the right call to chew up as much clock as possible and kicking the field goal, and in fact, it’s actually more detrimental to score the touchdown if it means salvaging some time for the other team in order to make a counter attack.

One prime example of the touchdown blowing up in a team’s face actually involved the Atlanta Flacons who obviously haven’t ever recovered from the fuckup of Super Bowl Lee, and there was a game a few years ago where the Flacons were playing the Detroit Lions, and they were down with a minute left, 14-16.  When it was evident that the Flacons were going to score, the Lions basically conceded the end zone, hoping to salvage some time and get the ball back as quick as possible.  Despite the fact that a field goal was all that was necessary for the Flacons to win, running back Todd Gurley had a brain fart when rushing into the end zone, and despite his best efforts to drop at the 1-yard line, he crossed the plane and accidentally scored a touchdown.  The Flacons took the lead, but they left a minute on the clock, to which any NFL fan knows is the equivalent of like 15 when considering timeouts, commercials and clock stoppage.  Naturally, the Lions would score their own touchdown as time expired to defeat the Flacons, validating the importance of the strategy that the Chiefs employed.

In fact, off the top of my head, the same tactic was almost employed in Super Bowl XLVI, where the Giants tried to kill the clock, but Ahmad Bradshaw too, fell into the end zone despite his efforts to stop short.  It just so happens that the Giants defense managed to neutralize Tom Brady, but New York fans were sweating those last 82 seconds of the game, knowing Brady’s reputation for late-game heroics.

The point is, the Chiefs made the right call, and everyone bitching about it is just some filthy casual scenester tourist into the world of sports fandom, and your opinions hold zero weight and do not matter.  It wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t fun, but it got the fucking job done, and anyone who knows the game of football knows that in every single similar situation, the outcome would be the same 100% of the time.

This story tickles me in a way that only other parents would get

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of us, one of us: extreme tidy-er Marie Kondo admits to giving up on extreme tidiness and that her house is messy

This is what we would call a pivot, in the working world.  I didn’t realize that Marie Kondo was two years younger than me, and it probably would’ve been a real fucking chore to maintain the air of minimalist perfection for the rest of her life in order to maintain her brand, not like she really needs it anymore considering her book has sold over 40 million copies and her Netflix show had already been a big hit.

Coming out to the public to explain that she’s mostly given up on being tidy, and that her own home was messy, probably the smartest thing to do.  Better to disclose the intel on her own terms instead of having someone find it out, disclose it on the internet, and have the wrath of the internet be all over her calling her a fraud and a hypocrite that tells other people what to do with all their shit but doesn’t know how to handle her own.

But what this really boils down to is the fact that the reason why the Queen of Clean has become the Herald of Hoarding just like that, is the same reason why millions of people like me struggle to maintain our own capabilities of tidiness as much as we’d like to: kids.

Her book went gangbusters in 2011, but then she got married in 2012.  Presumably it wasn’t long before did kids come into the equation, so it’s actually very impressive to me that she had the wherewithal to even entertain producing her Netflix series that dropped in 2019, which either means she was an absent parent or her husband filled in admirably, perhaps both.

But as is often the case, once the number of kids begins to outnumber the adults in a family unit, that is where the shit begins to hit the fan.  And this is coming from someone who’s family is currently at a 1:1 ratio, and I still feel like I’m losing control all the time.  I couldn’t imagine bringing another into the home, and mythical wife and I take measures to make sure that such will become an impossibility.

And in Kondo’s case, third child enters the fray, and suddenly she’s no longer able to keep up with being KonMari, professionally, or in her own personal life.  I think it’s hilarious that she didn’t just go from “no longer being tidy,” to being “my house is messy” because frankly that’s the kind of transition that my household went through when kids started entering the equation.

The point of all this is that kids quite literally, break anyone.  If they can break a wealthy multi-media success like Marie Kondo, they’ll have no problem at all busting up the lives of all the rest of us plebes who decide to reproduce and repopulate, and the more non-parents can comprehend just how difficult it is, the better chance of understanding and empathy can emerge.

