Tag: ‘murica

Flock camera haters wouldn’t last 4 seconds in Korea

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve been hearing about Flock cameras and how there are a lot of people who seem to be vehemently opposed to their existence.  Not only have haters been vandalizing, sabotaging and outright destroying them – FOR ‘MURICA, apparently there’s been a lot of controversy over police using the tech on the backend for less-than-ethical means, leading to a surprising amount of discipline towards a group of individuals who have been seemingly immune to the consequences of oversight over the years.

As far as punishing the po-po who have been supposedly abusing their access to Flock camera information, a lot of context is missing, and very little details ever seem to be given in regards to what curious cops are doing with Flock camera data, although it must be pretty substantial for them to actually be receiving disciplinary action, considering all manner of abuses of power, such as driving like shitheads and killing minorities tend to get swept under the rug, but god forbid these guys access surveillance without proper authorization, so I only have so much opinion on them, although I can’t imagine it would improve if we the people were actually given any further information.

But regular people, the Joe-Schmoes of the world who are getting so bent out of shape over the presence of Flock cameras, this kind of fascinates me.  In one hand, I get that it does kind of suck to know that there is an increase of Big Brother-ing by, for lack of a better term, the government, that frankly nobody asked for, and people, especially ‘Muricans, generally don’t respond well to the idea of being surveilled.  But in the other hand, my general take on surveillance is that, if you’re not doing anything sketchy or illicit, what does it matter if you are being potentially monitored?

It’s not like Flock cameras are sprouting like mushrooms and fungus during the summer humidity, from what I can observe, it’s usually areas near schools, busy intersections and high-traffic roads in which they’re installed.  Most of the time it looks like they’re installed in areas closer to schools with a primary objective of busting all the shitheads who drive too fast in school zones and having an automated means of issuing citations without a human cop to do it.

Additionally, ‘Murica is too cheap to plant these things in places without just cause, and I don’t think they’re randomly positioning these without any sort of data or justification.  They seem to be placed on major veins and well-traveled roads that suspicious people could potentially use, and should the need ever arise to try and locate a suspicious person, they could triangulate a location better with this kind of footage.

Frankly, I like to believe that they’re being placed in areas where people actually might care more about the crime rates of the area.  On the flip-side, I bet there are few or no Flock cameras near my old house on the south side.  And if there were, I’m sure that’s where there’s destruction of property, because the crime rate down there was already high, and the last thing any of those crooks would want is anyone having the chance to surveil them and possibly increase their odds of prevention.

I kind of get it though.  On the simple preference of if you would mind being watched over having greater privacy, I’d probably pick the privacy myself.  But considering that decision has been taken away from me, at least in areas where there are Flock cameras, I’m not sweating anything, because I don’t (at least I hope) practice in any nefarious or shady activities that I would be concerned about being monitored over, especially to the point of where I need to go sabotage and destroy government property.

The funniest part about the above image is the planting of the American flag in the destruction of a Flock camera.  It was clearly done in a manner in which the flag is acting not just as a symbol of defiance, but straight up like a middle finger.  This is the kind of shit I’d imagine like Ukrainian forces doing over a pile of dead Russian soldiers, or like when in 2006, the Korean national baseball team defeated Japan in the World Baseball Classic and planted their flag on the pitching mound, causing Ichiro to crash out.  But with these incidents of Flock camera destroying it’s basically ‘Muricans giving the middle finger to, America, and I often don’t believe there’s any country in the world that hates so much of its own country more than America does.

Speaking of Korea though, getting back to the title of this post, the people who hate Flock cameras, they most definitely would not last four seconds in Korea.  From the busiest neighborhoods in Seoul to the shittiest back alleys in like Pohang, there are CCTV cameras covering probably 75% of the entire peninsula.  My mother-in-law and I walked through a historical park that was pretty wooded and nature-y, and wouldn’t you know it, CCTV cameras were affixed to live trees, monitoring over the walking trails, and at multiple points during our trip, I’d remind her that the cameras were everywhere.

And they’ve got surveillance teams in surveillance rooms that look like Avengers HQ with how many screens and cameras they all have to monitor at all hours of the day.

Yeah, if Flock-hating ‘Muricans are up in arms over a few cameras going up along busy streets, I don’t think they have the perspective to know things could be way, way, way worse, compared to places like Korea, where surveillance is 70% more big-brotherly and privacy is way lower.  But again, if you’re not doing anything wrong, what does it really matter?

