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.

The year-end post, circa 2020

December 31, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This video by Carters encapsulates how I feel extremely succinctly. I know 2020 has been a historically catastrophic year by any number of measures, and I’m not going to even try and change anyone’s mind who’ve already decided that there’s absolutely nothing at all redeemable about it. It’s a fair judgment, and there’s tons of justification to where I just have to shrug and agree that such X and other Y really are terrible things, and leave people alone to continue believing that 2020 was the worst year in human existence.

Frankly, if not for the one obvious event in my life this year, I’d probably be right there with them. But because of said event, there’s absolutely nothing else that could really occur that can make me possibly think that 2020 was anything other than among the greatest years of my life. Like many, I too know my share of people whom coronavirus has dually affected throughout the year, or had some very unfortunate events or news take place, and my heart genuinely, sincerely goes out to them, and I wish for nothing but the best for them and their loved ones.

But nothing is going to change my perspective on 2020 being a magnificent year, because nothing has been a greater event in my life than the birth of my daughter, right before all the shit really began to hit the fan. And throughout the remainder of the year, for every piece of horrible, shitty news, note about someone dying, bad day at work, or any other reason for stress and unhappiness, I was always mere steps away from being able to go pick up my daughter and hold her in my arms and will away the negativity.

As ironic as it may seem, and I’ve said it as much, as much as coronavirus and the global pandemic have been devastating to the world throughout the year, it’s inadvertently put me in the most optimal position in the sense that I’ve gotten to work from home since the shit hit the fan, and I’ve gotten to spend a tremendous amount of time more raising my daughter than if the world wasn’t in lockdown and I had to go back to work in the office while my child would be in a daycare, in the hands and responsibility of people I don’t know.

I don’t fucking want that, even if there were no coronavirus in play. I’ve been fortunate and I treasure all the time I’ve had and will continue to have being close to my kid, and it’s ironic that I have to thank the selfish stupidity of ‘Muricans for being so stupid and greedy that they can’t or refuse to comply to the behaviors that would’ve eradicated all of this if we just had some collective cooperation.

But outside of my child and coronavirus, 2020 has been somewhat of an eventful year. Yes, most of it was bad, but not everything was completely putrid. And as I tend to do every year, I take some notes on a daily basis of the things that happen that are remotely interesting to me, so I guess behind the jump, we’ll take a look back through the year that everyone loves to hate and can’t wait to see end:

Continue reading “The year-end post, circa 2020” →

Advent Beer #24: Weizenbock Hell by Ladenburger

December 24, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And here we are, hours before the clock strikes midnight, bringing on Christmas of the vaunted year of 2020, and I am sipping on the final and 24^th beer of the Costco advent calendar.

When I pulled this can out of the fridge, my first thought was, WTF another Hell beer? Obviously by now, I can recall that “hell” in Deutsch means “bright” and not the devils and pitchforks hell-hell, I’ve had so many hells over the last 24 days. But at the same time, I’m thinking, if this is the last beer in the entire collection, surely it must be good to warrant it being the finale to a beer drinker’s journey, right?

Regardless of my general disdain for the seeming lack of originality in putting forth yet another hell bier, and not like another dunkel, I remained hopeful that this would be good, in spite of the fact that all the other hell biers sit uncomfortably at the bottom third of the rankings, due to their general boredom and lack of interesting characteristics.

Pouring this bier into my das boot, I’m greeted with both a strong aroma, and the sight of a cloudy, amber bier, both of which bode well for my hopes, as cloudy usually equals flavorful, and if you can smell it, it probably isn’t going to be bland.

The first sip is met with a ton of fruity notes and a pretty intense flavor. I’m kind of reminded of a Lonerider Shotgun Betty, which is a tremendous compliment in its own right, and it should be reminded that a former #1 in the rankings, the Bearjew Weisse (#16) got that position mostly because of its similarities to Shotgun Betty. So the fact that this also has similarities to the characteristics that makeup Shotgun Betty and Bearjew Weisse means that this has to rate well, right?

As I drink this beer, I’m feeling that the fruity notes are a little on the too intense side of things, and there’s a surprising amount of kick at the end. Examining the can, I read that this has an ABV of 7.4%, which I believe makes it the most potent bier in the collection, which I guess kind of explains why this is the one they end on, because it’s the one that’s going to punch the hardest.

By slotting Weizenbock Hell into #5, that solidifies the rankings as there are no more beers to go. I liked Weizenbock Hell a good bit, it’s easily the strongest bier to have put into my das boot, but when the day is over, it’s falling beneath a more balanced Shotgun Betty clone (Bearjew), two dunkels (Jubilation Suds and Kirta), and my first (supposed) exposure to a kellierbier (First Coral). Weizenbock is a strong finish to the entire collection, and the fact that it cracked the top-5 at the very end speaks volumes to the quality of this finale.

And with that, concludes 24 days of biers from Deutschland. I have enjoyed it, and making it an excuse to carve out a little bit of time each night to write about something I’m most definitely not an expert in, but one of the big takeaways I get from this is that a lot of ‘Murican beer is about as mediocre in comparison to a mishmash of biers randomly collected from another country, but maybe that can be chalked up to a grass is greener logic. I wonder if whatever country drew ‘Murican Beer Advent Calendar is as impressed with theirs as I am with Deutschland’s?

