Tag: comparison

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Student Loans vs. Walmart U?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

😊: Bentonville teenager accepted into numerous prestigious schools, among them multiple Ivy League schools and . . . Georgia Tech

Shoutout to this kid who decided to flash his Georgia Tech acceptance letter in the same photograph with Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Berkeley and Stanford.  He must really think highly of their robotics program, or perhaps he’s a thrill-seeker wanting to go to a school where students are allowed to concealed carry.

Aside from the obvious clowning about Georgia Tech, this kid really is among the higher-tier TRYHARDs of the SZN, having notched five of the eight Ivies, and it seems pretty clear that Brown and Dartmouth are the Ivies that people either forget and/or don’t care about, because of all these TRYHARD stories that I’ve been trying to track this SZN, those are often the two that are omitted with these kids.  Or maybe Harvard is trying to outreach and not be so staunch, while Brown, Dartmouth and seemingly Yale want to keep their velvet ropes up intact and do as much curating as possible.

Either way, what drew my attention was the fact that this particular TRYHARD being from Bentonville, Arkansas, to which I would guess most people might be aware, is known for being the home and headquarters to one of the biggest capitalistic cancers in history, Walmart.

Which begs the question of what if this bright young man were to forego the pursuit of college, and be one of those guys that just got his foot in the door young to a literal Fortune #1-caliber company like Walmart and just began applying himself into the corporate grind.

As unsexy as it might seem, there are countless stories of people who enter large corporations at the ground level, and through almost no other means than longevity, eventually begin climbing up the corporate ladder, and by the time their peers have graduated college with avalanches of student debts, they’re sitting in management with a very high ceiling still left to achieve, and ultimately end up being the stiffs in suits that make six figures and live in Microsoft Office all day long, when they’re not delegating.

I’m curious if a kid as bright as this TRYHARD were to just forget school, and put his brain into the Walmart machine instead, if he would ultimately have a more lucrative career in the long run, instead of becoming a cog in any Ivy League school or Georgia Tech, and falling into student debt, bad habits and academic rat racing.  I don’t know what this kid’s specialty is, but perhaps being as bright as he is, he doesn’t have to slave away at the store level first, and can get into corporate early, and work on technology, POS or other technological ways to part their shoppers from their money.

But then again, this kid is either Indian or Pakistani, and living in a hicktown like Bentonville, Arkansas, I get why he probably wants to get the fuck out.  Forget everything I said about considering Walmart U over Harvard or Stanford.  Good for you kid, for being smart enough to light the path out of Arkansas; hopefully you’re smart enough to not pick Georgia Tech over those fancy Ivy League schools.

Let’s talk about the WWE’s new tag blets

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In one of those I should’ve seen it coming but I didn’t, the WWE has recently redesigned and unveiled new tag team championship blet designs.  Over the last few years, almost all the blets have been systematically been redesigned from top to bottom, except for the tag blets, which were still red for RAW and blue for Smackdown. 

Blets being in the middle of a reign didn’t seem to matter for when to unveil new designs, as Roman Reigns, Asuka and Rhea Ripley all received the new versions of the blets that they had held, but for whatever reasons, the Usos having the combined tag team championships on lockdown didn’t warrant swapping of those designs, but seeing as they were broken up and sent off to different shows seemed as good as time as any for the E to finally unveil new titles.

When the new World Tag Team Championships were unveiled on RAW, one I was happy for the Miz and R-Truth, two WWE lifers who are the consummate pros who do anything and everything they are asked for, do it well, and always manage to get absolutely anything over.  But two, my knee-jerk reaction to these blets were that I was relieved to see that they were finally gold blets again, seeing as how fewer things made the tag titles feel lesser-tier over the last 10+ years than the fact that they were bronze and then silver plates.

The shade of gold, amount of flourish and the weird griffin chimaera creatures made me think that this perhaps could’ve been a previous version or option of the World Heavyweight championship blet that ultimately ended up looking like a spin-off of the old WCW big gold blet in terms of its general shape and composition.

