Tag: comparison

2 Under 2: the Last Times (#051)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure this won’t be a shock to any of my zero readers, but as excited I am for the impending arrival of my second child, I’m also extremely emotional and often suppressing feelings of guilt towards my first, bringing in a second so soon, and while she’s still in a stage of her life where the world is her oyster and should really have the undivided attention that many children at her age really should be getting.

Everything I’m doing, I’m realizing is counting down to the last times in which I’ll be doing all sorts of mundane things – as a father of one.  The last time bathing my daughter, putting her down to bed.  The last day in which I’ll be logging her feed times and nap minutes.  Picking up her toys and resetting all of her play area books and blocks.  Washing and then preparing the next day’s bottles that are hers and hers alone.  The next time I go to bed, and awaken the next morning, I won’t even be there to wake her up, since mythical wife will be required to be at the hospital very early. 

I can’t guarantee I won’t be fighting a tidal wave of emotion before bedtime next.  Because once I’m a father of two, who knows how long or if things like these will ever get back to a similar point, or what’s really going to happen in the future.

Although I am supremely confident in mine, and mythical wife’s capacity to love our children, and that everything will be just fine in the end, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still harboring all these feelings in the days leading up to the big arrival.

A little over a year ago, #1 showed up at 34.5 weeks, definitely, unexpectedly early, and most certainly classifying as a premature arrival.  This caught me, mythical wife, and all concerned parties completely off-guard, and if not for our own preparations, would have been in a really tricky situation after it had happened.  Even still though, it did lead to some scrambling, and as much as we look at the 15 days of her in the NICU with some angst despite knowing it was the best place for her to strengthen and start her life, it did afford me some time to truly get the house ready, seeing as how she didn’t actually get to come home for over two weeks.

That’s hardly the case, this time.  #1 showed up unexpectedly early, but #2 couldn’t possibly have been more content to stay in the oven, leading mythical wife down a path of new pregnancy experiences like debilitating insomnia and the general discomfort for having a small watermelon inside of her.  She’s not on track to be full-term, she is very much full-term at the very instant I’m writing this line right now.

We passed the milestone of #1’s early arrival, and have been doing nothing but getting ready for #2.  Mythical wife has gotten her hair done in advance.  Which made me realize that I could go and get my haircut in advance, something I couldn’t really do last year because of the surprise arrival plus the start of the pandemic.  The second nursery is almost entirely complete.  My job has been kept abreast and is fully prepared for me to be out for a few weeks as I’m going to finally cash in some of my vacation time that I’ve been sitting on for this specific reason.

All things that were not the case the first time around.  And for all those reasons that frankly nobody could have any control over, I’m still feeling guilt, irrational as it might be, I can’t always help it.  #2 is almost certain to be bigger and stronger upon her arrival, having almost an entire month to keep cooking.  The NICU, god forbid, should be avoided this time around as a result, and she will probably get lots of things that my first couldn’t get, like getting to sleep with us in the hospital room, taking to the breast, and coming home pretty immediately; all things that #1 did not experience, even if she won’t know it, we do.

Eight, full months of knowing this day was coming, and all the preparations and readiness, and I’m still feeling increasing anxiety and unpreparedness as we get closer and closer.  Like I said, I have all the confidence in the world that everything’s going to be fine, but the whole point of all these dad brogs is to chronicle the shit that goes on through my head, as a father of one, and soon to be a father of two.

Black Widow: Just because it could be made, doesn’t mean it should be made

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Let’s just get this out of the way: Black Widow is probably the worst film in the entire MCU.  Down there with the various Hulk films, but at least still better than other non-MCU turds like Ghost Rider and all attempts at The Fantastic Four.  But that’s not saying that much. 

The point is, Black Widow was not that great of a film, and probably should not have been made.  Its existence serves no benefit to the equity that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has built, and has in fact added unnecessary weight to the cash-printing spaceship the MCU franchise has been throughout the last decade, having produced and actually released such a turd.