World Cup 2026: in the end, futbol prevails

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I tongue-in-cheek declared the World Cup over after Mexico and the United States were bounced from the tournament nearly two weeks ago, I obviously still watched the remainder of the matches, and the tournament did a little roller coaster in that span and in the end, everything seemed to work out, kind of beautifully, and I find myself wanting to write just one more post about the World Cup, and how it’s truly sad to see that this magnificent journey, has come to an end – officially.

It’s interesting, because I don’t think I was really wrong about how the general fun and the feelings of elation and celebration of futbol were kind of sucked out of the tournament once Mexico and the US were eliminated, because fans of sport and story alike all love a good Cinderella story, and both were in the midst of impressive runs, before they hit the walls of Eurpoean opposition.  And once the pretenders were bounced, the World Cup kind of devolved back to its typical state of serious business, where the real contenders of the Cup were the last ones standing, and all of the remaining matches were these super serious affairs, between super serious futbol countries.

One by one, I found myself rooting for the lower seeds of all these matches, like Norway against England, Belgium against Spain in spite of their terse domination over the US, and true to the whole anyone but Argentina mentality, the Swiss as well.  And in each case, they all lost, reinforcing the notion that the World Cup always ends up being a race between the same pool of countries, narrowing down to a final four of countries that have all won a Cup at some point.

By default, I found myself pulling for France over Spain, because I had put France down as my champion in my work bracket that only three people participated in and I’m pretty sure the other two have already forgotten about it, and England over Argentina because they were the team opposing Argentina, plus it was hard to root against a guy like Jude Bellingham who seemed so talented on the pitch while being so charming off of it.

So naturally it ended up being the surgical dismantling of the French by Spain, who I didn’t even notice had only allowed a single goal the whole tournament to this point, and Argentina beating England after several days of artificial build up, swirling around all of the ugly and nasty factors of why people outside of their fans were all seemingly souring on Argentina, in a hard-fought contest, that naturally ended in controversy, with the generally classy Jude Bellingham almost coming to blows with an Argentinian bench scrub after FT.

Going into the final weekend, it basically boiled down to France vs. England in the notoriously seemingly unnecessary third-place match that neither team was going to care about, and a match between the Colonizers versus the Racists, where it was surprisingly easy to be pulling for the Colonizers, solely based on the fact that they were not Argentina.

Usually the third-place match is a pointless match that doesn’t mean anything to most participants, especially if it’s a clash between powerhouses like France and England.  It’s my belief that such is usually the case, except when it involves a host nation and/or a Cinderella surprise team, like when Korea found themselves in the third-place match against also-upstart Turkey in 2002, where both teams let it all hang out trying to end their journeys with a W, which naturally Korea would lose, but the fact of the matter is that they actually cared.  But the last few third-place matches have been apathetic and unwatched, and there was little reason to believe this one would be any different, seeing as both had high aspirations to win it all, and anything short of that was just failure.

But I happened to catch the third-place match, and at first it wasn’t really anything out of expectation, with both France and England emptying out their benches and letting everyone who had been wearing the pinnies throughout the tournament start, save for Kylian Mbappe for France whom most had suspected was going to be playing in order to take and possibly ice the Golden Boot award from Messi.

And England raced to a quick lead, scoring two in pretty quick succession, and going into half with an absurd 4-0 lead.  It was clear that neither team was really trying too hard, with the goals being all the younger players getting some international experience, as well as everyone just trying to avoid getting hurt.

The second half starts, and someone reminded Mbappe to go get his Golden Boot, and he scores two in the next 20 minutes, France closes the gap to 4-3, England stretches it out to 5-3, France closes it back to 5-4, and at some point around the 80th minute, Jude Bellingham, who had started on the bench, checks into the game, and goes on this ridiculous run and scores England’s sixth goal right before FT.

It was an absurd exhibition, but the primary thing about it all is that it genuinely looked like both teams were having a blast, and just having fun.  It was a true international friendly between two teams who had been facing extreme pressure over the last week, and I felt as if it was probably really cathartic for all the players, especially guys like Mbappe and Bellingham who had probably been facing the most pressure, being the scoring aces for their countries, and it was really refreshing to seeing everyone being smiles and laughing, and after FT, all hugs and respect from all participants.

A surprising A+ third-place tilt, from what everyone had written off as a pointless exercise.