But overall, I do really like the new World Tag Team blets, except for one thing – the font they used on it.  Not digging the spiky, Glaive-like typeface they used, and it looks like they’re trying to be a 2005 RAW graphic package with it.  Furthermore, the type is just too fucking large, and much like my general aesthetic preference when it comes to clothing, I think when apparel requires too much text to explain it, then it’s design that is not optimal.

If the fonts were smaller, I could overlook the undesirable typeface selection, but overall, I’m pleased with the way the new World tag blets look.  Not sure if I’d want to own one, but typically a really good discount has gotten me possession of other blets I’ve felt similarly about.

Obviously, once RAW had unveiled new tag blets, among the first thoughts I had was pondering what Smackdown was going to do, because it was obvious that they were going to get a redesign as well.  But the question was, was it going to be carbon copies of the RAW titles, but with blue paint behind the globe and type?  Or was it going to be something completely independent?

Fortunately, the answer was just days away, when Smackdown unveiled the WWE Tag Team championships, with blets that looked completely different from their RAW counterparts.  Immediately, my eyes noticed the familiar shape of the center plate, which was an obvious throwback to older tag team blet designs, that had what I like to jokingly call the nutsack shape, because for whatever reason, the bottom has two bulges like a pair of testicles.

Regardless of the homoerotic comparison, my knee-jerk reaction was still positive.  I liked that it was a completely different design, and this will prevent any future embarrassing title swaps in future draft storylines.  It’s general design is much more muted and subdued than the World tag blets with its design being more etched and not molded.  In doing so, it does look like a cheaper blet in comparison, but as far as design goes, it’s a preferable design over its counterpart.

The font treatment is much more subdued and exactly how I prefer it, and the throwback shape of it is pretty much all that it needs to have to be the preferable of blets between the two.

What it all boils down to is if I had to pick one, which would I go with, and that would be the Smackdown WWE Tag Team blets.  The homage to the classic design is fantastic, and even though the World is the more detailed and nicer looking blet, the font is a turn-off for me

Either way, I’m glad to see that the E has redesigned both, because in the future when the tag blets are used as a prop or a means to reward two mildly over singles guys, at least they’ll look good holding some actual gold straps instead of silver-plated toy-looking blets.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Oh the humblebragging

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Salsa: 17-year old Southern California girl accepted into 15 universities, among them a free ride to Harvard

As the title to this post might indicate, this #TRYHARD doesn’t hesitate to throw a little bit of shade while simultaneously humblebragging about her achievement-worthy number of acceptances into many well-reputable schools.  However, unlike a lot of tryhards out there, this one actually acknowledges the fact that she had taken a few L’s in the sense that she had been waitlisted and rejected by some schools:

I didn’t think I was going to get into any of the top colleges because I had been waitlisted and rejected a couple days before and also day of,” Figueroa said. “So, I was like, there’s no way I could get into Harvard or anything like that.”

Naturally, quotes like this are brought to you by the fact that not only did she get accepted into Harvard, but she also managed to secure a free ride as well.  Considering her mind-bending 4.7 GPA and her extracurriculars, it shouldn’t be surprising that she got in, but getting a free ride is an impressive feat in itself. 

Sometimes I think Harvard dangles free rides to kids further away, with the hopes that they don’t take the bait, and they the school can still try to use it as a leverage play with donors, boosters and those who hold the purse strings to cry poor, that kids aren’t taking free rides anymore because they presumably not offering up enough incentive to get kids to pick fucking Harvard among other schools in the nation.

What I am a little curious about is what schools did turn her down, considering that aside from Harvard, some of the other schools she did get into were Brown and Columbia, two other Ivies, as well as Stanford, Duke and Berkeley and a whole bunch of Cali-based safety schools which obviously she won’t be going to.  It would be funny if it were schools like Georgia Tech or USC or Oregon State that rejected her.

