Tag: coronavirus

Yeah no thanks, I’ll keep my mask on for now still

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just the other day, the CDC officially reported that fully vaccinated individuals can drop wearing masks and relax social distancing.

That’s great and all, but as the title of this posts says, no thanks, I think I’m going to keep wearing masks for a little bit longer.  Maybe until like, 2024.  Because one, I don’t trust the vast majority of Americans or other people in general to not be selfish shitheads who have refused to wear masks and refused to get vaccinated to this very day, and two, I absolutely love the fact that I went an entire calendar year without catching the cold or any other contagious nuisance of a sickness from anyone else.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in the CDC and the president for announcing this, because if it were up to me, I wouldn’t even think about making it widely known that there was any modicum of safety until America’s vaccination rates were at like, 90% and not like the what, 43% it’s currently at right now?

Such is the very epitome of American ideals, where this country is so complacent, so impatient and so selfish to get back to a broken normal, that when something is barely partially effective, it is rolled out to the general public, with hopes that success rates will continue to climb when the ultimate variable of failure, people, are introduced into the mix.

Thanks to this allowance of people to unmask and relax social distancing, we all know what’s going to happen; the numbers of transmissions and positive results will begin to creep slower, vaccination percentages will start crawling if they even continue to rise in the first place, and coronavirus as we very well know it, is never fucking going to go away, because it will continue mutate and evolve, and be as commonplace to the list of sicknesses as the common cold, except coronavirus can actually kill motherfuckers.  And the vaccines that are already in place will eventually become obsolete and require the rat race of constant updating and developing in order to help shithead Americans just have the ability to believe they can think it’s safe enough to go out for margaritas and go to Target without having to wear masks.

I’m tired of wearing masks too.  I wear glasses, so wearing masks usually means my glasses fog up often, and it’s exasperating.  Taking them off when it’s safe means I have to fight with the arms of my glasses as well as hope the elastic doesn’t rip the backing of the one earring I choose to continue to still wear off, and I would much rather not have to wear one in the first place.  But I have a family and kid(s) that I want to keep safe from harm, and because the rest of America doesn’t seem to want to protect anyone else, it’s up to me to protect myself so I can, even if most of the people around me in public don’t deserve it.

It’s bad when Brazil is leading the pack in anything other than futbol

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSJ (might be behind paywall): town in Brazil does “experiment” where close to 100% of adults get vaccinated, to “surprising” results

I obviously use quotations ironically, because it’s pathetic that American media is in this place where common sense is considered experimental, and the results are anything other than flagrantly obvious.  The fact that this is happening in Brazil of all places in the world, and not anywhere in the United States is pathetic, sad, disappointing and all other pejoratives applicable to describe just how third fourth world America acts sometimes.

Needless to say, since nobody actually needs to read the article behind the paywall to take a wild guess at what happens, but when 98% of all adults in a population of 45,000 get vaccinated, coronavirus numbers plummet, and the town of Serrana, Brazil has officially become somewhat of a safe haven oasis from COVID-19, and life has basically turned back into a state of being prior to the pandemic.

The “experiment” at this point can be considered a rousing success, and I can only wish that the legions of fucking idiot Americans would use this as a basis to follow suit, but we all know that that’s never going to happen because we are basically the dumbest country on the planet, cumulatively.

But yeah, a small town in Brazil; a mostly impoverished country, where they’re mostly known for futbol, Victoria’s Secret models, trolling League of Legends and annually converging onto Disney World much to the dismay of those who work there, has basically shown the rest of the world that they’re twelve steps ahead of the curve when it comes to handling the pandemic.  They’ve already declared check mate, while the rest of the world is still Googling what a Sicilian or the queen’s gambit is.

I don’t like to give Brazil credit if I don’t have to, but good on them for having the common sense to strive for 100% vaccination rates among adults.  The rewards are obvious and palpable, and the rest of the world looks like fucking idiots for failing to exercise common sense in the most common sense of scenarios.

