Tag: white people

Eviction Notice: the excessively multi-generation household

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the most part, I enjoy the neighborhood that I live in.  The vast majority of the people who live here are friendly and/or mind their own business.  This one Karen in the neighborhood whom I had some heat with actually died a few years ago, and her surviving family is a big sausage party that seems to mind their own business.  We do have an HOA, but it is run by the community and not outsourced to some bullshit company, and our annual dues aren’t egregious and we do actually get a few parties throughout the year to kind of justify the money we dump into the HOA.

But let’s just be real here, there are always going to be households in everyone’s communities that ruffles a few feathers, and obviously I am no exception.  Some behaviors are less savory than others, and depending on whom one might ask, might be perceived as anything as total assholes to first-world problems.  Instead of trying to ignore the problem or the neighbors, we just fantasize about waving a magic wand and straight up just evicting from the existing in the neighborhood; nobody wants to see anyone hurt, you just want them out of your neighborhood, and hopefully replaced with someone else who doesn’t suck.

The difference is, most people keep these general grievances to themselves or within their own households, but for people like me, they become brogging content.

The first household that comes to mind as one that I’d like to magically evict from the community is what I like to refer to as, the excessively multi-generation household.  This is a home where the actual homeowners are probably right at or adjacent to full-blown senior citizen status and are most likely original owners of their home.  In fact, they themselves are rather nice and polite people, and I’ve never had a negative interaction with them before.

It’s just the circumstances in which their household exists that causes me some annoyance, and probably to others in the neighborhood if they were to stop and think about it.

So the OG owners here, they have like 3-4 grown adult children, whom have all appeared to have gotten married themselves and spawned numerous children.  One of these adult offspring still lives in the OG home with their spouse and children, presumably in the basement, seeing as how they have a finished basement with a separate entrance.  Which brings the resident count to somewhere between 5-7 people, including the OG elderly husband and wife.

The thing is, the other adult kids are always over at the OG parents’ house, along with all of their entire families, so it’s like at any given point the house is overflowing with like 10-15 people, depending on how many of their adult kids are over with their kids.  It doesn’t take a genius to surmise that the adult kids are over as often as they are, because grandma and grandpa are near, and usually willing to be free childcare, while their parents can coast with their lives knowing they have trustworthy hands available to parent in their laziness.

As a result, this is a home that always has a full driveway, and almost always has cars spilling out onto street parking, which is something I always find obnoxious no matter the circumstances, especially in a community like ours where just about every house has a driveway that can accommodate 6+ cars without breaking a sweat.  Plus, their home is situated on both a hill and a curve, which means that all other passing traffic has to exorcise extra caution when passing their home, because they won’t be able to see past whatever truck, minivan or SUV is parked on the street.

It’s not just about the parking malady they often create with their reliance and exploitation of the OG owners.  It’s the fact that all the adult kids and their own offspring take advantage and enjoy all of the benefits that actual homeowners are privy to, just because their parents still live in the home and maybe they once did too many moons ago.

When we have a block party, their household rolls up 15 people deep, when two are actual HOA due paying homeowners and the rest are their freeloading kids and their kids on top of it.  They come an eat a ton of food and their kids play on the bounce house and water slides that our community rents for children of the residents.  It just irks me in an unpleasant manner that no, I don’t want to just, not worry about, because it’s bullshit and it’s not fair to the rest of the community that actually lives here.

One year, we had a pool opening party, and this entire household rolled in 14 people deep.  Again, they’re helping themselves to the food that my dues went towards, but worst of all were all their fucking kids in the pool, splashing and taking up space, and I’m trying to enjoy wading around with my daughters, while these freeloaders are just all over the fucking place inadvertently splashing my kids with their rambunctiousness.

