Tag: nostalgia

It’s the Four Loko that makes this amusing to me

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WSB: Hall County sheriff busted for DUI after blowing a 0.212, revealed that he had been drinking Four Lokos since 6 a.m.

Under normal circumstances, a story like this would roll off my back, perhaps get an eye roll out of me, knowing that police protect their own, and that regardless of how egregiously drunk the guy was, while in his county-issued vehicle, it’s safe to assume that he’s not going to be getting close to the same kind of punishment that us normal citizens would receive under similar conditions.

He may lose his job, but considering he’s out there drinking while on duty, he probably doesn’t care in the first place, and he’s most likely not going to be doing any time, or have a suspended license, or be on probation on account of the oft-cliched professional courtesy.

But what caught my attention and why this is ending up as brog-worthy is the clarity in the headline that this particular pig in question, hadn’t just been drinking since six in the morning, but he had been drinking Four Lokos in his cop car:

Couch told investigators that he had been drinking several Four Lokos since 6 a.m. that morning. Investigators also found two open cans of Bahama Mama that had spilled in his car.

The devil is in the details, and now we’re talking. 

Obviously, anyone who’s ever known me might recall my own fascination with Four Loko back over a decade ago.  I was mystified by the fact that these shitty, $4 tall boys of nuclear race piss were actually killing college bros, dumb enough to be drinking more than like, one, at a time.  When the government declared banishment on the drinks, for whatever reason, I felt the compulsion to seek out some of these awful drinks, and managed to procure several cans of various flavors.

Over the next years, I would bust them out at social gatherings or Dragon*Cons as my drink of choice in order to get a healthy buzz going, and make no mistake, one can of any Four Loko was instant drunk, and anything beyond that was playing with fire.

Eventually, I would steer away from this dumbass behavior, and the remainder of my hoarded cans would remain ironic collector’s items, that is, until for whatever reason, some of them would spontaneously eat their own cans, leading to some obnoxious messes that I had to clean and eventually realized that I should just chuck them out, thus closing the book on my keepsake cans of Four Loko.

Back to the present, Four Loko survived government intervention, but they apparently changed the formula somewhat to be less lethal when drank in stupid amounts, and they’re still available at gas stations and wherever shitty booze is sold.  And apparently for one Hall County sheriff, it was his go-to drink for when he wanted to get smashed on the job.

Like I said, if it were just a story of a cop who got blasted on the clock, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought beyond knee-jerk disgust and disappointment in the system.  But finding out that he had been getting smashed on Four Loko since six in the morning, and he was discovered obliterated five and a half hours later, man clearly had some serious demons in his closet for all this to be transpiring.

And that 0.212% BAC is pretty frightening, because to my understanding that’s basically saying that over 20% of the blood in his body was tainted with alcohol.  I’ve gotten drunk off of Four Loko before (always under slightly more responsible, non-driving conditions), but I have come down from the buzz pretty normally, so I doubt that I was ever remotely close to a 0.212% BAC, so I’m curious to how many cans of the jet fuel he consumed, and let’s not ignore the fact that he had several open cans of Bahama Mama, which is another fruity, race piss-like canned booze, so clearly this hick sheriff was having a one-man party in his cruiser.

Either way, I’m amused by the brief resurrection of Four Loko into the public lexicon, and the ironic and pathetic circumstances in which they did so.  In a way, there isn’t a better way for it to have happened, and 16 years later, Four Loko is running it back with inebriated chaos like it’s 2010 all over again.

Is there a more perfect show than Batman the Animated Series?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is more of a rhetorical question because the answer is no, there really isn’t.  Obviously this is subject to personal preference, but I can’t imagine that I’m the only one out there who has this particular opinion.

I had finished watching WWE Elimination Chamber, and it was a pretty mediocre show overall; although the men’s and women’s chamber matches had outcomes that I didn’t get right, the Becky vs. AJ and the Balor vs. Punk matches were very obviously predictable.  Danhausen being the mystery crate reveal made me feel like the whole buildup is this generation’s Gobbledy Gooker, but probably more accurately the WWE’s need for a wacky character they can push towards the younger audiences and kids to help move merch and gain wider appeal.

But the overall feeling I had once the show was over was general disappointment and apathy, but mostly disappointment that mythical wife had actually paid real money for ESPN Unlimited so that I could watch PLEs, and it just so happens that the first one I come across is a relative clunker.  I think it might be a safe bet that once Wrestlemania passes, to pull the plug on the service since we already have like four other services we’re subscribed to.

