Tag: cashmoney

There are probably way better analogies for Tarik Skubal’s WBC participation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

But the first one that comes to mind is when Amazon announced the first-ever Prime Day, they were boasting that it was going to basically be the Brack Friday of the summer, that there were going to be all sorts of incredible deals, massive savings, and that it was going to be the greatest shopping event of the year outside of the holidays.  But when Prime Day began, it became quickly apparent that it really was Amazon’s cleverly-named attempt to clean out their warehouses, because for every one marquee item they had that sold out in two seconds, there were at least a million listings for dumb bullshit like USB cables, electrical outlet covers, dish towels, and all sorts of small, inane crap that nobody really needed.

Anyway, that’s kind of what it feels like to find out that reigning AL Cy Young winner and vocal proponent of USA Baseball, Tarik Skubal revealed that he was only planning on making one start in the World Baseball Classic, and then returning to Spring Training.

Skubal was one of the first players announced for Team USA, and an easy guy to hitch the wagon to, as someone whose incredible arm could easily carry the squad deep into the tournament, and most importantly, potentially neutralize the potent lineups of Japan, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

Considering the United States has only won the tournament they basically invented in order to pad their global athletic standing once out of five times, it’s got to be like a sour grape for USA Baseball, and something they always want to wash the taste out of their mouths, by winning again, and closing that lead held by Japan, who has won 3 of 5, and a guy like Skubal committing is a giant boon, especially since he was shortly followed by NL Cy Young winner, Paul Skenes, creating an incredibly unfair-sounding 1-2 pitching duo in a short tournament format.

But now Skubal reveals that he’s only planning to make a single start, against Great Britain of all teams in the tournament; unsurprising, once such intel was absorbed by baseball fans, it quickly turned into snarky vitriol towards the talented lefty, with people accusing him of unpatriotically going into body protect mode, since it’s clear that he’s going to be seeking out a gabillion dollar contract after the 2026 season, as he’s set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time.

Like, in one hand, I get the importance of protecting one’s self, especially considering the last WBC saw closer Edwin Diaz blow out his knee in 2022 and miss an entire season, and injury is always on the backs of the minds of nearly every participating major leaguer.

But in the other hand, if Skubal knew that he wasn’t going to commit more than a single fucking start for Team USA, I feel like it probably would’ve been best had he just not committed to the team in the first place.  Free up the spot to someone who really wanted to put their balls on the line for the country, and is willing to make three starts if needed, which should encapsulate a group, knockout and potential final in a best-case scenario.

In a way, joining the squad but then only committing to a single appearance, against possibly the worst team in the entire tournament is tantamount to being a part of a group project in school, doing the very first assignment, but then not doing anything at all for the remainder of the project.

Look, I know my analogy game is terribly off right now, but the point is, Skubal’s shenanigans is like a shitty rug pull that gave US baseball hope, but then took it all back.  If anything, if Skubal was only going to commit to a single game, it would be best served if it were saved to be against Japan or any of the other expected powerhouses of the tournament, and save appearances against scrubs like Great Britain, Brazil or Italy for guys like the retired Clayton Kershaw or Logan Webb.

Obviously, I’d love to see Team USA win another WBC, because I don’t think Korea is going to make the runs they did like they did in 2006 and 2009 ever again, but it’s times like this where the greed and body-protect logic of professional athletes gets really fucking old.  There’s a reason why Japan has won three of the five WBCs, and there’s very little reason to believe that they’re not going to be knocking on the door of a fourth one in coming weeks.

This has got to be a first, right?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Back when mythical wife was pregnant for the first time, she didn’t deal with a lot of the stereotypical things that are associated with pregnant women.  No crazy cravings for shit like pickles and ice cream, no rampant morning sickness that had her running to the bathroom sporadically.  However, if there was one thing that could be construed something of a craving, it was that she wanted to have some ice to chew on occasionally.

