Tag: observations

So cruel, is the human body

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It started the previous weekend, when #2 just began projectile vomiting all over the place.  No warning, no indication of illness, just vomit, lots of it, and spread out throughout the duration of the day.  It was quite unpleasant.  But after a good night’s sleep, the worst of it was over, and after another 24 hours, it was as if she were never sick at all.

A few days later, mythical wife rolls in from work, and is pretty much laid up for the remainder of the day with similar symptoms.  That night, I hear more crying from usual from #1 on the baby monitor, to the point where I feel like I have to check in on her.  The scent of vomit is in the air upon entering her room, and it turns out that she too has caught the bug.  After several hours of hanging out with her, reading her books, and letting her purge everything that’s been in her system, by 1 am, she’s finally asleep.

Same thing, a day later, nobody is vomiting anymore, and a day after that and everyone is mostly back to normal again, although mythical wife seemed to drag a little bit more than the girls did.

Days later, I’m on the phone with my mom on the way home from work.  It had been a long day, and one that really required the second cup of coffee in order to make it home.  I’m telling my mom how it very fortunate that I managed to avoid the bug, considering how hard it hit the wife and kids. 

Sure enough, no sooner than maybe a half hour after getting home, I’m beginning to feel unsettled.  After the kids are put to bed, I don’t dawdle much and head to bed myself, feeling cruddy.  About an hour later, the first bout of vomiting occurs, and its apparent that I must definitely did not escape the wrath of the bug either.

The following day is a miserable day of illness where the only thing I did when I wasn’t laying down drifting in and out of sleep, is a death march to and from the bathroom with some rather unpleasant purges.  I slog through the work day, and my entire WFH Friday is completely burned, where I get no work done, and accomplish none of the little side chores I do in between.  I’m starving and thirsty, but don’t want to put anything into my body when it’s clearly rejecting everything in sight.  I don’t get back to sleep until closer to 4 am due to the constant need to get up and go to the toilet.

But much like everyone else, I’m mostly fine in 72 hours, which seems to be the norm for the adults with the bug.  Lucid enough to be able to watch and slog through the Super Bowl, which was boring as fuck until the end and OT.

However, the real tragedy of me getting the bug is that, circling back to that second cup of coffee that I had on Thursday, I know that had nothing to do with me getting sick, but because it was one of the last things I consumed before I started getting sick, my body has decided to hold it responsible all the same.  Even now as I write this, I’m leery on the idea of drinking a cup of black coffee, which is how I drink it at work because my workplace offers no creamers or additives and often times doesn’t even provide the coffee in the first place.  But when I do drink coffee at the office, it’s black, except now my body is revolting at the idea of consuming anymore black coffee right now.

Even my morning cup of coffee, which has some flavored creamer in it, I’m still a little ehhh about at the moment, but I guess the added flavor and the fact that my body can’t really start without it, it’s an exception to be allowed, but frankly coffee in general has been very unappealing since I’d gotten sick, which completely sucks because I love coffee, and this is why the human body is capable of being so cruel.

Coffee had nothing to do with my getting sick, but because coffee undoubtedly made its way out during my mass purging, it’s like my body is blaming it anyway, and I’m still working myself back to being able to actually enjoy coffee again, and I feel like it’s going take an obnoxious amount of time before I really feel comfort and relaxation from a really good cup of coffee again.

The case for Trevor Bauer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I can’t say that I’m paying much attention to the baseball offseason other than the big name moves that are spoon-fed to me through mainstream media, but there’s one name that I’ve been very curious about to see what happens: Trevor Bauer.

Long story short, Bauer was accused of sexual assault, suspended by MLB, went to Japan to keep on pitching, eventually found innocent and legally exonerated, but remains unemployed, despite having put up a solid season in NPB and remaining in game-ready shape.

And today, Trevor Bauer has basically declared that he would play for free:*

For a team that doesn’t want to commit multi years, hundreds of millions of dollars, or many elite prospects for a Cy Young award winner, they could sign me for the league minimum and pay 0 incremental dollars over what they have to pay to that roster spot anyway. Just another option for teams that want to win and don’t want to break the bank.

