#TRYHARDSZN2025: We’ve finally got some Ivies

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ABC30: Fresno teen accepted into 15 different schools, including four Ivy League schools

This story is really succinct and lacks a tremendous amount of context, and I can’t seem to find any more information on it, but whatever.  I’ve got our first Ivy League #TRYHARD, as he didn’t get into all of the Ivies like some of the most mega of #TRYHARDs do, but still getting into four of them is still warranting of #TRYHARD status.

Most importantly, he got into Harvard and Yale, which coming from the child of Asian parents, it doesn’t matter if there are actually schools out there better than either of these, Harvard and Yale are the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to college educations, and seeing as how this #TRYHARD is Hispanic, I don’t imagine his parents’ perceptions of college is probably that far off from immigrant Asians.

Overall, 15 schools doesn’t sound like he was trying hard enough, in comparison to the #TRYHARDs he’s unknowingly going up against in the arena of my brog, but since he’s not black, that clearly wipes out all the HBCUs, despite the fact that non-black students can attend them from what I understand.

Additionally, no context of scholarship dollars were mentioned, but I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise considering this one is dealing with Ivy League schools, whom seem to probably think adequate compensation is simply being allowed entry onto their lily white grounds, and that if this #TRYHARD actually wants to attend Harvard or Yale, better be prepared to pony up the $65K a be able to attend, although I heard that Harvard is offering free education to those who can get in, if their family doesn’t make a certain amount.

Either way, I got nothing else, because the story of this #TRYHARD is short and straight to the point of glamorizing the fact that he got into multiple Ivies.  He’ll still be easily defeated by the inevitable kid who will have been accepted into all the Ivies, but for now I’m just glad to find a #TRYHARD to be from outside of Georgia as well as have some Ivy League schools on his resume.

If my life were different, I would live above a Costco in about two months ago

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Better late than never: ground broken in south Los Angeles for a Costco that will have 800~ apartment units above it

I saw this query on my theFacebook feed about if people were willing to live above a Costco should there be a Costco that had residences above one, and my knee-jerk reaction was pffh, absofuckinglutely I would live above a Costco if my life were different, and I didn’t have a wife and kids.

I could only imagine how much money I’d save if I did, knowing that at any given meal of any given day of any given week of any given year, if I were hungry and didn’t want to think about it, I was a literal hop skip and a jump from going downstairs into Costco, and grabbing a hot dog and soda I probably wouldn’t even drink or swap it for water, for a buck-fifty. 

That’s $4.50+tax a day for a food budget, and extrapolate that of the course of a year, and I’m spending like $7K a year on food.  Sure, undoubtedly I wouldn’t be eating a glizzy and soda for every single meal in a year, but that’s still a tremendous savings from what my general food budget is now in comparison, not even factoring in the kids and everyone else I have to carry.

Or I could alternatively meander downstairs, grab a $5 rotisserie chicken and probably fill up a series of cookbooks of all the different things I would do to the meat in order to mix things up, but that might also jeopardize by $7K annual food budget but maybe not if I’m getting multiple meals out of a $5 chicken.

Or, I could be the ultimate shithead and just wander downstairs, pretend to be shopping but really going around and being one of the degenerates who just wants to snag as many free samples as I could, and try to fill up best on free shit, and call it a meal.

Either way, I really don’t see any drawback at all to living above a Costco, other than maybe automotive traffic issues when at their peak times, unless there’s a separated residential means to get in and out of the complex.  Also, cholesterol, if I planned on having the bulk of my meals being hot dog+soda, but human bodies can adapt, and I’m sure someone like me who has the innate ability to never get sick of things would rewire my body do solder through.

I like how a membership is included with the lease agreement, as if a $79 annual fee is really that huge of a benefit when you’re most likely going to be paying like $2100 a month since it is in the greater Los Angeles area.  It’s the equivalent of when Costcos try to sweeten the membership by throwing in a free chicken.  Small, but amusingly meaningful.

Honestly, when the day comes that I become an empty nester, I wouldn’t turn my back on the idea of living above a Costco.  I think it would be pretty incredible to have that kind of convenience just downstairs, but I guess it really depends on how much the cost of living is get into one of these units, and if these things will ultimately begin to migrate to other parts of the country and world.