However, the refrigerator at my home doesn’t have a water/ice function.  At that time, I was still content with buying and drinking bottled water, so we never really had need for ice, beyond occasional recipes or the want for a mixed drink, in which we did have the old tech ice cube trays in the freezer for such things.

Long story short, mythical wife ended up purchasing a countertop ice machine to be able to make fresh ice in six minutes, and satiate her want for ice cubes.  Our household would eventually get used to having the ice machine, and after enough guilting about the environment, we purchased a water cooler and stopped purchasing bottles, and since my water was now coming in cups and bottles, I started getting used to being able to load up a bunch of ice to keep my drinks colder longer.

The thing is, either they’re not supposed to be left up and running 24/7 like we did, or much like lots of machines of today, they’re designed to eventually fail and die, which is exactly what happened to ours.  After getting used to it, it really sucked to suddenly not be able to have fresh ice whenever we wanted to, which is about as big of a first-world problem there could be, but bear with me here.

Fast forward, over the last few years, my household has gone through three ice machines.  As noted above, either they’re not supposed to be running 24/7, or they really are just kind of shittily made and aren’t meant to last beyond 18 months, which seems to have been the general lifespan for all of them.

Needless to say, when I bought ice maker #4, I actually had the wherewithal to pay the $12 to Target and get the 2-year replacement plan.  By now, I had enough empirical evidence to take the gamble that #4 would not make it 24 months, and that if I played my cards right, should theoretically be able to get a free replacement in the future, for the low-cost of $12.

Otherwise, like the other 98% of electronics I’ve ever purchased in my life, I would’ve declined the protection plan without a second thought.  In all those cases, knock on wood, either nothing has happened within two years, or there’s some funny business that leads to my shit being invalid for coverage, and it resulting in a sunk money cost and feeling of remorse for wasting the cash in the first place.

Either way, ice maker #4 died, as anticipated it would eventually do, but this time, the moment of dread and first-world problem anguish at having to go procure ice machine #5, I had a moment of excited curiosity, at being able to explore the protection plan I had the wise wherewithal to invest in back in May 2024.

Because I’m a digital packrat that saves every single e-receipt and document pertaining to anything I’ve ever purchased online, I was fairly easily able to track down all needed documentation to file a claim, and the process was pretty painless and simple, and within maybe 90 minutes, I had a submission, an approval and a resolution completed.  Target has apparently given up on peddling ice machines, so the insurance company resolved to just reimburse me the cost of ice maker #4, effectively having paid just $12 for it, less the minute aggravation of having to go track down #5.

But as the title of this post said, this has got to be like the first time in history, at least for me, where a protection plan actually worked and paid out, right?  Usually PPs are the consumer’s version of sucker bets, like insurance in blackjack, but after years of evidence of how short-lived ice makers are, I made an educated decision, and it paid off, without any real complications.

It brings me great joy, and softens the first-world gripe of not having fresh ice until I can get #5.  The question is if, the retailer I get it from, if they’ll offer a protection plan on it as well, because it seems to be a wise investment on these little machines.  But if they do, I think I’mma take it again, and hope it works out in 18 months from now

Let’s talk about selling out

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Too many sources to count: many people are big mad about US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu choosing to represent China instead of the United States during the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, and even more so upon finding out that she was paid around $6.6M from China to do so

There was probably a time in my life in which I would have looked at these circumstances, and immediately went Eileen Gu is a turncoat sellout, fuck her, and I hope she fails epically on everything she does!!!

But these days, that’s not even the first thought that comes to my mind when hearing about the saga of Eileen Gu.  I’ve had numerous conversations with friends over the years on the topic of ‘selling out,’ which is something that people love to frivolously fling around whenever they hear of anyone who decides to make money at the expense of exchanging some sort of commodity, be it talent, goods or some other thing that they have that others are willing to pay real money for.

Music bands, professional athletes, content creators of various forms; whenever anyone exchanges their commodities for large sums of money, people all over the internet tend to immediately go hostile and brand them as sellouts, and basically declare them pieces of shit that they immediately want to see fail and immediately not succeed for no other reason than that they’re getting a lot of money and those who react are not.

