Tag: sports

Love him or hate him, Tom Brady is a winner

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not that I’ve been paying that much attention to the NFL this season other than the ironically entertaining aspects of a season that I maintain probably shouldn’t have happened in the first place; if it were up to me, the upcoming Superb Owl would be the Washington Redskins Football Team versus the Buffalo Bills, so that we could have a repeat of 1991, but a team with an idiotic interim name and a 7-9 record would, give the Buffalo Bills a loss in the Superb Owl, for old times’ sake, and the season would end in an ironic combination of some things change, some things stay the same.

Instead, we have the heavily favored Chiefs, which in itself is a little difficult to comprehend, because for the longest time the Chefs (yes the Chefs) were that one team that always made it to the playoffs, but would always get bounced in the second round, usually losing to like the Steelers or Broncos, and nobody would ever really take them seriously as legitimate contenders, especially since Andy Reid took over, and that guys manages timeouts like he manages cheeseburgers, which is to say he devours them all, and then there’s nothing left at the end.

And opposing the Chefs, is a team that hasn’t sniffed a championship since 2002, but at the very helm of it is a guy that has sniffed more than his share of Lombardi trophies in his time, in none other than Tom. Period. Brady. Period.

Just about anyone with a sports pulse knew of the general story of how Tom Brady left the New England Patriots, and instead of retirement, he just kind of inexplicably signs with, of all the teams in the NFL, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  A team that had gone 59-101 over the last decade, and was coming off of three straight losing seasons, with two of them placing last in the pitiful NFC South division.

For a guy that literally had nothing left to prove, as he already has six Superb Owl championships, an underwear model wife, and lord knows how much money earned in his career, another season for a cellar-dweller like the Bucs seemed like a really sad way to end his career, and likely injured on the way out as a shit team usually can’t protect their QB.

But I guess Brady really wanted to prove that he could win without Bill Belichick, and put to rest permanently the answer to the question of who really was the talent behind the Patriots’ success throughout the last 20 years, and seeing as how one has reached the Superb Owl, while the other didn’t even make the playoffs, I guess the answer is pretty abundantly clear now, but it really shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Love him or hate him, Tom Brady truly is the GOAT of football.  It doesn’t even matter if the Bucs win the Superb Owl or not, although me personally I can’t say that I kind of would be rooting for Brady, despite the fact that I’m most definitely no fan of the Bucs, but I’ve never really had any issue with Brady, and I respect the greatness.  But he’s already proven his point and one that really was inconsequential in the grand spectrum of things but was clearly still very important to him to stamp his claim over Belichick as the real reason for the Patriots’ success.

But really, I just kind of sadistically enjoy how everyone fucking hates Tom Brady so much, but it’s like he feeds off the hate and burning rage that his existence incites within haters, and it only makes him that much more effective.  Patrick Mahomes is a legend in his own right, being someone who was capable of lifting the once-hapless Chefs into becoming the respectable defending champion Chiefs, but in two weeks’ time, he’ll be going up against the literal god of professional football, and he’ll be back to square one at having his own thing to prove.

In the end, I don’t really care who wins, because the NFL is kind of a sad sack of an organization, and I resent just how much pull and influence it has on the entire, well country.  Which is why I’d like to see Tom Brady hoist up yet another Superb Owl Lombardi, because it’s the closest thing to a giant middle finger to all the haters there possibly could be.

Is it even an upset anymore?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because of coronavirus and/or the fact that I’m a dad with little time to indulge in sports as much as I used to/like to, a lot of sports news tends to go over my head these days.  I still think that it’s a bad idea for any sport to be happening in a country that can’t get their shit together to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but here we are, and pretty much every sport is going on business as usual, with that phrase being used as succinctly as possible, because they’re not really so much sports as much as they are businesses with the expectation to make a bunch of rich people even richer.

Anyway, the point of this post is the fact that Duke went to Blacksburg almost two weeks ago and lost, again.  For those keeping count, this is the fourth time out of Duke’s last five trips to Blacksburg that they’ve lost to Virginia Tech, and at this point, we really need to ask, is it even an upset anymore?  I mean I know I haven’t been paying much attention to sports in general as it is, but I still try to keep an ear to the ground, to at least interesting happenings, upsets or general news in the world of sports.

