Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ASM Sports: University of Akron ruled the only school ineligible for bowl participation due to poor academics

In unrelated news, the University of Akron is probably the only honest school in the nation.  Reporting completely honestly in regards to the academics of their student athletes, whom, unsurprisingly are probably as collectively intelligent as a nursery school, instead of boasting falsely inflated graduation rates, and the flagrantly high GPAs of all the guys they have playing sports who are there are probably majoring in African-American studies, sports management, physical education, or any other patsy program that is a red flag for a student ringer.

Seriously though, anyone who’s ever heard a college student athlete ringer speak can tell right away that they’re not attending their schools in order to get an education.  There have been numerous published stories and documentaries about how flagrant this whole issue is, it’s just that as long as college sports keeps raking in the money as it does, there is no end to the amount of cheeks that will be turned to ignore the truth.

Not sure who’s the captain of the ship at the University of Akron, but they seriously haven’t been paying attention at the NCAA money making game, and should probably feel pretty embarrassed being the only school in FBS that has this distinction.  Lord only knows how many other schools, from low-tier FCS programs all the way to the royals in the Power-4 are actually as equally academically inept as Akron was, but are being run by smart enough people to be able to work around that and lie through their teeth in order to remain bowl eligible, but mostly important eligible to keep making that bonus money that comes from participating in bowl games.

This is entirely one of those situations where Akron shouldn’t be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because of their poor academics, they should be ashamed of being the dumbest school in the nation because they’re the only ones who got caught being dumb, since every single other FBS school is probably lying their faces blue in regards to their academics.  If every school reported their academics honestly, the entire NCAA would probably be like, Stanford, Army and Navy vying for every single championship, because every single other school in the country has more athletic ringers that are illiterate than they have people that can pass econ 101.

Either way, kind of good on Akron for just trying to be honest, but in a field as crooked as the NCAA, they’re only shooting themselves in the feet at hamstringing their earning potential by doing such.  I get wanting to have integrity and honor and all that jazz, but at some point it’s just fucking embarrassing being the only ones in the entire division that didn’t get the memo, especially in a state that has six other FBS schools that they could have copied their homework off of.

Wouldn’t be surprised if next year, Akron is miraculously bowl eligible again, and academics across the board somehow are suddenly genius level.

WTF is AEW doing #466

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I know that I’m pretty critical of a lot of the things that AEW does, but I’ll be the first to admit that I kind of like the Continental Classic tournament they’ve been doing on an annual basis.  You have a lot of main event talent, intermixed with some talented guys from the mid card, and you have them wrestling in a bunch of matches that don’t really have any storyline behind them, and most importantly, have results that aren’t just the main eventers running roughshod over the mid card guys.

Speedball Mike Bailey picked up an impressive win over Kyle Fletcher, Jungle Boy Jack Perry got a win against Pac, and the most shocking outcome was when Kevin Knight picked up a clean win against Kazuchika Okada.  They really did a good job of selling that anyone could beat anyone, regardless of their standing in the company, and it led to a lot of pretty pure wrestling.

However, it wasn’t until the tournament concluded did I realize that there was an actual prize at the end of the whole thing; in previous years, AEW had a, surprise, title blet for the winner of the Continental Classic, which was the [don’t call me Intercontinental] Continental championship, which was originally won by of all people, Eddie Kingston.  He would then lose it to Okada, who would successfully defend the title by winning the 2025 Continental Classic, and continue to hold the title until it was merged in July 2025 with the International Championship in a completely nerfed version of Okada vs. Omega.

But for all intents and purposes, the Continental championship was deactivated, along with the International championship, and Okada began carting around a, surprise, new blet, christened the AEW Unified Championship, which they tried like hell to sell it as a World title equivalent, since Okada is very much a World title caliber performer, but unsurprisingly, it didn’t catch.

Getting back to the present, without any real explanation, going into the conclusion of the 2026 Continental Classic, the Unified Championship was already scrapped, and it was decided that the winner of the tournament would become the new Continental champion.  Conveniently, Okada would also advance to the finals, hoping to defend the title in the finals regardless of the fact that the title is up for grabs at any other point in the year, storylines notwithstanding.

