Who changes their name first: the Redskins or Patriots?

January 11, 2021 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Serious question. Based on how often the phrase “patriots” has been thrown around unironically, I can’t help but wonder if people who work for the New England Patriots football franchise wince or cringe every time they hear it. Obviously, there’s zero (I hope) correlation between a professional football team’s identity, and a legion of white supremacist fascists, but the word is the same and when enough people hear it enough with a negative connotation, the association tends to stick, even when used in completely unrelated context.

In a very short amount of time, the phrase patriots has mutated into this very ugly and unappealing definition, and I really do wonder if this keeps up, there will be enough of an uproar and backlash to the New England Patriots to where they will actually begin considering changing their entire franchise’s name.

Obviously, when it comes to the original question, it stands to believe that the Redskins are the lock to win this “race,” seeing as how the Redskins name has been put on the shelf already, but I’m not going to give them any sort of victory until they actually pick a new name and stop parading around as the interim “Football Team” they’ve used throughout 2020.

But lest we all forget, this much progress has taken almost literally my entire lifetime, so if there was any franchise that could get overtaken by lightning in a bottle, it’s definitely the Washington Washingtons.

We live in a very fast-moving world now where there’s little patience and even less regard for repercussions and backlash, and if the association of the word patriots continues to spiral and become more solely linked to racism, white supremacy and people who would dare attempt to disrupt and overthrow governments, the sooner the New England Patriots might want to consider renaming themselves.

Think I’m going to have to rule this race, a jump ball.

Advent Beer #21: Perlenzauber IPA by Privatbrauerei H. Egerer

December 21, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that I was feeling like I was using my Sweetwater pint glasses too frequently, and for my own satisfaction of variety, I wanted to mix things up. I have a bunch of other glasses in another cabinet, so I went to swap out some of the Sweetwater pints that I’ve felt were being repeated too much. In doing so, I unearthed the absolute best, most appropriate glass that I should have been using throughout this entire journey, but simply neglected to remember that I had it.

This baby das boot easily holds 16 ounces, which makes it perfect in the sense that I can pour each day’s entire can into it without having to reload later on. Plus it has that whole German tradition of drinking out of a boot thing going on, which is why this would’ve been perfect had I been using it from the start, but I just forgot about it. At least for the final four days, I can make sure to be drinking my German biers from my German boot.

The bad news is that on the day in which I can start using my boot, the beer of the day is an IPA. After twenty days, I was beginning to wonder if Deutschland even did IPAs since I hadn’t encountered any after this long, and I was quite satisfied with that assessment too. Unfortunately, like a turd in the pool, an IPA decided to float to the surface, on day #21.

In addition, it’s also another encore from a particular brewer, since beer #9 was also from the same company, as indicative of the can design featuring an image of a woman presumably drowning outside of a porthole because I can’t think of any other scenario where another human being would be visible outside of a porthole, unless they were scuba diving or drowning, and the woman isn’t wearing any scuba gear nor does she have a fin which would make her an underwater breathing mermaid.

But yeah, it’s an IPA, and I winced like OJ Simpson in court when I discovered this. Regardless, I made it this far drinking every drop of every beer, and there’s no point in throwing in the towel now, even if there was a shitty IPA in my path. I poured it into my boot, disappointed that this would be the first thing to use my boot on, but hoping that the Germans do an IPA better than all the shitty ‘Murican hipsters who release a litany of shitty signature IPAs.

To the credit of Perlenzauber, or whatever the brewery is called, as far as IPAs go, this wasn’t turrible. It actually had a fairly decent initial flavor, that staved off the vast majority of the bitter piss flavor at the end of most other IPAs, and I actually found it to be remotely drinkable as far as IPAs were concerned. That is, as long as the beer were at its coldest. As the time clicked away as mythical wife and I were catching up on The Mandalorian, as the beer got warmer, the more it turned back into IPA piss water, and by the time I got to the bottom of the boot, and the bubble had popped, I was struggling to finish it, and just kind of bottoms upped it, just to finish the job.

In spite of the not-quite negative first impressions, it’s still an IPA at the end of the day, and I simply don’t favor them. The fact that it’s not dead last is a credit to the initial flavor notes that I did like, and makes me really try and remember just how bad the three underneath it really were to have been denigrated as worse than an IPA.

The funniest thing to me is that in spite of the fact that I didn’t hate this completely, the snobs at BeerAdvocate apparently have hated the shit out of this beer, in as equally new to them taste tests. Clearly, my rubric for beer preferences are way off of the masses on the internet, but whatever.

Hopefully, tomorrow is back to another lager, or better yet another dunkel to pour into my boot, because today really was kind of a mulligan, and I’m hoping that the final three beers will be some good ones to close out this magical boozy journey with.