Anyway, seeing as how the night wasn’t quite too late even though I would benefit from getting more sleep than I do on the regular, I felt like I didn’t want to end my television watching experience with an underwhelming wrestling show, so I switched to HBO Max where I knew that they had the entire library of Batman the Animated Series, and where I’d been watching an episode here or there, because it was perfect in the sense that it was high quality content that I’d already seen a million times and could multitask during, and the episodes are just 22 minutes, which means they’re no major time commitment.

It was while watching the episode of Clayface’s debut, it dawned on me that the reason why I seem to feel that Batman TAS has become somewhat of a default fallback, is because of what I just said, that it was the perfect show.  Not just for the aforementioned reasons, but holistically, the show is just perfect, in just about every other way as well.

Art direction, execution, writing, music, an entry of DC comics storytelling, light years ahead of its time, parading around as a kid’s show.  Believe me, I have seen every single episode of the show, and I’m having a really difficult time at thinking of any episodes that are actual 100% clunkers, with no redeemable quality to them, and by that criteria, I can’t say there are really any.  Sure, there are some episodes that I may want to skim or possibly skip, like the one where Batman is gassed by the Penguin, and he has to be saved by some kids, but by and large, I anticipate myself going to really enjoy the steady, gradual and methodical rewatch of Batman TAS with an episode or two every now and then.

And anyone who knows me knows that I almost never rewatch anything, because there’s so much content out in the world, lots of which I want to watch, that I very seldom go back and rewatch anything, because that time could be spent imbibing on something I haven’t seen before.

But Batman TAS?  It’s perfect in just about every subjective and measurable metric, and the most important thing is that it’s extraordinary ability to chase any shitty example of viewing media and bring me back believing that there’s good television out there, and that there’s really no bad time to catch an episode of the TAS.

It’s always going to be Springfield Mall

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NBC Washington: non-fatal shooting incident occurs at Springfield Town Center between teenagers arguing about something reportedly nothing and inconsequential

It’s not that often that I think much about my old stomping grounds, and it’s been over a decade since the topic of Springfield Town Center Mall has been in the brog, but here we are, thanks to an eerily accurate feeding from the algorithm to me, letting me know about a shooting incident in the shopping mall that I’d wasted endless amounts of hours of my life at.

As I opined in a comment on social media, they can change the name of the joint, and they can change all the stores inside the place, but Springfield Mall will always be Springfield Mall, a place cursed and destined to be a place of underlying danger and the uneasy feeling shoppers will always have that no matter what things appear around them, they’re not entirely safe.  MS-13 beheadings and 9/11 hijacker presence have a tendency to leave their bad juju on a place, kind of like the premise of The Grudge.

Thinking back to this assessment, it’s almost a miracle that I’m alive, considering the massive amounts of danger commensurate to how much time I spent there probably having increased my mortality rate throughout my teenage years.

It’s the least surprising thing in the world to hear news of spontaneous violence erupting within the walls of Springfield Town Center considering the bones and likely jerry-rigged graves in which the place was built onto, and watching the video of the incident, it doesn’t look like much has changed over the last 10+ years of Springfield Mall’s final days and Town Center’s day-to-day operations.

Shithead teenagers loitering around the place, manifesting beefs out of absolutely nothing, and ultimately erupting into gun violence, what I saw in the video looked like it could’ve been straight out of 1999, minus the taste in fashion, and the presence of bystanders all brandishing smart phones trying to video the incident instead of you know, calling 9-1-1.

Then again, it’s no secret that among the things that carried over from the old days into the current is the physical Fairfax County Police precinct in the mall itself, because nothing says ‘we’re [not] a safe place’ than having to have local cops ready at the helm, within ear shot at any given time.

The point remains, as unfortunate it is to ever hear of gun violence in any way shape or form, it’s good that nobody was killed and the offending parties were apprehended.  But I still admit to being amused at the ironic reality that no matter how much time has passed, no matter that the name of the joint has changed, and no matter how much the insides of the shopping center has changed, nothing will ever, ever change the fact that 6500 Springfield will always be, Springfield Mall.

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. 

A microcosm of what’s wrong with the airline industry

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sitting at the gate, awaiting my flight.  I’m going to DCA, so I can go help my dad out with some stuff that I really shouldn’t have to help out with except for the fact that my dad isn’t a very capable individual and has increasingly just been chalking everything up to aging and doing his best to live out The Korean Story™.