Spoiler-alert, Jon Moxley won the tournament by defeating Kazuchika Okada, thus becoming the new Continental champion.

However, conveniently, Okada would still have a blet to cart around, because when they scrapped the Unified Championship after six historic months, they reactivated the International Championship, which was by default, Kazuchika Okada.

It should also be pointed out that when the Continental and International were merged into the Unified, it took one blet off the table, but AEW responded quickly by creating a, surprise, new blet, in the AEW National Championship, which was won by, and is currently held by Ricochet (which I’m actually okay with).

But for a promotion that has taken a lot of flack for its Oprah-like EVERYONE GETS A BLET number of titles, it’s just hilarious that they tried to pare down, couldn’t, and when they retconned one of their attempts to pare down, ultimately they end up with more blets in which they started with.  So to recap, AEW currently has:

  • AEW World Championship
  • AEW Women’s Championship
  • AEW Tag Team Championship
  • AEW Women’s Tag Team Championship
  • AEW TNT Championship
  • AEW TBS Championship
  • AEW Trios Championship
  • AEW Continental Championship
  • AEW International Championship
  • AEW National Championship

For those keeping count, that’s a total of 14 physical blets with the AEW name on them.  This doesn’t account for the revolving door of Ring of Honor, CMLL, RevPro, or any of the backyard promotions’ blets that Mercedes Moné is carting around.  Like, there have been literal shows where every single segment has had someone walking around carrying a blet.

There’s clearly no such thing as permanence in AEW.  Titles get merged, deactivated, retconned and then reactivated at a moment’s notice, without any genuine or logical explanations.  This isn’t even the first time that this has happened too, because it maybe hasn’t even been an entire calendar year since AEW merged their Trios with the ROH Six-Man titles, which resulted in at one point the Bang Bang Gang of Jay White, Austin and Colton Gunn carrying nine straps collectively, but then a few months later, Ring of Honor decided to just break off and crown new Six-Man champions without any real explanation.

Either way, the point remains, AEW still operates in head-scratching manners on the regular, and as much as I want to like them more than I do, I’m more often too busy scratching my head trying to piece together all of their weird operational decisions to figure out what the fuck is going on.

The year-end post, circa 2025

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Originally written on December 9th, but held off until end of year due to personal neuroticism]

Today, I took a half day off work.  I originally wanted to take a full day off on account of the fact that I’m sitting on nearly six days’ worth of PTO hours that I haven’t used, and my company has a use it or lose it policy, and I’m more than likely going to take an L on some hours.  But the way I see it, or at least the way I try to rationalize it to myself is that it’s a little bit of give and take on the sick hours, since there’s probably been several days in which I should’ve just taken the day, but I “worked from home” on those days but whatever, I took a half day off when I wanted to take a full day off, primarily because there was a big monthly meeting at 8 fucking AM that I felt that I needed to attend because I had several projects being shown and it was probably for the best that I be there.

So, as far as the rest of my day went, instead of punting and logging on from home after the 8 AM meeting, I decided to just head into the office since I tend to be more productive there.  And yes, I was pretty productive in the two hours that I was there, determined to hard stop at 11:45, but the dearth of work I’ve had throughout the year has been pretty mundane and often aggravating in nature, mostly because most all the work is like that at my company because of project management that can’t ever seem to stabilize due to rapid employee churn and turnover.

Plus, there were some concerning layoffs that happened a week prior, and naturally everyone at the office is on high-alert and on their best behavior, lest they become victims of another spontaneous workforce reduction initiative.

Anyway, I left the office and headed down toward the vicinity of the airport because I have to pick mythical wife up, and everyone knows just how much fun a trip to Atlanta Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport, Nail Salon and Hot Wing Express is, even for a pick-up job, but I saw it as an opportunity to at least treat myself to some Willy’s and loaf in the parking lot to do my daily Duolingo.