*League minimum, last time I checked was $725K which is a ton of money, but largely negligible as office supplies as far as a Major League Baseball organization is concerned

It’s obvious at this point, Bauer is grasping at straws for a job, and I’m sure that if were able to secure one, he’d probably fairly easily be able to re-establish his value and get back to Major League fuck-you money again, but it’s evident that there’s some league-wide black balling of Trevor Bauer, despite the fact that legally he’s in the clear.  Sure, there are other accusers and probably civil suit(s) somewhere in the background, but by and large we still have a man that has been found guilty of nothing, but is still being punished by today’s societal standards that perception is reality.

When I was live-or-die by the Braves on a daily basis, I’d probably be in support of the blackballing of Bauer here; the Atlanta Braves must remain pure and respectable and the high standard of integrity that can only come with wearing The A.  But I’m not that guy anymore, and I am still a Braves, fan, for lack of a better term, albeit a shitty one that probably hates the team more Taylor Swift fans love Taylor Swift, and I’m tired of seeing the Braves overachieve throughout the regular season and flop in the postseason like it were the 90s again.

Yes, I know we’re just three years removed from the Braves being World Series champions, but with teams this talented, expectations this high, and a contention window wide open, a team has to strike while the iron is hot, and I feel that the Braves are squandering their chances by being so Braves-ey, and constantly thinking they’ll continue to get overachieving performances out of their roster for the rest of this contention window.  The lack of depth in starting pitching has been exposed over the last two years, and the team shit the bed in free agency this off-season in addressing this need, while fans continue to sing the praises of general manager Alex Anthopolous as if already won the next World Series.

I would much, much, much rather see Trevor Bauer take the hill in a playoff game over Bryce Elder, or even a late-season tired Spencer Strider, whom both have shown the tendency to run out of gas by the time the playoffs start over the last two years.  And it would be nice to have a reliable starting option in the wings if there’s another late-season Max Fried injury, or Charlie Morton’s 40-year old arm starts to go, or it turns out that Ian Anderson can’t bounce back from injury or that any of the fringe starters they got are better served in the bullpen.

Trevor Bauer got knocked around when he first got to Japan, but he still compiled a solid overall season in the land of the #1 ranked baseball nation on the planet, where he had a 2.76 ERA and 130 strikeouts in as many innings, a solid  9.0 K/9.  He would slot into the top-2 of any starting five in baseball, and it would literally cost any team the same cost as it would to pay the 26th man on the roster, whose primary job will be the late-inning pinch runner for the team’s veterans.

There’s absolutely little more than the Braves, and their stat-geek fans love, more than saving money, and a willingness to take the league minimum, is about as big of a money savings as there possibly is.  Nobody does what Trevor Bauer did, because the MLBPA won’t let them, but seeing as how Bauer was blacklisted, he’s obviously not a part of it anymore because he’s not actually employed by MLB at the moment, so here we are – an ace-caliber pitcher showing his hand and telling the world that he’s willing to play for peanuts so that he can re-establish himself in Major League Baseball.

And just to put the kibosh on the perception that the Braves are too high and mighty to pick up an innocent miscreant like Trevor Bauer, let me remind Braves fans of some of the guys in franchise history who were actually guilty of crimes against women:

  • 1995, beloved skipper Bobby Cox was arrested on assault charges against his wife
  • 1997, Chipper Jones revealed to have had extramarital affair with a Hooters waitress; also impregnating her
  • 2012, Andruw Jones is arrested on assault charges against his wife
  • 2021, Marcell Ozuna is arrested on assault charges against his girlfriend

So let’s not act like the Braves, or Major League Baseball is some holy organization where saints play.  Yes, Trevor Bauer is kind of an arrogant prick, is a super bro on his socials, but he’s legally free and clear, despite previous accusations.  He’s an obvious upgrade to any team’s starting rotation, and he would cost a team practically nothing, so let’s not duck the obvious fact that he’s getting the Colin Kaepernick treatment here.

But make no mistake, someone will bite eventually.  MLB is no NFL, where there are (allegedly) numerous QB options “better than” Kaepernick, MLB teams always need pitching help, and one team will bite eventually.  Whether it’s two weeks left in Spring Training, or a July acquisition after watching him pitch in the independents or at a private showcase, baseball teams always need pitching, and a cheap and free and clear pitcher of Trevor Bauer’s capabilities will not go unemployed all year long.  But it will be a one-season deal, because once he takes an MLB mound again and proves he still can get the job done, he’ll be back to making millions in 2025.

