Tag: triggered

Dad Brog (#163): rattled

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife, the girls and I went to the Asian market the other day.  When we were on our way out, #1 got a little ahead of us, and began crossing the street on her own.  Mythical wife managed to get her attention to stop and come back and that she knows the rule that, hands held when in the parking lot.  No sooner than she got a hold of her hand, a Lexus SUV came flying into our periphery, before coming to a stop, maybe 2-3 feet away from mythical wife and #1; but adjacent to them.

Had both of them been 2-3 further into the crosswalk, they would have been hit and run over, entirely.  Me yelling out HEY to the reckless driver wouldn’t have done anything to stop them.

Naturally, justifying the stereotype of being some of the most unsafe drivers in the world, it was an older Korean woman, maybe a few years younger than my mom, who was driving the car.  She looked up at us with shock and concern in her face, pantomiming bowing her head in apology at her neglectful driving, and I gave her a stare that I wish could induce death, for the danger she potentially could have put my family in because she was probably too busy checking fucking KakaoTalk on her fucking phone instead of paying attention to the road in one of the most attention-requiring zones there could be, directly in front of a grocery store.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and ironically it was a good lesson for my kids to learn at the very real dangers of parking lots, since up to this point they bemoaned having to hold a grown-up’s hand every now and then, and wanted to flex moar independence that only kids of this age can.

It wasn’t really until we were driving home did it really start to sink in to me at just how fortunate we were that nothing happened.  Like I said, #1 was extremely close to getting hit by a car, and frankly I don’t know how I’d have reacted if that actually did happen.  More than likely I’d have wanted to kill the ajumma behind the wheel who was responsible for it, but I was playing the scene in my head where I struggled to curse and scream at someone in my elementary-level Korean.

I’ve seen my child in hospital care and with tubes and all sorts of apparatuses attached to them.  I am in no rush to ever have see such again, and I don’t know how I’d handle it if I had to, against all of our wills.

Needless to say, I was quite rattled by the whole situation, and by the time I got home, I had decided it was probably for the best not leave the house any more for the day.  No matter how much we try to protect our children from the very real dangers of the world, it’s like at any given point, it’s always just that close, at any given moment.

I can’t even begin to express how pathetic this notion is

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whilst doomscrolling earlier in the day, I came across this ad for some app/community that was targeting couples with no kids who seem to be exasperated with the idea that they’ve been marginalized and feel the need to require the crutch of a specifically curated app/community to meet other couples with no kids for platonic friendships and relationships.

I stared at my screen for a few seconds, and if my eyes could roll further back, they might accidentally connect with my sinuses and then accidentally roll into the back of my throat, I’d accidentally swallow them, and I’d be blind for the rest of my life.

As the kids would say, (get) the fuck outta here

There are actually couples without kids out there that feel that they are the ones who feel marginalized?  They’re the ones who feel the societal shift because they didn’t want to have children?  They feel like their circles alienate them because they don’t have kids?

Have these self-absorbed twats been paying attention to the news?  Remotely even heard about the rapidly falling birth rates?  Women who feel empowered to shut the gate toward the continuous survival of the human race until shithead men get their act together?  Most Asian countries on an eventual timeline of extinction, because their birth rates have fallen faster than anywhere else?

Like, the way it works is that the more these birth rates fall, and if they were to continue, the human population, as overpopulated as shit is now, eventually does swing in the opposite direction, and sure it would be quite some time from today, but would eventually be on a timeline towards extinction, if none of the societal problems of the world don’t wipe us all out first.

But it’s all summed up with me looking at this ad and service and thinking, are you fucking kidding me?

I think the testimonials are what set me off the worst, people whining about how they’re feeling like pariahs because they don’t have kids, and how hard it is to meet other couples and people.  I’m like, mother fuckers, if the shoes were on the other feet, and you’re the ones with kids, and realizing just how much of your general social life much less life’s aspirations you have to put on hold in the name of being somewhat decent parents, maybe, just maybe you’d understand just how tone deaf and asinine such a service is.