Needless to say, before I proceed with this post, in the event that any of my zero readers have not been privy to the happenings of the MCU, I will put the rest of this behind the cut, because that’s just the kind of guy I am, act as if the whole world is reading, even if I know that nobody is.

Continue reading “Black Widow: Just because it could be made, doesn’t mean it should be made” →

Do people watch Amazon Prime Video?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Obviously the answer to the question is yes, otherwise people aren’t seeing things like The Boys, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or Invincible, but I feel like just in general, you don’t often hear people really talking about the things they watch on Amazon Prime Video.

Sure, people talk about the aforementioned titles, but it’s not often (at least in my little world) where I’m hearing people talking about the random things they’ve caught on APV, nowhere near the clip in which people are randomly perusing Netflix and discovering all sorts of random, obscure and out-of-the-mainstream things.

It’s like Netflix is the Coca-Cola of video streaming platforms, where people associate all streaming content to maybe be associated to Netflix first, and then when corrected, they’re more like “oh, okay,” like when a customer sits down at a restaurant and orders a Coke, but is corrected by the server that they serve Pepsi products.

I recently watched through Solos on APV, and I found it to be a fairly refreshing and short seven-standalone-episode anthology at around 30 minutes per episode, which is kind of perfect for my needs and wants these days.  It was sort of an anti-Black Mirror, in that the stories were more emotionally heartfelt and uplifting as opposed to dreading and pessimistic, but from what I understand, this series was entirely shot during the pandemic, so it was kind of perfect that the format was almost entirely solo actors performing a clinic of monologues.

FYI, if you’re a fan of monologues, then this is the series for you.  It’s also very thought-provoking, doesn’t dumb things down for the viewer, and all pretty well written in my opinion.

The thing is, it was a series that I had never heard of before, and just happened to stumble across it, because I didn’t feel like getting drowned in content paralysis from Netflix or Plex, and decided to drown in APV instead.  It makes me wonder how a series like this can go so unnoticed (at least to me) considering it had some pretty high-tier star power, between featuring performers like Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren and Anthony Mackie among others.

And even after finishing Solos, and perusing through APV’s general library, there are all sorts of interesting sounding titles that I’ll probably explore in the future, which got me wondering why nobody in my little world talks about any of these.  It’s not like everyone these days doesn’t have a Prime account and wouldn’t have access to any of this, but it’s just that APV among other non-Netflix streaming services must clearly face this constant uphill battle that, if you not Netflix, then you not a player, but if people would just become aware and just give them a chance, then it seems like there’s even more oceans of content to drown in choice paralysis alternatively.

But as far as I’m concerned, APV really is a legitimate player, but I’m curious to know if it’s just me, or if other people out there also realize that or not.

That’s kind of interesting

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because I’m a fan of sports in general, I’m exposed to a lot of sports-related news at any given time, regardless of what sport it is.  And since the NBA playoffs are going on currently, I’ve found myself absorbing more information about who’s still in, who’s not, than I probably thought I’d ever care about.

However, one interesting tidbit showed up recently that did pique my interest, and trigger a prompt in my brain to want to write about.  With the Atlanta Hawks not pulling an Atlanta and choking in a critical game 7 situation, and defeating the Philadelphia 76ers, to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, the final four teams left vying for the NBA championship are the Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks in the east and out west is the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles… Clippers.

Between these four franchises exists two championships, with none since 1971 and even the Hawks’ title in 1958 was when they were in St. Louis, and therefore not an Atlanta team.  So basically, it’s safe to say that this is a rare year in which a team that’s basically never won an NBA championship is going to win an NBA championship.

It didn’t occur to me that this was such a rarity, one because I don’t really care about the NBA, but two, I had to stop and think about the last two decades to recollect that just about every NBA champion has been a repeater, with teams like the Warriors, Spurs, Heat and Lakers having won the vast majority of the championships, with LeBron James collecting four rings for three different franchises in that time, and even if they didn’t win, they were still the runners-up, clogging up the title scene all the same for an eon.