But by the time I get back from the airport, any chance at any sort of personal endeavors are pretty much gone, since my kids are just getting off school, and despite being off the clock, there’s another meeting that I felt that I should at least listen in on because again, tryna be indispensable.

So, I try to be productive with my day, since I’m a weird fuck who finds satisfaction in productivity, despite it being completely counter-culture to the notion of taking PTO in order to relax.  But since I’m off the clock, I take the time to set up some outdoor Christmas decorating that fell to the wayside because of all the babysitting I’ve had to do for my dad, being under the weather a week ago, and that I just generally never have any fucking time.

I get the lights set up, and then I come inside and set up the second Christmas tree, which sounds like a complete waste of time setting up a second one, but y’all need to understand that this is my tree, aptly called the jihad tree, because it is cheap and small, but it houses all of the tacky and fun and ridiculous and mostly broken and unwanted Christmas ornaments that I’ve been accumulating over the years.  I love this tree and what it represents, and it’s important to me that it goes up and gets its time to shine and display as much as the show tree does.

And then it’s time to get dinner prepped for the kids, and the point of all this is that despite the fact that I took a half day off, absolutely zero minutes of my entire day were really spent in any sort of blow off, fuck responsibility kind of way that PTO should be spent on, and such is kind of a snapshot of just about every day of my life, in 2025, as well as god knows how much longer since.

I had to actually stop and think about it, how I felt about how the year has gone, because I really don’t always have the time to stop and think about things unless they’re usually critical, but I think it’s safe to say that as a whole, 2025 really has stunk.  Yes, I know how curmudgeon and pessimistic that sounds, which is probably what most people think of my personal brand being, but when I stop and think about the general day-to-day and minutiae of living in 2025, and very little of it is notably good.

I’m stressed out and depressed more often than I’m not, and every single day I feel taken for granted, ignored, taken for granted, deprioritized and of course, taken for granted.  I always feel as I have to hard carry the vast majority of aspects of my life, nobody helps out, everyone takes but nobody gives.  I have to take care of everyone, and nobody ever seems to be available to take care of me.

A tremendous amount of angst stems from my financial position, and I genuinely can’t remember ever being in as much debt in my entire life as I am now.  Absolutely nothing I do can dig out of the holes that I’m falling deeper and deeper into, and just when I manage to feel like I get a win somewhere in my finances, something inevitably always shows up and I end up in a worse position than I was previously.  Again, nobody is helping me, and everyone around me is making things worse, and I know it sounds shitty to say, but families are fucking expensive, and I feel like nobody is willing to make any sacrifices or changes in my world except for me, and it shows, because I’m living paycheck to paycheck right now and not doing a very good job of keeping my head above water and this has a massive bearing to my general state of being.

In fact, it was just a few days ago in which I was having a completely normal day without incident, but then I got that ticket in the mail that was a $1,000 fine.  Something I didn’t do, but still something that I am responsible for rectifying.  And then to add insult to injury, there was a $6,500 expense that I was not expecting to show up, just the following day.

I’m not suicidal, but it was definitely one of those moments where I wanted to say that I wanted to just blow my head off, because this shit is fucking ridiculous.

But this really was the pivotal moment in which I realized, man, 2025 really has fucking blew.  And usually I end up writing my year-end post closer to the New Year, but honestly I don’t think three fucking weeks left in the month is going to change anything because I basically have had to cancel Christmas because of $7,500 out the window that I have no earthly idea how I’m going to pay it.

On top of feeling like one of the world’s biggest punching bags is the babysitting I’ve been doing for my dad, in trying to get him to move down to Georgia.  If it’s not clear, I live a tremendously high-stress life as it is, but adding him and all of his resistant to change bullshit and communication issues because he never learned any fucking English and my parents never pushed me to learn more Korean, has really done a number to my health this year.

I’m 43, but for the first time in my life, I’ve really felt old, with my hereditary blood pressure issues seemingly escalating, presumably from all the increases in stress, leading to signs of feeling old like deteriorating eyesight, increased bathroom usage, and tension headaches.  And again, I know what all my stressors are, but nobody in my world seems to give a fuck about remotely helping me, so I’m just left feeling like I’m on an island, getting worse on a daily basis.