To a parent like me, hearing about a service/app like this is like millionaires who developed an app to help them find more money.  I have zero regrets about choosing to become parents, but I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t see my childless friends and not be astounded by the freedom, flexibility and general ability to do whatever the fuck they want that I don’t always think they seem to realize they might be taking for granted.

Couples without kids have a degree of freedom that parents will not have for a very, very long time, at least not without the sacrifice of time spent with their children.  Them complaining about how hard it is to meet other couples, to me is like, they simply have forgotten how to open their fucking door and step outside, because I can assure these flakes that it’s a whole lot harder to meet couples with kids in tow, than it is without, because our offspring are wild variables completely incapable of controlling.

These out of touch headfucks seem to think that parents meeting parents is such an automatic-in with making friends, but just because our kids get along doesn’t mean the parents will.  It helps a little bit, but in the six years I’ve been raising two kids, I can comfortably say that we can probably count on one hand of the parents we actually like, and even still, we’ve never had any sort of meal, play date or social gathering with them at all.

I will concede that meeting people in this day and age is harder than it’s ever been, due to a variety of factors, be it societal, the stark divides between various socioeconomic, idealistic, classist factors, COVID did a number on peoples’ social skills, and the fact that millennials and on have all been raised by the internet and people just don’t know how to interact with each other.

But for couples with no kids to complain about how hard it is to meet other couples with no kids, is tone deaf on a monumental degree, and these cocksuckers have no idea just how easy they have it.  Them not being able to have spontaneity, flexibility or meaningful relationships isn’t a problem with all couples with no kids, it’s exclusively just them.  Trying to make it an umbrella issue, might unearth a good bit of like-minded couples, but really, it’s just revealing a whole lot of lazy, untalented, uncharismatic assholes out there.

I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently watched All Her Fault, and to cut to the chase, I thought it was pretty good; but I could have one massive major fucking gripe about the show, it had nothing to do with the story, the acting, or any plot critiques, but the fact that the show was filmed and presented with a low-contrast filter that basically made the show nigh impossible at times, or at least, actually impossible to see what the fuck was going on at times.

The above image might be slightly exaggerated, but it illustrates what many scenes throughout the show felt like when watching them.  The contrast was so busted up that there are countless scenes where you’re seeing moving silhouettes of people, and completely missing out on all sorts of bodily acting, facial expressions or reactions, and more than once, I found myself trying to tinker with my hardware’s settings, to see if it was something wrong with my configuration, only to find out that it wasn’t.

A cursory Google search revealed that I was not the only person who came to this revelation, and it’s comforting to see that many others endured and felt the same things I did.  As good as I thought the series was, I think it would’ve been better had viewers been able to fucking see shit, especially when there’s a lot of emotionally charged scenarios where it would’ve been helpful to see expressions and reactions to dialogue.

But other than the visual flaws, the story, plot and acting were all high quality, and I thought the series was solid from a storytelling standpoint.  It was almost laughable at just how lily white the cast and the scenarios were, and there’s something to be said about how fast affluent white people are capable of unraveling, and the types of demons that they all must be hiding in their closets, based on just how fast shit hit the fan with most of the characters in the series.

The point remains, you have a whole bunch of rich white people dealing with problems that stem with miscommunications with their nannies* and how fast they turn on each other when heat starts escalating, and everyone is driving around in Teslas, Rivians, Audis and BMWs throughout the Northside Chicago suburbs, and there are times where it truly feels really peak white people.

*yes, I am aware of the irony of taking shots at rich white people with in-home child care considering I have an au pair, but y’all need to understand just how fucking broke I am

However, what really made me feel like writing about the series, other than to trash their shitty visual execution, was the one thing that I never expected this show to have, that I will considerately hide behind the jump seeing as how it’s just a giant fucking spoiler:

Continue reading “I didn’t imagine All Her Fault would have that in it” →

Dad Brog (#162): Three over three

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m halfway tempted to change the title of my dad brogs to the above, but really the hope is that this is a one-time blow-off kind of rant, and that when the smoke clears dad brogs remain being about my kids and my journey through fatherhood, and not really any further about being a parent to an elderly Korean parent on top of it.