Current Rankings:

Jubilation Suds (#18)
Bären Weisse (#16)
First Coral (#2)
Kirta (#5)
Turbo Prop (#6)
Schwarze Tinte (#13)
Perlenzauber (#9)
Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
Märzenbier (#20)
Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
Alpen Stoff (#17)
Erl Hell (#19)
Grandl (#11)
Altbairisch Hell (#15)
Hell (#1)
Tannen Hell (#8)
Perlenzauber IPA (#21)
Tradition (#10)
Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #14: Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee by Schlossbrauerei Herrngiersdorf

December 14, 2020December 14, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Yup, copy/pasted that, because no way I’m retyping that much Deutsch.

As someone who definitely judges books by their covers, I have to say that this is probably the worst can design I’ve seen over the last two weeks. I literally got up from writing to go look at the collection of cans that I’ve held onto in the event that I want to take one last parting picture, and yup confirmed, this is the worst, and most boring can design that I’ve come across during this journey.

Two logos, three different accent colors, a fuckton of boring text on white, it literally looks like the design of this can was created in Microsoft Word.

Here’s the thing though; this could be an overblown introduction judging the aesthetics of the can, and then turning it around to where I was blown away by the contents of said can, or the eye test can justify the importance of visuals, and the bier actually is as lame as the design of the can hints that it might be.

In the case of Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvée, which is a mouthful of a name that makes me think this beer thinks it’s a strong independent woman who don’t need no man’s name to overwrite her own hence the hyphenated name, the design of the can is more indicative of the quality of the beer than a situation where I shouldn’t be judging books by their covers.

The initial taste is actually pretty decent; it’s light, a touch of hops that makes me wish ‘Murican brewers would stop going so overboard with the hops, so they can continuously make the hoppiest IPA in the country, and it’s got a fairly light and refreshing initial flavor.

But man, I don’t know how to describe the finish, there’s a long lingering aftertaste after the end of every sip that I’m finding rather unpleasant. I don’t know if it would be considered malty, or what, but it’s that sewer-water flavor at the end that hangs on way too long, to where I found myself taking long pulls and larger gulps, just so I can finish this sooner rather than savor it to enjoy it.

Needless to say, the early flavor is the only thing that keeps this from being the bottom of the barrel for me, but that’s not really saying that much. It’s definitely one of the lesser quality beers in the collection, but given the fact that this was a beer for a Monday, it seems appropriate that it’s kind of drab.

Current Rankings:

First Coral (#2)
Kirta (#5)
Turbo Prop (#6)
Schwarze Tinte (#13)
Perlenzauber (#9)
Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
Grandl (#11)
Hell (#1)
Tannen Hell (#8)
Tradition (#10)
Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #9: Perlenzauber by Privatbrauerei

December 9, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first pulled the can out of the fridge, I immediately noticed the design of what appeared to be a woman looking in through a porthole, presumably underwater. My first thought was mermaid, but the rest of the can subtly looks like a barrel, and now it’s kind of fucked up, because a woman is trapped inside of a barrel that just so also happens to have a porthole.

Either way, it’s an eye-catching design, and as someone who judges books by their covers, it’s admittedly one that would make stop and examine if I were to come across this kind of can or bottle in a store.

As for the beer itself, I had a moment of pause when I saw that it was classified as “German Pale Ale,” because like I’ve said numerous times, I don’t know that much about the world of beer outside of drinking what I like to drink, so I see German pale ale and am really hoping that it’s nothing like an India pale ale, because if there’s one thing for sure is that I’m not really a fan of IPAs at all because they’re basically piss, so I’m hoping that a GPA is nothing like them.

Fortunately, after pouring it into a glass and taking the first sip, it’s definitely nowhere near the flavor or profile of an IPA. Honestly, I would’ve imagined that this was a lager if I didn’t look it up on BeerAdvocate for the proper name and source, and reading some of the cursory comments, I’m clearly not the only one.

Not sure if this is common for other German pale ales, but I certainly like them way better than IPAs.

Overall, nine days in, woman in barrel bier fares well. It definitely lives on the upper half of my now-rankings, and it’s got a pretty non-descript but light taste and body that was easy to drink, and I could easily envision myself drinking a couple of these if I were in an evening of drinking.

I guess it also doesn’t hurt that I had a particularly shitty work day, having been in meetings for six of the eight hours in my work day, some of them a little more invasive than others. But really that’s where drinking really steps up into the routines of life.

Current Rankings:
1. First Coral (#2)
2. Kirta (#5)
3. Turbo Prop (#6)
4. Perlenzauber (#9)
5. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
6. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
7. Hell (#1)
8. Tannen Hell (#8)
9. Käuzle (#3)

Man, What A Stupid Commercial #017

November 26, 2020November 30, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Plot: family jonesing for some small business ice cream is sad to discover shop is still closed, inspires small business to pivot business model to a delivery system. Small business owners allegedly uses solely Adobe products to rebrand and expedite their customer-facing identity

Yes, I have dusted off this old series from the days prior to the brog going down for several years, as there will never be an end to commercials that are capable of triggering my ire and unleashing the snark. It’s not that I ever abandoned this series as much as a combination of brog downtime, the improved avoidance of commercials by virtue of streaming television, plus the baby I now am responsible over which further takes me away from television watching, that has collectively reduced my exposure to commercials outright, but it’s always been a thing I’ve enjoyed blabbing about, because most everyone can agree that commercials suck, and I can typically keep these posts shorter and sweeter than a lot of the other drivel I tend to go on about.