And then we get to the main event, where there’s not much to really say that hasn’t already been said at this point – Spain defeats Argentina, ending their insufferable onslaught, bringing relief and joy to futbol fans, old and new, almost entirely based on the fact that Lionel Messi and Argentina were denied the World Cup trophy, as well as FIFA who did very little to combat the narrative that they were trying to manufacture their victory.

It was an interesting affair from start to finish, with entertaining tidbits throughout the whole event.  The orange shithead getting booed the fuck out of New Jersey (no ‘and New York’ bullshit here, the match was in New Jersey and only New Jersey), Argentina playing dirty as ever, drawing five yellow cards, including two satisfying ones by the especially dirty-playing Enzo Fernandez, resulting in his ejection, and FIFA officiating doing absolutely everything they could in order to favor Argentina, with countless non-calls for Spain and a parade of bonus free-kicks and stoppage time that benefitted Argentina.

But the thing with futbol, as well as any sport or competitive contest, a competitor must attempt to score points in order to have any chance to win a contest.  I was apoplectic in 2018 when Korea took zero shots on goal against Sweden, so I can imagine the collective rage and anxiety and frustration from Argentinian fans, when their team took a big fat zero shots on goal, and it was very evident that their entire game plan was to get the game to penalties, if the refs couldn’t help them manufacture a scoring chance, to help negate Spain’s legendary tournament-wide defense, and this was magnified when Enzo was booted, and they had to play a man down for the remainder of the match.

However, Spain persevered the stacked deck against them, and 30 seconds into 2OT, scored their goal, which would be enough to overcome a dirty opponent with tournament-wide favor from FIFA.

Argentinian players and most importantly, their front-running fans were sad.  Unsurprising, the amount of post-match respect and congratulations were minimal.  The Argentinian fans were sad.  The orange shithead made (yet another) an embarrassment of himself, photobombing the Spain celebratory trophy hoist.  Argentinian fans were sad, and got the fuck out.

Futbol prevailed.

What a wonderful World Cup this was.  I’m sad that the whole thing is over now.  2030 has an insanely high bar to live up to, after how fantastic this one was.  But looking forward to it already.

Asian tech addiction is real, man

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whilst on my cruise, I purchased a 24-hour internet package, for one device.  It was $29 added to my folio, and to the credit of blatant cash grab, the internet speed was adequate, and I was able to accomplish the one reason that I had purchased it for: to neurotically be able to post a singular theFacebook post on a completely self-mandated and arbitrary date, which was the Father’s Day blet photo that I’ve long decided that June 26th is the date every year in which I post it so that I may be able to neurotically use the Memories feature in future June 26s and view them sequentially despite the fact that I have no less than 2-3 other ways in which I could do the exact same things and not have spent $29 extra on my cruise.

Also, I was able to use it to extend two days of my Duolingo streak without having to utilize any streak freezes, despite the fact that I had dropped 3,000 gems on a 7-day streak freeze which was already in effect for the explicit purpose to protect my streak whilst on the cruise. 

But also mythical wife was able to log into her account on my phone and do the same thing, which was probably the only fortunate use of it, since she didn’t have the same amount of freeze protection that I already did.

And honestly, that was probably the most useful use of the data beyond my completely arbitrary need to post Father’s Day blet photo on June 26th.   Otherwise, I found myself mindlessly dicking around the internet like I normally would do with a permanent umbilical connection to it whenever I get bored, and in a way I was glad to be rid of the internet again once 3:21pm rolled around the following day and my 24 hours of access had expired.

For all the criticism and self-loathing I opine about ‘Muricans and being American myself, there is one trope that I can give some credit to in a positive light; which is how there are lots of Americans, and I like to include myself among them, that occasionally acknowledge how toxic and how much trash internet connectivity is capable of being, and feel the need and want to disconnect and be free of connectivity from time to time, and live in the actual moments of time and present.

Because that doesn’t seem to be the case with Asians, whom on my travels, witnessed probably like 90% of the time, Asian people were glued to their phones, eyes down, being phone zombies, and being connected to the internet.  It didn’t matter if they were Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Singaporean or Indian, the vast majority of people I witnessed over two weeks in Asia, were simply glued to their phones as if they were physically attached to their beings.

The image above was snidely taken at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore; beautiful place, meticulously curated and meant to be a globally recognized destination landmark for tourists and travelers.  The motherfucker on the far right actually had a laptop propped up on the railing, and was on some video conference and was simultaneously doing some calisthenics, and of course I was easily able to capture some bros on their phones – in the middle of a horticultural exhibit showing trees and plant-life from four different continents and six different ecosystems.