But to answer the original query, emphatic yes, I would live in an apartment on top of a Costco, without any hesitation.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: the Hispanic goalie.. in hockey

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NJ.com: New Jersey teen accepted into 23 schools, amassing around $1.5M in scholarships

Finally, I’ve got our first #TRYHARD from outside the State of Georgia, and it does seem a like an interesting case.  The sheer number of schools this #TRYHARD got into kind of pales in comparison to all of the seasoned Georgia #TRYHARDs that I’ve documented so far, but notching $1.5M out of 23 schools is definitely a higher cumulative per-school average than everyone else thus far, at $65,217.  For context, there was a #TRYHARD or two in Georgia who hit the $1.5M marks, but they were also requiring upwards of 50+ schools in order to do so.

Interestingly, this article actually gives a little more context than any of the previously covered #TRYHARDs, in terms of some examples of why they’re qualified to be a #TRYHARD, as well as some factual numbers and names, as far as some of the scholarships are concerned.

$180K to go to Syracuse seems pretty impressive sounding, but I also have to remind myself that this isn’t 1998 when my sister went off to college there, and the cost of tuition has gone up considerably over the last 28 years.  If I had to guess, $180K probably covers a year, maybe three semesters, tops, and probably doesn’t include room, board, food and all the other incidental expenses that comes with attending college away from home.

Our boy is most undoubtedly looking for a free ride outright, as most of #TRYHARDs are, but if I had to guess, he might have to lower his bar in order to do so.  Considering he’s claimed to want to stay in the greater New York area, one of the fifty different SUNYs seem like a more likely destination for him.

But it’s not to say that he doesn’t bring something to the table; aside from the grades, the accolades and extracurriculars, the thing that stands out to me the most is the fact that we have here a kid of obvious Hispanic descent, but he’s a hockey player, and is actually the goalie for his school, and helped win a division championship.

I admit I don’t follow a tremendous amount of hockey, but I don’t imagine it’s changed that much over the last few years of being pretty much the least diverse sport on the planet when it comes to being rostered by players that aren’t white.  I have to imagine this factoid alone should be more than sufficient for a school to want to kill multiple diversity birds with a single stone by accepting a Latino kid who has great grades, lots of honors, and is a hockey goalie on top of it.

But then again, seeing as how the country has declared war on the letters D, E, and I, maybe some schools are afraid of being too openly accepting of DEI initiatives and will cool on a kid like this.

Either way, hooray for the first #TRYHARD from outside of Georgia.  He brings an impressive resume to the table, but he clearly lacks in the bragging game, and racks the aspirations to aim for a school in every single fucking state.  I do give him credit for being a Hispanic goalie in hockey, but when the day is over, this #TRYHARD didn’t try hard enough to out-do the other #TRYHARDs that are inevitably going to continue to emerge this #SZN.

Man, it’s great to have baseball back

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ain’t nothing to bring us back to the joys of baseball being back in season than a team trotting out a position player to pitch in a blowout game.  On Opening Day.  Against the Chicago White Sox, fresh off of their historic record-setting 121-loss season.

I know the Braves dropped their season opener out in San Diego, but the Padres are actually a good team, and the Braves could just as easily come back to Atlanta 6-1 or 1-6 seeing as how they have the Padres and Dodgers back-to-back to start the year.

But the Angels, a team whom in spite of having lost Shohei Ohtani, still have Mike Trout finally healthy on the team, and should be better than the Chicago White Sox whom really made no attempt to compete, once again.

It’s going to be a long season for both these teams.  And it’s going to be a long season for the Braves too, because 162 games a season plus potential playoffs means a whole lot of fuckin baseball!

Really though, despite the fact that I have no real intention of watching, well, any games, I’m feeling optimistic about the Braves this season.  As long as they can remain healthy, then I think they have the chance to be a noticeably better squad this year than the one prior where they limped into the playoffs and were bounced unceremoniously.  Despite my general dissatisfaction with their typical Braves-ey lack of movement in the offseason, I do like the acquisition of Jurickson Profar, and although they’re no blockbusters, I like them getting guys like Craig Kimbrel and Alex Verdugo for depth.