Thoughts on Wrestlemania Week

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It occurred to me that in spite of how much I like sports like baseball, college football and basketball, or any other sport that I tend to get into for various spurts of time, when the day was over, and I really had to pick one thing to really stay interested in giving my very limited time these days, what wins out in the end is professional wrestling, the so-called fake sport.

I mean it’s really no surprise, considering my interest in wrestling precedes every single sports interest I’ve ever had in my life, so I’m literally falling back all the way to my childhood interest when there’s an overabundance of options to be interested in.

Anyway, so this past week was for lack of a better term, Wrestlemania Week.  Both NXT and the main roster broke up TakeOver and Wrestlemania into two-night affairs apiece, and to be perfectly honest, I really liked it in this format, and kind of hope it remains as such in the future, and not just a pandemic thing.  I enjoyed the fact that every single evening was a 2-3 hour event, and unlike ‘Manias in the past, wasn’t an exhausting five hour show to where I’m dog tired by the time the Brock Lesnar match at the end is over.  I literally had time to slap on a paint of coat in my second daughter’s nursery after night 1 of TakeOver went off the air before going to bed.

By breaking up the shows over multiple nights, I could build anticipation for matches on each of the nights, and I didn’t feel tired or burned out from watching any one show too long, and it actually helped me remain engaged and entertained.

However, before I get into the meat of this post and talk about my favorite matches of the week, I have to say that I was one part happy to see a raucous live sellout crowd at Raymond James for Wrestlemania, because fans really are one of the things that have been truly missing throughout the last year, and I know AEW and NXT have been running small crowds regularly, but seeing a packed house, made it feel like for the first time, something back to normal.

But on the other hand, the other part of me was absolutely mortified at the fact that there were 25,000 people sold out two nights straight in Tampa Bay, and just days prior in Dallas, were about 40,000 people packed into a ballpark for the Texas Rangers’ home opener.  The mere thought of these kinds of gatherings when coronavirus is very much still a thing makes my skin crawl at the sheer ignorance and selfishness being exhibited by all the people going to these things, and turning these gatherings into what will probably become super-spreader events.

I know people miss and desire the feeling of normalcy by going to major events like home openers and Wrestlemanias, but I’ll be damned if I go to anything expected to be packed houses, for at least, the rest of my life, if not another two years, without feeling scurred and/or paranoid the whole time.

But that’s just me.  Save for the awkward scariness of seeing tens of thousands of fans gathering in a venue again for the first time in over a year, Wrestlemania week was full of some fantastic work; and these were my favorites.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Wrestlemania Week” →

Vaccines, bailouts and irony

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The sun has just barely set, but I’m already in bed, waiting for the Tylenol PM to kick in, so I can hopefully conk myself out to sleep for at least 9-10 hours.  I have spent the entire day with a fever that has ranged anywhere from 99.8F to 101.4F, depending on the work of all the acetaminophen I’ve been taking throughout the day to try and bring it down, because as much as I would’ve loved to have stayed in bed and just ridden out this ailment, I’m also a dad now, and I thought about these commercials from the past and completely understand how dads don’t get sick days, and I still had to make sure my child was taken care of first and foremost.

So despite the nagging fever that’s been wreaking havoc through my body throughout the day and made me feel like I was hit by a bus when I got out of bed at 6:20 am, I still completed a fairly routine day of parenting, although I did call in sick to work, because there was no way on earth I was going to be able to do both on a day like today.  I didn’t do any sit-ups, I didn’t do any push-ups and I most certainly didn’t go for any runs or do anything physical that would have exacerbated the shit feeling I was feeling all throughout the day, although mythical wife and I still made the best of an impromptu day off by going to the exciting land of Costco for random things, but most importantly $1.50 hot dogs and $9 pizza.