So despite the fact that the Atlanta Hawks are still in, and are a possibility of hilariously cashing in my newborn baby luck on basketball, there’s no way people like me, in age and in enjoyment of the ironic, can’t not be rooting for an NBA Finals where it’s the Milwaukee Bucks vs. the Los Angeles Clippers.

Because these are the two teams that, growing up in the 90s, were basically the de facto worst teams in basketball.  I mean look at the screen cap above of the 1994 season; even combining the win totals between the Bucks and Clippers was no guaranteed entry into the playoffs, and the only reason why the Bucks weren’t tallied up as dead last in the east was because the Pistons just so happened to allow 1.3 more points per game on average.

And this was just one season; throughout the 90s, both these teams were the teams that everyone forgot about their existence, except when you looked at the schedules of your favorite teams, and saw games against the Bucks and Clippers as basically guaranteed wins.  Nobody ever picked these teams in NBA Jam or NBA Live 199X, including the people who lived in those cities, unless they were trying to troll.

But it’s funny how things change in time, and how it seems to be consistent on how long it takes for the tides to turn, because nearly 25 years later, we’re in a world where the New York Knicks are usually the laughing stock of the NBA, Seattle lost their team outright, and the Golden State Warriors broke the 96’ Bulls win record and have been in five of the last six NBA Finals, winning three championships.

Needless to say, I think sports fans of my general age range should all be salivating at the thought of a Bucks vs. Clippers NBA Finals, because it’ll definitely be a sight to behold, and even more so if both teams bust out throwback unis for one of the game, just to acknowledge the sheer absurdity of the worst teams from the 1990’s to be playing for a championship in the 20’s of the 2000’s.

Who cares more: black people or white guilters?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I heard that Netflix’s upcoming rendition of Resident Evil cast a black guy to play the role of historically white Albert Wesker, my knee-jerk reaction was that of eyes rolling.  I have nothing against Lance Reddick, and think he’s an otherwise fantastic actor, but this reminds me of when Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin in that one shitty Daredevil film with Ben Affleck.  It doesn’t matter how physically convincing or how good of actors guys like Reddick and Duncan should portray these characters, but there are just some intellectual properties that come with some visual expectations based on the historical lineage of said IPs.

But whereas Daredevil stunk, Netflix inherently has the ability to make palatable chicken salad of out of chicken shit, so perhaps they’ll be able to take a black Wesker and make everyone watching forget about the color of his skin in their rendition of Resident Evil.  Lance Reddick has played a ton of dirty cops in his career, and he’s otherwise a very good match in age, physical stature and behavioral charisma that I’d expect someone to portray as Albert Wesker, so I’m hopeful he’ll do well being the baddest bad in the series.

Afterward, I began to think about how the black community would digest this casting, of a black man being given the role of said baddest bad, and wondering if there were those that took objection to a black man being a villain, to a society where way too large segments of it are far too easily convinced that fiction is reality, and that it’s doing the community no favors.

I posed this hypothetical to one of those friends of mine that we sounding board our random thoughts off of each other, but getting this train of thought out of the station, I came to realize that no matter what negative opinions the black community could have about the casting of a black Wesker, they’ll probably pale (no pun intended) in comparison to the raging objection of a black Wesker, from the white-guilt white community.

Frankly when the day is over, black people are probably just relieved to see a black actor getting a shake at a popular franchise like Resident Evil, and as long as they’re not a token black guy that gets killed and devoured in the first 15 minutes, they probably won’t care if they’re a protagonist or antagonist, and most anyone who’s ever played a Resident Evil game knows that few are as sheerly unkillable than Albert Wesker.

But white guilters, my god, they must be up in arms at the perceived insult to the black community that a black man is being cast as the main villain of a series.  There’s probably at least 23 SurveyMonkeys out their collating data of racism and unfair prejudice towards the black community, from like-minded white people.  And if Wesker is inevitably going to be played by a black guy, that absolutely means that no white people can portray the protagonists of the series, and dare stand up to further oppress blacks like their forefathers once did.