Needless to say, I know how dismal and insufferable this post must come off, if any of my zero readers has managed to make it this far.  I know I’m not alone in the world in feeling depression, despair and a general dissatisfaction with life.  I love my family and my kids, and they still manage to bring occasional moments of peace and happiness, handfuls they can all be at times.  But on an overall aggregate state of being scorecard, I’ve been pretty miserable all throughout 2025, and what really sucks is that I’m not sure how much better things are really going to get in the ensuing year, because a lot of the things that are killing me now, probably aren’t going to be going away any time soon in the future either.

One day at a time, I guess.  Try and enjoy little things, and try to not drag too many people down with my actual sourness and hide it behind a mask and keep more of my true thinking to the brog that nobody fucking reads.

Good lord, man.  I just want everything to get better, but I just don’t know if, when or how that’s ever going to happen sometimes.

Dad Brog (#160): overstimulated is another way to say burnt [the fuck] out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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George Carlin once did a routine where he talked about how society has a tendency to try to rename harsh things to sound less severe and more generally acceptable to society.  His primary example was how the term shell shock was renamed to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Shell shock was at some point deemed to be too shocking for sensitive people to hear, and therefore PTSD came into vernacular, and yes it probably helped at making it slightly less scary to talk about, I get this impression that PTSD itself is climbing to that stature where shell shock was, and soon we’ll probably get another, softer, replacement term to replace it but I’m straying off topic here.

Whenever I get into one of my moods where all I see is red, I’m mad at the world, I hate everything and everyone and want nothing more than to be able to stop time all around me and take a deep breath and relax in complete isolation, like that movie from 20 years ago (Cashback), the only phrase that comes into my mind is: burnt [the fuck] out.  Everything pisses me off, just about nothing is capable of bringing me back, and the only thing that comes close to helping is going to sleep and hoping it’s not still around when I wake up.

Over the last few years, I’ve been spoon-fed a whole lot of content that definitely caters to the fact that I am married with children, and I’ve noticed that in that time, a phrase I’ve seen a lot of, is overstimulated.  Most of the time it pertains to all the mommy content creators who really love to declare themselves or hypothetical stressed out other mommies as being overstimulated, but because I can relate to overstimulated mommies way more than I’d like to admit to, I get it.  However, I also recognize that most of the time, the symptoms of a mom that’s overstimulated it is, seeing red, being mad at the world, hating everything and everyone, and probably wanting nothing more than to be able to stop time all around them and take a deep breath and relax in complete isolation like that movie from 20 years ago (Cashback).

It occurred to me that what’s probably happened over the last few years is that the phrase “burnt [the fuck] out” has been used so much and so hard, and that peoples’ eyes have begun glazing over upon hearing it, is that society has basically invented a replacement term for it, in order for it to get people to listen and be curious and think about it, and that term is obviously, overstimulated.

It sounds less harsh than burnt [the fuck] out, and because there’s no optional profanity to attach to it (inherently), it’s like there’s a ceiling to how piercing it can be used with some venom behind it.  Overstimulated, is a gentler and less severe word on the auditory senses of weak people, but I think I’ve unlocked the bullshit spin behind the word, and refuse to see the phrase for something other than what it really is, a descriptor for people who are feeling burnt [the fuck] out.

But it’s good that I’ve realized the truth behind it the bullshit.  It gives my own personal vernacular a softer and less scary option to use if I feel like I’m speaking with some particularly pussy people, and surmise that telling them that I’m burnt [the fuck] out won’t scare them off entirely.

Hopefully the next time I write a dad brog, it won’t be about some overstimulated subject matter.