Duke is currently sitting at 5-5 with a 3-3 conference record, which makes them plain mediocre overall, and it doesn’t really make any news until Coach K blows up at a student reporter and that’s where I even learned that Duke had lost three in a row, which for as much as I dislike the program, is pretty unprecedented.  It’s what prompted me to check to see how they fared against Virginia Tech, since I knew they were on the schedule, and I was a little surprised to see that not only was it not a part of the three consecutive losses, but it was nearly two weeks ago and I didn’t hear a peep about it.

So the takeaways of this post are the obvious fact that Duke sucks; but actually sucks this year, in the sense that they’re nowhere near the top of the ACC as they typically are.  And the fact that for whatever reason, they have a real hard time of winning in Blacksburg and beating Virginia Tech; in basketball, their B-sport, although there are probably tons of jokes about that notion over the last few years, but I think the point is made.

Granted, this is akin to the jinx that the next time Duke rolls into Blacksburg, they’ll probably have 3-4 of the top-10 recruits in the nation ready to do their one-and-done seasons, and because I’ve gotten smarmy enough to make a post like this, they’ll probably blow the Hokies out by like 24 points.  Whatever though, it’s a fine time to be a Hokie as far as Duke basketball is concerned right now.

The year-end post, circa 2020

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This video by Carters encapsulates how I feel extremely succinctly.  I know 2020 has been a historically catastrophic year by any number of measures, and I’m not going to even try and change anyone’s mind who’ve already decided that there’s absolutely nothing at all redeemable about it.  It’s a fair judgment, and there’s tons of justification to where I just have to shrug and agree that such X and other Y really are terrible things, and leave people alone to continue believing that 2020 was the worst year in human existence.

Frankly, if not for the one obvious event in my life this year, I’d probably be right there with them.  But because of said event, there’s absolutely nothing else that could really occur that can make me possibly think that 2020 was anything other than among the greatest years of my life.  Like many, I too know my share of people whom coronavirus has dually affected throughout the year, or had some very unfortunate events or news take place, and my heart genuinely, sincerely goes out to them, and I wish for nothing but the best for them and their loved ones.

But nothing is going to change my perspective on 2020 being a magnificent year, because nothing has been a greater event in my life than the birth of my daughter, right before all the shit really began to hit the fan.  And throughout the remainder of the year, for every piece of horrible, shitty news, note about someone dying, bad day at work, or any other reason for stress and unhappiness, I was always mere steps away from being able to go pick up my daughter and hold her in my arms and will away the negativity.

As ironic as it may seem, and I’ve said it as much, as much as coronavirus and the global pandemic have been devastating to the world throughout the year, it’s inadvertently put me in the most optimal position in the sense that I’ve gotten to work from home since the shit hit the fan, and I’ve gotten to spend a tremendous amount of time more raising my daughter than if the world wasn’t in lockdown and I had to go back to work in the office while my child would be in a daycare, in the hands and responsibility of people I don’t know. 

I don’t fucking want that, even if there were no coronavirus in play.  I’ve been fortunate and I treasure all the time I’ve had and will continue to have being close to my kid, and it’s ironic that I have to thank the selfish stupidity of ‘Muricans for being so stupid and greedy that they can’t or refuse to comply to the behaviors that would’ve eradicated all of this if we just had some collective cooperation.

But outside of my child and coronavirus, 2020 has been somewhat of an eventful year.  Yes, most of it was bad, but not everything was completely putrid.  And as I tend to do every year, I take some notes on a daily basis of the things that happen that are remotely interesting to me, so I guess behind the jump, we’ll take a look back through the year that everyone loves to hate and can’t wait to see end:

Continue reading “The year-end post, circa 2020” →

How to Combat Intentional Feeding in the NBA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After wasting 2.5 hours of my life watching WW84, I needed something to bring me back, something to make me laugh, and think about anything at all other than how much WW84 sucked.  And if there’s one good thing remaining about the NBA, it’s that they know no boundaries of how much to suck to the amusement of old man purists like myself who still think the 90s were the best era ever and that there’s no sports theme greater than the NBA on NBC theme, in history.

So when the Dallas Mavericks blew the LA Clippers out by 51 points, my interest was immediately piqued, because it always fascinates me just how pathetic the NBA gets year after year and that there’s basically no more pride and this defeatist mentality that pervades in all the players of today that allows for all of this to happen.