Regardless, three over three is pretty succinct in how I’m feeling these days, because I have three human beings in my care that over the age of three years old, and they’re basically all fucking kids.  Two of them being my actual kids, but the third being my dad, whom, like many Korean parents throughout history, has chosen to go down the path of being as inept as possible, as needlessly dependent as possible, and to require as much care and patience as an actual child needs.

I thought I was right on the money when I came up with the general basis of The Korean Story™ but one thing I was completely blind to was what life was going to be like when the parents actually do hit that feeble senior life, and it’s the responsibility of the children (me) to basically become the parent, all while trying to not inhibit progress when they (in)conveniently want to remain the parent and demand respect and authority without any warning, spontaneously.

But basically my dad has become my third child, much to my dismay, and over the span of the last 12+ months, it’s been my biggest challenge trying to be the adult in the room, and steer him into decisions that are my best attempt to be for his benefit; just like my actual children.

It also doesn’t help that conversing with him, I can understand about as much as I can my actual kids’ excited ramblings about Pokémon or whatever fandoms they fancy at the time, primarily on account of the worsening language barrier, and the rate in which he listens to me when I’m trying to tell him do so something is about as successful as with my kids, that’s leading me to feel this way.

But it’s at its worst when I’m with all three of them at the same time, and my kids want attention, and my dad wants to ramble on about something that’s not important but he’s pretending like the fate of the world rests on it, that I’m asking myself what my life really is right now, and I’m pondering just how bad my blood pressure must look at these specific junctures in time.

However, the difference between my kids and my dad is that they’re heading in opposite directions as far as their attitudes towards independence.  Whereas it’s a routine struggle to negotiate with my kids on what they think they can do versus what I know they’re not capable of, it’s a constant struggle with my dad to try and get him to do things that I know he can do once he learns how to, but he refuses to even fucking try because he’s assuming everything has passed him by and that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks.

I got him a television, a smart one, so that he could avoid having more than one remote control, because the presence of anything higher than one results in a system failure, and the television would collect dust, unused.  I set up the wifi, Netflix, and an app specific to Korean television, but trying to explain the concept of apps is like trying to explain quantum physics to an inanimate onion.  I’ve set things up so that turning on the television and going into the Korean television app would require three total key presses, had him write it down with drawings of the buttons, but after two days, I’ve learned that he’s hit system failure and hasn’t turned it on since the one time he tried and failed to get into the app.

I wouldn’t dare say that my dad is lacking in intelligence, but what he really is, has become fucking lazy and defeatist, and is making his unwillingness to learn my problem, and the problem of the scant everyone else in his life who has tried to help.

And let’s not get started with his iPhone, and it just makes me mad at the world for advancing into gradually worsening ageist times that completely ignore the existence of the elderly, who almost have no options other than smart phones, full of all sorts of features and functions that they not only need, but their presence makes the elderly go into system failure, and just give the fuck up on them, which doesn’t help that we’re in a modern age where not having a phone is tantamount to not having lungs.

Today, I went to visit my dad, and brought the girls with me, so we could do an activity that I intend on making a permanent standing monthly event, on top of any other visits that could happen throughout.  And as much as I love knowing that my kids can actually spend some time with their grandfather, and that my dad can actually spend some time with his grandchildren and actual blood relatives, much less human interaction, it was pretty high-stress.

Being the only adult in the room for hours on end gets tiring, and have my kids wanting to run around and touch and climb everything in sight, and then there’s my dad with shit for legs, needing a walker, always a fall risk, and there’s always a deficiency in coverage somewhere when trying to do the even most mundane things like get in the car, go into a restaurant, or any small task.