I’m not the only one to have noticed this exploitation of the rules at least as far as the pool is concerned, because when the pool opened up this year, as a gentle reminder when the rules of the pool were distributed for the season, there was an interesting new bullet stating that “only eight people allowed per household,” which I’m fairly certain applies to pretty much just them.  But it’s not like anyone can really enforce it, and I’d wager money that there’ve probably been multiple occasions in which these leeches took over the pool 12+ people deep.

The funny thing is, even though I’m not particularly keen on how much this household takes advantage of the general friendly disposition of the community, I’ve never had any negative interactions with them, personally.  Whenever I’ve spoken with any of the adults at any of our community functions, they’re all nice and cordial, if not aloof and a little negligent when it comes to parenting.  I’m sure they’re decent human beings as individuals.

But when the day is over, I’d rather just evict the entire household.  Just this past weekend, I had to wait an excessive amount of time while OG granddad struggled to back a trailer into the driveway, because there were already four other cars in it and a truck on the side walk, so just being able to pass was impossible until he was finished.

Had the home been occupied by one of the more normal households, with single families, no more than 2-3 vehicles and no freeloading adult offspring, the roads are clearer, safer and less congested with overpopulation bullshit.

So in conclusion, if I had a magic wand that could humanely remove them from my community, evicted!

The Ford F-250 Super Chief sounds kind of racist

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was driving to work, stuck behind a parade of slow moving commuters as is the usual, but I couldn’t help but notice the behemoth Ford truck that began tailgating me, as if they felt that I was personally responsible for the logjam of cars on the single-lane road we were all headed down.  The third car that I use as my daily commuter is quite small, and the truck plastered on my asshole as if I could shit gold like a Lannister was rather massive and I obviously was not particularly pleased being tailgated so aggressively.

However, I know the capabilities of the car I’m driving, and I’m not at the point of my life where every single interaction on the road needs to result into a street race like Tokyo Midnight Racer, so when the road expanded to a second lane, I stayed put and let the douchebag with the tiny peepee whip around me as soon as they could and take off; it wasn’t worth allowing my blood pressure to elevate just because some fuckhead was riding my ass.

Naturally, the truck did just that, and I noticed the words “Super Chief” on the vehicle, and my brow did a little scrunch – was this the actual name of a level of trim, or was the driver of this car perhaps of indigenous heritage and really wanted the world around him to know that they were of American Indian lineage?  The back window also had a subtle black-on-black decal of an American Indian that kind of looked like the old Washington Redskins logo on it, and I’m thinking to myself that there’s no way this combination of shit came straight out of the factory.

At the next red light, I googled “Ford F150 super chief” and lo and behold, this is actually a legitimate thing, except that it’s an F-250 and not the pleeb-ey little brudder F-150 as I thought it was.  But yeah, the Ford F-250 Super Chief is an actual Ford product, and I can’t help but ponder that it sounds kind of racist, in the sense that we live in a world where the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians were taken to the shed and beaten into submission within the span of the last decade, because of their names, and yet here’s Ford, one of the largest auto manufacturers on the planet, naming one of their signature trucks “Super Chief.”

Yes, the word “chief” is not exclusive to Native American culture, but it is prevalent enough in it, to where people like me immediately pull indigenous culture to the forefront when hearing the word, and I can’t help but feel like there’s some racist-sounding undertones with Ford naming a big ass truck “super chief.”

Not just any old chief, but fucking super chief, like it’s the Kryptonian Superman of Native Americans.  Like in Native culture, there are chiefs, but then there’s a level above all the other chiefs, that is the super chief.

Digging a little further, I can’t seem to find any pictures of an F-250 Super Chief with any window stickers of the Washington Redskins chief on it.  So that part of the douchey small peepee truck driver that was riding my ass, had to have been custom to that driver.  I didn’t get a look at the driver themselves, but I sure hope that with brandishing a decal like that, that the driver was actually of Native American culture, and not like one of those white cocksuckers who claim 3/47th Cherokee or some bullshit so that they can try and get a slice of indigenous benefits.  Otherwise, then the Super Chief is being kind of racist, if it’s some white guy driving around in it with that big ass Native sticker on his window.