Either way, short of some comical fuckups and occurrences, I wouldn’t expect much baseball talk in the brog.  I find that I’m most happiest when I’m not really paying attention to the game these days beyond a cursory glance from time to time.  I still love it, I just have so no time in my life to dedicate to it as I once did, and feel that it’s expendable in the grand spectrum of my day to day.

I still hear about the high level points without any effort, and when the day is over, it’s the dumb silly stuff like position players pitching and other goofy anomalies that I tend to enjoy writing about.

Happy Opening Day!

The expansions of Erris Irand wounds my soul

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look, I know and understand that the point of any business is to grow, improve, and make money.  And I genuinely am happy for ellis island • casino • hotel • brewery for continuing to grow, presumably making more money and gaining success and foothold in the crowded Las Vegas ecosphere, but this is definitely one of those old man, it’s straying away from the charming little shithole I once knew and loved things going on, and every time I check in with what I endearingly have always referred to Erris Irand, things continue to change and stray further and further away from Erris Irand and becoming a more, miniaturized little posh typical Vegas casino with less and less character and personality with each change.

It recently came to my attention that Erris Irand is embarking on another round of upgrades, and although I’m amused that they along with other businesses I remember fondly like Battista’s are suing the shit out of F1 for wrecking shop in the city I used to once really really love, and went to at least 2-3 times a year, it adds to the melancholy mood of things changing yet again, furthering it from the specific place that I would say that nobody loved more than my big orange brother and I did.

The photos they used was deceptive in making it look like there was the possibility of upward expansion, as in building a tower on top of the existing structure, but that’s just a silhouette of the hotel behind them that I frankly don’t remember what it was called or is called now.  But that’s the only real relief I get is knowing that they’re not going to (yet) turn into some posh, metrosexual named joint, much like Imperiar Parace and Bill’s and O’Shea have all done over the last decade or so.

And although the proposed upgrades are all purposeful, and will undoubtedly help boost business, revenue and general success for the business as a whole, it’s just so, so far gone past the little locals shithole that I first really discovered back in like 2006, that it wounds me in the soul to see just how much things have changed throughout the passage of time.

Like, when I first stepped into the place, the floors were hard oiled concrete, decades of cigarette ash, spilled booze and the dreams of degenerate gamblers ground into them by the footsteps of ornery locals, adventurous travelers and, degenerate gamblers.  The sirloin special was $6.99 and came with a $5 match play coupon for table games.  Metro Pizza was buy one get one on Sundays, applicable to a single slice or an entire pie.  Their excellent house beer was a dollar a pint, if you weren’t actively gambling, and that’s if the cougar-ey bartender even bothered to take it.  There were only a handful of table games, roulette was almost never going, and they barely had enough room for a half craps table, where there’s nowhere in the city where I fared better at, earning so much in one session that I was able to get a brand new replica wrestling blet.

For years, there wasn’t a single trip to Vegas without at least one trip to Erris Irand, where I ate well, gambled well, drank well, and spent many great hours with my brother and whichever of my friends could lower their noses to realize the charm of what Erris Irand was and represented.

Frankly, I’m the only person I know that has actually stayed in the attached Sleazy Super 8 motel, twice in fact, and I have no regrets in doing such.  From what I understand, it’s now not even a Super 8 brand, and is actually branded to the casino itself.

But as is the case, no good things truly last forever, and perception is the eye of the beholder, and as much as good is what the business perceived, the change was not good to me, but like I said, I understand the business aspect, and growth and expansion and change is inevitable in successful operations, and such was the case with Erris Irand.

The BBQ restaurant grew and blew up, the sportsbook turned into a respectable setup that wasn’t just a bunch of 19” screens inside of basically cubicles.  The brewery was opened up to the public, and more tables and more slots entered the establishment.  The floors were eventually cleaned and refinished and tiled, and the dim smoky ceiling lights were replaced with actual bright and welcoming lighting.