But the obnoxious thing about this particular #TRYHARD is how insufferably wishy-washy she’s trying to sound, pretending like she’s deliberating where she’s going to pick, as if she were LeBron James or some highly-touted high school football recruit grandstanding some selection day show for where they want to go to school:

I didn’t think I was going to get into Harvard so my dream school was Columbia and I honestly think I’m preferring Harvard now, so I think I might go there instead,”

It’s like bitch please, not only did you get into Harvard, you got a free ride; we all know what the answer is going to be, especially if Columbia or Stanford isn’t giving you a free ride so just shut the fuck up and stop humblebragging, because it’s coming off as insufferable and obnoxious.

If there’s one thing that remains consistent between the different tiers of #TRYHARDS, it’s that being tryhards always equates into being entitled to being obnoxiously humblebraggy about their accomplishments, to the degree where it seems like that’s solely the reason why they applied to so many goddamn schools in the first place.

It’s my birthday, where’s my free shit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If you’re one of my zero readers and have known me for while, you probably know that I don’t make much of a deal of my birthday at all.  The lower the expectations I have for them, the less I can be disappointed if they’re not met, so I typically try to treat them like any other day of the year, except people typically try to be a little bit nicer to me.

However, the one area in which I do have expectations are the litany of companies in which I have accounts with, or they at least have my email address in exchange for offers, news and occasional free shit; when my birthday rolls around, yeah, I am expecting some free shit, in the realm of some free and/or discounted food.  Even if everyone I know makes me feel inconsequential and invisible on my own birthday, I can still usually take solace in the fact that I can wander off and get a free meal or cobble together some free food from all the places where I’ve willingly volunteered some personal information with.

That is until this year, where it seems like everywhere where I’d hoped to have gotten any sort of offers from, have been circling the wagons and playing defense with free birthday shit.  This isn’t to say that nobody’s giving away anything, it’s just the shit that has been offered, if anything at all, have been way less impressive than in previous years, and at this point, it doesn’t appear that I’m going to be able to fill my stomach on free food, unless I want to go into a diabetic coma afterward.

A few years ago, my favorite burrito joint in the city used to straight up offer up a free burrito on my birthday, one that I always went out of my way to cash in, because fuck who am I to turn down a free Willy’s burrito?  A year ago, it was a 50% off burrito, which I still redeemed, because fuck who am I to turn down a discounted Willy’s burrito?  However, this year, at the 11th hour I might add, the email finally comes with this year’s offer, and it’s for but just a free side guacamole or side queso, and I’m like wtf.  Chips are inconsequential when it comes to my desired burrito meal, and this year there’s no burrito at all attached to the offer.  Pass

Other restaurants where I frequent enough to have apps on my phone, because I embarrassingly order from them frequent enough to warrant it, all I’m getting are offers for free desserts.  I mean, I have a ridiculously high status with Chick Fil-A, and they’ve yet to give me fucking anything at all, and I’m wondering if they’re going to spring something up on my actual birthday, as if I weren’t trying to plot out my day to maximize how much free shit I can redeem.

You know it’s bad when Starbucks is the only company to offer up something of decent value, which is the customary free drink, no strings except that it can only be redeemed on the actual birthday instead of the week, or the month of, as it used to be in the past.  Of course I’m going to redeem this one, seeing as how this year I have the luxury of my birthday falling on my work from home day, so there is even the remote possibility I might be able to chill at a Starbucks to enjoy my free drink while working remotely.

Otherwise, all the other companies in which I’d hoped there would’ve been free shit, all fucking fail.  I don’t ask for a lot in my life, and I don’t have a tremendous want for any material things.  All I really want on my birthday is some free food and not get aggravated too much, because anything else is mostly unreasonable and likely to not happen and disappoint me, and I don’t want to be disappointed on my birthday, no matter how much I try to tell myself to treat it like any other day.

