Tag: television

Sometimes I feel like Bill from King of the Hill

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There was once an episode of King of the Hill somewhere in the 13th season, where the non-Hank plot of the episode was that Peggy, Dale and Minh realized that Bill was the perfect representation of the every man in the United States, and basically that anything he liked was worth putting some chips into on the stock market. Discreetly, of course. After a while, the troika began to make some money on stock market, and started to enjoy some of the luxuries that an influx of cash provides.

Eventually, it slips to Bill that he’s the guinea pig to them, and once made aware that his decisions had impact on others, the talent of inadvertently picking stock market winners vanishes as he becomes overly self-conscious of the things he likes, and the troika not only starts tanking at the stock market, they ultimately lose all their luxuries in the process and come back to zero.

Now there’s absolutely nothing to be proud of in comparing myself to Bill Dauterive, because in the show’s hierarchy, he’s the world’s biggest loser, in spite of his unknown wealthy background, fluency in Cajun French, and numerous talents, hidden because he’s the show’s punching bag. But in context of this post, I do feel like I can sometimes relate in being somewhat of an everyman.

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Impending brog hiatus

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel the need to write something before I embark on a four-day weekend a week before the craziest four-day weekend of the year.  Needless to say, between the events of this weekend, and the events of next weekend, there really isn’t going to be much time for me to actually makes posts to my beloved brog, unless it is of the mobile and fluffy variety.  I take pride in my ability to maintain commitment to my brog, and refusal to let it become one of the millions of blogs out there that have gathered dust and been abandoned by disillusioned posers from all walks of life.

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Well, that was predictable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was watching a baseball game when suddenly the scores ticker at the bottom of the screen turned red and started scrolling “GEORGE ZIMMERMAN WAS FOUND” and I mouthed the words “not guilty” before it slowly scrolled out the words “NOT GUILTY.”

My first thought was curiosity of when the first rash of race-related protests were going to start.  When the game ended, I switched to FOX News and CNN (yeah, I know, they’re not exactly the most reliable news outlets but I don’t really know of any others, nor did I really care that much to inquire), and sure enough the protests were already in full swing, and naturally it wasn’t so much about George Zimmerman being found not guilty, but about how the black man was once again wronged.

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I never knew that they were that cool

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t remember when exactly it was, but I’m going to have to say that it was between the grades of either 5-7, in which I had to do a report on the peregrine falcon.  Now that I’m dwelling back on it, I’m pretty sure it was when I was in the seventh grade, because my science class was first period, and I had this teacher that was kind of racist in the fact that she was over-the-top nice to the world, but always pushed her veiled black power agenda on the rest of the class (aka replacing the name “Wite OutTM to Black Out”) but that’s beside the point.  When I was in the seventh grade I did a report on the peregrine falcon.

Obviously the subject matter was endangered species, and I was assigned the peregrine falcon.  I don’t remember a whole lot about the report other than the fact that peregrine falcons were in fact, endangered species, and how all publications back then were leaned towards blaming human beings for being the cause of all the destruction of nature, and subsequently the reduction in peregrine falcon numbers throughout the years.

I also remember that this was one of those scenarios in which being an artist was completely beneficial to my success, because like one of my friends back in the day, we both kind of last-second jobbed our reports.  The difference was that I presented mine way better, and with an artistic flair, and I probably managed to hide the fact that I was probably beneath the required word count, but damn did my presentation look cool in the end.  I vaguely remember getting a B or something, while he did not, and had a talkin’ to after class, about how obvious it was that he had half-assed it at the last second.

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My favorite Parks & Rec moment

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Although there are a lot of moments in Parks & Recreation that justify my general love for the show, it always comes back to this particular moment.  At the very end of Season 3, Episode 12 there is a moment where Leslie presents to Ron a private dinner, consisting of his favorite steak, a dish full of bacon, a bottle of whiskey, and a television playing classic war movies.  This spoils absolutely nothing, because one, at this point, I’d imagine most Parks & Rec fans have already seen this, and two, without the circumstances and context behind it, this scenario is relatively meaningless.

But it’s a touching moment between two core characters that displays the genuine platonic love, respect and admiration that exists between them, that kind of comes out of nowhere, considering the frantic and comedy-driven nature of the show as a whole.  It’s nothing too heavy, there’s nothing written between the lines, and yet there’s a lot of emotion in this brief exchange between the characters.  One of those “faith in humanity restored” kind of feelings afterward for a guy like me.

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An attempt to put into words how much I hate ESPN

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s not that want anyone to keel over and die, but if Stephen A. Smith were to keel over and die, I’m pretty sure that not only would I not give a shit, there would be a part of me that would be glad.  Yes, that’s a horrible thing to put into writing, but I can’t really say that it would be an inaccurate statement.

Whenever Stephen A. Smith is on television, which is unfortunately way more than he should be, because the retards at my gym have the locker room televisions set to ESPN, and there’s no known way to change the channels without a remote, and First Take seems to be on for eleventy-billion hour blocks at a time, I want to shower and dress out and get out of the locker room as quickly as humanly possible.

Stephen A. Smith makes me want to get away from a screen faster than a snuff film, or any one of those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLaughlin music in the background.

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Happiness is Parks and Recreation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not to sound like too typical of a pessimistic Debbie-downing wet blanket, but it’s not often that I’m actually “happy” happy.  Happiness is more or less pretty fleeting to me; things make me happy, but it’s like getting the star in Mario; it lasts for a little bit, but eventually fades away, and then I’m just in a place slightly above neutral.  Eating a really good meal makes me happy.  Having an invigorating and productive workout makes me happy.  Seeing someone actually get pulled over in the HOV lane makes me happy.  Bettering a Varus/Blitz duo played by douchebags makes me happy.  And so forth; none of these things are genuinely major events, but for what they’re worth they all make me happy.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was genuinely happy-all-smiles-uncharacteristically-generous kind of happy for any prolonged period of time, but I’m not entirely sure that many people are generally disposed for that kind of behavior.

Anyway, I’ve found something that I can add to the list: Parks and Recreation.  In the past, I’ve seen a few fleeting episodes here and there, but mostly because people I know were already fans, and were trying to get me into it by playing a random episode late into the series.  It wasn’t bad, but not having seen the show from the start and having an understanding of the character dynamics, it wasn’t something I got into.  I didn’t hate it by any means, but until I took the time to sit down and watch from the start, I probably would never really like it.

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