The funny thing is that in spite of all the reasons why I don’t get exposed to many commercials, on Thanksgiving, my father-in-law turned on the actual television to watch some football, and at the time the only game on was Redskins Washington Football Team vs. Cowboys, and it took all of five minutes for the game to go into a commercial break and expose me to a commercial that immediately caught my attention as something needing to be blistered on the brog.

Make no mistake, I am all about supporting small business and ice cream, and the general narrative of the commercial itself is sweet and pleasant. It’s just the fact that it’s a commercial for Adobe that I find both objectionable and unbelievable that inspires me to write about how much bullshit it turns the entire commercial subsequently.

There’s no fucking way a business can rebrand and change all of their UX/UI through Acrobat and Sign. Why they advertise it as such is completely beyond me, and in order for this much action to occur, undoubtedly the entire Creative Suite would be necessary to utilize.

But most importantly, what the commercial fails to convey is the sheer unreliability and instability of Adobe products these days, and sure they can eke out a 60 second spot to look all happy and cheerful, but off-camera there’s probably numerous hours lost to Adobe software crashing over and over again in the process of altering the brand of Mila’s ice cream shop, and scenes where Mila herself is ready to throw her computer(s) onto the ground when the constant software crashing has her questioning why she’s even trying to pivot her business in the first place. Feeling resentment at the little girl who taped a picture to her door and making her feel sad in the first place. Cursing the monopoly Adobe has on the entire graphic design industry, justifying their position to release subpar software at egregious prices.

Furthermore, without question, after the camera stops rolling, the drone stops responding and crashes back down to earth, and when Mila’s truck turns around to investigate, it too stops responding, and crashes into someone’s house, because that’s what Adobe products do: stop responding and then crashes.

This commercial is false advertising. Happy Thanksgiving!

Office Space-ing

July 23, 2018August 7, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s only been a year and chance since I moved into my house, but I haven’t really done anything with my office. Sure, I made and installed my wall of belts, and hung a few frames on the walls, in addition to positioning the futon and setting up a space for my computer. But I still had a lot of boxes sitting in the closet along with general ideas for lots of little trinkets and nerdy figurines that I had imagined displaying in whatever room I’d designate as my office, that I simply never bothered really getting to.

Another thing I decided to do while mythical gf was out of the country was to finally do something with my office space, and get it to a point beyond where it was just a whole bunch of boxes stacked in a corner with just a computer and a wall of wrestling belts. A few posts ago, I touched on the hanging wall shelves that I had put together, which are in place and I’m generally happy with, even though I underestimated a little bit just how many Rito figures that I had and how much space they’d take up.

So among the things not making the cut of the above picture are two shelves that I purchased and installed; neither are particularly impressive things, but more like essentials in order to get a degree of organization for all my various personal effects. The obstacle I faced with my primary shelf was that I had some general dimensions that I did not want to exceed in any capacity so that I could retain as much open floor space as possible but still be able to have a place to hold some shit.

At first, I had resigned myself that storage cubes would be the most logical shelving solution for what I had in mind, but after a lot of digging on various sites, it was Amazon of all places where I found this shelf that fit into my dimensional parameters, and definitely looked like it had way more character than the cubes that just about everyone in my generation has from Ikea, Target or Walmart. Not to mention I loved the faux-incomplete half edges on opposite ends that definitely gives it some personality as well flexibility in case something is a little wider than the surface area.

I only needed one row and the top to display stuff like nice figures and photo frames, and I didn’t have a lot of printed materials that exceeded the smaller shelf spaces, that didn’t quite fit into my library shelf elsewhere, so that left the entire bottom row available for general storage. I got these storage bins to store shit like camera equipment, electronic peripherals and art supplies, but also looking a little bit nicer than the army of cardboard printer paper boxes they’d all been sitting in previously.

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Who knew anarchists were so detail-oriented?

March 23, 2018August 5, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: vandals break into church, spray paint satanic symbols all over the walls

First off, I don’t condone breaking and entering, or vandalism. I don’t even condone the smoking of marijuana, but that’s more an eye of the beholder kind of opinion. And I most certainly feel empathy for this church that hasn’t even officially opened and had its first service, before some shitheads broke in and spray painted shit all over the walls.

However, I have to say I have a hard time getting over the vandals’ execution of the anarchy symbol (pictured) they left in the church; namely the fact that they clearly utilized some painters/masking tape in the process of making it, as indicative by the extremely clean and straight lines of the anarchy-A.

Look, I give them a little bit of ironic credit of thinking outside the box, and instead of just spray painting the standard circle-A line art of a traditional anarchy-A, they decided to try and be all artistic and reverse that shit out, and knock out an anarchy-A out of circular blob of clearly-satanic red.

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