My dad hardly understands the girls’ speak, the girls don’t understand anything my dad says, we all love each other, but like so many cases in my life these days, I’m smack dab in the middle of being pulled in numerous directions, and I’m fried by the end of the visit.

Naturally, coming home, I get obliterated by two massive highway issues because Georgia is smart and loves to do all their road construction right in the heart of the weekend, and then I come home and my wife is pissed because I’ve been gone too long and even if she understands the circumstances, it’s me that the anger is taken out on, and I’m just like what the fuck, might as well blow my fucking brains out.

Shit like this is why I haven’t been so apt to buy into the concept of thinking or hoping that with a new year comes a fresh start, because I know all the shit going on in my life; it doesn’t matter what number is at the end of the year, because a lot of the things I’m going through are some long fucking games, and ain’t no resolutions or hustles going to change anything quickly short of winning the lottery and just buying off a whole shit load of the problems away.

It’s almost funny how it wasn’t long after getting my vasectomy that my dad decided to transform into the third child I wanted to avoid having by having a surgical procedure, but considering the angst and darkness that swirls through my mind when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed and overstimulated, it most certainly is fucking not.

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.

The year-end post, circa 2025

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[Originally written on December 9th, but held off until end of year due to personal neuroticism]

Today, I took a half day off work.  I originally wanted to take a full day off on account of the fact that I’m sitting on nearly six days’ worth of PTO hours that I haven’t used, and my company has a use it or lose it policy, and I’m more than likely going to take an L on some hours.  But the way I see it, or at least the way I try to rationalize it to myself is that it’s a little bit of give and take on the sick hours, since there’s probably been several days in which I should’ve just taken the day, but I “worked from home” on those days but whatever, I took a half day off when I wanted to take a full day off, primarily because there was a big monthly meeting at 8 fucking AM that I felt that I needed to attend because I had several projects being shown and it was probably for the best that I be there.

So, as far as the rest of my day went, instead of punting and logging on from home after the 8 AM meeting, I decided to just head into the office since I tend to be more productive there.  And yes, I was pretty productive in the two hours that I was there, determined to hard stop at 11:45, but the dearth of work I’ve had throughout the year has been pretty mundane and often aggravating in nature, mostly because most all the work is like that at my company because of project management that can’t ever seem to stabilize due to rapid employee churn and turnover.

Plus, there were some concerning layoffs that happened a week prior, and naturally everyone at the office is on high-alert and on their best behavior, lest they become victims of another spontaneous workforce reduction initiative.

Anyway, I left the office and headed down toward the vicinity of the airport because I have to pick mythical wife up, and everyone knows just how much fun a trip to Atlanta Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport, Nail Salon and Hot Wing Express is, even for a pick-up job, but I saw it as an opportunity to at least treat myself to some Willy’s and loaf in the parking lot to do my daily Duolingo.

But by the time I get back from the airport, any chance at any sort of personal endeavors are pretty much gone, since my kids are just getting off school, and despite being off the clock, there’s another meeting that I felt that I should at least listen in on because again, tryna be indispensable.

So, I try to be productive with my day, since I’m a weird fuck who finds satisfaction in productivity, despite it being completely counter-culture to the notion of taking PTO in order to relax.  But since I’m off the clock, I take the time to set up some outdoor Christmas decorating that fell to the wayside because of all the babysitting I’ve had to do for my dad, being under the weather a week ago, and that I just generally never have any fucking time.

I get the lights set up, and then I come inside and set up the second Christmas tree, which sounds like a complete waste of time setting up a second one, but y’all need to understand that this is my tree, aptly called the jihad tree, because it is cheap and small, but it houses all of the tacky and fun and ridiculous and mostly broken and unwanted Christmas ornaments that I’ve been accumulating over the years.  I love this tree and what it represents, and it’s important to me that it goes up and gets its time to shine and display as much as the show tree does.