But either way, now that I know that this is an actual thing, my personal conclusion is that it does seem a little bit racist.  ‘Murica doesn’t seem at all that concerned about that kind of stuff anymore these days, so I guess that it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Don’t, stop, comeback

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As if I had any more reason to like Costco more than I already do: policy change rolling out where customers must scan their membership cards at the door in order to enter, hopes that this cracks down on lax entrance policies for non-members; naturally this results in a lot of butt-hurt customers, most of which aren’t actually members and are just full of piss and salt that they can no longer freeload their way into the exclusive membership warehouse without escort from an actual member

When I originally heard of this change coming up, I didn’t think anything of it.  Being a paying card-carrying member, I shouldn’t have to give any thought about it, it’s just a difference of scanning my card at the door instead of showing it to some human being hardly paying attention to photo on the physical card itself and whether or not it matched my face.

The only person I share the account with is mythical wife, and the one time she ever received any resistance for trying to use my Costco Visa, I simply had a secondary card issued in her name and photograph so that it wouldn’t ever be an issue again in the future.

So back to the original point, the change of requirement to scan a card at the door doesn’t affect my household one iota.  As far as I’m concerned, the only people it affects are grubby cheapskate non-paying non-members who have a family member or friend who probably has Costco credit cards, and have given their physical membership card to them, to where they’ve been enjoying the benefits of a paid Costco membership without actually having to pay for them. 

These are the motherfuckers who are all pissy and up in arms currently at the policy change, because their freeloading ways are going to come to an end the minute their preferred Costco runs out these scanners, and they’ll be caught in the flesh when photograph on the screen doesn’t match their own physical faces.

And to these cheap assholes I say, fuck you, good riddance.  The membership fee is $65 a year, which is barely $5 a month.  I probably gain that $5 a month back whenever I purchase bananas from Costco, seeing as how they seem to be able to justify 3-4 lbs of bananas for like $1.99 and everyone in my household loves bananas.  If you’re the type getting bent out of shape over $5 a month, you honestly probably shouldn’t be shopping at Costco in the first place, seeing as how it’s nigh impossible to get out of there without dropping $100 a visit, before I even consider getting my $1.50 hotdog and fountain drink.

But really, I hope that all these cheapskates denouncing Costco and claiming they won’t ever come back, actually hold true to their words and don’t bend the knee and drop their $65 a year to become members themselves.  Costco trips are already crowded enough as it is, and I’m really hoping that this culling of cheapskates will help thin the crowds out a little bit in the parking lot and in the store itself, to where I can go on a Sunday and not feel like I’m on the cusp of being at Costco Shanghai at times, and I can have slightly reduced stress crowds the next time I go.

When the day is over, I have all the faith in the world that Costco is making the right choice; most everything else they do in the name of business seems to work out just fine for themselves, as well as often times aligns well with my own personal beliefs and ideologies.  And cutting the fat of fat cheapskates from my in-store experiences is definitely something that I can get behind, and I tip my cap, once again, to Costco.

I always wanted the front of my house to look like an office vestibule

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I saw this meme from Black Twitter about how now that glass-enclosed front porches are becoming a thing, it’s only a matter of time before black people start tinting their front porches.  It was one of those things that I thought was kind of funny because of the stereotypes that were being implied by such an observations, but really my mind went to being fascinated that glass-enclosed front porches were actually a thing.

The examples I’d been seeing since being curious don’t really sell me on their benefit, other than the fact that they’re a hard-shell that stands as one more layer to protect the front door of a home from the devastating effects of prolonged rain exposure.

But otherwise, they make the homes that choose to go in that route look like, a vestibule to an office building.  And frankly, I don’t even understand what the point of vestibules are in the first place; Google is telling me that they’re:

for the purpose of waiting, withholding the larger space from view, reducing heat loss, providing storage space for outdoor clothing, etc

The thing is, most everywhere I’ve been, offices, hotels, airports, or any place that might have vestibules, the only rationale that really makes any sense is the prevention of loss of a desired air temperature; cold in the summer, heat in the winter, and anything in between.  I guess they could be used as something of mudrooms for a patch of space where people can reduce the amount of dirt and mud they track into the larger part of the structure.