I should know, because I’ve definitely declared many groups and individuals sellouts in my lifetime because their success turned me into a jealous fatty who didn’t like that they were becoming rich and I remained an schmuck with a brog that nobody reads.

But my mindset has kind of changed throughout the years, and yeah, I can’t say that I’m really at all that keen when an entity might sell out, especially if it means the cease or possibility of reduction of the creation of content that I like, but at the same time I’ve developed a more pragmatic understanding that people are trying their best in order to survive in the world, and for lots of us, that requires money, a great deal of it, and the more that some people can amass, the greater quality of life that can be had, if utilized properly.

More importantly, I’ve been open about the notion that if I were ever to have some sort of talent, creation, service or some sort of commodity that people were willing to pay me egregious amounts of money for, I would probably do it in two fucking seconds.  I’d sell the absolute fuck out, if it meant that I could secure wealth and financial freedom for my family, even quicker if said wealth were generational, and I could ensure that my girls’ future families would be wealthy and comfortable.

I’d be more than willing to endure being called a sellout and have people rooting against my success, if it meant the aforementioned lifestyle could be attained, and frankly I don’t have to like it when those I favor sell out, because I’m sure that when the day is over, they probably feel similarly too.

So getting back to Eileen Gu, yeah, it doesn’t make me feel particularly positive that she’s repping China ahead of the United States, but in all fairness, her mom is Chinese; Eileen has every right to rep China, and it’s very much allowed in the rules of most international competition, that people are allowed to represent their parents’ and in some cases, grandparents’ heritages, and for some lower-tier class athletes, it’s the only way they can get into the Olympics in the first place.

Furthermore, she’s already won medals for the United States, two golds and a silver back in 2022, which by the way was in fucking Beijing, so the people of China had to see an American with a Chinese last name, dunking on them in their own homeland.  She owes America nothing, as far as I’m concerned, and aside from the $6M simoleons, she’s getting to rep her mother’s heritage, which nobody is at all entitled to criticize.

I get that China isn’t popular with Americans these days, and a lot of news that I’m reading these days love to cite the human rights violations and atrocities that are going on in that country, but all these American finger pointers also need to look at our own fucking country.  America isn’t much better, and we got ICE murdering civilians on the streets, and the Epstein Files are unearthing all sorts of major figures, including the guy voted to the highest office in the country and everyone who has the power to do something about it are are turning blind eyes left and right, so it’s not like America has any moral high ground over fucking China to where Eileen Gu should be getting any criticism in regards to representing the more righteous nation.

Of course, the money is a flag that many are proclaiming to be the devil in this arrangement, but the way I see it, whether or not it was the driving factor in Gu’s choice to go with China, girl knows her worth, and has found a way to monetize her talents in order to make actual, life-changing money.  Not all Olympians have to be in the trades and Home Depot employees in their day jobs, and if someone is willing to pay them big money, they have every right to accept it as long as it’s not illegal.

Honest question here, what kind of career does a skier even have, past the Olympics?  Coaching?  It’s not like there’s an MLB/NBA/NHL/NFL of skiing, and I don’t even know if participating in the X-Games even makes money.  Skiers might get some endorsements here and there, but by and large, I have to assume that once the Olympics are off the table, there’s not a whole lot of earning capabilities for a world-class skier, no disrespect to the sport.

That being said, I don’t blame or fault Eileen Gu at all for taking a massive payday and repping her mother’s birth country instead of her own.  She’s already done it for America before, and now she gets to do it for her mom’s country, and get paid handsomely for it.

And the best part is that people have shorter attention spans than ever before these days.  Once the Olympics are over, people will more likely than not, forget about the existence of Eileen Gu, and she can get back to enjoying out the rest of her life, six million dollars richer.

No judgment for taking the bag, even if it means a bunch of shithead Americans are salty over it.  They’ll get over it, if they even remember that this even happened, in two weeks.