I know it’s not going to be the Braves, because they’re too high and mighty on their own brand and reputation, but I would be absolutely stoked as a fan who wants to win if it were.  I would love to see the Braves meet the Dodgers in the NLCS, and a very motivated Trevor Bauer marches into Dodger Stadium and fires a statement shutdown performance against the organization that let him hang out to dry.

Someone else is definitely going to get the bargain of the century, when they blink first and sign Trevor Bauer, and I’ll be waiting to harvest my e-cred for when I’m right about this layup of a prediction.

Dad Brog (#128): Breaking Dada again (in a good way)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a long time since I made a Dada post.  It’s been a long time since I’ve actually taken the time to write, for the matter.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, I just simply have had no time to write, because my life is chaotic, my kids come first, been too busy, and it doesn’t help that I’m insufferably neurotic about having the right conditions to take the time to write.

I’ve got a laundry list of topics that I want to write about, and it will be a challenge to retroactively try to get into the headspace necessary to write about them and try and fool my zero readers that they’re fresh and happening when they did but it doesn’t mean I won’t try either.

But this post, at least, is about as a live and real-time, genuinely written on the day in which the thoughts formulated in my head, which is about as good of opportunity as any to get back on the writing horse and hope that it gets the ball rolling again to where I can also knock out some of the other things I’ve wanted to blab about over the last few weeks.

One thing that I’ve always looked forward to as a parent, was the day in which my kids’ creativity developed to where they could start creating, things.  Drawings, paintings, sculptures, whatever, but tangible things that they make from nothing.  And over the last year and change now, with both of my kids in school, my kids are sent back home on the regular with papers of general scribbles and some developmentally appropriate artwork that they do, and me, being the sap that I am, have basically saved everything, no matter how inconsequential or scribbly they might look to others.  They’re my kids’ first forays into artwork, and for the time being, I’m hoarding them like I want to end up on TLC, and look forward to looking back at them with my kids in the near future.

But today, I come home from work, and when I’m reading to #2 on the couch, #1 comes to me with a person made out of bristle blocks.  She says, this is Dada.  Nobody notices it, but my lip immediately pouts for a second, because I’m cracking just how touched I am at the seemingly innocuous gesture that means the world to me.  Moments later, she comes back with another one, shorter, and says that this is me, and puts it next to the Dada figure.  I have to stop reading at this point because I’m holding back tears at this point, because I’m breaking in the best way possible, and my sniffles I try and act like it’s the seasonal bug that’s been passed around my household over the last week.

After I tell her how much I love them, she vanishes again, and minutes later comes back with yet another figure, the smallest one of the three, and says this is sissy, and I’m just about the happiest dad I’ve felt in a few days at how much I love these kids, and marvel at just how much they seem to grow on a daily basis.

Naturally, #2 destroyed them before I could take a picture of them, but I’m sure now that they’ve gotten such a positive reaction from me, #1 will probably make them again, to which I will definitely require some photographic chronicling of such happy thoughts.

All the same, I’m really looking forward to the day when my girls start making stuff like bracelets and necklaces, and I can’t wait to wear colorful and vibrant accessories that don’t match any of my office attire or anything else I wear, because fewer things will have more meaning and be more treasured on my person than the things that my own kids make, especially if they’re meant for Dada.

Disney Cruises are almost hilariously exploitative

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the years, mythical wife and I have decided that we like cruising.  It’s a good way to get a sampling of lots of international places, and then at the end of the day get dined, sometimes wined, and retreat to what’s basically a mobile hotel room.  Sometimes you stay aboard the ship and enjoy the relaxation and amenities, other times you disembark and do a little bit of exploring.

Recently, we completed a short cruise aboard the Disney Wish, supposedly the newest vessel in the Disney Cruise lineup of ships.  With this one, we’ve now done the Fantasy, Magic and Wish, and are pretty much veterans as far as cruising with Disney goes.  Now the only other cruise we’ve done was Royal Caribbean, but at first comparison, Disney is believed to be the cream of the crop, and at least compared to RC, it really is a step above.