But to basically turn homes into having a glorified vestibule once a front segment of a home is enclosed in glass?  Yeah, seems counterproductive in my opinion.

Not only does it look aesthetically ridiculous, it’s an invitation to greenhouse effect your front stoop/porch, and microwave the inside of it during a sunny and/or hot day.  Short of having some logical ventilation in there, I have to imagine that moisture gets trapped in these things and now you’ve also now got a sauna, pressing and permeating moisture onto one of the exterior walls and doors to your home, and if there’s one thing that I’ve ever learned about homeownership is that moisture is definitely not a good thing in most cases.

Provided on whether they’re locked or unlocked, these doors just create an extra layer for packages to be dropped off at; like Amazon will just plop the boxes outside the vestibule instead of next to your actual front door, and the risk of package theft goes up.  Or in a true nightmare scenario, a place for bums and squatters wandering by to meander to the door and give a tug, to see if they can get a free place to sleep overnight, or drop a deuce in the corner.

And of course, even if they’re not making up of straight up actual glass, plexi, acrylic and other forms of transparent surfaces still shatter and shard into sharp, dangerous pieces, and all it takes is one local vandal, an errant baseball, golf ball or football being struck or thrown, or a drive-by destruction of property in order to trash one of these glass boxes, and now you’ve got one more fragile thing that can break and cause a lot of harm and trauma.

I’m going to make an assumption here and assume that it was white people who came up with this silly idea, of glass-enclosed front porches because this definitely sounds like something white people would really come up with.  Have the pleasure of feeling like you’re outside enjoying a picturesque day, except not have to be influenced (as much) by summer heat or winter cold; and that’s provided that these are built to be remotely temperature controlled.  But completely not take into considerations of building little glass boxes that live outside, and all the consequences of creating such silly things.

But for real though, it will be entertaining if when the first time I actually see one of these out in the wild, it’s tinted.

Things White People Like: Black and White Houses

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Part of observing the world around me, is occasionally identifying patterns.  I like to think that I’m a pretty observant person, and I feel like I’m pretty good at identifying patterns, especially when I see commonalities in behavior or tendencies in demographics.

To cut to the chase and keep my word count down and free of paragraphs of extraneous fluff, I’ve determined that white people are extremely willing to accept questionable aesthetics and/or quickly latch onto the new and niche, as long as the result of their collective acceptance makes something “theirs.”

And once something becomes a white people thing, all the other basic white people begin to glom onto it and perpetuate the stereotype even stronger and give it more and more momentum, to where it gets to this point where upon visual identification of it from the rest of the world, it’s automatically associated with being a white people thing.

In the past, I have brogged about things about how white people really love Major League Soccer, and how white people really love the new Ford Bronco, but I’ve given this a lot more thought than I probably should have considering all the things in the world that would be slightly more productive to think about alternatively, but to the point where this could potentially become a series of posts or at least worth justifying the existence of a white people tag on the brog.

Over the last, I’d say four years, I’ve noticed a trend in home design, along with a correlation of seemingly only white people partaking in it: black and white homes.  Homes that are entirely black and white, be it white brick, white panel, white siding. 

I’m talking straight up white; #FFFFFF white, 0.0.0.0 white.  Not “bone,” not “French white” or any shade of white that has any iota of colored pigmentation in it whatsoever.  Just fucking default plain white, but all over the home.

And then comes the black, usually in trim, shutters, doors, maybe an accent wall or side of the home.  Garage door(s), gutters, support beams, full on black.  #000000 black, 100.100.100.100 black.