I love how the Nick Castellanos saga has given more exposure to Presidente beer since it was on Dexter

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A drive into deep left field by Castellanos: Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos on the chopping block, attempts to get in front of a story of how his fallout in Philadelphia began, including specifying an incident where after being benched, he brought a Presidente (beer) into the dugout while criticizing the manager

Despite the fact that he landed on the Phillies and always seemed to drink the Kool-Aid and be one of those dudes that absolutely murdered the Braves, I’ve always kind of liked Nick Castellanos.  For all the silly reasons to like a player, like for many, it started with the whole meme of Castellanos blasting a home run in the middle of an announcer apologizing on air for making a homophobic remark, causing him to seamlessly segue out of his apology to report on the homer before easing right back into the apology. 

But then it became apparent that there seemed to be this hilariously coincidental tendency for Nick Castellanos to crank home runs out at awkward moments of announcing, leading to the whole meme of Bad Timing Nick Castellanos, and that’s really all I needed for him to land in my general good graces.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 2025, Nick Castellanos was pulled out of a game for lackadaisical effort, and he took so much offense to it, that, in his own admission, he had grabbed a beer out of the clubhouse and brought it back to the dugout where he was prepared to drink it in the middle of an active game while criticizing manager Rob Thomson’s leadership of the team.

This apparently fractured his position with the team, and with some dwindling performance, has made it really easy for the Phillies to want to cut him, despite the fact that they still owe him $20 million for the 2026 season, which they are responsible for, regardless of if he’s playing for the Phillies or not.

I’d love it if the Braves picked him up when the Phillies inevitably do release him, because he’d only cost the team $780K, with the Phils being on the hook for the remaining $19.25M, because he would provide some good depth for when inevitably Ronald Acuña, Jr. gets hurt again, and Castellanos could supply some power off the bench, but I wouldn’t bet money on the Braves getting him.

Regardless, anticipating some fallout for why the Phillies want to cut him so badly, Nick Castellanos took some time to hand write out a summary of the incident in Miami that seemed to be the beginning of the end for his time in Philadelphia, and as admirable it is that he wants to take accountability for his actions and control the narrative by admitting it first, one of the things that stuck out for me, was the oddly specific clarification that it wasn’t just any old beer he brought into the dugout to start criticizing Rob Thomson with, it was very specifically identified as a Presidente.              

I’ve had Presidente beer before, several times in fact.  There was one season of Dexter where just about every character was drinking it whenever there were any characters drinking beer, and the subliminal saturation of it did its job, and I grew curious about the brand, and when I happened to come across it, I didn’t hesitate to grab a sixer to see what all the fuss was about in Dexter.

It’s really not that great of a beer, but the connection to Dexter still made me like it.  And also being the baseball nerd I really used to be, the fact that it was a Dominican beer made me feel some connection to all the Latin players that populated the majority of the MLB.

Needless to say, the mention and inadvertent plugging of Presidente by Castellanos opened up that curiosity from the past, and I’m tickled that he clearly must be a fan of the brew to the point where he had to be very specific at mentioning that it was a Presidente that he brought to the dugout.

The Presidente brand must also be pretty amused, or a little mortified that they got such a generous free plug, because the reality is that they probably haven’t gotten this much advertising since that season of Dexter.  And because it’s coming from a player that I think positively of, it’s bringing that similar curiosity I had over ten years ago that if I were to come across a sixer or a forty of Presidente, I might have to pull the trigger.

Shitty Toy Alert for Parents #3: ReCreate sets from Lego

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the record, I adore Lego.  Loved them as a kid growing up, loved playing with them with my nephew while he was growing up, and I still love them now.  I have several of the Fast and Furious large sets, and I jumped all over the $375 Goonies pirate ship set that dropped upon hearing about it. 