I’ve never done Celebrity, Norwegian, Princess or any other cruise line, but from scuttlebutt, most of them are still a step below Disney if not RC as well, but I’m not going to poopoo them really until I’ve tried them myself.  That’s besides the point though, what spurred this post from coming to fruition is that regardless of how enjoyable and how much I like cruising, it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that the whole business operations of cruising, Disney or other, are almost hilariously exploitative, as far as labor goes.

So we’ve learned that cruising, as enjoyable as it is, is a very expensive mode of vacationing.  Between mythical wife and I, it’s thousands of dollars, even more once we factor in the kids and anyone else we want to come with.  But on the other side of the coin, once we’re on the ship, it’s hilariously evident that the ships are run and operated by almost entirely foreign labor, whom are obviously being paid way less than domestic counterparts would cost.  Mostly Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and seemingly mostly from the south/southeastern Asia/Pacific islands  region, from what I’ve observed.  And obviously, Disney and/or whatever cruise line are the ones pocketing the difference in the middle of what consumers pay and what they pay their labor.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to say that the service on any of the cruises we’ve done has been anything short of outstanding.  I’d want these stewards servicing every aspect of my life if I could get away with it, but it’s just hilariously exploitative that cruises employ almost entirely out of third-world countries, to whom this is akin to winning the lottery of jobs, because they’re making USD, getting tipped in USD, and can probably more than adequately provide for their families, at the cost of their indentured servitude to the cruise lines when they’re on.

It’s kind of mind-blowing, because service on these cruises is nothing short of exceptional, and with toddlers, I’m unfortunately taxing them more than when it was just mythical wife and I on our own, and they’ve had to clean soiled linens and change sheets in the middle of the night, and they always do so with smiles and enthusiasm, and they’re so grateful for the cash tips I give them as way of saying thanks.  And when it comes time to tip out at the end of the cruises, the general expectation of gratuities on a daily basis, would make the internet rage, if such numbers were even proposed to be tipped to an American, but is more than adequate for the staff on a cruise.

Of course, it makes me pleased to know that it helps my bottom line tipping a recommended amount that’s less than the expectations that American laborers would expect, which kind of makes me hypocritical I suppose, but at the same time I’m not going to turn a blind eye at the observation that Disney, and probably all other cruise lines employ the same exploitative strategy of staffing up from third-world countries. 

It’s kind of a shame too, because as observed, all these workers are so upbeat, enthusiastic and seemingly grateful for their jobs, and are getting paid peanuts compared to what Americans would expect, most likely to do their jobs as bare minimum and apathetically as possible, but I guess all that really matters in the end for the consumer, is a positive experience, and if exploiting the third-world in order to gain it, it’s the preferable option, I guess.

Does nobody move for ‘excuse me’ anymore?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

During my last family trip, I observed a noticeable amount of instances where saying ‘excuse me’ to people, resulted in absolutely no response at all.  And it’s not like I’m taking any off-path routes to get from point A to B to C, I’m talking about very general, public and heavy-traffic walkways or paths, where people clog up traffic, I want to get around them, and they have the space to move elsewhere, but for whatever selfish reason, they exist in the way.

I say excuse me, in a normal, neutral tone, and in some instances, people glanced over at me, and in other either people pretended like they couldn’t hear me, or proceeded to completely no-sell the fuck out of me.  It’s at this point, I say excuse me in a louder, more insistent tone and this usually does the trick to get them to acknowledge my existence, and when I usually just proceed to move at them, will they actually move.

It’s not like I was walking by myself in most cases, and could just as alternatively take longer, wider routes to avoid being close to people in the first place.  In most of these cases, I’m wheeling a stroller, luggage, or, in a rush carrying a toddler that needs to go to the bathroom, but for whatever reason it is, it just felt like a conspicuously high number of instances where it just seems like people have dropped common courtesy of moving the fuck out of the way when people say excuse me.

And when I have to repeat myself, louder and more hostile sounding, all these cocksuckers look at me like I’m the asshole for trying to get somewhere, where they’re the conceited selfish shitheads blocking walkways and thinking their inane conversations or needs are higher priority than others.