The thing is, I’m not sick because I caught coronavirus or anything, quite the opposite.  I’m laid out because of the vaccine, since I just got Moderna.  Frankly, most everyone I know who had gotten Moderna seems to have been laid out just the same in some capacity, and my own mom described pretty much everything I went through, so I kind of had an inkling that I was in for some hurting myself.  And much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I remember waking up around 5-6 times throughout the night, feeling off, and knowing pretty right away that I was probably going to feel it when I got out of bed, and when it came time to do so, it felt like concrete blocks on my feet when I stood up to start my day.

Regardless though, I am now vaccinated, and it’s kind of surreal to know we’ve finally made it to this point in history, where the long-awaited vaccine that seemed like a myth and fairy tale throughout 2020 is here, and people all across the globe are getting it, hoping to sooner rather than later, put an end to coronavirus.

Here’s the thing though; I’ve had this kind of love-hate feeling with the idea of a vaccine, because as I’ve stated before in the past, as terrible as a thing as coronavirus has been, killing millions throughout the world, there were a couple of critical inadvertent blessings that came out of it, mostly namely the fact that because of it and all the stay-at-home measures, I had a tremendous amount more time to spend with my newborn baby and getting to really be a dad throughout the year.

But with people getting vaccinated, and the pandemic gradually coming under control, that means my time at home will eventually come to an end when I’ll eventually be needed to go back into the office.  Aside from the forfeiture of time spent with my children, this also creates a whole new slew of challenges, like daycare and the financial and logistical matters that creates.  Frankly, I don’t ever want to go back into the office, and my job and team have proven how we can absolutely still get shit done while working from home.

As much as I want to be able to go to restaurants and dine out again, I’d rather forfeit eating out than having to go back into the office.

Another train of thought I’d been having a lot lately is how I’m relieved that the vaccines are here, and I’ve gotten it, but at the same time, I have this negative thought in my head that I don’t like the fact that there are a bunch of selfish assholes out there who are eligible all the same to get vaccinated and therefore reduce their risks of getting coronavirus.

I’m talking about the non-believers, the anti-maskers, and all people who went around throughout 2020 as if there was nothing wrong, and flaunted their defiance of logical standards citing their freedom and rights.  I dislike the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of these shitheads out there that are all eligible and probably will get vaccinated the same as those of the world that adhered to safety standards, followed the rules, and showed a modicum of giving a shit about their fellow human beings.

The vaccine is a reward and a blessing for those people, but for the selfish pricks that didn’t help the world straighten itself out, it’s a fucking bailout.  I know there’s no way to disambiguate, but I really wish it were possible to weed out the people who followed the rules and genuinely want the vaccine, to give it to all of them first, and then let the rest of the degenerates eat themselves over the later rounds of vaccinations.

In one fucked up way, it’s almost as if I wished the pandemic would continue so I would have more time to stay at home with my daughter and my future second, and there’s more time for the anti-maskers to be exposed and potentially get punished for their greedy defiance.  There are so many out there that don’t deserve a vaccine that are eligible for it, and the idea of the world getting back to a semblance of normalcy where all these shitheads can resume blending back in disturbs me.  At least in the middle of a pandemic, it’s become pretty easy to spot the shithead, when they’re out in public with no masks on.

Despite the fact that I’ve gotten vaccinated, I’ll still be wearing masks out, because frankly it’s not the end of the world, and save for the beating I took because of the vaccine, I like the idea that I haven’t gotten sick all throughout the last calendar year, and would like to keep it that way.

Frankly, I don’t think we’ll ever hit a point in the world where masks aren’t ever a good idea, but as long as there are selfish shitheads out there, it’ll never not be up for debate, because we won’t be in a position where unanimous compliance will ever come to fruition.

The new IWGP blet makes me go IWTF

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite my general admiration for New Japan Pro Wrestling, I don’t really follow them beyond the snippets of news that pass through my Apple News feed, or whenever a wrestling fan bigger than me brings it up on social media.  But if there is always one thing that is relevant to my interests, it’s whenever blets are brought up, regardless of what fed or promotion they might be for.