Like, back in my day, it was pretty rare to see a 20-point blowout, and those were pretty rare to begin with.  Shit, the most bonkers game I’d seen in my life at that time was this one Knicks vs. Bulls game where Derek Harper had the NBA Jam fire code going and the vaunted ‘96 Bulls got blown out by 30 points. 

But it was literal decades before I saw a game where a team got blown out by 40+ much less 50 points.  Ironically, this isn’t even the worst blowout that I’d ever seen, as I’d actually brogged about it in the past when the Memphis Grizzlies somehow got blown out by 61 points a few years ago.

The thing is, when I was really into League of Legends, and the professional scene specifically, I used to make tons of analogies about how basketball strategies translated very well in League of Legends, most notably when at the 2015 Mid-Season Invitational that mythical then-gf and I went to, Edward Gaming employed the MJ strategy against SK Telecom, let Faker have LeBlanc and do whatever he wanted, but built their team around stomping the shit out of all of Faker’s teammates, en route to a critical game 5 win.

However, this is a scenario where the tables have turned, and it’s about time we applied some League of Legends, or competitive gaming logic, to the NBA.  Primarily the idea that NBA games occasionally go full tilt, and the players ultimately end up griefing, intentionally feeding, and just plain forfeiting, regardless of if the fact that games don’t actually allow for unconditional surrenders, no matter how much the players probably wished they did, like when the Clippers were down 50 points at halftime.

Needless to say, the Clippers phoned it in super early, as if Luka Doncic got two early kills, and the Clippers basically decided that there was no more point in playing the rest of the game because he was fed and was going to snowball and dominate.  And as much as I find ironic amusement in the ownage the Clippers suffered, really it’s still no good for the NBA that teams phone it in and don’t seem to care that they’re allow themselves to be humiliated like such.

Continue reading “How to Combat Intentional Feeding in the NBA” →

Playoff Team*

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

*Went undefeated, with a perfect 6-0 record; while most other schools in the nation played 10-11

When the day is over Ohio State makes the playoffs, because those in charge understand that it’s best for business that Ohio State plays in a nationally televised playoff game; I write such as singular, because little chance that Ohio State is going to upend Clemson, and much like last year, they’re going to fall short and make all the armchair pundits at home revile the fact that another team gets undressed by Clemson and that someone else should have made the playoffs in their place.

But still, it’s complete bullshit that college football allows Ohio State to maintain a high rank and make the college football playoff when they played 2/3 the games that most other programs did.  Sure, some of it was out of their control, because 74 million Americans are retards that couldn’t avoid getting coronavirus even if they were inside of a medical bubble, but it doesn’t change the fact that Ohio State basically gets entry into the playoffs on reputation alone.

Because it wasn’t really their strength of schedule that warrants playoff contention; four of their six paltry games were against unranked opponents, and the other two, Indiana and Northwestern, are schools that would never be ranked in any ordinary season where every program is dealing with players out on account of pandemic whether it was voluntary or stupidity.  The fact that the Big10 championship featured Northwestern at all goes to show just how weak of a conference they were playing in, and Ohio State only managed to win by 12 points when they probably should’ve won by 42.

Regardless, coronavirus or no coronavirus, it’s impossible to have a college football season without some controversy on rankings and standings, and this is no exception.  College football was in a perfect position to have some fun, and considering how many schools rose to the occasion of a chaotic field, it could have been really fun to have seen a non-power five conference school get into the playoffs, and because power five schools all play to the same metas, could definitely give some fits to some contenders.

Given the fact that Ohio State will probably lose 37-17 to Clemson, there’s no way it wouldn’t have been remotely interesting to have seen like, Clemson vs. Cincinnati or Clemson vs. Coastal Carolina (11-0); it’s not like they would have done any worse than what Ohio State is probably going to do.

Whatever though; in a season that shouldn’t have happened at all in the first place, it looks like we’re headed for Alabama vs. Clemson #5(?) for the National Championship, and considering this is now Trevor Lawrence’s swan song, he’ll probably go out a winner, because in spite of the 2-2 record in the playoffs between the two programs, Lawrence ate the shit out of Alabama’s lunch in their last meeting, and there’s little reason to believe that another encounter will result in anything different.

Advent Beer #5: Kirta by Graminger Weissbräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last four days, I’ve had leisurely time alone to sit down and get in my own head and then write whatever comes to mind when drinking these beers.  Tonight however, I’m playing games online with some friends.  We’re playing Mysterium.  This is a table top game that we’ve played numerous times back in the days when we as human beings conglomerated for evenings of camaraderie, junk food and conversation, while playing board games.

