Tag: observations

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

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RIP four years late, Bradley Allan

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diamond League is a different game

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daredevil is so good it basically kills all other Marvel content

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My daughters will extend my life by almost three years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A funny thing happened at the gym today

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My gym isn’t a very large gym.  Considering the small number of tenants in the building, the people who do come on the regular are pretty familiar with the existences of one another, even if we ultimately have no idea who we are.  That being said, I think it’s never a good idea to exorcise bad habits around people you coexist with on the regular.

Every now and then, I’d come into the gym, and there was typical asshole evidence of gymslobs; weights left all over the place, not putting anything back, most likely nothing wiped down either.  But when you’re the only one(s) there, you feel like you can get away with being a slob, so a slob they were.

This is something that asshole gymslobs can get away with at like an LA Fitness or a Gold’s Gym, gyms so crowded and churning with people, that it would be nigh impossible to pinpoint who the culprits were.  But at a tiny office gym the size of mine, it wouldn’t take long to narrow down the list of regulars who come, especially if one were so determined to run the badge log to see who has accessed the gym on a given day.

Today, I went into the gym, and these two dudes whom I occasionally have overlapped with were there.  Typically, they’re fairly early goers, but I guess their schedule had something that made them be there when they were there today, overlapping with my time there somewhat.  But I noticed the two of them hit the lockers, leaving all of the shit they used all over the place; a barbell laying out on the floor, a few dumbbells left out on a bench rolled into a very inconvenient place.

Normally, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about it and just grumble internally or blast them amongst my friends in group chats.  Society has conditioned everyone to avoid not just conflict, but just speaking to people anymore, and in doing such, invites people to be dicks and exorcise dick behaviors like being a slob at the gym and not putting the shit they use away like any normal civilized considerate human beings.

But I don’t know, I didn’t feel like letting it slide today, and I thought to myself that if I addressed them calmly and without any aggression, I could at least make them aware that what they were doing wasn’t acceptable.

I happened to catch them on their way out of the locker room, and with my hands, I got their attention by pointing to the area of the gym which they left a mess.  I just simply said to them, hey guys, sorry to bug you, but could you put all those weights away?  I thought you guys might’ve been coming back out, but if you guys are done, could you please put those weights away?

And then the funny thing happened, they didn’t scoff, put up a fuss or show any sort of defiance, they were just like, oh my bad, yeah, and then went to go pick up after themselves and put their shit back; not perfectly back in order like they probably started, but baby steps here.  I said thanks to them, sorry to bug y’all, but thanks.

Granted, after they left the gym, they probably muttered about that fuckin’ Chinese guy on their way and in the elevators, and I’ve probably made gym nemeses now and should probably start considering bringing a lock to the gym to protect my shit from now on, but the point remains, I don’t think I’m in the wrong for calling out poor behavior, and by doing so in a calm and best-as-I-could non-confrontational manner, the poor behavior was corrected.

If I or anyone else never said anything to these guys, the behavior would undoubtedly continue, and honestly, one of these days, someone could get hurt, the gym would get shut down, and everyone loses.  At the end of the day, the people who have to straighten the gym out are the custodians, which are comprised of entirely smaller and older Hispanic women, and they shouldn’t have to be responsible for lugging around 30s, 40s and the 50s that some assholes left on the floor, and I would sooner straighten them out myself before them.

I get that people don’t like being told or even asked what to do, but if they didn’t do shitty things to begin with, then it wouldn’t ever have to happen.  This was entirely a situation where the only reason why correction occurred is because the violation was caught.

I don’t have a lot of faith that this won’t happen again, but at least these guys are aware that if they’re unlucky to be working out when I’m there, it’ll sit in their back of their minds that I just might call them out on their bullshit laziness, and as much as I don’t want to invite engagement, I’m hoping that they’ll want to avoid getting called out again and just do the right fucking thing in the first place.

It only took twelve years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, I wrote a post about how cursive was being phased out of educational standards, and that it was only a matter of time before the ability to read cursive writing would become a viable job, due to the fact that all of the nation’s most critical documents were all written in, cursive.

Welp, twelve years later, and the National Archives are seeking volunteers to decipher the ancient cursive text from documents from the Revolutionary War.  I love their choice of words like “decode” and “decipher” to make it sound like these are ancient historians deciphering hieroglyphics and non-Roman character text like they’re characters from The Mummy or National Treasure, but when you get to the meat of the blurb, it’s more big words to describe a pedestrian objective:

and help make them more accessible to everyone.

In other words, legible to dumbasses who are no longer required to learn cursive writing.

Honestly, there’s no way this is the first real known instance of this occurring, but it’s something I saw that seemingly made it to national news. 

Now the trick is how I can be put into a position to where I can capitalize on this pathetic educational hole and make a little scratch on the side before more older pleebs realize the undervalued skill that really shouldn’t be a skill.

Seriously, everyone should stop volunteering for this shit, and start charging some money for it.  As the image above describes, if you’re good at something, don’t fucking do it for free.  Especially since we live in a country that’s actively at war with itself, with a government as rotten as the bottom layer of a package of strawberries from Kroger.  If they want something from the people, the people should have the wherewithal to realize that they should charge for it.

I suppose it’s now acceptable to put cursive reading and writing on my resume as a viable talent, and I really want to make sure my kids are taught cursive, and want to see if I can get them to utilize in their school work in the future, befuddle their teachers who inevitably didn’t have to learn it themselves, and see if they get reprimanded and called out for using it, so that I can throw in their face that they’re the dumbasses who allowed for such an elementary skill to fall to the wayside because society is stupid and lazy.

But I knew this was going to happen eventually. I fucking called it.