So one of the more prevalent storylines throughout NJPW over the last few months has been double champion Kota Ibushi striving to unify the IWGP World and IWGP Intercontinental championships.  I actually give NJPW some credit for taking this and making it into a storyline, instead of just merging them, as it created yet another solid matchup between Ibushi and Tetsuya Naito, with Naito trying to “rescue” the Intercontinental championship from unification, only to fall short in his efforts to strip it away from Ibushi.

With Naito vanquished, the path to unification was clear, and the above blet is the ensuing result.

I’ve definitely seen worse blet designs in my life, but my first impression when I saw the new, unified IWGP World Championship blet, was definitely, a WTF face.   The center plate basically looks like a Phoenix emblem from X-Men comics, and as a belt, it just looks really imbalanced.  I’d hate to feel what wearing that blet would be like, since the top part of the plate juts out at angles, and any sort of abdominal contracting would have them digging into your ribs.  But I guess if you’ve got the action figure-physique that someone like Kota Ibushi has, he can probably just no sell it all the same.

Aside from the design, I’ve heard that the decision to unify the blets has been mostly unpopular, due to the general history that the IWGP Intercontinental championship has carried throughout the years.  Even in the shorter time that I’ve followed NJPW, guys like Shinsuke Nakamura, El Sombra (Andrade), Tetsuya Naito and Chris Jericho were notable carriers of the belt, and much like the WWE’s IC blet, it’s one very much given to workhorse types.

But the reality is that at this current juncture in time, with coronavirus having rampaged the world much less rosters of all professional wrestling promotions, NJPW just has too many blets for as diminished of a roster that they have.  Aside from their unified title which encapsulates two blets now, they’ve still got the NEVER championship, the IWGP US championship, heavyweight and a jr. heavyweight sets of tag team championships, and a jr. heavyweight championship. 

Frankly, they practically have enough blets for most everyone on their entire roster to have one at this point, so shelving the intercontinental championship isn’t a bad idea, because most anyone with a brain should know that the blet will be back in the future when the pandemic is behind us, the rosters start expanding, and then they’ll have the perfect opportunity to do what NJPW does best, which is have some massive tournament, where a brand new IWGP Intercontinental champion will be crowned.

Back to the main point though, I’m not impressed with the new design of the IWGP championship.  Bootlegs as they may be, I’m glad that I have replicas of the former World and Intercontinental championships, and I most definitely wouldn’t plunk down $2,400 for a replica of this new blet.

Maybe in the future, when the IWGP Intercontinental championship comes back, it’ll have a design worth paying for a Pakistani bootleg, but until that day comes, RIP IWGP Intercontinental championship.

**EDIT: it figures Kota Ibushi loses the championship in his first substantial defense after getting the new blet.  Given the fact that it changed hands to gaijin Will Ospreay, I wouldn’t have put it past New Japan to have make it some microaggression, symbolically made sure the old, prestigious blet wouldn’t be held by someone not Japanese or some weeb lifer like Kenny Omega or Scott Norton.

“COVID” must be like, Italian, for “sucking”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The only thing that sucks about both Duke and Kentucky missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1976 is that both of their blowhard coaches are going to be using coronavirus as their excuse for the fact that they just plain sucked; and because it has been such a devastating thing throughout the last year, or the fact that most people with brains know that sports probably shouldn’t be happening in the first place right now, that they’re both going to have an act of god-like rationale to justify it and chalk the 2020-21 season as some sort of asterisked aberration that shouldn’t count.

However, make no mistake – coronavirus or no coronavirus, both Duke and Kentucky played like shit all year, and they are exactly where they belong right now as a result of it.  There’s little reason to believe that either would have done any better if the world weren’t currently in a pandemic, and if anything at all, there should probably be some suspicion to why they just suddenly sucked when there’s no crowds, no extra noise or any other external factors that being in a non-pandemic scenario would have differentiated from.