F for all the companies that I generally pour my money into that won’t give me anything substantial on my birthday.  You’re all disappointments with your stinginess.

How to fix the wage gap

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Among one of my group chats, the topic of wage inequality came up again, starting with the embarrassingly low salaries of WNBA players.  Basically despite being the female equivalent of Steph Curry, the #1 draft pick of the WNBA draft, Caitlin Clark, she who led Iowa into prominence and caught the imagination of hoops fans across the country, will basically be making a paltry $75,000, or something close to that, in her first season in the WNBA. 

It’s not often that I can say it, but I make more money than the WNBA salary, and I am not a professional athlete.

To put it in perspective, I’ve been doing a lot of daily research on history, in an attempt to simply enlighten myself with useless knowledge, but one of the things that I like to do is when I come across financial figures from various points in time, I like to punch in the numbers to compare to how the dollar amounts translate with today’s inflation.

Like for example, Alaska was purchased for $7.2 million dollars in 1867, and $7.2 million in today’s dollars would be like $155M or somewhere close.  And then off the top of my head, I could rattle off several baseball players who are on contracts for double that amount or more, putting into further perspective just how overpaid professional athletes not in the WNBA are.

Ford lit the world on fire in the 1914 when they instituted a $5 daily wage; I’m not sure how accurate internet inflation calendars really are, but basically that breaks down to a $19 an hour minimum wage, yet somehow across the country, less than half of that is still considered the federal minimum.

For about a minute, we pondered on what the world would be like if even the most menial jobs making minimum wage, were still paying $19-21 an hour.  People would be grossing $3K+ a month if they could notch full-time hours, and that’s definitely closer to being able to survive in the world than where we are now.

Then came the rhetorical pondering of how fucked up it is that there’s such an inequity in wages in the world; leading me to snarkily blurt out that with wages like these, American employers might as well reinstitute indentured servitude, because if you’re going to treat people like slaves, might as well give them a roof over their heads and three square meals a day for the exploitation.

And then it dawned on me that if rich white people were forced to shelter and feed and give rudimentary human consideration to people, they would ultimately favor paying them more to keep the poors away from them, and right here, we’ve just fixed the wage gap.

I would absolutely want to tune in and watch, some politician in a suit, march into Congress or the Senate or the House or whichever place in Washington DC where white people argue over the state of the country, and with a completely straight face, propose reinstituting indentured servitude.  Obviously, don’t tell them why it’s being suggested, but I would wager that the intended result would undoubtedly happen, because as much as rich white people love turning the screws to poor people, the hate being around poor people.

If they were put into a position to where they not only had to be near them, but actually had to cohabitate with them, then there’s no telling just how fast they would agree to up wages across the board just to prevent such a ludicrous idea from even come remotely close to becoming reality.

And just like that, I’ve figured out how to close the wage gap up, real fast.  As the ancient Egyptians once paraphrased, slavery – it gets shit done.  But in this case, it’s indentured servitude, but it really is close enough to where the point remains.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: I wonder what question he got wrong on his SATs?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Four countries: Vietnamese student has been admitted to numerous schools spanning four different countries, including “several in the U.S.”

Instead of flexing a large number of acceptances like American #TRYHARDs do, this Vietnamese #TRYHARD has gotten into the habit of flexing the number of countries in which he’s gotten acceptances from; I have to say that that’s kind of the level of overachieving that can only be done by an Asian person.

The article cites that he’s gotten acceptances from schools in the U.S., Canada, England, as well as his residence in Singapore; off the top of my head, I’m inclined to think that this cream of his crop is probably the acceptance into Cambridge, because the article doesn’t mention that he got into any of the Ivy Leagues, which is typically the dream goal of any Asian #TRYHARD.

In fact, the only American school that was mentioned in this particular article was none other than Georgia Tech, to which I know I clown on because of ACC sport rivalry, is still a great school in general, but especially for computer science, which this particular #TRYHARD seems to have an endless hard-on for.