Current Rankings:

Jubilation Suds (#18)
Bearjew Weisse (#16)
First Coral (#2)
Kirta (#5)
Weizenbock Hell (#24)
Turbo Prop (#6)
Schwarze Tinte (#13)
Perlenzauber (#9)
Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
Märzenbier (#20)
Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
Landgang Pils (#23)
Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
Alpen Stoff (#17)
Kurpfalz Bräu Kellerbier (#22)
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 #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)

All I want for Christmas is for people to put their fucking political signs away

December 15, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is a house in my actual neighborhood. Prior to the presidential election, all they had were the laughable “CHOOSE FREEDOM, VOTE REPUBLICAN” sign as well as the requisite Potato / Puppet sign that 74 million other racists in the country proudly plopped onto their properties.

Full disclosure, I deliberately went on walks in my neighborhood in many of the days after it was called that Joe Biden was the elected winner, because the weather wasn’t terrible, I wanted to get out of the house, take my daughter out in the stroller to get some fresh air, but most importantly, take inventory of all the racists in the neighborhood to see who was taking their signs down and who wasn’t.

At one point, this specific house took their signs down. I was pleased. If there’s one thing that the regime of the baked potato really exposed was that there are a frighteningly high amount of racists in this country, and are proud to tell everyone they are, and no more indicative than a sign for the potato and his puppet, and despite the fact that the baked potato losing isn’t going to magically take the racism out of all 74 million of his dumbass supporters, ignorance is bliss, and I’d rather all these assholes go back into obscurity.

But because Georgia has become ground zero for the next major battleground, the Senate, where two run-off elections that will decide the two remaining seats that will determine whether Mitch McConnell will have control or not, the political bullshit most certainly has not ended here, and has in fact, gotten kind of worse, than before the presidential election. I’ve literally received mail from Democratic boosters in other states, bemoaning the importance of my vote in Georgia, and how the royal we control the fate of the country in our hands.

On the right, we have Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, two literal sock puppets who have a tremendous track record for insider trading and other self-interests, but are firmly entrenched in their positions because the country has 74 million racists that auto-vote for the names that their lord kings tell them to vote for.

And on the left, we have Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff vying to oust their opponents. I like Warnock, but I can kind of understand why Ossoff turns voters off, seeing as how he already lost a very public special election, but the reality is that I’d rather vote for a Vidalia onion and a boiled peanut over Loeffler and Purdue.

But once it was established that all eyes would be on Georgia entering 2021, not only has Georgia seen no shortage of political bullshit, the brainless Republican supporters are tripling down, digging their heels in, and continuing to root for their parade of assholes like Loeffler and Purdue, and the signs are popping up in droves.

And in the case of this clown in my neighborhood, not only did they plant their own Loeffler and Purdue signs in their yard, they went ahead and put back their baked potato sign, as if it’s like a Game Genie that will enhance the chances of these self-serving insider traders.

Continue reading “All I want for Christmas is for people to put their fucking political signs away” →

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 #8: Tannen Hell by Hohenthanner Schlossbrauerei

December 8, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t start drinking until I was 24. I was admittedly one of those snooty 21-year olds with a stick up my butt that felt that he didn’t really need to drink at all in order to have a good time in life. Eventually there were some changes in my life, and my sister was one of the people who really told me that I needed to loosen up and simply figure out how to have fun. And among the changes I tried to make with my life then was that I figured that I should remove the stick out of my butt about drinking and just give it a shot.

So for the next few years I was making up for a lot of lost time, and I was basically trying everything. Pretty early on, I realized that hard shit wasn’t really for me, wine was only on special occasions, and that when the day was over, beer was probably my jam. And one of the things I learned early on, was that Asian beers, were pretty tame in terms of ABV, flavor, and other criteria that are popularly utilized to measure a beer.

Well, Tannen Hell, in spite of being a German bier, is basically an Asian beer. My eyebrow furrowed after I popped the can, gave it a sniff, and poured it into my glass, and it was as bright and clear as lemonade. Immediately, I began to hypothesize that this was going to be a fairly weak flavor, and it was confirmed seconds later with the first sip.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t terrible. According to the snobs at BeerAdvocate, it’s classified as a lager, but this is an instance where I’d wonder if there’s some sort of subclass that this could be categorized in instead, because I’ve had my share of lagers, and few of them have been as light-bodied and as tame tasting as this one was.

It almost had like a cherry, fruity note somewhere in the flavoring, but that was about as much flavor as this beer had. As I said, it was kind of bland, very light, and in spite of the 4.9% ABV, this is one of those times where I call bullshit because it’s almost like the closest thing to a Miller Lite I feel like I’ve had from a brand outside of ‘Murica.

Don’t really have much else to say about this one, and the fact that I’m itching to wrap this up because I have some 90 Day Fiancé to catch up on says everything that really needs to be said about Tannen Hell. It’s not the worst of the bunch, but barely.

Current Rankings:

First Coral (#2)
Kirta (#5)
Turbo Prop (#6)
Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
Hell (#1)
Tannen Hell (#8)
Käuzle (#3)