It’s not lost on me that this is sounding like an old man yelling at the sky kind of rant, but what’s really wrong with hoping that people have common decency to continue honoring the simple and basic human interaction of moving out of the way when someone says excuse me?  It’s not like I’m barreling through with the intention of initiating contact and shoving people out of the way, I’m simply alerting people that I need to get around them, and to pardon any potential contact and give them a heads up to move if they can.  Fuck me, right??

I watched all of Shameless over the last few months

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s not much more to say beyond the title of this post, but considering how much of my life I’ve given to slowly binging this series, I felt like I had to write something about it.

But god damn, I think Jeremy Allen White said it best, that shows really shouldn’t be meant to go as long as Shameless did.  I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy the show, I really did like it from start to finish, and as far as the older seasons go, I think it was cleverly done so that it didn’t age poorly, but there were multiple times throughout binging it, I’d stop and look at the list of seasons and how many episodes there was per season, and think, fuck, I still got so much to watch.

Because I’m the type that doesn’t like to start multiple shows and bounce around, I like to give all of my focus to one show at a time, and continue as long as it can hold my interest, and in the case of Shameless, despite the fact that it’s 11 seasons long, it accomplished in being entertaining enough throughout the series to keep soldering through.

Primarily due to the strength of the characters, namely Fiona and Lip Gallagher, whom at varying points throughout the series, I felt them so hard at times, despite the fact that I don’t have either of their addiction issues.  But it’s the whole notion that throughout the series, the two of them especially, took on the role of being the patriarch of the family, shouldering heavy responsibilities and putting the family first, I felt it at a very personal level, and it makes it easy to relate and root for the characters as the series chugs along, and that personal connection to characters is what makes binging the series so easy to do.

But at the same time, I’m really relieved that I’m done with the series.  I think I will have great reluctance again in the future the next time a series that’s more than like, five seasons, comes up on my radar, because it’s a tremendous commitment to decide to delve into a lengthy series, and considering the general dearth of available time I already have in my life, I want to make sure that the things I do, do when I have it, like binging television shows, are worth it to me.

Fare thee well, Shameless and the Gallagher clan, it was an entertaining ride from beginning to end, but I’m ready as fuck, to move onto some other things now.

Anthony Rendon is hilariously unbelievable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol: Angels third baseman, Anthony Rendon, goes on the record, opining that the baseball season is too long and that it should be shortened

We got to shorten the season, man,” Rendon said. “There’s too many dang games–162 games in 185 days or whatever it is. Man. No. We gotta shorten this bad boy up. Let’s go.

Here’s why this quote from this particular player is amusing for all the wrong reasons: Anthony Rendon hasn’t played even 60 games a season, much less close to 162 games, in four straight years.  Granted, 2020 was the COVID-shortened season, but between 2021-2023, he’s played in just a diminutive 30% of games that the Angels have had.

Furthermore, he’s halfway through a contract that’s paying him $245M over seven years and it’s safe to say that he’s basically already on the hall of fame of worst free agent contracts in baseball history.  To say that he’s been a bust is an understatement, the guy has been ducking his job as if his job were to avoid playing in baseball games by any means necessary.  He’s been mysteriously injured for the last four years with no real understanding to what’s been ailing him, and he even got himself suspended for a week, when he got involved with a heckler in Oakland.

As many internet comedians have pointed out, he shortens his own season anyway, so it seems redundant that he’d put himself in the line of fire like this in the first place.  But I think my favorite observation was one that I had myself, that basically nobody seems to hate the game that has made him a gozillionaire, more than Anthony Rendon:

Love something as much as Anthony Rendon hates baseball

The man is truly unbelievable.  I feel for the Angels, because between losing Ohtani, they’re stuck with an albatross like Rendon, who clearly has phoned in his career at this point, and will stick around nursing injuries and pretending like he can’t play for the remainder of his deal, and after banking $245M bones, I don’t even think he’s going to bother doing the thing where he starts trying to play hard again within the last two years of his deal, so that he could possibly try to position himself to getting another big contract.  He’ll be 35 and 36 in the final years of his contract, and considering he already hates playing baseball right now, there’s absolutely no way he’s going to try and stick with a job he hates so much in 2-3 years.