I don’t often disclose my personal expenses, but in this case, this round trip to and from Washington DC is running me $570.  Way back, when AirTran still existed, I could get this exact RT for $159 if I played my cards right.  Full fare, and not when I had the ability to fly standby on a moment’s notice.  Obviously, inflation is a very real and unfortunate thing, and it’s been nearly 20 years since I used to be able to get those reasonable and cost-efficient fares, but the fact that it’s gone up 350% seems outlandish and reeks of white people greed.

The gate I’m sitting in is relatively deserted.  Flying on a Wednesday night is great in that regard.  The aircraft will more than likely have upwards of 140 seats all in all, but if I had to guess, maybe barely 50% of the aircraft will be full.  If I were still doing the standby thing, I’d be doing a dance at the gate because I would have a 100% chance of getting on this flight.

That said, there’s absolutely little reason why this fare should have been remotely close to $570.  There used to be a time when flight fares would fluctuate somewhat on account of the demand of a particular flight, and a flight like this should probably have been cheaper than what I was forced to pay just so I could help out a family member, because clearly there was not a heavy demand for the flight.  I’d hate to imagine what it might have cost to go Friday through Sunday.

I used to be salty when this route had gone up to like $379 from all carriers, but now I’d be doing cartwheels if I could get a RT for under $400 these days.

A few weeks ago, there was an article where Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian was quoted, saying shit along the lines of blaming low-cost carriers AKA Spirit and Frontier, for the degradation of airline passenger behavior throughout the country.  My knee-jerk reaction at hearing this was, sure, yeah, a lot of unruly people do fly Spirit and Frontier, that’s not entirely wrong, my own criticism has ol’ Ed Bastian in the crosshairs, because man is clearly so out of touch with the people that he probably doesn’t seem to realize that most people are probably unruly because they’ve been given no choice in life but to pay egregious fares in order to travel, and whether they take a low-cost carrier along with all the other unruly poors, or they shell out money they probably can’t afford in order to travel, they’re going to be bitter and pissed off about it in the end all the same.

I know that I’m feeling quite salty and full of piss at having to shell out $570 to make a routine flight to a destination not even two hours of airtime away.  I just happen to have a little more restraint and keep my vitriol and venom encased in harmless text on a brog that nobody on the planet reads except for me, as opposed to feeling entitled to dress like a 2000’s-era NBA player, and act about as much of a shithead as one.

Ed doesn’t seem to grasp that if Delta would ease off the gas on their price gauging and make flying a little more accessible to the people, not only would everyone flock to Delta if they’re the first ones to cut costs, it would then force all the other carriers to follow suit in order to keep up, and if the royal everyone, is just a little bit happier about not going as broke in order to travel, the civility of airline passengers would inevitably improve.

And then Ed’s completely out-of-touch analysis of the masses would begin to improve, traveling would stop feeling like such a colossally insufferable experience, and call me crazy, everyone would probably make more money in the end, because that’s often just what happens when consumers are actually made happy sometimes.  There’s enough empirical evidence to show the sheer profitability of people not being shitheads to the masses, and hopefully the airlines will rediscover this and the skies may become a little friendlier when they come to that revelation.

Score a point for staggered episodic television

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

An interesting thing happened to me recently – I caught up with a bunch of television and I had nothing to watch.

I was on the treadmill doing some incline walking, and I had reached the end of episode S0504 of Stranger Things.  But as the credits began rolling, there was no rapidly scrolling next episode button ready to shotgun me into the ensuing episode.  I had reached the end of what was released, because Netflix has strayed from what made them who they are and like many of the bigger titles they’ve dropped over the last few years, they’re deliberately staggering the release of them, presumably to maximize how long they can milk content to their viewers, but more likely to ensure that those pleebs sharing passwords have a little more difficult as far as trying to bilk trials and get all the content for free in a concentrated amount of time.

Later on in the evening, mythical wife and I were watching S0203 of Culinary Class Wars, and Korean television is notorious and deliberate in how they break episodes apart.  So when the episode ended, at an obvious cliffhanger as far as delivering results of cooking challenges go, the same thing occurred; credits begin, no next episode button.  Returning to the landing page of the show, is the becoming all-too familiar sight of “New episodes releasing on X date” prompt on the following episode, and suddenly we no longer have anything to watch.

