Writing when I’m not feeling writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then, I’ll hit a point where I look at my docket of written things, and feel as if I haven’t written anything in a while, and then I feel anxious because I’m OCD like that and feel like I should be writing at the very least, once a week.

However, admittedly a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’ve been feeling like the world around me is in this stagnant state where on any given point, it feels like the world’s primary topics of discussion are encapsulated in these really small capsules as of late, and it’s like the same things are discussed and rehashed 50,000 times before the next thing that should probably be taking a back seat to larger things emerges and the cycle repeats itself.

Like, for example, it seems like the only things being talked about in the world are:

  • Sexual harassment that stemmed from Harvey Weinstein
  • Gun control that stemmed from the Las Vegas shootings
  • Kneeling during the National Anthem that stemmed from Colin Kaepernick
  • Football

Despite the fact that there are vastly bigger issues in the world currently such as:

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Being right vs. the Yankees

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the Braves decided that they would suck again, I’ve often been forced to gravitate to other teams to try and derive some enjoyment out of the game.  I haven’t hidden my temporary allegiances to teams like the Royals and the Marlins, and I’ve been capable of finding some horse to root for while the Braves not-so deliberately tanked in order to clear payroll and improve draft positioning.

Prior to the start of the 2017 season, I remember seeing news about former Brave, Brian McCann getting traded to the Houston Astros from the New York Yankees.  This was a move that seemed inevitable, due to the rise of now-starting catcher Gary Sanchez, and it wasn’t so much a question of if, but when it was going to happen, and to whom it was going to be to.  My initial reactions were that Houston was kind of a non-contender (despite the fact that they had just made the playoffs), but also the irony of McCann being reunited with another former Brave teammate, Evan Gattis, yet another guy that put his job in jeopardy on a previous club.

And then not long afterward, the Astros announced that they had signed Carlos Beltran to a one-year deal.  Returning to the team where his career took off, the prodigal son had returned.  This is a guy that went off on the Braves and Cardinals in the playoffs in 2004 years before hitting free agency and bounced around the rest of the league making money.  However, the elusive championship remained a pipedream for him, as he was on the Giants on an odd-numbered year, and his closest call ended in 2013 ended with defeat in the World Series.

Regardless, I looked at the acquisition of Carlos Beltran as a perfect piece for a team like the Astros who were brimming with young talent, many of whom were Latino, and would probably benefit greatly from an accomplished Latino veteran like him.

Needless to say, I picked the Astros as my World Series favorites prior to start of the season, because I felt like the veteran leadership added with guys like Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann were the components that could really push the Astros over the top, because their pitching was already solid and practically unchanged from the years prior when they were already knocking on the door.

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The death of an era

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Pour one out soon: AOL Instant Messenger announces it will shut down permanently in December after 20 years of being the penultimate forefront of instant messaging over the internet

Honestly, I don’t think anyone is really ever going to fully understand the importance of AIM in my life, or that I am going to be legitimately sad when it logs off for good on December 15th.  And this isn’t so much of just another “something from Danny’s childhood is vanishing for good” kind of emo as much as it is a genuinely true passing on of something that was very integral to my daily living for nearly two full decades.

I still have my original screen name for when I was even still an AOL subscriber for $19.99 a month, and I logged on through their software on a 2400 baud then eventually a 33.6 kbps modem, and have been using it as recently as 2015.  Back when I originally made it, I didn’t even grasp what an ISP was, and didn’t realize internet access even existed outside of AOL.  I also remember knowing it tied up phone lines and made accessing my house over the phone nearly impossible for whenever my sister and I weren’t fighting over computer time and someone was parked at it, chatting away on the world wide web.

Through AOL did I come and go through my tremendous anime weeb phase of my life, but along the way I made lots of internet friends whom I’d shared countless hours and nights chatting away with and role-playing Ranma 1/2 characters in cleverly-named Members chat rooms.  I had like two different internet girlfriends at various points, one of whom I’d actually met in person once at an Anime Expo which was a completely different rabbit hole, but the point is, I learned it was entirely possible to meet, make and maintain real human relationships over the internet in spite of all the endless skepticisms that it was full of creepy terrible predators.

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Racist double standards, #47

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SSDD: Ex-NBA player Kenyon Martin blasts current NBA player Jeremy Lin about having dreadlocks, accuses him of “wanting to be black,” Lin rebuts with kindness but also points out Martin’s Chinese character tattoos, owning him as if slavery still existed

Another day, another double standard where a black guy cries victim of ____, but has no hesitation of taking it out on Asian guys.  Honestly, there was a time where I kind of liked Kenyon Martin; I loved those Nets teams of the 2000s with Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, and I totally pulled for them in the Finals against the Spurs where they lost in six.