There’s a part of the Jurassic World exhibit called the sky bridge that the place doesn’t do a good job of explaining in advance, but it’s basically 25-stories up in the sky, on a suspension bridge that is made of mesh, so you can see through it while you’re way the fuck up in the air, and the surface is meant to rock a little bit, which is all meant to say it’s high as fuck and if you have any issue with heights or don’t realize you have an issue with heights, it’s absolutely terrifying.

However, that doesn’t stop idiot tourists from stopping in the middle of, and clogging up the pathways, in order for them to get their selfies, live-stream their journey, or be video-calling their friends and families, while there are other, tense and on edge patrons just trying to traverse it as quickly as possible and get to solid ground.

Being human obstacles to those with realized anxieties, all for the ‘gram, or whatever self-important self-broadcasting medium they feel the need to document for their zero viewers.

But circling back to the cruise, and the data package that I had purchased, if Disney Cruise Line made an extra $29 off of me for one day and one device of internet, I have to imagine the likely closer to $100K than $50K they made on all the other Asian motherfuckers on the boat that probably had the full comprehensive internet packages for all their devices for all family members in their cabins, because pretty much at no point on the boat was I seeing anyone other than mythical wife and myself, incapable of being able to be online.

We’d look for quiet areas to sit and read, or enjoy the ambiance of the ship, at the numerous bars, lounges and pool sides, but there would always be some fuck(s) from China or India around, prattling on in their native tongues to someone on the phone, completely disregarding the existence of others around them that might not want to hear their dumb conversations.  Kids actively playing RTS and MOBA games on their phone, naturally with no headphones.  And no shortage of people with their selfie sticks and tripods set up in order to Hey What’s Up Guys livestream and film content for their shitty channels that nobody watches.

As annoying as it was, it was also rather fascinating to see the differences of internet addiction in Asian culture, as it is with Americans.  And yeah, ‘Muricans are no paragons of good manners in their own right, and I can’t speak for many beyond myself, but we do more often grow exasperated with connectivity from time to time, and simply want to enjoy things in solitude and without the need to humblebrag it to the rest of the world.  It all just seems so petty and pointless, and when the day is over, the hours have passed and the minutes expired, nobody fucking gives a shit. 

Even the zombies that are producing it.

Hilarious and sad at the same time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I prefer to not waste writing on ‘Murican politics, but the whole thing about Mitch McConnell’s state of mortality is legit one of the funniest subplots in ‘Murica right now.  I mean, I feel like it should be pretty obvious that the old white cocksucker is deader than Spirit Airlines, but he’s getting the same treatment as Hulk Hogan was getting right before it came out that he had in fact, passed away.

In one hand you have, for lack of a better term, reputable sources stating that the man is braindead, which to me is the same thing as being dead at this point, because regardless of the state of one’s heartbeat, being a vegetable ain’t really living either.  But in the other hand, you have all sorts of pathetic bureaucrats all over the place claiming that they’ve spoken to ‘ol Mitch, and fabricating all sorts of agenda-driven talking points that they claimed to have discussed.  Seriously, combine the time of all the supposed 20-30 minute conversations that these shitheads are claiming to have spoken with McConnell, and it’s basically a 27-hour day.

Naturally, my knee-jerk reaction that is that is a very big difference between speaking to and speaking with, and I guess it wouldn’t be lying if all these assholes are calling him up and speaking to dead air, and then claiming to have spoken to, a vegetable, which in itself is pretty funny, but like the subject of this post says, it’s also sad, because this is just continued trope of ‘Murican misinformation, lying to the people, and making shit up for no other reason than to preserve the fake-ass power dynamic that unfortunately runs the country.

Because his carcass still has a heartbeat, he still apparently holds a measure of power, and it’s the least surprising thing of all that it’s a very different scenario of dead Mitch versus when Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, and the clusterfuck that took place in order to replace her seat with a hand-picked stooge.

I like to imagine that the GOP has a machine that’s exactly just like the Bat Syllable Device from the old Adam West Batman show, where Alfred could electronically fabricate Bruce Wayne’s voice to speak with Commissioner Gordon in the presence of actual Batman, and it came out all robotic and obviously fake, but Gordon still bit, because everyone in the show was a fucking idiot.