Combined with shows that already operate in weekly episodic releases like Pluribus, and Disney+ and even HBO Max are known to stagger their content with shows like Daredevil: Born Again and even silly crap like The Chair Company, and it’s apparent that the pendulum of television consumption has already passed the precipice where all shows were required to drop entire seasons at a time, lest they would be doomed to fail, to kind of swinging back in the direction of olden times, where such is no longer a requirement in order for a show to succeed.

The funny thing is, I don’t really hate it.  Anymore, at least.  Sure, there are times where I get lost how into a show I start becoming, and it’s a definite do not want moment when you realize that there is no next episode available to watch, and you have to wait for it, but at the same time, for people like me, who always feel strapped for time, the forced break from spending more time watching television isn’t necessarily always a bad thing.

I caught up with Pluribus and thought to myself, welp, with no more episodes to watch, I may as well go do something else, and although what I may or may not have done after watching television might not necessarily have been more productive or satisfying, but the point remains is that I did them 60-90 minutes earlier than I would have, had I watched, just one more.  And being able to tackle those things 60-90 minutes earlier means I wound down my day that much sooner, and I ultimately get more sleep which is always a good thing considering I have to get up at ass o’clock every single day without exception.

Also by not having shows drop entire seasons at a time also helps eliminate that FOMO or rather, fear of not getting spoiled, because inevitably there are people, websites, social channels and/or other internet entities that speed run every new piece of media that comes out, and then spoils the ever-living fuck out of them on social media platforms for people to accidentally see while they’re doomscrolling.  I have to say it’s liberating knowing that within a short amount of time, I’m caught up and at the same stage of Stranger Things as the vast majority of enthusiasts of the show, and that there’s pretty much no chance that I’m going to get spoiled to the inevitable ending, because it hasn’t officially dropped yet.

The point of all this is, that I’ve made jokes about how the money-grubbing direction of the media market is going to inevitably push people back towards the development of what’s basically old school cable television, but in some regards, by passively going back to methods of the past, all these television platforms are inadvertently re-training the olds, and training the kids of today about weekly episodic releases or programs complete with advertisements, and I feel like within 2-3 years, we’ll be back to the resurrection of formal cable television, but people are actually going to like it instead of constantly threatening to cut the cord. 

Maybe it’ll be delete the apps when this age arrives, and everyone will be so arrogantly gleeful about uninstalling Netflix and Disney+ to sign up for cable services.

Cable2 is going to be so lit.

Praise for NXT Halloween Havoc

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few year and change, there’s been a lot of hullabaloo surrounding the state of the WWE following the company’s sale and eventual restructuring into being an arm of their new parent company TKO.  Questionable decision making as far as staffing, personnel and eventual booking choices, but more primarily how they’re killing the WWE with their flagrant price gauging, cost increases across the board on tickets, merch, and various other microtransactions, masterfully finding each and every nickel and dime to bilk out of wrestling fans.

I often said to my friends that I didn’t really feel impacted by much of it, because I had little interest in going to any live events; I’d been to Wrestlemania twice now, and numerous other ppvs when they were still called ppvs, and at the prices of tickets these days, I would way rather just watch from the comfort of my own home.  Over the summer, I went to NXT’s Great American Bash, solely based on the fact that it was at my favorite venue (Center Stage), but after paying $130 for almost literally the last row of the venue, only to be seated next to 1.75x of humanity, I almost want to swear off going to WWE shows outright, fearing a similar fate the next time I plunk down grown up money just to be in attendance.

Additionally, I would say to my friends that as long as TKO doesn’t fuck around with my viewing experience, then I don’t really have many qualms with how they’re operating the company.  But over the last few months, WWE PLEs have all been shifted over to ESPN++ to some new tier that I can’t get access too without actually having to pay money for it, so I’ve missed the last two major events.  NXT remains on CW which I don’t have access to in a streaming capacity, and I haven’t seen an episode of Smackdown in years because I don’t have the means to watch whatever channel they’re on now.  RAW on Netflix is still available to me, but the production of the show is really wonky and weird, and it’s hard to stay engaged when they’re being so flagrant with performing at 60% so that they can save their ammo for the next PLE.

In other words, TKO has been fucking around with the viewing experience, and it definitely sucks as a fan.  Not knowing what shows are on what platform, if I can even watch them or not, and if and when I can, there being paywalls in order to see things as simply as storyline promo packages and performer entrances.  Obviously, I’m not going to swear off wrestling by any stretch of the imagination, but I am entitled to air out my grievances about the state of the WWE when I find their operational conduct to be annoying.