Sure, there were always questions about his character, his propensity to whine and argue fouls and his perceived character based on the countless tattoos and questionable demeanor.  But he was still a really decent basketball player that was fun to watch, so I never had any problem with him, even when those Nets teams disbanded and he went off to Denver before I stopped giving any shits about the NBA in general.

But I guess I’m not surprised by him coming out on social media and blasting current-Net Jeremy Lin for having dreadlocks and accusing him of misappropriating black culture and “trying to be black.”  However, I did think of how stupid he sounded before I even read about Lin’s rebuttal, because one, he’s validating the oft-notion that black guys love to pull the race card when they feel that they’re being wronged, but have zero hesitations when it comes to putting down Asians themselves.  Two, dreadlocks do not solely belong to black culture, as I’m sure hippies of all races and colors, Jamaicans and any other Dutch or Latin cultures that utilize dreads would attest to.  And third, I astutely remember that Kenyon Martin has at least one prominent tattoo of Chinese characters, which by his logic would mean he’s misappropriating Chinese culture, thus making him a giant hypocrite.

Well, Kenyon Martin wasn’t in the NBA because of his brains; it just so happens unfortunately for him that the guy he was trading social media barbs with is also Harvard-educated on top of being on his former team.

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I don’t visit losers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was having a one-sided conversation the other night with the mythical gf about how I believe that I have a magical touch when it comes to visiting baseball parks, where teams graced by my visits are destined to get into the playoffs.  She thought it was so absurd that she refused to really listen to any of my claims, so it got the gears turning and instead it ends up becoming fodder for the brog that still has no definitive timeline to when will be back up beyond April 2014, but I still keep on writing because that’s what I do.

At the time I’m writing this, the 2017 MLB regular season has officially come to a close, and there are no tie-breakers, no game 163s or any additional games that need to be played.  The playoff field is set, and the path to the World Series is entirely in place for all ten contenders.

Among these contenders are the Arizona Diamondbacks, whom prior to the start of the season were 100/1 odds to make it to the World Series.  Sure, they’re still nine games away from the World Series, but at 100/1, that’s pretty much saying that the playoffs weren’t necessarily a believable prediction back in April, either.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are also the only team I visited throughout the 2017 season, and said game was in fact, the only regular season MLB game I attended all season (I’m a terrible fan, yes).  Yet in spite of the odds, the Diamondbacks won 93 games, and if not for the Dodgers winning 104, are in the playoffs, on a collision course with the Colorado Rockies in the dreaded winner-take-all Wild Card game. 

They could very well end up losing and being one-and-done, but the fact of the matter is that let the history books show, that the Arizona Diamondbacks made the playoffs.

That has a tendency to happen whenever I come visit your ballparks.

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I like Deshaun Watson

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Good people just get it: Texans rookie quarterback, Deshaun Watson donates his first NFL paycheck to NRG Stadium workers affected by the flooding of Hurricane Harvey

Seems fitting to talk about this since we’re on the eve of the biggest college football game of the season for me, when #12 Virginia Tech hosts #2 Clemson, where it just might be a good game, but nobody on the planet can defeat Clemson, so it’ll be the that game where Tech stumbles and falls far in the rankings before dropping out outright by season’s end.

But in spite of my general disdain for Clemson, and how they have owned Virginia Tech for the last five years, I have to confess that I’m a Deshaun Watson fan.

At first, I hated the guy for being so good and just so far beyond everyone else on the field, and thanks to his talent, Clemson’s success never wavered while he was at the helm.  I rooted for any team to beat him; NC State, Boston College, Auburn, Alabama, and even teams that I really don’t care for, like Georgia Tech and even fucking Florida State.  But that’s just how much I wanted to see Clemson knocked down, because if they didn’t take some losses, they were always a threat to the National Championship, and they were about the last team I wanted to see winning one.

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Giving new meaning to being a Marty Jannetty

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

News to me: Marty Jannetty wants to bang his supposed daughter

As if life weren’t bad enough being Marty Jannetty, the wrestling failure buried six feet under in contrast to his former Rockers partner Shawn Michaels, who became one of the most successful and decorated wrestlers in the history of the industry, now he has to emerge from the shadows of nostalgia with news that he wants to bang his daughter.

Up until this news, “being the Marty Jannetty” was a euphemism of being the weak link in a team, and applied to situations not just related to wrestling, but any scenario where one team member was as unskilled as the other(s) were talented.  But I think with this uncomfortable revelation, being a Marty Jannetty kind of has a new and unpleasant meaning.

In all fairness, an alleged DNA test that Jannetty claims to have happened revealed that he and his so-called daughter are not biologically related, but prior to that discovery, the relationship between them was that of a man trying to establish a relationship with an estranged daughter; except somewhere along the way, romantic feelings emerged between them, and whether or not they’re actually related, there exists some incestuous urges between one or both of them.

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