Homes like these, I’ve seen an increase of them popping up all around the city, especially in the little bubble of zip codes that I live in, since I do live in an area with a high concentration of white people.  Roads that I’ve driven on, I’ve seen homes that clearly sold during the nuclear real estate boon just a year ago, and it’s evident that the new owners tore down the old homes, and erected these black and white, white people monuments in their place.  Empty lots or little parcels of land in which I didn’t even think that a home could be built upon, now have homes that are more black and white than a weekday newspaper comics page.

Even a home in my own neighborhood, frankly one that I would’ve gone after myself it were available at the time in which I was looking for a house, I remember walking in my neighborhood one day, and I nearly went snow blind when they had completely whitewashed the entire fucking home, before they put their all-black trim on it.  Like, this couple paid a large sum of money to transform their ordinary home into this gaudy black and white structure smack dab in the middle of a cul-de-sac with more ordinary looking homes all around it.

And the thing is, although my sample size is small in confirmation, I’d wager a good bit that every single one of these homes is resided by white people.  Many of the homes that come to mind while I’m writing this post I know by virtue of visual confirmation of the residents that they’re white, others have some serious tells that they’re resided by white people, most notably shit like big fucking Dodge Ram trucks, orange guy or Yosemite Sam political signs out in front, among other very obvious white people-centric things that easily fill in the blank.

The bottom line is that black and white houses have become this very obvious indicator of white people living somewhere, and I imagine I’m going to be flabbergasted the day I drive past a black and white house, and I see a minority coming out the door or garage.  However, I imagine that when such a day occurs, similar to the fashion in which white people abandoned cities throughout US history, it will probably mean that white people have begun to abandon ship on the trend are on the prowl for something other home aesthetic trend that they can make theirs, before any colored folk decide to get in on the trend.

Dad Brog (#138): About that “fake” global warming

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember when I was a kid, outdoor play was as regular as going to school or a job; something you did on almost a daily basis.  Summer vacation saw tons of playing outside, I have tons of memories of exploring the woods, playing basketball, practicing rollerblading, and all sorts of things done solely outdoors.

Sure, the summertime would be hot, but we kids would pop outdoors without blinking an eye, and spend hours playing basketball, or just wandering aimlessly.  Personally, I don’t ever recollect putting on sunscreen at any time, and I’d go outside, do shit, and be content to come back home sweaty and relieved to be out of the heat, but otherwise not worrying about dehydration and excessive sun exposure.

The other day, I was at a parent orientation for my kids’ preschool, talking to the teachers about what to expect for the upcoming year, and a question that mythical wife had asked was if they adhered to the county protocol when it comes to heat advisory, to which they did, which was good to know, seeing as how often the temperatures here in Georgia are 95F+, which is that if the heat index exceeds a certain threshold, kids are not sent outside for recess.

Sure, there’s a knee-jerk reaction somewhere that wants to call everyone today soft and that they need to toughen up and get out in the sun and live a little, but the more rational part of my brain also understands and acknowledges the existence of global warming, and in spite of the dumbasses of the country who like to claim that it’s fake news, the fact of the matter is that every summer seems like it gets to become the hottest one ever, and we’re getting to the point where the act of going outside in the summertime comes with actual health risks involved.

My kids have gotten to the point where their general love of books, puzzles and board games has been diminishing a little bit, and they really want to be active and do physical activities, like playing tag, hide-and-seek and just plain run around and expend the gas tanks worth of energy that kids this young are in disposal of.  I want to be able to oblige them, and it kills me that I have to always be cognizant of the heat index conditions, and over the last few weeks of this summer, it’s either been torrential downpour or temperatures well in excess of 95F, with the heat index being even higher.

And I keep them inside, because they’re not old enough to be mindful of dehydration and exertion in the sun and heat yet, and I’ve seen them be affected by lesser temperatures, so I don’t want to subject them to the risk, just because they’re a little bored and antsy.  It’s like the outdoors, as beautifully sunny and picturesque it can be sometimes, is like an episode of Dual Survival or that mission in Mass Effect 2, where you had to rescue Tali from the planet that was too close to a sun, where excessive exposure to the sun would erode your shields and health.