My last time at Erris Irand wasn’t that long ago, and after a few trips where mythical wife and my friends had no interest in going, I was by myself on this trip, and I literally took an Uber directly from McCarran to Erris Irand, because nothing was going to stop me from visiting my old friend on this trip.

And it was a surreal experience walking into the side entrance, where everything was different, the air didn’t reek as much of smoke.  The bathrooms were all posh and even had branded wallpaper and backdrops, inviting people to take selfies and be shitty millennials and shitty Gen-Z’ers.  The restaurant was without all the framed artwork of warships and pirate ships and infernos, and I had to wait an inconvenient amount of time for a shift change to occur despite the restaurant being kind of empty.

The sirloin special was still unlisted and available, but it was apparent that the kitchen isn’t used to making these as they once did, as my steak came out overcooked, but not inedible, but the magic wasn’t really there this time around.  The table limits were still fortunately lower than the rest of the Strip, but I didn’t have the time on this trip to come back despite the fact that I really wanted to, with my friend who had just gotten hitched by Elvis.

But now we’re deviating even further from that, with the next wave of expansions to implement rooftop access, so people can presumably look at the Total Rewards Group’s parking lot and training facility, unless there’s plans for something to take up the giant concrete lot between Koval and Audrie, for Erris Irand visitors to stare at being constructed over the next few years alternatively.

Like I said, a lot of old man things changing rambling going on here, so I’m going to stop here before I continue to write in circles like I tend to do sometimes about the things I’m passionate about.  I won’t not go to Erris Irand the next time my travels actually take me out to Vegas again, but honestly I’m kind of over the city as a whole lately, and I just don’t have the disposable funds available to finance the gambling I’d like to do, so it might be a while, but I imagine it’ll be yet another surreal experience of seeing just how much the place has changed. 

Here’s hoping they’ll still have the sirloin special and the best hefeweizen when that time comes, and that I don’t go broke in an hour like the rest of the Strip’s casinos had done to me my last time out there.

#TRYHARDSZN2025: Good effort, but not enough trying hard

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

11AliveOnMySide: Fairburn, Georgia teen accepted into 53 colleges with $1.5M in scholarships earned

After writing about the chica that notched 155 acceptances and $6M in scholarships, #TRYHARDs like this one just seem so pale in comparison to write about.  Which really sucks for them, because being a student with a 4.0 GPA and hoovering up 50+ college acceptances really is something to be proud of, but I guess this is what happens when #TRYHARD culture has become the thing it’s become, and gives a glimpse to why #TRYHARDs #TRYHARD.

As important as education is, to those in the #TRYHARDing game, attention and notoriety seems to matter just a little bit more.  What with all the insufferable humblebragging, the photoshoots and general look-at-me behavior by all those that #TRYHARD, it’s apparent that the actual education at the end of the journey is secondary to the two seconds of internet notoriety that comes with being the best of the best when it comes to #TRYHARDing and accumulating as many college acceptances as possible while more than likely, not having to pay a cent in application fees.

Which is a shame, because a lot of the stories of the people who become #TRYHARDs are really fascinating and inspiring up until the point where they decide to do what they do because they want the attention.  Like this one chica from close to where I used to live, which was a pretty desolate wasteland back then, and is seemingly worse now, has still managed to emerge from the muck and be a student with a 4.0 GPA, volleyball player, and somehow has the tenacity to be working two jobs, really is the embodiment of hard work.

But at some point in her journey, it was decided to become a #TRYHARD, and the question becomes if the grades, the extracurriculars, and the jobs, are they for the purpose of building character and necessity, or are they the purpose for padding a personal resume to feed into the next stage of life to where additional #TRYHARDing is all that life is going to be until they’re anonymous adults who hate their lives and wonder what their formative teenage years went.

I can’t remember who said it between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but one of them had a story about when they were young and in high school, and they were being touted as future megastars and can’t-miss prospects, they were reminded that as great as they think they were, inevitably there would always be someone out there who was working harder, and was probably better than you were.  And as inevitable as greatness finding greatness is, Bird and Magic eventually encountered each other at the college ranks, a rivalry was born, carrying into the NBA, and the debate still lives on whom of the two was the better player.