And then it’s time to get dinner prepped for the kids, and the point of all this is that despite the fact that I took a half day off, absolutely zero minutes of my entire day were really spent in any sort of blow off, fuck responsibility kind of way that PTO should be spent on, and such is kind of a snapshot of just about every day of my life, in 2025, as well as god knows how much longer since.

I had to actually stop and think about it, how I felt about how the year has gone, because I really don’t always have the time to stop and think about things unless they’re usually critical, but I think it’s safe to say that as a whole, 2025 really has stunk.  Yes, I know how curmudgeon and pessimistic that sounds, which is probably what most people think of my personal brand being, but when I stop and think about the general day-to-day and minutiae of living in 2025, and very little of it is notably good.

I’m stressed out and depressed more often than I’m not, and every single day I feel taken for granted, ignored, taken for granted, deprioritized and of course, taken for granted.  I always feel as I have to hard carry the vast majority of aspects of my life, nobody helps out, everyone takes but nobody gives.  I have to take care of everyone, and nobody ever seems to be available to take care of me.

A tremendous amount of angst stems from my financial position, and I genuinely can’t remember ever being in as much debt in my entire life as I am now.  Absolutely nothing I do can dig out of the holes that I’m falling deeper and deeper into, and just when I manage to feel like I get a win somewhere in my finances, something inevitably always shows up and I end up in a worse position than I was previously.  Again, nobody is helping me, and everyone around me is making things worse, and I know it sounds shitty to say, but families are fucking expensive, and I feel like nobody is willing to make any sacrifices or changes in my world except for me, and it shows, because I’m living paycheck to paycheck right now and not doing a very good job of keeping my head above water and this has a massive bearing to my general state of being.

In fact, it was just a few days ago in which I was having a completely normal day without incident, but then I got that ticket in the mail that was a $1,000 fine.  Something I didn’t do, but still something that I am responsible for rectifying.  And then to add insult to injury, there was a $6,500 expense that I was not expecting to show up, just the following day.

I’m not suicidal, but it was definitely one of those moments where I wanted to say that I wanted to just blow my head off, because this shit is fucking ridiculous.

But this really was the pivotal moment in which I realized, man, 2025 really has fucking blew.  And usually I end up writing my year-end post closer to the New Year, but honestly I don’t think three fucking weeks left in the month is going to change anything because I basically have had to cancel Christmas because of $7,500 out the window that I have no earthly idea how I’m going to pay it.

On top of feeling like one of the world’s biggest punching bags is the babysitting I’ve been doing for my dad, in trying to get him to move down to Georgia.  If it’s not clear, I live a tremendously high-stress life as it is, but adding him and all of his resistant to change bullshit and communication issues because he never learned any fucking English and my parents never pushed me to learn more Korean, has really done a number to my health this year.

I’m 43, but for the first time in my life, I’ve really felt old, with my hereditary blood pressure issues seemingly escalating, presumably from all the increases in stress, leading to signs of feeling old like deteriorating eyesight, increased bathroom usage, and tension headaches.  And again, I know what all my stressors are, but nobody in my world seems to give a fuck about remotely helping me, so I’m just left feeling like I’m on an island, getting worse on a daily basis.

Needless to say, I know how dismal and insufferable this post must come off, if any of my zero readers has managed to make it this far.  I know I’m not alone in the world in feeling depression, despair and a general dissatisfaction with life.  I love my family and my kids, and they still manage to bring occasional moments of peace and happiness, handfuls they can all be at times.  But on an overall aggregate state of being scorecard, I’ve been pretty miserable all throughout 2025, and what really sucks is that I’m not sure how much better things are really going to get in the ensuing year, because a lot of the things that are killing me now, probably aren’t going to be going away any time soon in the future either.

One day at a time, I guess.  Try and enjoy little things, and try to not drag too many people down with my actual sourness and hide it behind a mask and keep more of my true thinking to the brog that nobody fucking reads.

Good lord, man.  I just want everything to get better, but I just don’t know if, when or how that’s ever going to happen sometimes.