And even though the technology and AI exists to where it’s probably extremely easy to have an AI Mitch McConnell speak in his actual voice and tone, the GOP is so full of antequated old white fucks, that the Bat Syllable Device is still what they would have instead; and because 50.75% of ‘Murica are fucking idiots, they would believe it all the same.

Either way, sad as it is that there are still very real-life decisions, impacts and outcomes hinging on the fake-ass mortality of McConnell, it is still entertaining to see the GOP basically performing real-life Weekend at Bernies with his corpse.

Sigh.  This really is ‘Murica.

I’ve never hated something so fiercely so quickly in my life

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When wandering around one of the 7,537 shops that I went with mythical wife into while in Seoul because she liked having me around as a safety blanket because I can speak Korean, I noticed these little trinkets that looked like four keyboard keys attached to a keychain.  I’d never seen anything like such before, and I didn’t give it much thought beyond simply stating my observation to mythical wife.

However, seeing as how mythical wife is a teacher, and surrounded by kids throughout her professional life, keyboard clickers were absolutely nothing new to her, and she was about as surprised as I was to have only discovered the existence of them at this point, long after they’d been in existence.  What can I say, we do our jobs in vastly two different worlds, and little ADHD fidget things aren’t something I’m exposed to regularly.

Later that day, we went to dinner.  Unfortunately, the wife chose a joint that was in Myeongdong, and I say unfortunately because Myeongdong is basically the epicenter of tourism in Seoul, and I tend to like seeking out less-touristy and more, patroned by locals kind of establishments, but it was one of those situations where if I didn’t put any thought into dinner, it’s whomever does’ call.

We enter the restaurant, and right away I see the place is crawling with tourists, and there’s specifically a table full of nerdy looking, obvious Americans, speaking at a volume that’s typically higher than most Korean restaurants tend to operate at.  My spider-sense starts tingling, especially when I see that there’s a convenient four-top table right next to theirs, and I start to creep towards the stairs, hoping that we might be able to sit elsewhere, but the host ushers us to the table next to the Koreebs, and I’m mentally cringing at the thought of being seated next to them.

Y’see, when I go to Korea, I want to immerse in Korea, use my Korean, eat Korean – not be lumped in with all the tourists and white people and their Koreeb-ey companions, blabbing too loudly about, hilariously, League of Legends and making me think that they might be Riot Games employees, based on their too-loud conversing.

But then the alpha-dork of the group, the one blabbing too loudly the most, whips out a clicker fidget after their latest topic of streamers and Slack chats comes to a lull, and as the subject of this post says, I don’t think I’ve ever felt such nuclear hatred for something I’d just discovered, so quickly in my entire life, than listening to this overgrown man-baby clicking away at his little fidget clicker.

And for the next ten minutes or so, when he wasn’t the one talking, he was the one clicking away at this little piece of shit, and I could feel my blood pressure rising, and the thoughts of fantasizing about throwing him out the window of our second-story restaurant materializing in my head.

I’ve often said to my bros that in the hypothetical metaphor of being locked in a room with Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden and Stephen A. Smith,* and having a gun with two bullets, I would shoot Stephen A. Smith twice, once for the kill to shut him the fuck up, and one more just to make sure.

*or anyone you really hate in order to drive home the point of magnitude of hatred

But if I were ever to be in the metaphorical room with two Stephen A. Smiths and whomever invented the fidget keyboard, I would shoot the inventor of the fidget keyboard twice.

I would really rather to listen to two Stephen A. Smiths blather and bait and go off about inane topics, than allow for the person who thought it would be a good idea to make a little fidget of keyboard keys on it, to live.

It took about those ten minutes of triggering clicking and clacking for me to give numerous nasty stares, glares and Korean 눈치 before this clown finally caught my eye and realized that his incessant clicking was possibly, annoying other people in the public restaurant.  I genuinely thought about actually speaking out, but fortunately he did notice that I was glaring at him to realize that other people exist in the world, and it’s probably the best when in public to take that into consideration when choosing to do annoying shit like clacking a fidget keyboard.

Thankfully he and his clown posse wrapped up their visit and left, because I genuinely was put on edge and ready to fight if he were to continue to click and clack as much as he had been doing.  It’s incredible that these things have existed for as long as they have, and it wasn’t until I was in fucking Seoul that I’d learn of them, and be ready to declare jihad on them, all in the same day.