And as impressive as 53 and $1.5M should be, in the grand spectrum of things, just up the street from where this #TRYHARD was doing her thing, she probably wasn’t aware of a queen bee #TRYHARDingn way harder than she was en route to her 155 and $6M.  And there is no debate on whom of the two was the bigger #TRYHARD.

As I said before, it’s going to be a real hard act to follow, and I almost don’t want to waste my time writing about lesser #TRYHARDs unless a real noteworthy #TRYHARD comes along, but we’ll see how time permits in the coming months of #TRYHARDSZN2025.

So many easy jokes about the Mariners repping Nintendo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

LL: Seattle Mariners agree to wear Nintendo Switch 2 patch for the 2025 MLB season

I don’t care enough to dig deep into the finer details, but Nintendo doesn’t own the Mariners like they once did, but they have enough pull with the baseball organization to ensure that throughout the 2025 baseball season, the Mariners will have a sponsorship patch on their away uniforms for the Nintendo Switch 2.  Their home whites will have a regular old Nintendo word mark logo on those alternatively.

Regardless, the jokes write themselves about a company like Nintendo being the uniform sponsor for a baseball organization like the Mariners, because in more ways than one, they operate in similar manners.  Now such could be as the result of the once ownership and the influence Nintendo clearly still has within the Seattle Mariners organization, or maybe they really are two peas in a pod in how their business philosophies are concerned, but the fact of the matter is that there really is a lot in common between both companies.

Nintendo is notoriously Japanese, as in that they are more than happy to operate in a completely risk-averse, efficient manner that prioritizes a zero-waste mentality.  For example, despite the fact that a billion people on the planet wanted the Wii when it first came out, they were all like ehhhh, let’s make just 20 million units, can’t possibly risk there being some false demand and us being stuck with extra units and being forced to sell at a discount.  And for the next several years, nobody could get their hands on one, and they were selling on the resale market at insane markups, and by the time demand was truly fulfilled, the Wii 2 was knocking on the door, and the process kind of repeated itself. The point is, Nintendo prioritizes efficiency and avoiding all risk over possibly making consumers happy and meeting demand a lot closer in which they operate to this day. 

And the Mariners are kind of the same way, because they just, always kind of suck as an MLB franchise, and no matter how much the market changes, how much talent they luck into from their system, and the availability of free agents throughout the years, the organization just somehow manages to always suck at winning baseball games, and much like Nintendo, letting consumers down by taking no risks, avoiding any possibility of dead money by signing no free agents, and routinely letting their fans down on a yearly basis.

It’s funny, because I actually wrote about the Mariners not too long ago and how it’s pretty incredible how much they’ve sucked historically.  Because this is an organization that has had the likes of Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Alex Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez and a prime Robinson Cano, and in some cases, an overlap of some of these talents. Yet they never won anything, beyond the magical 2001 season where they won 116 games, before crashing out unceremoniously in the playoffs to the Yankees.  They rarely saw the playoffs, didn’t do much once they got there, and no matter the talent that has been on the squad, they just, well suck.

Just recently, the Mariners successfully signed their catcher Cal Raleigh, to an insanely team-friendly deal, six years at just $105M.  The guy is an average 4 WAR player, not even hitting his prime, and could easily have been worth double of this, in just a few years.  But he clearly likes something in Seattle and has agreed to stay there, but the real question is if the Nintendo Mariners will actually do something with this centerpiece, or if it will just be more of the same, operating like Nintendo, where they will only produce the absolute bare minimum in order to be relevant, but absolutely nothing more in order to even attempt to be anything but afloat.

It’s really a chicken and egg situation on whether the Seattle Mariners are operating like Nintendo, or if Nintendo is operating like the Seattle Mariners; but if I’m a betting man, I’d say the former, but either way, neither is a particularly enviable position to be in, because jaded video gamers all resent Nintendo for their Nintendo-ey business practices, and Mariners fans all resent the Mariners for simply never really trying, so ultimately, this sponsorship marriage seems to be a very fitting fit for both parties involved.