I don’t think many people realize the ownage here

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously after winning a second national championship, there’s been a lot of rhetoric thrown around about the legend of Stetson Bennett the Fourth, about how he’s basically bigger than god in the state, he’ll never have to pay for a meal or a drink in Georgia for the rest of his life, etc, etc.

And honestly, good on his part, because after living here for 20 years now, I never thought I’d see the day when Georgia would actually reach the top of the mountain much less win two in a row, after the years on top of years I’ve passively witnessed the Dawgs come close but choke, mostly to Alabama.  As a Georgia resident, I am happy to see the hometown team reach the pinnacle of college football not just once, but twice in a row is pretty sweet.

I recently saw this ad come across my theFacebook feed, and was pretty surprised to see the God of Athens going so all-in as the poster boy for Raising Cane’s chicken.  To my understanding, Cane’s has a pretty big, almost cult following in the markets they exist in, but down in Georgia, is Zaxby’s country, their carbon copy franchise.  No seriously, their menus are nearly identical, and I remember the first time I ever came across a Cane’s, it was in Las Vegas, and their menu looked surreptitiously familiar, and my close friend I was with, when ordering her usual Zaxby’s equivalent, I implored her to get the “Cane’s Sauce” and sure as shit, it was the same thing as Zaxby’s Zax Sauce.

I have no qualms with Cane’s, but as someone who discovered Zaxby’s first, between my friends and I, I usually just refer to Cane’s as “Zaxby’s Red” for obvious branding reasons.

The thing is, Zaxby’s is not only based out of Georgia, their headquarters is in Athens, right near the University of Georgia.  I actually interviewed with their corporate offices, but the flaky response to whether or not I’d need to make periodic visits to the office in Athens, which is nearly 90 minutes away from me made me not pursue it, but the point is the fact that Zaxby’s allowed Raising Cane’s to somehow swoop beneath them and sign the kid in their very own backyard, and make Stetson Bennett their poster child is a pretty devastating blow.

Then again, Cane’s apparently has that killer instinct about their company, because while I was interviewing with Zaxby’s, it was brought to my attention that there’s actually one solitary Raising Cane’s location in Georgia; and it happens to be in Athens.  Very cut-throat and guerilla of them to do such, but it was clearly enough for a guy like Stetson Bennett to probably have tried them at one point and have enough of a positive association to the brand to when they came knocking with some NIL money, he signed on.

Although I said I have no beef with Cane’s, I’m still a Zaxby’s first person, because they’re here and available.  When I travel to places that have Cane’s, I enjoy them all the same.  But I have to give some respect to Cane’s for landing such a critical hit to a chief competitor, because as I said, I don’t think a lot of people are going to understand or realize just how much of a big deal it is that Cane’s got a hold of Stetson Bennett and not Zaxby’s.

Michelle Yeohwned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

All hail: Michelle Yeoh wins Golden Globe for Best Actress, tells pianist to shut up when event tries to play her off the stage

I obviously don’t pay much attention to the world outside of my little bubble, and I’m very reliant on headlines to even attempt to get my finger on the pulse of the happenings around the world.  Rarely, there will be headlines that are pretty succinct and get to the point and they’re stories that I just know I’m going to like when I click on them.

A headline of Michelle Yeoh winning a Golden Globe is appealing enough as it is, as the woman is a legend in the film industry, in both Asia as well as the United States at this point, and it’s about fucking time that Hollywhite give her the recognition that she so justly deserves.  But then to also hear that she told the event’s pianist to “shut up,” and that she “could beat you up,” and my jaw lowers and it goes from a story that’s nice to know, to oh shit I need details, and video if it’s available pls.

And it delivers everything as advertised.  For a woman that just turned 60, she’s still stunning, and still gives off the mythical oriental aura of someone who could still whoop your ass.  Her English is flawless and she speaks with confidence and context, and her speech as a whole was powerful and so very satisfying to all Asians.  And of course, the best part was when she not only told the event pianist to shut up and that she could beat them up, is the fact that the show didn’t really waste any time in yielding the stage to her to let her finish.