I witnessed a lot of really obnoxious gen-Z tropes while in Seoul, but the fidget keyboards were undeniably the worst.  I hope whomever invented them develops chronic irritable bowel syndrome, and has a really hard time dealing with it, and spends the rest of their existence being inconvenienced by trying to manage it.

Nos vemos en cuatro años, Copa Mundial de la FIFA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And just like that, the World Cup is over.  Este fue un viaje hermoso.

Not really, but with the eliminations of Los Estados Unidos, as well as Mejico, within the span of the last 48 hours, and even Canada, all host nations are eliminated from the tournament, as are their Cinderella dreams of deeper runs, and general interest in the World Cup, I would predict are about to take a massive hit, with most casual futbol enthusiasts seeing little reason in continuing to watch.

I know it’s arrogant to predict such things based on the continued participation of the United States as well as Mexico, but I’d be curious to see the Fox One data for the rest of the World Cup, compared to when the US and Mexico were still in it, once the tournament is officially over.

But not only is it a sad albeit inevitable fate that the host nations are all out, but to the point of my general criticism of the state of futbol globally and the World Cup, the remaining teams are mostly the same pool of countries that always remain, including France, Argentina and Spain; Germany and Brazil were unfortunate victims to some upsets courtesy of Paraguay and Norway, but for the most part, it appears that the general script of the World Cup is still on course to have a rematch of 2022 in the finals, between France and Argentina, primarily the matchup between Kylian Mbappe and the MJ of futbol, Lionel Messi, over who can extend their all-time World Cup goals record, and if Messi can presumably go out as a two-time champion, seeing as how he’s possibly done with World Cup competition after this one.

I’m not going to say I wouldn’t watch any more World Cup now that all of the teams I’ve been generally supporting are out (Korea, USA, Mexico, Brazil), but personally my general enthusiasm for the rest of the field is mostly depleted, with a lingering hope for countries like Norway and laughably Egypt, to disrupt the status quo, but once they’re out, it truly is just another copy/paste field of World Cups prior and I can’t say that I’d have much interest if the finals do end up being comprised of France or Spain vs. Messi.

Circling back to the USA vs. Belgium elimination game, man I just knew, I knew, that the United States was fucked as soon as the red card suspension controversy swirling around Folarun Balogun started, with our sad sack excuse of a dear leader meddling around and somehow got FIFA to allow him to play against Belgium in spite of the red card he had drawn against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The narrative powering the United States went from being the Greatest USMNT in History that was actually starting to garner some respect from the global futbol community, to [Orange fuck] Meddles with World Cup to Give USA Unfair Advantage and it was back to everyone hating ‘Murica again; but more importantly igniting a fire under Belgium and giving them all the motivation in the world to shake off the nerves that got them to the Round of 16 looking vulnerable with just two wins and two draws and 4 goals allowed, to looking like a top-10 FIFA ranked team in the world again.

Not only was the motivation real for Belgium, but the distraction was palpable for the United States, who basically played like shit for 80 minutes against the Belgians.  They couldn’t pass, they couldn’t touch, they lost seemingly every 50/50, everything was challenging, they couldn’t get the ball to the Belgian side of the field, much less have any attempts at goal.  Pulisic was shaky and invisible, Dest couldn’t dribble, Balogun being allowed to play was a complete non-factor, Remm was getting worked the whole match, and the whole team couldn’t handle Belgium’s pressure, and I can only imagine how pitiful their pass accuracy looked.

The Greatest USMNT in History looked completely outclassed and overwhelmed, and the prevalent thought going through my head throughout the whole match, as well as the Mexico vs. England match was that futbol of the Americas, unfortunately still has a long way to go when it comes to being able to compete with futbol from Europe.  Both the US and Mexico were completely defeated by higher-tier European squads, and it’s like they’ve both figured out how to dominate against the CONCAF, but are completely clueless on how to compete outside of it.

Sure, Mexico defeated Czechia, and the United States defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the US also got exposed by Turkey, and the conclusion is that European futbol is still in a class above North America, and this World Cup ends with continued head scratching on wondering what it’s going to take for the US to ever catch up to Europe, if they ever can.

Regardless of the conclusion of Cinderella(s), I can still fondly opine that this has been the most beautiful and entertaining World Cup that I can remember since like, 2002, when Korea (and Japan) captured the imagination of the world when they hosted.