Few things bring me joy than my kids developing an enjoyment of Lego as well, and it was one of the major themes of this past Christmas with most everyone gifting them numerous Lego sets, but now gradually graduating from Duplos into actual big kid Legos.  Even though they are more and more gravitating towards screen entertainment, good books and Legos still bring them away from them, and I’ve found myself on the carpet with my kids over the last few weeks and months, putting together various Disney Princess™ and Lego Friends™ sets.

As stocking stuffers for my kids, I got them each one of these Lego ReCreate sets, because I liked the premise of them, how they are some random parts, but with some themed idea cards, that is meant to challenge the builder to use their imagination and interpretation to make them come to life.

Little did I realize that these things are basically Lego’s extra parts scrap bin, sealed into plastic bags with vague, interpretive instructions and a fancy schmancy premise, packaged more or less to sell you their scraps.

Yes, I know they say random, but I didn’t realize that it would be random to the point where you’re getting a fuck ton of scrap pieces with none of them being more than a 1×4 brick, and a whole lot of loose parts, that when poured out onto a surface, looks 0% different than the spare parts that are left behind after putting together a 300+ piece set; I would know this very well, because after all the actual sets that my daughters and I had been putting together, I have a Ziploc bag full of all their loose parts, and it looks absolutely nothing different than what was inside the ReCreate boxes that each of my kids got.

In one regard, I have to credit the people at Lego for coming up with such an idea that probably fleeced way more parents than myself with nothing more than abstract suggestions, clean packaging and spare parts.  It would be like bread companies took stale crumbs out of the crumb catchers of toasters all across the world and repackaged them and sold them as artisan bread flakes or some shit like that.

But on the other hand, fuck Lego for this bullshit low-hanging fruit effort of selling people their leftover parts and calling it imagination play.  Shit cost like $10 a box, and contained maybe 69¢ worth of actual Lego pieces. 

I kind of really fucking hate Nike right now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first heard about the special edition Kirkland x Nike collaboration Dunks, my knee-jerk reaction was along the lines of, lol look at these ultimate dad shoes, followed immediately by, I want them, because I’m a fan of Dunks in general given their visual proximity to Jordan 1’s which are still in my opinion the pinnacle of sneakers in history.

Originally, they were slated to have been released “Holiday 2025,” is what sneaker news cited, and I remember thinking that there couldn’t be a more perfect thing to redeem the $180~ cashback certificate I had been sitting on all through 2025.  That is, if I could even get a fighting chance to get my hands on a pair, because according to sneakerhead culture, these were picking up heat at potentially being the most demanded shoe in history, depending on whom you asked, but the point remained that the demand for these was going to be really high, and therefore, difficult to get.

I was hoping that my one saving grace was that being a Costco Executive member, the early hour perk could be my only chance at being able to get a shot at these.  But as Holiday 2025 approached, came, and then went, without there being any news of these moving forward, it became apparent and then confirmed that the Kirkland Dunks were a no-go, and that there was no clue to when they were going to drop, if they ever were.

And then of course, without any warning, they suddenly dropped, but in like, seven Costcos in the nation, most of them being on the west coast.  Naturally, once word got around, they were all gone, and are already up on resale sites for 3-4x the MSRP of $134.  Of course, Atlanta was not included in this initial drop, but scuttlebutt left it vague enough that these could potentially start rolling out in other Costcos across the nation, and my hope that Atlanta being a large enough market to be one of these supposed future drop locations could be there began rising again.

Over the span of the last week, I’d actually been checking the Costco not too far from my office right at 9 am on a daily basis, which might actually be the closest one to City of Atlanta proper, hoping to be lucky enough to luck into one of these purported “shock drops” which is a term I’m beginning to loathe considering the ambiguous and unpredictable chance that I’d even get to have a fighting chance at acquiring the ultimate dad shoes, and despite the fact that I still want a pair, underneath it all, I’m really fucking hating Nike as a company for these bullshit tactics, obviously deliberately done for absolutely no other reason than to create buzz, demand and all sorts of other intangible bullshit reasons that would be completely useless in a post-apocalyptic world once the zombie virus ravages humanity.