All that said, I wanted to chirp a little bit about how much of a breath of fresh air NXT’s Halloween Havoc felt like, because it definitely felt like a positive reprieve from the suffocating corporate cloud that the main roster WWE has been feeling like over the last year.

It was on Peacock, which had the occasional commercial break here and there, but the show as a whole had a banger of main song that they spammed throughout the evening, and the replay showed all the promo packages, which helped a viewer like me who can’t actually watch NXT to the minute, to catch up with what to expect in the show.  The show itself was at a smaller venue in a part of Arizona that I’d never even heard of, but it looked like the type of show that I’d have definitely been interested in going to, because it wasn’t a mega arena, and it wasn’t in a clusterfuck of a place like Atlanta, and looked like a fun place to watch wrestling.

And of course, the matches were all pretty entertaining.  Call me crazy, but sometimes some matches don’t really have to have a convoluted storyline behind them, and you can really just take a bunch of entertaining workers and throw them in a match together to great effect, and that’s how I felt with the opening match of Je’Von Evans and Leon Slater vs. La Parka* and Mr. Iguana.  No real story, just an NXT guy teamed with a TNA guy against two AAA guys, and they tore the house down to open the show.

*What’s funny is that on this exact date, there was a Lucha show in Atlanta that advertised La Parka on the card, so I’m amused by the fact that one of these shows got the actual current La Parka, while the other got an imposter, or they’re up to like La Parka IV or V at this point, like the Villanos, but whomever NXT had that night was wayyyy too talented of a La Parka than what fans of his from WCW might have remembered.  Motherfucker was doing picture perfect Asai moonsaults out of the ring and press slams into gutbusters, a far cry from the dumpy fat luchador in WCW that swung a chair and strutted his way to the bank.

Mariah May Blake Monroe got to flex a little bit of her actual wrestling skill in her win against Zaria for the women’s North American title, and I’m pleased that she’s allowed to do some of the work that elevated her so much in AEW, and I really enjoyed Ethan Page’s match against El Hijo de Dr. Wagner, and despite being the heel, Vic Joseph’s commentary about how much of a fighting champion Page has been, it’s hard to not respect the work the man puts into the business.  But the match had some really brutal spots, and it was enjoyable from start to finish.

The Hardy Boyz vs. Darkstate was an entertaining disaster, even if I don’t believe in all at the long-term viability of Darkstate.  They’re like a Temu-grade Shield, with less charisma, but given the fact that the Hardyz are still TNA guys, it seemed likely that they were going to have give those NXT blets back sooner rather than later.

Honestly, it’s not that the Ricky Saints vs. Trick Williams match was necessarily bad, it’s just that other matches on the card were more entertaining and compelling, that theirs just kind of didn’t stand out in comparison.  Both are talented workers, but in the context of the evening their fairly vanilla wrestling match just wasn’t as exciting as all of the matches that preceded it.  Plus, the finish seemed really wonky and almost rushed, and when it was over, I was just kind of like, that’s it?

But let’s really talk about Tatum Paxley’s ascension to the top of the mountain, beating Jacy Jayne for the NXT Women’s championship.  Firstly, I do want to give my flowers to Jayne for a respectable run with the top prize; I know her win was a surprise, considering she beat the aura-filled Stephanie Vaquer, but I didn’t hate it, because she was a solid hand that was easily the most talented worker of Toxic Attraction, and I always like seeing hard workers get rewarded with solid pushes.

However that being said, the same could very easily be said about Tatum Paxley, whom I get some Liv Morgan-like, love of the game vibes from, and like Jayne, her hard work has been noticeable and palpable over the course of the last 12+ months, and I’m pleased to see her get this honor of getting to be the women’s champion.  I think she’s more athletic than Liv ever has been and works pretty cleanly in spite of her general level of experience, but her character work and portrayal of the weird but talented goth girl seems to have captured the audience, and I’d be lying if I didn’t stop and let the look linger on her; she’s cute as hell.

But when she won the title, I definitely got those similar vibes to her championship that I felt when Liv won the women’s title for the first time, or when Iyo won the World championship the last time; it was a sense of satisfaction that a hard worker was getting their justly reward.

Overall, Halloween Havoc was a breath of fresh air of how good the WWE is capable of operating in a manner that I wish were the norm all throughout the company, and not just in NXT.  It kind of reminds me of that period between 2016-2017 where NXT was just firing on all cylinders so well that it was clear that they were the best brand in the company.  Look forward to the next NXT event, that is until they’re spontaneously sold off to start showing on like Tubi or Fubo or some other rando platform.