The amount of wholesome and wildly entertaining content to come from this World Cup have been stuff of legend, with tourists and visitors foreign to the Americas coming in and documenting and sharing their amusement, wonder and culinary discoveries with the internet, and there’s been no shortage of happy entertainment over the whole tournament.

Mexico welcoming everyone, and making BFFs with everyone from Korea, Japan, Czechs, Uzbeks and even the English has been a delight to watch.  Tourists from all over Europe and Japan making their journeys into the United States, and experiencing quintessentially American things like fast food, Buc-ee’s, barbecue, Tex-Mex, ‘Murican portions, MLB baseball and of course, ranch dressing, have all been amusing and helpful as an American to see what others actually don’t hate about our country.

There was a great meme narrative that summed it up pretty well, along the lines of that the World Cup is showing that we don’t all hate each other, we just hate our world leaders, and the World Cup is like a giant fun gathering of cousins where the parents all hate each other, and it really couldn’t be any more true.  The amount of unity, acceptance and general copacetic peace shown by so many throughout the United States, Mexico and presumably even Canada has been genuinely the best part of the whole tournament, completely regardless of the outcomes on the pitches, and even if the end result is yet another boring France or Argentina win, it doesn’t change that this has still been the best World Cup ever.

White people know no bounds when it comes to wanting to be mad

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was at the airport when I saw the yellow official Peachtree Road Race shirt for 2026.  I thought to myself, whoa cool, it’s yellow, seeing as how since Adidas took over the production of the shirts in like 2022, they’ve been peach, blue and red, so there really hasn’t been any hard rule on what color they were supposed to be.  And seeing as how I tend to favor the color yellow, mostly for ironic reasons, I looked forward to when I would get mine, since I’ve since been a mere virtual runner the last six years because no iota of my being wants to get up at 3:30 am to go wait at the Lenox mall parking lot to run the Peachtree in person anymore, when I can do it at my own leisure.

However, over the span of the last 24 hours, I’ve seen at least 5-6 posts fed to me from algorithm, of people I have no idea who they are, as well as local news outlets, all, for lack of a better term, talking or debating the yellow PTRR shirt.  Almost entirely fueled by hatred, by, unsurprisingly, white people who are completely bent out of shape over the fact that the shirt is yellow and not red, white and/or blue, primarily, in honor of the fact that this is the vaunted 250th anniversary of the United States of ‘Murica. 

The news outlets are obviously cleverly feeding off of this reaction, and are simply querying the masses, fully knowing that the negative engagement is still engagement all the same, and the comments sections that I can’t resist looking at, are almost entirely echo chambers of salty white people all saying the same nonsense about how it should be red, white or blue because 250, and a whole lot of people corroborating this opinion because most people with brains know better than to jump into these lions dens of poorly veiled racism and orange fuck supporters.

However, it’s to the point where I can’t just simply chalk it up as white people being salty and actively looking for reasons to be pissed off, but more that the reactions and opinions and choices of words seem to be so uniform, so echoed and so similar that I can’t help but wonder if these are all the actions of bots and AI, deployed by the types of farms that are designed and meant to incite and provoke, knowing that even negative engagement is still engagement, and engagement equals profit somewhere down a line.

All the same, if it really is that all these reactions and posts are genuine human beings, all consistently and collectively being mad over the fact that a run’s shirt is yellow, it goes back to the title of this post that white people truly know no boundaries when it comes to the innate desire to be mad about, anything at all.

It’s funny to me that this reaction did not happen when in 2023 the shirt was said to be peach, but is this weird sickly orange-y color that borderlines pink, but as long as it was called peach, it could be justified, seeing as how the name of the fucking race is called, The Peachtree.  But yellow probably makes the right white immediately think about the evil Chinese since yellow is the negatively connoted color associated to Asian people, despite the fact that yellow variations of popular ‘Murican muscle cars are oft-coveted, but it doesn’t matter because yellow = wrong.

All the same, I dig the yellow shirt, and I look forward to when I get mine.  The Adidas versions of the PTRR shirts over the last few years are all great, because they’re no longer cheap, Gildan-like cotton t-shirts that I wouldn’t really ever wear, but are mesh, workout-caliber shirts, that immediately go into my rotation of workout apparel, and get regularly worn.  The fact that simply wearing them on my own walks and runs is going to incite white people, will only be a cherry on top, aside from just liking the color and design in the first place.

Stay mad, white people, I look forward to observing what pisses y’all off next.