That being said, because I have a self-imposed daily deadline to review these beers before the day is over, I’m multi-tasking and writing while we’re playing games, and I just finished watching Clemson slaughter Virginia Tech, which was the expected result, in spite of the fact that the A-squads for both teams played a fairly competitive game until the end of the third quarter, until the wheels fell off, and the game blew up to the score I figured the game was going to result in. 

The best part was that a commercial for the eventual ACC championship game between Clemson and Notre Dame aired while there were still five minutes left in the game.  I mean, what if something like that Texas high school game where one team wiped out a 20+ point deficit in two and a half minutes happened, and Virginia Tech would upend and upset Clemson??

Anyway, as for the beer itself: I thought it was called Graminger Kirta, but apparently Graminger is the name of the brewery, and the name is just Kirta.  Either way, the design features a devil holding up a glass while holding onto a pretzel, which is alright by me, and the type of can that I would snap-judge and go ahead and pick, because, I see that this is most likely a dunkel beer, one that I’d hoped I’d run into eventually, because as I’ve stated in the last few days I discovered that I really liked dunkels whilst visiting Germany in the past.

The snobs at BeerAdvocate classify this as yet something else I’d never heard of again, this one being a dunkelweizen which I didn’t even know was a thing but whatever, I don’t know if all dunkels are dunkelweizens or if they’re two different things, all I know is that Kirta was a pretty good beer, and I think one I’d be comfortable in calling the second best beer that I’ve come across after five days.

I’m not sure how much accuracy there is to this theory, but I feel like dunkels are good cold weather beers, and that could very likely be the case because it was the middle of winter when I visited Munich in the past, but they’re just rich, hearty beers, with a lot of spicy flavors that I enjoy a lot.  Ironically, it’s this description that also means that I don’t feel like I could drink a lot of, because like other dunkels, Kirta feels heavy and I feel like I could probably drink two of these tallboys max, before I’d feel the need to move onto to something else or just stop drinking outright.

Either way, Kirta gets high marks in my books, and as of right now, I’m rating it #2 of the five beers that I’ve tried.  Hopefully there are more dunkels that show up over the next 19 days, and I’m still enjoying reviewing all these new-to-me beers that I apparently know jack shit about.

Talk about missed opportunities

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Reason #786 why it’s stupid to have a season of any sport in the middle of a pandemic: Denver Broncos lose all eligible quarterbacks due to coronavirus prior to game against the Saints

I’m not just saying this just because the Braves didn’t win the World Series, but because it really is stupid and foolish to have professional sports seasons in the middle of a pandemic that’s claimed over a quarter million American lives.  And this past weekend was just more reminders of just how stupid everything sports really are, and how wholly unnecessary they really are in the grand spectrum of trying to live in ‘Murica.

On Saturday alone, regardless of the fact that I don’t really watch much college football much less television in general, I still am curious to see who’s winning and who’s losing on any given day because I’m fascinated with how a ranking system even happens and Ohio State is somehow ranked #4 in the nation despite playing in like, four games total, because of coronavirus and all the cancelled games.  And then in the top-25 filter alone, I see that five games are cancelled/postponed due to coronavirus issues, and I’m left wondering how there’s any sort of credibility at all this season, when just about every team has played an uneven number of games, so I have no earthly idea how there can be any sort of ranking system that doesn’t have more holes in it than Swiss cheese?

I guess it doesn’t really matter though, because when the day is over, it’s still going to be Alabama and Clemson in the playoffs, along with whatever always-runner-ups like Ohio State and Notre Dame to job to Alabama and Notre Dame, setting up yet another Alabama vs. Clemson National Championship.

But then I see this interesting article (above) about how the Denver Broncos have inexplicably lost all three of their main roster quarterbacks due to coronavirus exposure, and my interest is immediately piqued by the idea of wondering what the fuck an actual NFL team would do in the event there were no available QBs.

Obviously, the team would call up whatever scrub they had taking snaps on the practice squad, but I really do feel like the No Fun League really let the Broncos and all sports fans down by shooting down all other potential ideas that were floated around out there, like letting an assistant coach start the game at QB, or my favorite idea of them all, letting linebacker VON “ELWAY” MILLER start the game as QB.

Continue reading “Talk about missed opportunities” →