But the thing is, if Georgia Tech is the only American school that was mentioned here, I’m inclined to believe that the rest of the “several” U.S. schools in which he gained admittance into probably aren’t going to be any higher tier than GT.

I get that computer science appears to be his jam, passion and at the core of whatever he does with his career, but when it comes to college, perception is still reality, and when he finishes school and gets out into the real world, I feel like recruiters and employers are going to be more likely to stop and hesitate to take a glance at a candidate with Cambridge on his resume over a fairly niche school like Georgia Tech.

Either way, I have to say that I was quite tickled at the fact that this one kid got a 1590/1600 on his SATs; which means he missed one question on the entire exam, that prevented him from getting that perfect score that would definitely have gotten him noticed by pretty much every school he applied to.  His dad probably is full of disappointment, and at this point, he probably feels like it’s worse to get 1590 and fall just short of perfection, than to have gotten like a 1310 like I did, and just be slightly above average in terms of scoring.

To think, it’s probably that one question that separated his one kid from the Ivy Leagues and Georgia Tech.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Tryharding out of boredom

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sauce: St. Louis #TRYHARD accepted into 40 different schools

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is probably one of the weaker #TRYHARDs of the season, since of all this one’s 40 acceptances, there are no notables named, and from the cherry-picked humblebrag screen shots of her holding acceptances, none of the schools that I can see are particularly anything to ring home about.

Plus, no academic merits were listed anywhere in the article, which means that this kid didn’t have a brag-worthy SAT score, ACT score, GPA, AP class regimen or already begun amassing college credits.  But hey, she can wrestle and is a part of the step team!

Naturally the weakness of a #TRYHARD usually resorts to the cumulative amount of scholarship dollars they’ve been offered, and in this case, this #TRYHARD has amassed over $1M in offers but lest we forget that it doesn’t work that way and $1M does not go to the school of choice.

What really sets me off about this particular #TRYHARD is the seemingly flippant attitude demonstrated when it came to the college application process, to which anyone who’s ever done one knows, is a colossal pain in the ass where you might excited and optimistic when you start, but by the time you’re getting to the end, you’re over it and glad to just be done with it.  And to repeat that process more than 3-4 times, to the magnitude of 40+?  Yeah fuck that.

But for this #TRYHARD, applying to colleges is something that she seemingly did, out of boredom:

I would just be sitting in my room applying, just as I am with scholarships right now. When I’m bored, I’m just applying. When I’m not bored, I’m just applying,” the 18-year-old said.

For starters, I’m guessing there’s some amended process available to them, otherwise I don’t think they’re filling out 40+ college applications.  Either that, or they’re copy/pasting their personal essays, if they’re required to write one, and I’m sure colleges are as thrilled to be reading someone’s copy/paste as much as the kids are thrilled to have to write them in the first place.

But it’s the attitude of someone applying out of boredom that kind of irks me; now I didn’t finish college in the traditional sense, but I still know that there’s a lot of power in the degree, and I know the value of a strong education.  It make me feel annoyed that there are people who apply for schools out of boredom, and I’ve touched on this before, because if and when they are accepted, they’re effectively blocking someone else from getting the spot, and forcing people to be put on waitlists until #TRYHARDSZN winds down, people make their choices, and the scraps of slots are re-opened up to people who have had to wait.

Fortunately in the case of this #TRYHARD, it doesn’t seem like a lot of necessarily prestigious schools are being clogged up by her.  Based on her aspirations and what I can tell are some of her acceptances, there was a fairly mid-tier ceiling to all of her boredom applications.

Considering her top pick is Alabama State, I’m guessing they’re one of the schools that probably offered a full-ride, and there’s nothing wrong with phishing for that because school is an expensive endeavor, but I’m also allowed to opine that as #TRYHARD as applying to 40+ schools is, settling on a school like Alabama State might be reaching for some low-hanging fruit.