If they do choose to implement characters like Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, they most certainly have to be portrayed by Henry Golding and Eiza Gonzalez.  Rebecca Chambers can be played by Zazie Beetz, and I would be over the fucking moon if Barry Burton were played by Erik King AKA Doakes.  That way, Wesker would only be opposed by other minorities, and it wouldn’t create the intolerable conflict of white heroes versus a black villain.

The bottom line is that the answer to the original question is that without any doubt, white people are going to have a way bigger cow over the casting of a black Wesker than any black people.  But wait until they realize that all currently cast roles also feature no white people at all; this might just set out to be the most successful series on Netflix in history, to white folks.

Well this is awkward

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Imagine going to work where you know your superiors do not want you there and would be happy for you to leave.  For absolutely no reason other than you do not fit in the ideal team in their heads.  So they ride you incessantly, nitpick every little thing you do, second guess every single action you make and generally make every day difficult in some way, shape, or form – with the goal of trying to make you leave.

But finding a new job or transferring to a different team is actually a whole lot harder than people seem to forget, and with a second baby on the way, the upcoming paternity leave is way more valuable and essential at this current juncture than your professional comfort, so you grit your teeth and smile and navigate each day after day, enduring the bullshit with a more important goal in the horizon.

However, since the superiors have failed to grief you until you quit, they have resorted to straight up war: looking for any and every procedural infraction they can find, and writing you up for them, putting you on an official disciplinary probation, where job termination is one of the potential outcomes, and most likely their intended goal at the end of the lengthy journey.

I don’t like to brog about work, because most of the time it’s boring, rarely is it cool, unless it’s a freelance gig that I can actually be proud of.  But the little hypothetical tale detailed above is precisely where I’m at right now, and I’m in a position of where I’m quite upset, angry to even think about describing it, and disgusted beyond belief that I work with people like this.

Continue reading “Well this is awkward” →

An AEW direction I actually like

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t even know Rusev Miro was even in the title picture.  The last few weeks have been all about Darby Allin’s re-kindled rivalry with Ethan Page back from their Evolve or whatever indy fed they had a ton of brutal matches in, and for some reason, Scorpio Sky has been attached to him and sandbagging his own ascent, but the point is I didn’t even know Miro was even in line to wrestle for the Popeyes TNT Championship.

Regardless, I was quite pleased to see that Miro was given the ball, and had a relatively clean victory over Darby Allin and is now the new TNT Champion.  I was always very high on Rusev when he was still Rusev, and it was always saddening to see just how mishandled and misused he was in his later years with the WWE, and I always hoped he would go to New Japan afterward and become the IWGP World Champion.

Obviously, with the existence of a stateside alternative in TNAEWCW it was obvious where he would ultimately end up going especially considering his wife was still very much active in the WWE, but we could all have hopes.  I mean, Jon Moxley is doing it, and I love it so much I’m actually referring to him as Moxley instead of purposefully calling him by his old WWE name.

But anyway, I’m delighted to see that Miro has been given some actual direction in AEW instead of being the sidekick to Kip Sabian of all people.  When they paired them together, all I could think of how much of a colossal waste Rusev was going to be in AEW, and winced like OJ Simpson in court when he was stuck week after week in meaningless work against the Best Friends.

It’s yet to be determined just what AEW actually does with Rusev as a champion, and hopefully he’s not the first one in the promotion’s short history to be a transitional guy, or worse off, considering his first feud appears to be likely to be Lance Archer, hopefully he doesn’t lose it to him.  Considering what Rusev did with the WWE US Championship, I’m hoping Miro will get to do similar things with the AEW Popeyes TNT Championship, so that when he eventually drops it, it will be worth more than their poor world title, which is becoming lost in the shuffle in Kenny Omega’s collection of blets.