The point of this post is that I just think it really sucks that I have to err on side of caution with my kids and taking them outdoors, because global warming is a very real fucking thing and the planet isn’t just hotter than it was 30 years ago, it’s gotten to the point where everyone has to exercise a ton of caution, preparation and basically gearing up, just to go outside.  It’s obnoxious and bothersome when dumbasses like to proclaim their opinion that it’s not a real thing, because there’s monumental amounts of evidence that says that it is.

As much as I’d love for my kids to have the kind of childhood that had the type and amount of outdoor play as mine did, I just don’t think it’s going to be possible, at least without elevating their risks of physical harm, dehydration and skin cancer risks.  It’s not fair to the kids of tomorrow to have to deal with the consequences of the generations long before them, and it makes me anxious and disappointed that I’m going to have to basically wait until like October before it’s going to be really comfortable and adequate to play outside with my kids.

Predictable, to those with knowledge

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Twas the night of the trade deadline, and the Braves were in the middle of the pack.  The Phillies have the division, and Atlanta’s grip on Wild Card #1 has been slippery as of late.  Max Fried is on the DL, joining Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II, while Ronald Acuña, Jr. and Spencer Strider are done for the year.  Reynaldo Lopez has tightness in his forearm. 

Those not injured, are not performing, save for Marcell Ozuna and a resurgent Jarred Kelenic, but Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Adam Duvall and Orlando Arcia definitely are about as reliable as a Dodge Caliber this season.  Aside from Chris Sale, the pitching staff is in shambles due to the loss of Strider and Fried, as Father Time has clearly caught up to Charlie Morton, and the revolving door of Bryce Elder, Spencer Schwellenbach and whomever was scheduled to pitch in Double-A or Triple-A has been less than effective.

Weeks leading up to the trade deadline, there was all sorts of buzz about what the Atlanta Braves should do, to patch their weaknesses, reinforce their offense and build for the playoffs that they are no guarantee to even make.  Braves fans in Facebook communities, blogs and websites all throwing out ideas, mostly putrid, but occasional logical ones, about the things the teams should do in order to accomplish all of the above mentioned.

And whenever this time of the baseball season comes up, there are always these types of fans:

  • Trade everything for [Mike Trout] and [Shohei Ohtani] – fans who don’t really know much about baseball economics and think that in real sport, you can make trades like an EA game and trade Derek Harper for Penny Hardaway straight up
  • Trade absolutely nothing at all because there’s no chance the return on investment will be worth the cost of assets being given up – internet bean-counters who know way too much about baseball economics and have this intrinsic belief that absolutely every baseball transaction possible much be “a win,” that every trade partner must “lose” the trade, and if such conditions don’t seem likely, don’t make it, regardless of how many moving parts there are and the unpredictability of player performance
  • And then there are people like me, crabby old fucks who have been following sports for a very long time, have recognized patterns and tendencies for the teams they follow, are mostly cynical and nihilistic about the likely realities about to befall their preferred teams, and the degrees and willingness to opine their opinions may vary

I used to not engage with rando-communities, but probably a combination of boredom, and that The Algorithm is spoon-feeding me content that pops enough synapses in my brain to drop random comments on various accounts, most of them being Braves communities where I occasionally wish to voice my displeasure with AJ Minter, Bryce Elder, and how the team would be best suited to sign the still-available Trevor Bauer, if he didn’t have this freakishly obviously collusion to blacklist him from the entire league over his head.

I don’t pay much concern over the reactions my words get, and I definitely don’t interact with other users beyond a laughing emoji at the response that are actually decent, but it’s really nothing different from any online community anywhere on the internet: people making wild trade scenarios, trade everything fans bickering with trade nothing fans, and so forth.

