Fulfilling destiny

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It wasn’t as nail-bitingly exciting as the finale of the World Series last year, but I guess it seems kind of fitting that the deciding game of an otherwise insane World Series would end in such a mundane and anti-climactic manner, with the Astros jumping all over Yu Darvish in the first two innings, and then basically just holding on for two and a half hours, counting down 27 outs.

But in the end, the Houston Astros stand triumphant, winning their first ever World Series in franchise history, and I am pleased.  Contrary to the belief that I’m solely happy because it validates a moon shot of a pre-season prediction and makes me feel like I actually know a thing or two about baseball and how to make an educated guess, there are lots of other reasons why the Astros winning is a good thing in my opinion.

I’m happy for Carlos Beltran, whom I felt was one of the missing pieces for a championship-caliber squad, and it’s nice to know that such a talented star throughout a long career will get his ring.  I’m happy for Brian McCann, Evan Gattis and even Charlie Morton, as former Braves players who additionally filled out the Astros roster and contributed big-time performances throughout the playoffs with clutch hits and big innings; I always wanted McCann to be a Brave for his whole career, but such notions are pipe-dreams today, especially with a tightwad organization like the Braves.  But I’ve always rooted for McCann, and I’m happy to see him reach the peak, even if it’s for someone else.

I’m happy for the organization, who went through The Process and actually hit pay dirt in the end; all the years of living in the basement of both the National League as well as the American League when they moved, netted them numerous high draft picks whom most have developed and matured into stars like Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman and the World Series MVP George Springer, who absolutely went nuts throughout the series.  So many teams go through The Process, because there’s really no other alternative unless their organizations have massive payrolls, and so many fall short, because baseball is ultimately one gigantic crapshoot anyway.  But the Astros stuck with it, and with nothing more than good development, and smart acquisitions like McCann and Beltran, the team ascended up the mountain as contenders, and come out on top as champions.

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Stranger Things 2: The Steve Show and the bar for sequels

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I just finished watching the second season of Stranger Things, and I’ll try to be as spoiler-free as possible, but to cut straight to the chase, I just wanted to say that it was some of the best television I’ve seen recently, and that I believe that it is the bar in which all sequels should aspire to perform to.

So yeah, I liked it.  No, I loved it.  Stranger Things 2 was fantastic television, and the most astonishing thing about it all, was how seemingly easy the show was executed to where it’s so super easy to enjoy nearly all of the characters, and be engaged and interested in all of the storylines happening concurrently.  The acting is so good throughout the show, and Winona Ryder and David Harbour make their characters just so easy to relate to and empathize for which in turn enhances the experience of watching the show.

But the true MVP of the show would have to be Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, who embarked on the face turn of a century that we haven’t seen since The Rock decided he was done with Vince McMahon and the Corporation before ascending into the cosmos.  It’s truly amazing, because I remember really hating the shit out of Steve in the first season, and hoping he would die or at least get written off the show.  But after the second season, there’s no star that broke through the night and rose to the cream of the crop and broke the glass ceiling and grabbed the brass ring more than Steve did.

I won’t elaborate any further on it since I don’t want to risk giving anything away, but the bottom line is that feel that Steve was the undisputed MVP of Stranger Things 2, and I certainly hope that anyone and everyone who watches it will feel the same way too.

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Is trick-or-treating dead?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I moved into my house, I often noticed the sheer volume of children in my subdivision.  Riding around on bicycles, and dragging their feet shuffling home after getting off of the school bus that clogs the road at 4:30 every day.  I thought to myself that, all i-hate-kids nihilism aside, that it was still a pleasing atmosphere to see, especially in contrast to the warzone that my previous home’s subdivision was devolving to.

All this said, I would have wagered money that come Halloween, my neighborhood would be a veritable hotbed for trick-or-treaters, since there were already a lot of children in the neighborhood, and that my subdivision seemed kind of tailor-made for trick-or-treating since it was relatively flat, homes moderately spaced out and looked affluent enough to attract children into thinking good candy were abundantly available.  With such in mind, my home was very well stocked for the freeloaders, with the hopes that maybe a fistful of the stuff would be left for us afterwards.

Which brings us to this morning, where I’ve got a bowl still practically overflowing with candy, and Halloween saw less than like, 30 kids coming to my door.  And we had jack-o-lanterns, fake tombstones and a decorated door with blinking lights to indicate that my home was game for the kids.

So I have to ask now, is trick-or-treating pretty much dead these days?

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Didn’t see this coming not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Shocker of the century: a Publix supermarket built in the ghetto is having crime problems

I used to pass by this place on a routine basis, but when it was still under construction.  However, the signs were up, lauding the future arrival of a brand-new Publix supermarket, and I remember thinking “they’re building a Publix, here??”