Of course, aside from coronavirus, both programs will probably cite some key prospects opting out of the season, and I don’t have enough shits to give to try and find out, but these are two of the most notorious hoops programs in the nation; at any given time, they’ll have numerous 4-5 star recruits waiting in the wings, and for every one that opts out, there’s probably another talented prep salivating in the wings to get on the court.

Either way, as a detractor for both overrated programs, it’s good that neither are in the NCAA tournament, as reckless as it might be to hold in the first place.  Both would have undoubtedly gotten bounced in the second round if not the first, by like Florida Atlantic, UMBC or Louisiana Tech, so it’s better for the NCAA to have those layup losses be filled by a potential Cinderella team from a non-power five conference.

But on that same note, for those who might actually give a shit and actually tune into any March Madness, we’ll all be denied the smug satisfaction and gambling pool of when Duke and Kentucky get upset much less filling out a bracket in the first place.  As I said, I just don’t give a shit to look closer, but in previous years, I always tried to earmark when Duke would get bounced, based on whom was in their region.  Kentucky, I often times gave a little more leash, but they were almost always bounced by the Elite Eight in any bracket I ever fill out.

Anyway, good on sports for Duke and Kentucky not making it to the dance.  Chalk one point up for supposed parity.  As for the rest of the college hoops season, none of it really counts or matters this year; that is, unless Virginia Tech wins it all, to which then it’s the greatest season of college hoops in history, and they overcame tremendous odds and adversity to climb to the top of the mountain.  But considering their placement in the ACC tournament and still got bounced by the UNC squad that ducked them earlier in the season, I don’t have too many hopes for that.

One year later (the not-so good one)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It was just days after my child was born.  As she was premature, she was immediately admitted to the NICU, and it was heartbreaking to leave the hospital without our daughter coming home with us, but we tried to take comfort in the fact that she was exactly where she needed to be in order to play some physical catchup to where she would be allowed to come home.

Every single day afterward, mythical wife and I would go to the hospital twice a day to spend some time with our child.  Except for those first few days, I didn’t go, because I had come down with a pretty nasty cough, and given the situation that was rapidly spreading across the globe, understandably, there were some major red flags about an Asian guy having a cough, especially not just at a hospital, but at a NICU.

Fortunately, it was most likely just allergy-related, as like a true genius, I had participated in a double 5K event that involved running two 5Ks in an eight hour span; one at 1 am, and then one at 7 am the following (same) morning; it was daylight-savings themed, and the novelty of it alone made me want to try it.  But in doing so, I had inhaled a metric fuckton of early Georgia spring pollen, and my body was revolting as a result.  However, it cleared up fairly quickly, as the pollen coursed through my system, and I would get to go into the NICU later on.

However, it was on one of those days in which I dropped mythical wife off at the NICU, and came back home to log into work, I have a memory of swinging by the nearby Publix on the way home, and knowing we were low on bottled water, I made a point to pick up some more.  There was a display upon entering for a buy 2, get 1 free, so I figured, why not just get three cases?  With this whole pandemic thing starting to gain momentum, I figured three cases of water between two adults should be sufficient for all this shit to blow over, right?

Funny how perceptions are when you’ve never really lived through a global pandemic in your life.

So here we are, one year later; people with brains larger than a pea, are still wearing masks out in public, if they’re even leaving home in the first place, and coronavirus has officially killed over half a million Americans, and countless many more over the rest of the globe, but pretty much nowhere worse than it was in America.  Several vaccines have finally come to light, but the distribution of them leaves a lot to be desired, considering an entire planet’s population all need it in order to hopefully return to some semblance of normalcy, so in spite of the supposed cure existing, it’s still a slow and still dangerous path to the finish line.

Continue reading “One year later (the not-so good one)” →