It’s frustrating, because they’re oft-called dad shoes, but any dad in my circumstances has almost no chance at getting them.  I’d frankly pay a higher MSRP if there was a chance that I could lock in a pair, or there were at least some concrete fucking information on when these would be available and I could have a fighting chance, but it’s the ambiguity and lack of information and transparency that’s been the killer of this whole debacle.

But all the same, I still want them.  And the thing is, it’s not even really so much that I want them as dad shoes that I can make beaters, these things have gotten to the point of where if I were to successfully nab a pair, I’m not even sure I’d even wear them given their increasing status as some kind of rare loot drop.  But I just want to feel a win, at succeeding at some small lottery type of victory, because my life has been pretty devoid of those over the last few years, and I think it would do my personal morale some good to feel special and lucky in any manner that doesn’t come from my children.

On that same token, on the very high likelihood that I do not succeed, it’s just going to make me really more resentful towards Nike as a company, which won’t necessarily cause me to full boycott, seeing as how I have a few pairs of J’s that I still enjoy, but still curse their existence whenever the topic of sneakers comes into play, although I wouldn’t rule out purchasing future product if they fit my fancy.

Fat chance airfares are coming down

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

CBS: Airline industry projecting to save millions of dollars on jet fuel in 2026 on account of the massive amounts of collective weight loss throughout the planet due to GLP-1 drugs

It really is incredible.  GLP-1s have become so prevalent and so effective on such a massive scale, that it’s impacting an industry that requires some really creative routing in order to make a relation.  The correlation between weight loss drugs and the airline industry seems like quite the reach, but at the scale of the collective weight loss of the world, it actually makes perfect sense that the airline industry is set to start saving tons of money on jet fuel, if more passengers are weighing less than ever before.

The thing is, the first thought that came into my head upon hearing about this news was, will the airlines pass any modicum of these savings onto passengers?  Of course, that was a rhetorical question, because anyone with a pulse already knows the answer is, absofuckinglutely not.

It’s just like every single price hike in history in any business; companies get used to seeing the increased revenue, and it doesn’t matter at all if the reason(s) used to justify a price hike(s) are rendered invalid, there’s not a company in history that is willing to roll back a price hike, and the airline industry is one of the most flagrant at conducting such business.

Like when they used the fuel crisis of 2008 to jack up their fares, those fares didn’t come back down once crude stabilized.  When they basically colluded to eliminate free bags across the board, nobody was willing to be the disruptor and go back to free bags in order to undercut their competition, they had gotten far too comfortable with the bag fees adding to their bottom lines to risk lowering anything.

This is no exception; a plethora of reasons, including rising weights were blabbed in order to justify their fare hikes, and it won’t matter at all if the world has collectively dropped 5% of their weight, there’s a 0% chance that any airline is going to discount even a single fucking nickel from their fares.

If anything at all, they could feasibly go the other direction and start jacking fares up again, citing airplanes becoming too aerodynamic, and that they’re getting to their destinations faster, causing more crowding at airports, more idling, which of course, means the need for more jet fuel, or some other randomly convoluted justification to spin up more fare hikes.

Originally while I was thinking about this post, I was going to opine where all this collective weight loss is going, because the food that caused it still exists, and at what grandiose level does the Earth ultimately collapse upon itself from the collective increasing weight of, existence?

But once the wheels of piss and vitriol towards the airline industry get churning, it’s like an avalanche of shit-tily nihilistic opinions about a bunch of greedy old white fucks, and how much I think the general concept of investing is what is causing the world so much collective despair across the board.

I get that it’s a cool thing to hear that people are the world are losing so much weight thanks to GLP-1s, that the airline industry are slated to save nearly $550M in jet fuel this year, but when you stop to ponder what happens next and realize that consumers and travelers don’t stand to benefit from their magical savings, it just gets me all fired up and once again mad at the greedy ass business in the end.