“Here” was basically in the epicenter of a very ghetto area.  The corner of Marietta and Moores Mill is an area where one cross street is a pretty substantial truck route, on a road with lots of industrial companies, flanked by several buildings enshrouded in razor wire.  I get that the side opposite Marietta from the Publix is the notorious west side that is predominantly African-American but also unfortunately mired with the most substantial crime rates, but it doesn’t absolve everything east of Marietta Blvd. from being squeaky clean and safe.

I get that the some of the backbones of gentrification are strong and prominent anchor entities like major grocery stores like Publix, but there’s always a tremendous amount of risk when it comes to being the first ones to the party, because they’re almost always the sacrificial lambs when it comes to the process of trying to improve a rough area.

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Fire Emblem Heroes gatcha fail, October 2017

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because I apparently like being in abusive relationships, yes I’m still playing Fire Emblem: Heroes on my phone.  Mostly on account of the fact that I’m kind of OCD and I tend to do the same things every day, all the time, and playing FEH is kind of one of those said things that’s kind of engrained in my everyday activities.  For the matter, I’m still playing Pokémon Go on a fairly regular basis, mostly because I don’t even bother to help it.

But in regards to FEH, I still play because I have these pointless hopes of assembling perfect teams that can run roughshod throughout the game, be it in the arena or any of their rotating challenge modes, but in order to assemble what I believe to be perfect teams, I have to get the necessary characters in order to build them, which has been about as possible as making pigs fly, yet I still keep on trying.

Or, in the case of October, there are sometimes just characters that are released that I simply want, usually because most of the time they’re sexy anime wimmins that feed into my inner-15-year old that wants to fill my roster with gold five-star sexy women characters, so that one of my set teams can be “Sexy Team.”  And the crown jewel of the October Performing Arts roster to me, was the special green-class Azura, and I really wanted to get one.

But, because FEH has worse odds than winning at a slot machine, such a want was one that was going to be something with an extremely unlikely chance of happening, but it still wasn’t going to stop me from trying.

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Everything happened I said would happen at Worlds

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

At this point, I really don’t care who wins Worlds, because regardless who wins the final best-of-five, the winner is still Korea.  I mean, I’m aware that the scenario I was hoping for was like wishing the 90’s Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan would do good each year, but it’s still never a smooth journey for the most competent of competitors year after year.  And this was supposedly the year that the rest of the world was thought to have caught up in League of Legends talent, and frankly that wasn’t wrong, it’s just that it just wasn’t enough.

But a week from now, will the finals of the 2017 League of Legends World Championship – pitting Souh Korea’s SK Telecom T1 against, South Korea’s Samsung Galaxy.  This is also a rematch of the previous year’s Worlds, and since all spectator events love to raise the importance of scenarios by stating first times for things, this is the first time that the same two teams have made it to the finals of Worlds, ever and in consecutive years much less, even in a league just seven years old.

LCK Fall Split memes, right here.

However, it’s not just the fact that it’s two Korean teams that has me all smug and arrogant, it’s also the narrative in which such a matchup came to fruition.  Worlds this year has been taking place in China, the region that has yet to hoist a championship in the seven years of competitive League, despite often being perceived as the #2 region in the world.  But don’t tell the Chinese that, because in their own opinion, they’re gods amongst mortals who can’t be touched in competitive League of Legends, except for the fact that, they’ve never won Worlds, and have almost never beaten Korean squads with very few exceptions.

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Tarnishing my Astro hopes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no secret that I’m pulling for the Houston Astros in this year’s World Series.  After all, I predicted them to go all the way long before the season got started, and when it comes to sports fans, fewer things are more gratifying than being right, so it’s exciting to me that the team I called in December actually has a legitimate shot to fulfill my prediction.

But I have to say that even if the Astros pull off the victory, it’s going to be somewhat of a tainted victory, marred by naturally, some off-the-field shenanigans that the media has snowballed into a gargantuan deal that goes viral on social media and overshadows the event in which it took place, regardless of just how good of an event the actual event is turning out to be.

Because that’s what social media does, it ruins everything.

So the Astros’ first baseman, Yuliesky Gourriel AKA Yuli Gurriel to the hordes of people who don’t actually give a shit about baseball but have heard about this unfortunate story and want to be outraged by it anyway, was caught on camera making a supposed racist gesture towards the Dodgers’ pitcher Yu Darvish, whom everyone seems to be identifying as solely Japanese despite the fact that he’s actually half Iranian.

The thing is, I saw when this happened live, because I actually like baseball and was actually watching the game when the event occurred: Gurriel hits a home run off of Darvish, and then is back in the dugout.  Because FOX loves to pan cameras back to the person of the moment, they’re repeatedly panning back on Gurriel who is now back in the dugout, smiling and laughing with all of his present teammates, ecstatic at giving the Astros a lead on the Dodgers.  The offensive moment is all of 0.5 seconds, before Gurriel is back to quaffing his doofy bouffant hair.

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