Must suck for all the career photographers out there

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I saw some content on the scroll of famed gymnast, Simone Biles, taking photographs on the sidelines of a Sunday Night Football game.  I didn’t really care to dig deeper beyond the surface of the post that I saw, but apparently she was quoted saying something along the lines of how it was a fun little side-gig for her.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen stories about how other retired professional athletes have gotten into photography as well; Ken Griffey, Jr. and Randy Johnson come to mind immediately.  And presumably because of who they are, they’ve been typically easily able to get onto the sidelines of countless major sporting events, and there have been quite a number of cheeky coincidences and posts about them doing photography at these things.

Like how Ken Griffey, Jr. doing photography at a home run derby, and how many participants and spectators have no idea that one of the greatest derby performers was on the field the whole time.  Randy Johnson has parlayed one of his most infamous moments in history into his personal logo, eliciting some chuckles among those, whom IYKYK.

In all fairness, the photography of all of these former athletes aren’t necessarily always bad, but at the same time, when retired professional athletes with basically unlimited money are capable of acquiring the best gear possible, with money not being an obstacle, they absolutely should be capable of producing high-quality photography, since their equipment would be capable of overcoming any of the numerous shortcomings they’d have as relatively novice photographers.

However, the thing is, going back to the title of this post, it must really suck for all the lifetime career photographers out there that don’t get the major gigs out there whenever a retired professional athlete with a side hobby, top-tier gear and connections solely because of their name gets them instead.  It’s really not fair when the Super Bowl rolls around, and photographers with decades of experience, who have been hustling their whole careers, and have been kicking and scratching for every connection and networking opportunity, gets pushed aside because Simone Biles or Randy Johnson are available, and it would be a fun story for their own social feeds to have these legends doing the photography for their event instead of people whom might really need the gig, its paycheck, and its potential to boost their own portfolios and perpetuate the cycle in a positive direction.

It’s classic rich getting richer, and those in control being too shortsighted to realize that their desperation for relevance and validation is really fucking people who really need the work and wages more than a bunch of bored rich retired professional athletes who think it’s a fun hobby to take pictures.  I smirk and take a modicum of enjoyment of seeing legends having fun in retirement, but it doesn’t take long for me to also realize that their retirement hobbies are also putting the screws to career working professionals out there, that need the work way more than they do, and that, really isn’t that cool.

Not sure what OP was expecting from Ric Flair

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

People: woman who purchased personalized Cameo video message from Ric Flair for her brother’s wedding disappointed when Flair cuts scathing promo about the perils of marriage

If the circumstances were any ordinary business doing wrong to a customer, I’d say probably 70% of the time I tend to side with customers.  Fuck businesses, most of the time.

But in the context of this story, you have Cameo, in which customers are consensually agreeing to give celebrities an open mic to say whatever they want, regardless of any direction or talking points they’re given, and then you also add fucking Ric Flair into the equation, and as history and culture have shown, nobody tells Ric Flair what to do or say.

I know OP turned to the internet to try and farm sympathy and gain support for her belief that Ric Flair did her and her newlywed brother dirty by cutting a vintage Ric Flair promo, completely against the concept of marriage, contrary to her intentions.  As stated, nobody tells Ric Flair what to say; man has been unscripted for the better part of his entire, legendary wrestling career, and Cameo wasn’t going to be any different than reporting to Vince McMahon, Ted Turner or Jim Crockett.

Her first mistake was not knowing enough about Ric Flair before agreeing to a Cameo arrangement; because in addition to the fact that nobody can tell him what to say, the man is 76 years old and lives in bars these days, daytime drinking and existing in a state of constant inebriation.

Furthermore, to anyone who might want to do some cursory research about Ric Flair before dropping a grand to have him film a video for them, they’d quickly see shit like “16-time world champion” and “Hall of Famer,” but also the fact that the guy has been married like 5-6 times with as many divorces.

Man is doing shit like Cameo and getting drunk off his ass 25-8, because he clearly is over  marriage and probably owes a boatload of money to a number of ex-wives, and if there were any worse of a person to have film a Cameo for you to put marriage over, it’s Ric Flair.

The funny thing is that, and I’m too lazy and not caring enough to follow up, if I’m the brother who received this Ric Flair promo, I’d still probably think it was the greatest thing in the world, even in spite of ol’ Ric telling me I’m making the greatest mistake of my life.  And if the new missus were someone worth keeping around, she probably would too.