It’s hard to find the right words to describe just how incredible it was of her to do such.  Calling her a queen is so white or so black, whatever demo loves to use that cliché.  But it really was a genuine queen moment, because that really is what the Best Actress award really is, but I just think Michelle Yeoh deserves better than a cheap American euphemism.  She’s really like a badass sifu of Hollywood in doing such, and anyone who tries to do this themselves in future award shows is just being cheap imitators.

And because I don’t feel like writing another post to dedicate to the topic, big ups also goes to Ke Huy Quan for winning Best Supporting Actor in the same film, to which this is the perfect opportunity to reference the fact that Jeff Cohen AKA Chunk was his lawyer that negotiated the deal for the role which is just absolutely classic that over three decades later, Data and Chunk are still working together and that even over three decades isn’t enough time for Cohen to be able to shake the name Chunk.

I never saw Everything Everywhere at Once, regardless from how much praise I’ve heard about it from everyone who had seen it.  I’m sure it’s a great flick, and I will eventually get to it, but my opinion of it is already positive, solely based on Michelle Yeoh, Data and Chunk, and all the positive buzz it’s giving for Asians.

Stetson Bennett went to Grambling State??

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because that golden G logo next to his name is Grambling State University’s logo, an HBCU in Louisiana.  Pretty big of Stetson Bennett IV to not see color, in spite of having the whitest name on the face of the planet.

Or more likely, pretty bad on ESPN to not consider the copyright infringement and flagrant disrespect to an HBCU by gold-washing the team logos just because it was the national championship.  No shock there that ESPN doesn’t notice stepping on a black school.

But all jokes aside, holy mary mother of god, was that an ass-whoopin’.  65-7 is basically a Madden score when you turn the difficulty down to very easy, turn off injuries and fatigue, and truck the shit out of the AI, whose lone TD comes on a successful Hail Mary because the game’s rubberband mechanics basically make it impossible for someone to get shutout.

In spite of the chips on the shoulders, the media disrespect and all other detractors that should have for all intents and purposes fired them up to put up something of a fight, TCU put up what surely has to be one of the most embarrassing and worst national championship game performances in history. [2011 LSU and 1991 Miami were both shutout, and 2000 FSU scored just 2 points lol safety]  Undoubtedly, it was the biggest blowout in natty history, and outside of Georgia, probably one of the most boring national championship games ever.

Seriously, seven points?  In a natty?  It’s flabbergasting just how wrong everything was about TCU, and hopefully we never see TCU anywhere near the playoff again, much less playing for another national championship.  Frankly, I think it’s time we stop using the phrase Power Five when it comes to talking about conferences, because the Big-12, or the Pac-12 haven’t proven shit when it comes to football, considering notwithstanding that fluky first 2014, every single natty has been won by an SEC school or Clemson.

I mean I know I’m coming off as a mega SEC blowhard, but the numbers are the numbers.  All of my zero readers know that I’m really an ACC blowhard, regardless of how much Virginia Tech pretends to be a football school. Any single SEC school would have put up a better fight against Georgia than TCU did, and so often times is the case, after an SEC school routs a non-SEC school for a natty, there’s always some player or coach that makes the backhanded remark about how conference games are more competitive.

For context, unranked Florida and Missouri put up 20 and 22 points against Georgia earlier in the year.  Georgia Tech put up 14 points.  Even Kent State hung 22 on Georgia and they’re not even a Power-Five Three program.

I mean everyone has bad games, but this was the national championship.  This is the game where nobody should have any bad games, this is the game where everyone has been duking it out for the last six months and where real contenders should be showing why they’re contenders.  It’s not even that I’m happy that as a Georgia resident, Grambling State Georgia won another natty, I’m just disappointed that TCU shit the bed so embarrassingly bad.  Of course I was hoping Georgia would beat them, but when they basically didn’t even try, it’s tantamount to as being as meaningful as a win as beating a bunch of blind paraplegics in any sort of physical contest.

Whatever though, the only reason this post even came to fruition was the hilarious observation that I’m sure that only I noticed, that Stetson Bennett IV was shown on screen as playing for Grambling State.  Being the logo master that I am that collated all the logos and team colors for NCAA.com, only a snob like me would have.