More recently, I decided to chime in to a few Braves communities, and I opined that the Braves aren’t doing to make any moves at all beyond a fourth outfielder-type and a relief pitcher; I figured the remark were just enough snarky without me having to blather on about how The Braves Way™ is that of crippling risk-aversion and hand-cuffing cheapness, which it totally is by the way.

And when the trade deadline lapsed, and the evening crossed midnight, where transactions that begun before the deadline needed to be finalized by, and all the smoke of the day’s activities had cleared up, the Atlanta Braves had made only one transaction-trading injured relief pitcher Tyler Matzek and minor league infielder Sabin Ceballos for:

Jorge Soler, outfielder
Luke Jackson, relief pitcher

At this point, all I could really do is shrug like Michael Jordan in the 1992 NBA Finals, after he drowned the Portland Trailblazers in a barrage of three-pointers as if to say, that was easy.  I’ve been following the Braves for a pretty long time now, and I’ve seen this song and dance before.  Save for a few exceptions throughout the years, the majority of the years, the Braves always seem convinced that the only things they ever need at the trade deadline is another outfielder and another relief pitcher, and that all other needs can be filled internally (cheaply) – That’s The Braves Way™!

In this season’s case, they’re not wrong that they needed some help on both accounts, but the fact of the matter is that the starting rotation has two gaping holes in it, and the team has been incapable of scoring runs the vast majority of the season. 

All around the league were decent talents from teams who were out of playoff contention and thrown in the towel, trying to improve their futures at the price of said decent talents available for trade.  And as the days ticked down to the trade deadline, they would come off the board, one by one, with the Phillies picking up Carlos Estevez from the Angels, the Yankees getting Jazz Chisholm, Jr. from the Marlins, the Dodgers getting Jack Flaherty from the Tigers, to name a few examples of front-running contenders actively trying to get even better for the stretch run.

And once again, the Braves sit on their hands all trade season long, and do nothing but pick up a fourth outfielder and a relief pitcher.  I’ve seen this rerun, many, many times in my life now.

For those keeping score, in spite of all the Braves’ many needs, the only outside acquisitions they’ve really made this season, was picking up Soler and Jackson, as well as a few weeks ago, picking up Eddie Rosario from the Washington Nationals’ literal trash after they had designated him for assignment.  Obviously, all of these guys were notable contributors to the 2021 World Series winnings squad, and it’s evident that the Braves’ front office is trying to challenge the intelligence of fans and supporters of the team by bringing back these nostalgia acts, as if they’re miraculously going to turn the team’s fortune around, three years later, older and used.

It goes without saying that the Braves have thrown in the towel on the year themselves, by their sheer lack of willingness to invest and improve.  Of course they will never admit it, but it seems pretty evident that they’re phoning in the roster on account of all the injuries that have decimated the roster, and probably thinking, we’ll just try again next season;  regardless of the fact that Max Fried is probably gone, as probably is Marcell Ozuna who is playing his ass off in a walk year, two of the most competent players on the current roster.

They’ll assume Chris Sale will reward their investment into his bounceback, Spencer Strider will recover to 110%.  That this season was not a fluke for Reynaldo Lopez, and that between Elder, Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep,* they can go back to the glory days of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz.

*could these names get any whiter?

They’ll also assume Acuña and Harris will recover fully, Albies will get back to his All-Star form and Olson and Riley will bounce back.  Arcia might be the only guy on the hot seat, but I’m under the impression that Braves Corporate is already envisioning a fresh start in 2025 with all of their current assets in place, and that 2024 is already a lost cause, and any success to come from it would be considered a bonus.

At this point, it’s actually a bad thing for the Braves front office if the team does well enough to have a little playoff run, and then get bounced in the NLDS again.  Because then there will be all sorts of hindsight fire, criticism and accusations that the organization didn’t do enough to improve the team to where they might have pushed across the finish line for more success, instead of sputtering to another early playoff exit.

But if and when it happens, it’s not like it’s something that most older Braves fans haven’t seen before.  Such is, the curse of having knowledge sometimes.