If anything at all, Ric Flair, deliberate or most likely not, made this whole thing one of the most memorable and legendary wedding gift stories her brother would ever have.  If Ric cut a white meat babyface promo about how he’s so lucky and marriage is beautiful and wonderful, and how gives his blessings, ain’t nobody going to remember it in a month, a year, or at their 10th or 20th anniversaries. 

But Ric cutting a scathing heel promo, that’s something everyone would remember until the end of time.  It’s what the bride and groom will talk about for years.  OP, in spite of her current disapproval and dissatisfaction with it, will remember it all the same.  Any friends, family, guests or anyone who’s ever seen it, they’ll remember it and make references to it.

In fact, it’s a scenario where all parties win in the end, because it’s also probably going to do wonders for Ric’s Cameo demand, with people with loose pockets and too much money will be more inclined to take a chance on Space Mountain and hire Ric to do some personalized messages for them.

But even if takes some time before OP realizes that she will get a W out of this whole scenario, as far as tryna farm sympathy and support because she regretted acquiring the services of Ric Flair, ain’t going to happen.  This is her turd, and until she starts to understand the resounding success of her efforts, she’s got to accept that it’s an L until she does.

Owned. WOOOOOOOO

So, like maybe 350 lobsters stolen?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

FOX local: an estimated $400k worth of live lobsters headed for Costco locations in the Midwest hijacked

A few years ago, I made a joke when there was a story about how a truck full of ramen noodles was heisted, how all in all, maybe $4.79 wholesale cost worth of product was actually lost.  That the physical truck must have been the size of the Venezuelan land train that was transporting gasoline in the fourth Fast & Furious installment in order for it to amount to the reported cost of theft.  That the thieves could probably make way more money on the scrap cost of the truck as opposed to black marketing ramen noodles.

Well, this is kind of the polar opposite of that joke, with a reported $400k worth of live lobsters getting stolen on the way to Costco stores.  Where given the cost of inflation and white man greed, there were maybe like 350 live lobsters actually stolen, even factoring in the fact that they were headed to bulk bargain land Costco.  I also like how they say locations, as in plural, in Illinois and Minnesota as if they’re trying to convince people that $400k worth of lobsters is more than perhaps two whole stores’ worth of inventory.

I also like how the article uses the word hijacked, because when I hear the term, I think of the scenes from Fast & Furious where a team of Vin Diesel’s street racers in slammed Honda Civics corner semis and use grappling hooks and daredevil jumps to subdue, incapacitate and eject truck drivers before making off with their cargo.

Because instead of a land train getting hijacked, the more likely reality is it was probably like a singular Ford F-350 that was just boosted from a roadside motel’s parking lot, where the thieves had no idea that they booty they were plundering were even lobsters.  The driver was probably safely sleeping in a shitty bed with cigarette burns in the comforter.  And in this case, the inventory is definitely more expensive than the vessel, and I can’t make the remark about how the truck would yield more in scrap than the cargo.

I don’t imagine live crustaceans having a very high black market value, considering the pain in the ass it is to prepare them, well, but in the grand spectrum of things, it’ll suck for those two stores in the Midwest for those rich assholes who want Costco-priced lobsters and won’t be able to get any for a month until the next shipment can arrive, and even then, the cost will inevitably go up for all stores, since Costco is the type of company that probably wouldn’t want a single region to shoulder the brunt of the increase when all can instead.

Even with the FBI purportedly being on the case, I would wager that this is one of those news stories where nothing is going to be resolved, nobody is going to get caught and it’s just going to be forgotten except in the annals of a personal brog that nobody knows exists.  I doubt that this is really so much a high-stakes organization arranging these kinds of heists as much as it’s some petty crooks with some theft skills playing burglary roulette and just hitting a mini jackpot in hitting up a ride with 350 lobsters in it.

But we got lobsters, highway hijinks, and the opportunity to make repeated Fast & Furious references, so it’s the perfect story for me to brog about.